Brother, Betrayed

by Danielle Raver

  “You were angry at the past, what happened to you, not at me.”

  “It is much different here than in the city. I never realized the constant, dull noise that so many people make. I always thought that it would be nice to be away from all of them, but out here, I think I would miss the noise.”

  She smiled a little. “I imagine it is pleasant to be surrounded by others, by people rather than trees.”

  He felt her warm hand beneath his and watched her face. “Come back with me,” he said, gazing into her spring water eyes. “I will take you to the city where you will know friendship, and not loneliness.”

  She looked away from him, contemplating. But then her expression softened and came back to him.

  “Will one of those companions be you, sir?” she asked.

  “If you desire me to be.” He sat watching her. “What is your name?” he asked when he realized he couldn’t truly ask her to come with him without it.

  “Eltha,” she answered.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  FASIME'S LOVE

  Fasime and Eltha woke as the mist around them turned into a light rain. Fasime had no memory of sitting next to the tree he now leaned against, or of falling asleep. He remembered most of the night, keeping a watchful gaze on Eltha as she slept, and on the dark forest around them. He hadn’t meant to sleep, but the young woman hadn’t noticed she had been unguarded.

  “What a dark morning,” she said, looking at the colorless sky and through the trees to the east, where the sun should have been setting the sky ablaze. “The sun rises somewhere.”

  Fasime stood. “We should not linger here, with the damp and the chill in the air.”

  They packed up their things and remounted. As they started off on their journey, the falling mist turned to hard rain.

  The chill had numbed their skin and muscles rigidly by the time they reached the walls of the city. The guards were leery of the horse and cloaked riders until they heard Fasime’s voice calling to them to open the gate. As they passed into the city, a strange sensation of stillness and unease came over them. The air was full of smoke, but not smoke of chimneys and cooking at campfires, this was thick, heavy smoke that only rose from ill deeds. The city seemed solemn, almost barren, though as they rode deeper into its streets, people seemed to be going about their regular business of working, selling wares, and moving goods. Their faces, however, were distant and cheerless.

  “Is it always this somber here?” the woman whispered.

  “No, something must have happened,” Fasime answered. “The people in the city have been troubled since the barbarians laid siege to us.”

  “Are they in danger now?” Eltha asked as they stopped before one of the small houses.

  “No,” Fasime said shortly as he dismounted. “Come, you can stay here. The woman is a servant for the castle. Tell her you are a friend of Fasime, she will take care of you.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked as he led her to the door.

  “I must see someone.”

  Oman looked up sharply as Fasime came into the throne room, but his anger was stayed by Fasime’s walk, that was close to a dance, as he approached the throne. “Where have you been?” Oman demanded.

  Fasime put his hands on Oman’s arms. “I met a lady.” Oman blinked, shaking his head and looking away from him. “She’s beautiful,” Fasime said in a hushed breath. Oman barely noticed his words. “Her eyes are as clear as the summer sky, her hair is like sun touched clouds.”

  “I have more important things to deal with,” Oman said and removed Fasime’s hands. “I could have used your help the last few days.”

  Joy drained from Fasime’s face like a barrel that was cracked. “Help with what?”

  The king gave his full attention to his brother, then, seeming to decide whether the words would be wasted on him. He finally continued, “The researchers knew of Gorusk’s new weapon. They have discovered possible defenses we can use to fortify the city from an aerial attack.”

  “And what about the civilians? The streets are mostly deserted. What happened?”

  Oman waved his hand dismissively. “Some villagers were causing a disturbance and we dispersed them. The city people need to realize that we have more important things to deal with.”

  Fasime’s face soured. “Why must you always be focused on possible threats to the city?” Fasime didn’t give Oman a chance to respond. “Don’t you find it… draining?” Oman’s eyes narrowed disdainfully. “What about you? What about your needs?”

  “My desires do not matter, my duty lies with protecting…”

  “But why don’t you matter? Oman, you have just as much right to pursue comfort and fulfillment as any man.”

  “Do I? Should I go and disappear for days, leaving my duties forgotten? What would happen to the city then?”

  Fasime lowered his head in thought. “That’s not what I meant. You are never concerned with your personal future. But your happiness affects the kingdom you govern. Your heart is expressed in the prospect you influence.”

  “My personal happiness will improve when I can rest, knowing the kingdom is safe.”

  “And when will that be? Will we ever truly find peace? Sometimes we must take happiness instead of waiting for it.”

  “Why do I bother trying to explain things to you,” Oman sighed, “when you don’t listen?”

  Fasime paused a breath, realizing this was the longest they had spoken in months. “You’re right, I don’t understand your position. If I had to try to take over Father’s rank after the kingdom had been ransacked, trying to balance the needs of the people with the needs of the kingdom, I would have little time to think of myself. But there are things you can do. Perhaps if you weren’t having to do it alone?”

  “I’m not like you, Fasime,” Oman retorted with a grimace, “I don’t find a woman when the need suits me.” Oman watched his brother’s face tightened, but he held his anger. “There is no one that I could trust to hold Anteria’s needs above their own in these difficult times.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Fasime answered quickly. “You can’t trust anyone. That’s why you resist the idea of finding someone to love.”

  “That’s not…”

  “You can’t trust them… to not betray you.”

  Oman stood, anger taking his form. “Fasime, with all of your gifts of charm you are blind in the area of romance. None of the girls you swooned ever truly cared for you.”

  Fasime matched his brother’s accusation, but stopped, looking inward. His expression softened. “Perhaps you’re right. But not this time. This one is different.”

  “They are all just using you,” the eldest stated harshly, but the younger was unaffected by it.

  “Brother,” Fasime stated, his voice more earnest. “I am going to marry her.” Oman shook his head in disbelief. “No,” Fasime said to Oman’s thoughts, “I mean it this time. Oman, I am in love.”

  Oman looked coolly back to his brother. “What a happy occasion this is,” Oman said callously, sitting on the throne. “But I have other matters to attend to.”

  Fasime’s face displayed momentary confusion, having expected a different response after expressing the truth of his heart. He let out a shallow breath. Before anger could come, he turned on his heel and left his brother, quiet and alone on the throne.

  Life passed before him as he sat, slackened and comfortable on the steps of an empty dwelling, gazing at the slow street and quietly moving, preoccupied people. He glanced to the servant’s house across the street, waiting, knowing that she would return. He lowered his head, uninterested in staring at the simple, familiar civilians that passed him. But he closed his eyes, letting the sounds and smells of the city touch his skin, fill his breath, and soften his thoughts. The affairs and pace of the city distracted his soul, consumed him.

  He sat for a while, allowing the dull rhythm of the mulling people to take his thoughts, but then he felt a shift in these quiet surroundings. It was
only a hint of change that he likened to sensing the presence of prey in the still wood. The prey is as natural as the continuity of sensation, but still, the sensitive observer will recognize their coming, their aliveness. Such made Fasime open his eyes, and find the approaching young woman from the final border of Anteria.

  Her appearance had changed. She strode beside the elder servant, wild beauty only agreeing to be slightly tamed by the opulent fabric of her dress and intricate braids of her hair. She seemed to command the street, Fasime noted, as nobility would. And though the sky was overwhelmed with the gray clouds of late autumn, it seemed to him that the sun cast golden rays upon her and her path.

  She followed the servant into her dwelling but paused and turned round. She found him, watching her from his contemplative stance across the street. She hesitated, not knowing if he would summon her, but then she caught a glimpse of the admiration in his stare and she smiled. Fasime’s heart lightened, and it made him realize.

  She was the answer.

  He would bring her to his brother, and she will show him. There can be joy and beauty worth fighting for, worth surrendering for. Fasime nodded intentionally, and she returned it with understanding. She watched him vanish into the city before she joined the elder woman inside.

  The rapping of the door thudded in his mind as he lowered his hand. The door opened and she appeared, seeming unsurprised but pleased at his arrival.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “I’m sorry to leave you, my lady,” he stated, bowing to her. “Sometimes it takes time for the ripples to subside in the water, but when calmed, the water will then reveal what lies beneath.”

  He watched her tilt her head, but a smile was in her eyes. “So why have you waited?”

  “Come with me and I will show you,” he stated and offered her his hand. She took it and they walked to his steed, waiting in the street.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. He helped her mount and then began to lead the stallion.

  “I want you to meet someone.”

  He stopped the stallion in the street in front of the castle. She gazed at its high stone walls and towers, but her expression was unreadable. She looked down to him questioningly, but saw the warmth of his face and returned it. She came into his arms and dismounted.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said and her eyes averted his modestly. His hand went to her chin and he tilted her head up, looking into her blue eyes. “You are the fairest maiden in all of Arnith.” Then he lowered his hand, offering it open before her again. She tilted her head but took it.

  He turned to the entrance of the castle and felt her hand tighten around his as they walked towards it. He did not pause, however, leading her to the large doorway. She drew closer to him, watching the guards on either side of the doorway as they approached. Their gazes stayed straight ahead of them as Fasime and Eltha entered the immense, open doors to the castle.

  “They seem to know you,” she whispered as they stepped inside the entranceway. Fasime didn’t respond. Her hand went stiff in his when several soldiers and servants bowed to him. Her eyes followed them as they straightened and continued on.

  “Come,” he said gently, lifting her hand.

  “Wait,” she said softly. Her eyes didn’t return to him as she watched the guards and servants around them. “You’re…”

  He stepped closer to her. “Yes,” he whispered, putting his arm around her back. “Come.”

  “Who are you?” she whispered as they started into the large hall.

  “I am Fasime,” he answered. Her eyes returned to him. There was a frightened plea upon her face, but Fasime had no words to calm it. She seemed to trust him, still, to recognize him as her companion from the forest even in these strange surroundings. He had no explanation aside from drawing her near and continuing down the hallway.

  Fasime pushed aside the door to the throne room, knowing that was where Oman would be. His eyes rose to his elder brother sitting solemnly on the throne. Eltha stopped rigid in the doorway. “It’s all right,” he whispered, grasping her hand tightly. Finally she stepped forward with him.

  “Fasime,” the figure acknowledged from the other end of the room. “Now is not…” Oman stopped, his attention going to the woman, walking silently and wide eyed next to his brother.

  “Oman,” Fasime said, “I would like you to meet Eltha.” He looked over to her. Her expression was pale and uncertain. But she nervously bowed, and Fasime felt her hand shaking in his.

  “So is this the woman?” Oman asked, glancing at Fasime.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Oman’s gaze returned to her. “You seem frightened,” he said after a pause. Her brows knit, but she remained. “As if you didn’t know,” Oman looked back to Fasime. Fasime grasped her quivering hand tightly.

  “My lord, I did not realize,” she swallowed, turning to Fasime questioningly.

  Oman let out a snort of laughter. “That your love was a prince?” Oman glared at Fasime. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “No, Brother.”

  Oman chuckled, his voice softened. “My brother is foolish…” But his words diminished, then he seemed to revoke them. He paused, intent on her. “Wait,” he said to his own thoughts. He studied her hair, her face, her eyes. “I know you….”

  Both Eltha and Fasime started at the abruptness of the king standing. The woman nervously stepped back at the hot expression on his face. Oman’s eyes shot to his brother, ablaze. “Is this the girl?”

  “Her name is Eltha,” Fasime told him.

  “So… do these walls witness your betrayal again?” a voice came from the king, Fasime and Eltha barely heard it.

  “I love her,” Fasime attested. Eltha didn’t look over to him but he felt her hand falter in his a moment.

  Oman came closer to Eltha and she retreated a step.

  “You,” the king accused.

  Fasime remembered his own anger and quickly pulled her away from him. Oman reached out for her but Fasime blocked his path. Oman held, his angry eyes now focused on his brother. “This is the girl. This is the witch’s daughter!”

  “The old woman is dead,” Fasime told him.

  “This is where you were!”

  “Yes, but I found nothing.”

  “Why did you bring her here?” Oman yelled, stepping to the side and reaching for her, but Fasime knocked his hand away.

  “I love her,” Fasime answered.

  “You!” Oman’s eyes were wide and wild. “You want her secrets… You want her to help to devise my fall, so you can rise to king!”

  Fasime’s face went blank, without an argument.

  “I won’t let her break the Arnithian line!” Oman cried, advancing to her again.

  Fasime’s inaction was a fire, a loss, trying to refrain doing what he knew he must. As his brother almost had Eltha, he forced forward both arms and pushed him away.

  “You will not touch her!” Fasime felt Eltha’s hands on his back and heard her weeping as he watched Oman regain his balance.

  “You…” Oman said in a voice that spoke as if it faced the sword that just stabbed it, “you plot my demise.”

  “No, Oman…”

  “I will kill you both!” Oman’s hand went for his father’s sword. But Fasime’s grip was there, and Oman’s hand was caught over the hilt, unable to draw. The king tried to pull away, his unblinking gaze on Fasime’s face.

  “No, Oman.”

  “You are a traitor.”

  “She cannot see the future.”

  “You lie.”

  “She is not the woman’s daughter.”

  “Liar!”

  “She does not know how. She cannot tell me anything.”

  “You wish she will! You both will die on my sword!” Oman twisted and tried to break free again, but Fasime’s grip held him.

  “I will marry her,” Fasime answered in a strangely calm voice, “but not for that reason.” He felt Oman’s anger shake through them bo
th and Fasime saw in his eyes his own death, and the death of the woman. But after a moment, Oman’s gaze lowered.

  “Leave. Leave the city and never return. I renounce all your rights as heir to the throne of Anteria. Never let me see your face again, for I swear…” Oman removed his hand from the sword and looked into Fasime’s eyes, “I swear I will kill you.”

  Fasime felt a flush… relief, anger, and sadness… as he backed away from the king. He hesitated a moment, a few steps away, feeling Eltha return to him and take his hand, shaking. Oman leaning forward with is head bent, breathing heavy.

  “Brother…” Fasime started.

  “Leave!” Oman screamed and Fasime jerked. Eltha put her hand on his arm and he nodded, turning with her to leave the throne room of his father forever.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  A FIELD AND CABIN

  Golden strands danced, bowing to him as they rode past. Shadows fled behind as they left the forest, entering the first tended fields they had seen for several days. The golden wheat almost glistened beneath them, lightly humming in the stirring breeze, luring them into comfort and peace.

  “There is a village close by perhaps,” Fasime stated and looked back to her, the afternoon light painting golden shades upon her fair hair. “It would be good to find a place to rest.”

  A mighty arm raised and then smote an unmerciful axe upon surrendering wood. A shuddering echo vibrated through the dusky air, finding the travelers with a dulled, quick snap against their ears. The brawny figure had dealt several more injuries before looking up to his children running out from around the house, and then he noticed the travelers approach him. Fasime hailed him in friendship and gladly watched him set down the axe as they neared his abode.

  “Hail travelers!” he called out to them, his accent rustic and hardy. “What trail has led you this way?”

  “The wild fields of the west have called us,” Fasime answered. “We seek shelter in our travels. You are the first civilization we have met since we left Arnith.”