Earth's End (Air Awakens Series Book 3)(51)

“Well, it would be a convenient way for you to get to spend every night in his bed.”

Vhalla rolled her eyes. “I would stay in his bed every night if it pleased us. Honestly, I would rather be sneaking in to do so than having to face your father’s ire.”

“That’s a very good point,” Baldair laughed. “But unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a point you’ll be able to use to convince my father of the truth of your claims.”

“Your father decides what he will think of me and ignores all else.” Vhalla pushed around some meat and gravy on her plate, hoping it would soften the stale hunk of bread.

“You know, I’ve decided I like this side of you.” Baldair regarded her thoughtfully, and Vhalla gave him a look that encouraged him to continue. “The bold confidence,” he clarified. “I see shades of Aldrik to the point that I know your boldness will give me a headache sooner or later—when it’s directed at me. But, at the same time, it’s opposite him. It’s far more vivacious. You’ve become quite headstrong.”

“Have I?” she asked, unconvinced.

“You have,” Baldair declared with conviction. “And I see it putting life back into my brother, which I haven’t seen in years.”

Vhalla didn’t want to miss an opportunity. “Tell me more about you and your brother.”

“What do you want to know?” Baldair mustered all the tact he possessed to ask so delicately.

“What happened between you both?” He sighed.

“You both seem to be fighting for the same things, even for each other’s happiness, or so I’ve seen and heard you claim,” Vhalla observed. “So why do you treat each other as though you’re enemies?”

“There’s some ugliness underneath that question that I’m not sure you want to see.”

“What? Do you think it’s going to shatter the beautiful picture I have of my sovereign family?” Vhalla asked incredulously.

Baldair was laughing again. “Why not ask Aldrik?”

“I will, later.” She wanted to hear what both princes had to say. “But I’m asking you now.”

“You’re insufferable.” There wasn’t even a hint of malice. “So I’ve been called before.” Vhalla grinned wildly.

“Oh Mother, I don’t want to even think what my brother has called you.” Baldair shook his head and hung it a moment, taking a breath. “We were closer when we were boys.” The golden prince tilted his head back. “I looked up to him. He was everything I thought was admirable in the world. He was magical, powerful, kind, and composed, even when he was a boy. He was going to be the Emperor, and he was my brother.”

Vhalla chewed quietly, not wanting to distract Baldair from his memories.

“All the servants would remind us that someday Aldrik would become a man, and he wouldn’t be able engage in child’s play with me. So I always knew such a time would come.” Baldair took a deep breath. “But it wasn’t as they said.”

“What wasn’t?” Vhalla asked quietly, not wanting to break the younger prince out of his memory-induced trance. It was the most she’d learned, outside of off-handed stories from both princes, and Vhalla knew there was something important to be said here. In the back of her mind something lingered hazily, something that wanted her to remember an important piece about what Baldair would say next.

“I expected it to be when he became a man, after his coming of age at fifteen.” Baldair shook his head. “There was a rainy night, he was still fourteen. I don’t even know what happened, but everything changed. He shut himself in his room and refused to leave for weeks. Clerics came and went with somber faces, but I never found out what he was sick with.

“He ignored me the whole time. No matter how many times I went to his door calling for him.” Baldair’s tone turned bitter. “When he finally left that room, he was no longer my brother.”

The words made Vhalla’s heart ache for both of them. Something had gone wrong, horribly, unnaturally wrong.

“He spent more time in the Tower. He did nothing but haunt the library, even after our lessons were over. He was an automaton, an empty shell.” Baldair clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the table. Vhalla jumped, but the prince didn’t even seem to realize his action as he continued. “That’s when I knew, I knew it was because he was the crown prince, and I was just the spare. I wasn’t good enough. I’d never be good enough.

“I began fighting, I took to women the second I was old enough to even know what they were. And that felt good—still does.” Baldair chuckled, but it was a sad, hollow sound, void of its usual melodies. “Why did it matter? No one cared, they still don’t.

“I called him the black sheep.” Baldair paused, as if thinking about it for the first time. “I told him the black sheep was an unwanted person. Someone who wasn’t right and didn’t belong. That he was the black sheep for his dark hair and sorcery. None of the rest of our family looked as he did, after all. I think it was after that, that he started wearing more black.”

The golden prince’s eyes were suddenly filled with a child-like panic. “You don’t think that he, that now he wears black because I ... do you?”