Luminous

60 - Splinter

"I'm sorry, Brother." He shook his head, "I just can't do it. I'm no knight. I've always been a coward. I'm scared of dying."

"That makes two of us, then." said Coris. Zier froze, then snorted.

"Don't try the empathy game. I know better. You've already accepted it. Fyr, you've been preparing for it for years."

"Doesn't mean I'm not scared, does it?"

Coris's voice remained soft, but there was a hint of ice in it. Zier glanced up. Coris was staring straight ahead. His gaunt face was masklike, void of color and emotion, but his gaze was bitter and morose.

Somehow, Zier felt the splinter in his heart stirring, battling to pull free, calling out to be acknowledged once and for all. It was as if it had found its fellow in his brother's eyes. And, for the first time, Zier asked Coris the one question he had neglected to for six years.

"Why did you do it, then? Why did you lie to Father about swallowing the Axel? Why have you sacrificed your future for me?"

Coris remained staring ahead into darkness and silence. Zier could see the strain of the battle within him in the thinning line of his lips, the tightening grip of his spider-like hands on his blanket. At long last, Coris glanced at his slumbering mistress, then took a deep, shuddering breath,

"I hadn't set out to do that, Zier." He closed his eyes as he exhaled, sinking limply deeper into his pillow. 

"You know as well I do that Father would never harm us for The Axel. I'm his heir, and you're my spare. We're the future of Hadrian. He couldn't bear to lose us."

Zier could only stare unblinking at his brother's tortured expression, dreading, anticipating. A part of him felt like it already knew what was coming, that this would turn out to be just one of Coris's mind games.

"If only The Axel had come out of you, none of this would have ensued. How in the three lands could I have foreseen all this happening to me?"

Coris shielded his eyes with a jittery hand. His voice choked with sobs died halfway out of his throat. Zier's heart lurched at the sight of crystal-clear teardrops plummeting down his protruding cheekbones. But he couldn't retreat now. He must know now. This talk of theirs was long overdue.

"Why did you do it, then?" He demanded once more. He planted his hand on the mattress, his nails digging into the supple down as he loomed over his weeping brother,

"Just a show of brotherly love, is that it?" He sneered, even as his voice shook with suppressed tears, "You think you could stop me from bringing The Axel to Graye with one kind gesture, after all those years of making my life hell? You think you could hang Father's love over me to scare me into behaving?"

Coris laid another hand over his face, curling in on himself in shame. He flipped to the side and made as if to burrow and hide in his pillow, but Zier grasped his shoulder before he could flee.

"Why didn't you confess?" He peeled back those pale fingers with his, revealing silvery eyes wide in terror,

"Three days and nights, you let that hag poison you half-dead. Turns out that wasn't to protect me from Father? Then what for?! Why did you have to do all that?"

Zier shook those bony wrists in frustration. Coris panted, breathless from swallowing back his tears.

"Because I didn't—I still don't know, to this day—how to convince you—" He choked out in between breaths, then buried his face into his pillow, further muffling his words,

"—That I've changed—That I'm trying to be—the brother I've never been for you. That I'm learning to love and protect and guide you—the way I should've done from the start—"