In my youth, my eldest brother and I shared a kinship foreign to the many who came before us. Our connection was resented by my father. He, whose own uncle had been slain by his father’s hand— and his own brother’s, by his own. He was a man with nails and teeth of stone, and a personality fitting thereof.

  Enmity was essential to his government. He prized masculinity, which he saw as a god-given attribute, and his passion, which he showed through each movement he made or action he conducted. He was once very tall, but gradually became stout in his silver years— eventually, he was naught but a dumpy little nagger, the very picture of a senile old man, who couldn’t stand to go a day without reminding me of my secondary place in our succession. I thus resented him as he aged. As kings so often do, he seemed to hog all the bitterness for himself, enough that there was little left for me when my brother preceded him. The wasp that buzzed in my ear had finally been stamped out, and any hollow left in my family by his departure was filled in alongside his coffin.

  The stone had already been engraved and waiting in our gravesite at the palace rear— designed by the cursed man’s own hand, and placed by his own picking, between the bodies of the two queens he had haunted over his many years. My brother’s mother, and my own. As his final curse from where he stands below, to fill his long-awaited absence in the palace, my sisters saw to it that no man or servant was ever left unridiculed.

  So too did my brother, Sianto, share many attributes with my father in his youth. That is, he was a robust, towering gentleman who seemed both shrewd and perceptive, right until he opened his mouth. And in his values, he too reflected much of my father’s aptitude for judgment. Sianto’s features, though masculine, had an almost feminine softness to them, highlighted by his rosy round cheeks and charmingly crooked smile. He could settle a court and charm a crowd just as well as any queen could— and through those methods, he stayed unopposed by dignitary nor counselor, every one blind to the decaying nature of the golden foundations they stood upon. My father, though harsh in personality, made quite a sage monarch. My brother was the true opposite of the man, in that manner. So by his ascendance to the throne, I fear any friendship that had remained from our childhood had simmered down into a mere brotherly kinship. Loving him so tenderly became a challenge as he filled so easily the shoes my father left behind. I fear the term “unconditional” does not exist in my family.

  My station in the palace did not change much with the new king— although, my duties did. While I was given only half what I gave, I started giving much more, as did they to me. I was now the heir-apparent, as my elder brother was the king, and he had no sons. And among the few courtiers who did detest him, there spread the rumor that his face was not the only part of him that was womanly, so he would touch no woman, and there would be no new princes.

  When Sianto turned twenty, he was still unmarried, and the rumors had spread past the kitchens and laundry rooms and finally out onto the city streets that surrounded the imperial estate.

  They called these streets "Upper Casture," and "Lower Casture" was distinguished as where the Cathedral he was coronated stood.

  Both combined to create Casture, the imperial capital city, where the entire imperial family resided until they were married. Another attribute of my father was his possessiveness, one of the features he prized most, as both “passion” and “masculinity.” Neither my sisters nor I were engaged to be married, and it reflected negatively on our family in a way that none of the higher nobility dared mention. My sisters, whose appearances were often divided in quality by their mothers, had either resigned to saving their dignity by becoming old maids, or taken to pulling the sleeves of the richest nobleman who would look their way. This was quite a dramatic approach, in my opinion, nary one of them was twenty–five by then. The youngest, Diana, was but thirteen.

  Sianto had been the only one of us to be engaged. His fiancee, whom he had not seen nor conversed with but once in his childhood, was one Michal Locke, whose reputation as a national beauty was all but stifled by my brother’s, ironically enough. She was a princess of the neighboring kingdom, Bordunne, and was the very picture of the perfect lady since the first day she appeared in society. She and Sianto had been engaged for eighteen years by his twentieth birthday, and while she accumulated class, wit, and beauty, he regrettably only accumulated the latter. While he learned to pretend otherwise, I have always known of his true nature, a fact I knew he feared all the more as we continued to age.

  Once, when I was at the tender age of seven, I had retreated from the cold lectures of my governess to pilfer what I could of the palace kitchen’s honey. This is relevant, as the trek to the kitchen entailed having a proper understanding of the palace’s floor plans. This proved difficult— as, being so sheltered, I knew little of the basement where most servants worked. For this cause, I had recruited Sianto, who, as the heir, knew everything, I believed.

  As a child, Sianto’s rowdiness was often labeled his “one unruly trait,” which was a remarkably brazen insult for any man to be saying regarding the crown prince, but a common enough sentiment people had stopped their losing heads over it, both metaphorically and literally. I, as an even younger boy, lacked such rowdiness, but looked up to my brother for it all the more. If it was now, I may have recognized such a power play, but the innocence I harbored in my youth was my prize trait, I like to think.

  However, innocence was not a strength when one’s “very model of a prince” brother was quite mischievous. He influenced me into many an escapade, as I saw all he did as right, and he saw all I did as humorous. If any man were to ask who was the more trouble between us two in our youth, unfortunately, they would likely say it was me.

  For the retrieval of the honey in particular— which happened a curiously noticeable amount of times to have never been uncovered— Sianto would always direct me through a specific route, one which involved a perilous trust fall within a dumbwaiter. He would pat me on the rear, assure me he would lower it slowly, and grin maliciously as I happily squeezed into the small little box; one quite obviously not designed for a little boy to ride in. As any more intelligent individual could’ve expected, he dropped me in the dumbwaiter enough times that there became a small little dent in the roof of it, from where my head hit each time I bounced, once it hit the bottom of the shaft. And when— often, rather than grabbing the honey— I burst into a mewling, sputtering mess, I was quickly discovered. I would receive a lecture from my governess, the cold shoulder from Sianto, and leave the situation with, usually, no honey.

  At ten, I could no longer fit in the dumbwaiter. That same year, I decided to simply start asking whenever I wanted something. I found this method to be significantly more fruitful.

  My governess, Isolde, thought the same.

  My father had two bastards in his time: The true eldest, my half-sister and governess Isolde, was one of them. The other was one Duncan Stewart, who was younger than Sianto but older than I. He was made a viscount and sent to live in the midlands with his mother, a baroness in her own right. I have never met the man, nor his mother.

  Isolde was never recognized by my father as a daughter, but rather, he brought her in as a lady-in-waiting for my mother, his second wife. She was but five years older than Isolde when my father and she were married, and for this, Isolde was assigned as my governess at birth. Truthfully, the woman was as much my parent as my mother herself was.

  In fact, it was under the reasoning of finding a husband for Isolde that I attended Sianto’s coronation banquet, which took place at Bryant Cathedral in Lower Casture, a month after he was crowned there.

  Among my appraisal of the noblemen and my appraisal of the dinner selection, I first met the eye of the woman he was promised to herself; Michal Locke, who was laughing alongside one of my sisters. When we both met eyes, it was truly as if she had grabbed me by the neck and twisted my throat, as a laundry maid wrings out a wet rag. The color of her eyes was burnt into my own, a dark tender green, like a fresh field out by a fertile river on a cloudless day in March. Her cheeks were blushed red up by her cheekbones but only appeared subtly pinkish through her padded white foundation.

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  Her hair was a rare auburn, like leaves in fall, or the sun at golden hour, or the center of a dry, musky cinnamon stick. Though it was tied up into a braided bun, and covered by the thinnest of veils, its color shined through the covering like a flame, tickling the bottom of a campfire pot and hugging its sides as it aimed to climb all the higher. And through the rumble of chatter, and the dancing couples of women in showy bright colored dresses and men in heeled shoes, and through the clink of silverware from the other men I had been talking with before, who now stared in the same direction I did— I could only hear her soft laugh, with its little hint of accented twang, and the quiet sweep of her dress’ train as it brushed the floor. Though she made no noise, I could see the small gasp in her chest as she noticed me looking at her from across the room.

  She was more than just beautiful. And truly, I knew beautiful. Sianto was beautiful. My mother was beautiful. My sisters were beautiful. But Lady Locke— the woman whose eyes I had not looked away from for minutes now— she was an angel. She was holy. She was hope, like a small white dove flying over a battlefield, with a white ribbon tied to its foot, trying to get past the arrows to tell the world the war was over. She was peace, like the small clatter of the cufflinks of two kings as they shook hands over a new treaty. She was golden, like the light flooding through a window as a new mother holds her child for the first time.

  But, she was also Sianto’s.

  And I knew that already. Just as the throne was, just as the kingdom was, just as I was. She was already Sianto’s when I held her hand for the first time, and we danced until the first song was done.

  She was Sianto’s when I walked her through the garden that night, and I told her my name.

  She was Sianto’s when I took her hunting in the mountains a year later, and presented her with a small sparrow, which she promptly released once we left the forest.

  She was Sianto’s when I kissed her for the first time beneath her manor’s staircase, as her guard walked past, looking for her.

  She was Sianto’s when she first took me to her bed, on her twenty-first birthday, while the party raged on beneath us. She was Sianto’s, while he danced with another girl that same night. She was Sianto’s, while I embraced her, and she embraced me, and we professed our love, blanketed by the curtained darkness of a time I have never truly left.

  She, and everything about her, would always be Sianto’s. She would never be mine.

  When I turned twenty-one, and Sianto was twenty-three, he gave me my first plot of land, and a wife, who was a mid-ranking noble’s daughter from “god knows where,” said Isolde. The girl and I were married in the Bryant Cathedral, the same one where Michal and I had met and fell in love, two years prior. My wife was quiet and diligent, with black hair and a pale, ghostlike complexion. While I did not love her, we shared in our perturbing home affairs and difficult sisters. By December twentieth, we two had settled in our new home, Weiyst Castle, which had served as an imperial fortress of war some sixty years ago in a civil uprising against my father. The irony was amusing enough to make me chuckle, much to my partner’s confusion. “Do you not appreciate such a tactful home?” She sincerely inquired, while on the carriage ride there.

  “Fear not. ‘Tis is a castle fit for a king, and all his men, too.” I assured her.

  She had nodded her head at this and was smiling quite excitedly when we arrived. “In all earnest, husband, this is my first time in a castle that is not your own.” She zoomed ahead in a daintily speedy frenzy, approaching the front door at a much quicker pace than any of the servants. Many of them were still collecting baggage from the carriages that preceded our own, or receiving orders from a man with a slab that stood close by. A group of about fifteen strapping men had just completed their task of clearing out the pathway that led up towards the entrance, but yet glanced timidly at me as my wife advanced onward, for fear of her slipping on what frost remained glazed on the ground. But following a moment of silence, she halted, pivoted around, and shamefully headed back to where I stood, apologizing upon realizing how her earlier statement could be interpreted. This was, in fact, now my castle. Although, she truly needed not feel ashamed, for she was correct, albeit unknowingly. This castle was, too, Sianto’s. And in our inspection of the home, I realized quickly the message he had hoped I’d receive through this old castle. It was not what one would typically refer to as “homey.”

  I daresay, it was rather homely. Some few walls had been punctured by fallen treetops, or simply stone degradation, and were allowing cold air to seep into the room and hallways, therefore. Many desks had remained with scattered books, logs of meetings, and battle plans upon them. What books weren’t on strategy or training were on rationing, or were simply records of previous wars, likely used for reference. Records of my father’s own wars had joined the ranks of such files back in the capital— he was an excellent commander, and an even more impressive historian, particularly when it came to his own history. My brother had no such skills. He instead labeled himself as a muse and purveyor of the arts, and claimed he’d be much like a patron saint by his death. Admittedly, he remains the only man I’ve known who had talent in the harp. I only pray he does not fancy himself a foolish bard before my beloved Michal.

  Despite our unwelcome and unexpected new windows, my wife was naught but thrilled to have such space. She took my hand and guided me to our room, wherein I was greeted with a large window and doors to an overlook. Her giddiness was infectious, and it did give me some joy to see her usually gloomy demeanor be so cheerful. At the time, I had taken and squeezed her hand, and led her out onto the balcony. It overlooked a snowy wasteland, but one with evidence of a grand garden beneath the frost. She was not deterred an inch, and began to rant about how she’d like her garden once it’s blooming season. I fear she’d have the whole courtyard planned out by the end of the month. Thus, with the coming of spring, so too came many a flower.

  To repair the castle, there required the complete demolition of many of the damaged rooms, so much of the castle was being deconstructed once the warmer months arrived. For this, we two spent many days outdoors and in her beloved gardens. I had surprised her with a grand fountain in February, as the snow had melted, so the paths had been redesigned to surround it.

  It was a very simple life. With the coming of July in the summer, we received news of the potential conception of our first child. Many masses were held in prayer to our nation’s patron god, a ceremony that was quite rare for more rural cities such as ours. But a duchy we were, and a prince I was, especially as the first legitimate descendant of the late king to be having a child. So, such ceremonies were par for the course. My wife wanted a son. I merely wanted it to stay alive.

  I had seen many of both sisters and brothers alike die quite young, and while I had thought myself immune, there is no terror so great as seeing the look on one’s partner’s face when a child is lost. I had seen that look on my mother many times— it was not something I wished upon my poor wife, or any woman.

  When back in the capital, I held the title of “Prince de Sol,” or “Prince of the sun.” It was the title of the heir to the crown, and was last held by Sianto before our father passed. In my station back home, I was instead treated as a duke, and my wife was a duchess. My wife and I took up the surname “Weiss,” after the castle, so we two became “the Lord and Lady Weiss.” While I often tried to evade my visits to the capital, it remained that I was the heir apparent, thus I had duties and meetings to attend befitting my station, many of which required I visit the palace regularly. But with my wife’s pregnancy, I not only possessed an excuse to avoid such matters, but also the responsibility to ensure her personal safety. Sufficed to say, I was overjoyed in more ways than one at the news of being a father.

  During one of the masses celebrating her successful conception and growth at three months, my wife leaned over to whisper in my ear. She had asked me, “What should we name it?” I recall turning my head to glance at her, and upon noticing the way she puffed her cheeks slightly, having prompted her the same. “You seem to have ideas of your own, dear.” That day, she had sheepishly adjusted her lace veil to cover her face more at the sides, providing me a much tighter view of her side profile. “I do,” she responded, glancing back at me. Her eyelashes twitched when she met my gaze, and her cheeks reddened even more. She had tenderly rested her own, slightly puffy hand over my own, where it had rested beside my torso on the pew. She pressed gently, and tried to lock her fingers within my own.

  As I let her do so, she sighed out in relief. “Surely it’s not so shameful, no? Why do you hesitate to tell me?” I asked her. “Shameful? Goodness, no. Perhaps a bit… unorthodox, dear?”

  “None so unorthodox as your behavior. Simply tell me— you know I do not judge you.” I assured, leaning closer to permit a bit quieter of whispering. As I leaned, the fully veiled— but clearly youthful— girls who sat behind us two chortled ever so silently, but not quite enough so we couldn’t distinguish it over the sermon being spewed right before us.

  Finally, the woman turned to meet my face, her hand still resting on my own. As she turned, my head did not retreat, so our faces sat quite close. Yet she still looked at me quite sadly. She saw, there was nary a hint of desire within my eyes while I gazed upon her. The lady was beautiful. Yes, perhaps I was remiss not to love her. But I could need her when she needed me. I could want her when she wanted me. In those ways, I did love her. With the hand she had not been covering, I pushed away her veil slightly to hold the side of her face, and she leaned into my touch, as a flower does to the sun’s rays.

  “If it’s a boy, I shall name it after you.” She confessed, no longer asking me. I nodded. “Not quite so unorthodox. You have nothing to fear.”

  After a moment, I slowly drew her face in and kissed her. She accepted my kiss quietly, and soon we both pulled away with a solemnly vacant look. “If it’s a girl,” I said, “We shall name it after you.” She smiled for a moment at this, and closed her eyes to nod acceptingly. I stared at her eyelashes while she did so. Long and dark, like the legs of a spider or strikes on a tar splatter. “I love you,” she told me, opening her eyes slowly, and looking around for a second before finding mine again. “I love you.”

  “Yes,” I had said.

  “Yes.”