Lying clothed in his bed sheets, sweating in the heat of the desert air that gushes through his open windows, Taeg watches the ceiling change colors as the sun drops low in the sky. His dark hair is splayed around his eyes, catching in his eyelashes when he blinks. He raises an arm above his head to hear the clink of his bangles sliding down his elbow. He sighs.

  Downstairs, he can hear the chink and shout of the kitchen staff preparing his dinner, most likely a braised pork belly by the scent of it, laced with yellow onions. The thought of a heavy meal turns his stomach, and he swallows, pulling the lump in his throat further down into his chest. The red wine perched on his bedside table pulls the moisture from his cheeks, his teeth tacky and sour.

  Unwarranted, his mother’s screams come to him again and he taps the fingers of his left hand against the bedframe. Taeg feels resentment rise in the heat of his face as his father lies blissfully ignorant in his grave, protected by the vaults around him. Footsteps from the outside, presumably the Chamberlain, echo down the hall toward his chambers. Taeg peers at the ceiling. A soft knock follows.

  The Chamberlain’s voice, the strike of a brass bell, waits for no reply. “My King, your dinner is ready in the mess hall.”

  Taeg clears his throat, just audible enough, he hopes, to serve as answer. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, knowing the Chamberlain stands motionless on the other side of the wooden door, his ear pressed lightly to the grain, listening. If an answer did not come, Taeg would hear the next words:

  “Your Grace?”

  “Yes, Gideon.” His eyes roll into his half-closed lids and return to the ceiling, mouth pinched. “Tell the staff I will take my meal in Father's drawing room.” He inhales and holds his breath, waiting for the reply.

  A terse, “Yes, your Grace” follows, then the clod of heeled boots retreating down the hall.

  Taeg rolls his body off the side of the bed, standing to drop his arms to his side and slouch in the now dim room. He gazes at his unmade bed, a grave for a living man. He turns on his heel to the large acacia wood chest against the wall by the door. The creaking lid opens to the crown perched like a bird of paradise in a canopy of silks and keepsakes. He snatches the great metal headpiece and tosses it to the bed. His hands digging within the chest, he overturns boxes of pendants and brooches, removing his mother’s veil and his father’s ring box, clanging against various bangles and chains. The musty smell of old silk and fading perfume floods his nostrils.

  At the bottom of the chest is a small velvet case. He removes it, opening the lid, feeling the coarse velvet on his fingertips, and fumbles with the silken cloth inside to reveal a brass key, mottled and aged with time. Pocketing it at his breast, Taeg leaves the mess behind and wrenches his bedroom door open to the bright of the hallway outside. Squinting, he stalks across the catwalk to his father’s drawing room—now his own—unlocks the latch with the key in his pocket, and pulls the heavy door shut behind him, relieved to feel the darkness again.

  A single lamp is lit in the corner near the door. Heavy woolen curtains, embroidered with his father’s sigil, the raven, are pulled over the lone window at the back wall. The room is warm, scented with dust and parchment. Taeg plucks the lamp from its hook and carries it to the head of a small table near the back of the room, its light casting a flickering glow over the roughened grain of the tabletop. Light spills onto the floor, where boxes of paperwork are neatly tucked beneath the table’s carved legs. An elegant cherry cabinet with stained glass eyes is hunched in the corner to Taeg’s right, and a small chair at the front of the room is accompanied by a side table, stained with water rings. He pictures his mother sitting there, her glasses balanced on her nose, reading her weekly novel as his father sits in the seat before him, scribbling away at the castle books.

  There were many times he had heard them quarrelling, his father’s clarion voice heard shouting over the low feminine rasp of his mother, both of equal clout. His parents, though the royal seat first and foremost, were also lovers, parents, and once children that saw the color purple draped about their shoulders before they knew what it meant. Children as young as he, laden with the charge of the men and women before them.

  Their images fade away as the sounds of quiet footsteps approach from the catwalk outside the door. A maid, frail and old, stumbles into the room, carrying a brass tray of braised pork belly and onions. Her gray eyes are illuminated with the hallway light, and he watches them widen as the cup of cream on the corner of the tray teeters. Taeg removes himself from his rooted spot and dashes to her side, snatching the wooden cup before it can fall. He smiles gently, holding the door with his other hand. She bows, eyes crinkling in the corners, grabs the cup from his hand, and ducks under his form to carry it inside.

  “Apologies, Your Grace. I did no’ know you would be here,” she croons, her voice thick with a Chyras accent. “The Chamberlain said you’d have your supper in the drawrin’ room. I tried to hurry, but these legs don’ carry me quite as fast as they used to.” Her arms struggle with the tray, tendons straining under the weight. She lays it heavily upon the desk and moves the silverware about as a mother duck inspecting her ducklings. She turns and bows to him again as she slips from the room, Taeg still frozen with the door ajar. He mumbles his thanks and shuts the door behind her, exhaling.

  He moves back to the table, floor creaking under each step, and pulls the chair out to seat himself, moving the tray aside and shoving a jar of ink and a worn wooden abacus about to make room. The aged wood clatters, and he shakes his head free of the grating sound. His father’s presence looms heavy as he fingers the divots in the edge of the wood, formed gently by years of heavy forearms.

  These moments of silence were treasures among the commoners, a respite from the hum of survival, yet Taeg finds himself cursing them as his mind wanders, an unhinged disquiet. For all the advisors and servants and chamberlains, Taeg knew that only the food on their table kept them coming back. Surely there could be no pride in serving a boy born into an opulence never seen by those who serve him. Brooding would never carry him from his woes.

  Taeg begins opening drawers nestled underneath the desk. From the first drawer, a cloud of dust seethes from its empty depths. The second drawer holds a single shred of parchment, caught in the jaws of the slides. He jerks it free, setting the gnarled paper on the desk. The next is stuffed to the brim with wrinkled parchment, stained with inky scrawl. He peers at the top page—a diplomatic letter, carefully inscribed in his mother’s handwriting, addressed to the nobles of house Kargent, an ever-present squabble of power and wealth. He winces, knowing he’d been skillfully avoiding his diplomatic duties.

  The next drawer holds a pen, its black raven feather splitting and frayed. Plucking it from the felted bottom, he lays it on the table before moving down the row. He reaches the bottom drawer, wrenching it open to greet a red-lacquered lockbox sleeping in the rear of the hollow. The shine on the surface has dulled with oily fingers and streaks of dust are swiped free from the lid. He lifts it gently from the drawer. It weighs little, but he shifts it this way and that, peering at the lock on the front, its frame chipped and scratched with the fruitless efforts of those who sought to open it. He tugs at the knob, knowing it will not budge.

  Taeg sets the lockbox on the desk next to the feather pen and sulks at it, finally giving in to the growling of his stomach to partake in the plate of braised pork belly. Taking large gulps of cream between bites, he eyes the box, thinking hard on his father’s most prized hiding spots. Children made excellent spies. Taeg had spent too many hours following his father, his bare feet padding down the halls, shirking behind pillars when he was sure the king had not seen.

  As a child, he had been scolded more than once for misbehaving, never by his mother, but more than once by his father. The kitchen maids often caught him peeking from under a table and relocated him to his studies. Taeg felt somewhat sorry for them now, as he had slashed and screamed at them each time he was caught, fraught with disappointment that his efforts had failed. However, he had managed to expose the whereabouts of his mother’s secret wine cask, filled with sweet cherry wine from the north. The wine tasted funny on his tongue and even funnier when he’d drunk two or three cups.

  He chews at a tender spot of pork fat, laden with onion. He shakes his empty head, frustrated. Cleaning his plate and draining the cream, he pushes everything aside with intentions of tackling his neglected diplomacy. He drags himself from the chair to the boxes of parchment laid forgotten on the floor below him. The first is a letter addressed to “His Majesty, Our King”, from a young woman pleading for the life of her child, stricken ill with diphtheria. The ink is dull and splotched with small dark ringlets of fallen tears. An exhaustive description of the girl’s symptoms turns Taeg’s stomach, and he flicks the paper to the cherry cabinet at this right, rubbing a hand down his face.

  He draws letter after letter from the boxes under his feet, growing more unsettled with each one—fervid requests for help, crumpled scraps of paper hoping to reach the king with news of treachery, parents begging for their starving children’s next meal, desperate village physicians with little knowledge, overwhelmed with sickness. He slaps each mournful letter to the side, eyes watering and hands sweating, having written not a single reply. Most of the way through the first box, a pile of letters gracing the cherry cabinet and spilling about the floor, the door creaks open. A gush of courtyard air snuffs out the last of the lantern’s flame, and Taeg lifts his eyes to Gideon’s blushing round cheeks.

  “Chamberlain,” he croaks, his throat dry.

  “I apologize for the interruption, my king. You have been gone for some time, and the kitchen maids were beginning to worry.” He eyes the scattered pieces of parchment that litter the floor behind him. “Have you need of anything?”

  Taeg stretches the ache from his neck. “A drink. Perhaps some fresh air. If you can manage the first, I think I’ll proceed with the latter.” He pushes himself from the desk, snatching the lacquered lockbox from its perch and tucking it under his arm.

  The Chamberlain’s eyes follow, his hulking form standing rigid in the doorway, ballooned hands clasped behind his back. “Your father’s lockbox,” he says. “I’m surprised you found it.”

  Taeg is silent, staring at the mess on the floor.

  “Your father insisted I keep it hidden until you were ready. I knew it would take you some time to undertake the king’s civil duties, so I placed it in his desk. You never were much of a writer.”

  Taeg squints through the dark. He can see a faint, thin-lipped smile under the Gideon’s mustache. “And it may take me some time yet,” Taeg shakes the doleful letters from his head. He pauses, chewing at his lips. “Do you have the key?”

  The Chamberlain chuckles lightly. “Yes, Your Grace.” He waves Taeg out the door, his eyes kind. “I think your father would agree that you are ready. I’ll arrange for the servants to bring you some spiced wine. In the garden, perhaps?” He steps aside as Taeg moves through the hunching doorway, then slips the door shut behind them.

  In his head, Taeg recalls his mother’s screams as she was dragged from her royal gardens like a peasant. “Not the garden—”

  Taeg is cut off by a heavy hand placed upon his shoulder. “The sunlight will do you well,” Gideon hums.

  —-------

  It is nearing dusk when Taeg reaches his mother’s garden, the sun’s light glaring through the entryway pillars. The manzanita trees have dropped their blooms, but the soft pink tufts of the muhly grass are aflame, filling the space with color. When he reaches the stone bench his mother had chosen as her favorite, there is a kitchen cart parked nearby, topped with a green crystal decanter of blood-red wine and a clean crystal glass. A plate of winter melon sits nearby, surely the last of the seasonal fruit imported from Taurus. Taeg carefully sets the lockbox on the bench, taking a heavy seat. A sigh bursts loose from his chest.

  Taeg removes the crystal stopper from the decanter with a squeaking pop. The warm, stinging scents of ginger, cardamom, and clove flood his nostrils. As he pours the wine, he catches the Chamberlain emerging from the castle doorway, reaching into a gown pocket. The portly man stops short of the wine cart with a terse bow and places a small brass key next to the plate of winter melon. His lips are upturned. Without a word, he turns and disappears through the castle doorway again.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Taeg plucks the key from the cart with one hand, wine teetering in the other, examining the ridges, cuts, and dents along the stem. He sets the wine aside, placing the lockbox in his lap and sliding the key into the lock. It unlocks with a metallic click. Inside, he finds a collection of paintings: one of his mother, elegant in an emerald silk gown, another of his grandfather, the king before Roen, stately and stern in a burgundy doublet. The last portrait is of himself, near three years old and shaggy-haired, a less than innocent smile pasted to his lips. He holds the painting of his father the longest, detailing the features he himself had not been graced with. His father’s jaw was wide, blue eyes set bright and shining. A neat, wavy mass of dirty blonde hair is perched atop his head, growing into a mousey, well-trimmed beard and mustache.

  Underneath the photos are two folded pieces of parchment, one yellowed with age, the other a crisp, milky color. Taeg retrieves the yellowed letter from the bottom and opens it tenderly. The writing inside is his mother’s characteristic scrawl, slanted and trailing, its words addressed to the late king. The parchment is pliable, so much so that the corners are mangled or missing. His mother’s signature at the bottom of the page, shoved into the remaining spaces not taken by her words, is blurry with the stroke of fingers.

  The second letter is as stiff as new parchment. Taeg opens the trifold letter to his father’s heavy script, dated not long before the king died. It is addressed to his mother. Taeg chews his lip as he reads:

  My dear Vilania,

  I hope with sincerity that this letter finds you well. It is not my proficiency to bring pen to paper, as you know. However, I cannot bring myself to face you with this wish. I feel that your eyes, which already tell me too much, may bring this heart to its knees. If these words feel a betrayal, please know that I do not intend it as such. I pray that my accomplishments as sovereign do not outweigh my deeds as a husband and father.

  Near a fortnight ago, High Priest Deland came to me with a burden he wished to remove from his shoulders. I have much respect for his dedication to the crown. We supped in my quarters, where he told me of the child I did not know, born from the young queen I was yet unaccustomed to. He confessed that the child had lived, but that he was not of my blood. He spoke with a voice uncharacteristic of him, small and cracking – for fear of reprimand, I suppose. I gather he had never seen my softened side, much as I believe you were unfamiliar with upon our recent marriage.

  My dear, we are grown now, and it pains me to know you have kept this from me. It wounds me still to think you did not trust me with this knowledge, that you did not think my position as king sufficient to guard you—and your son—from harm. I struggle to think that this boy lives without knowing a father, regardless of his blood. I am sure our son, kindhearted and affectionate as he is, would have loved him as a brother just the same. In any case, Gideon has been instructed to keep this knowledge until it may be shared.

  I can wish only the best for the young man I will not know in this world, and I hope to meet him someday in the next. I pray your deeds do not weigh so heavy upon your shoulders as I am sure they have these past decades. Do not forget, you are my queen, and the vision of grace and warmth this country holds dear. I will walk with you until the end.

  Unconditionally yours,

  Roen

  Taeg’s arms drop to his thighs, fingers clasping the edges of the parchment. He studies his father’s signature. The sun is setting in the west, an orange cast laying heavy over the garden. The wine goes unfinished, the cream untouched. He hears soft footsteps to his left, where the Chamberlain emerges from the archway yet again, his hands tucked into his sleeves. His face is soft, eyes examining. Taeg meets his eyes in the quiet.

  “Your father was nothing short of a great man,” he says, smiling.

  Taeg nods slowly, silently.

  “He admitted to me once, sitting at the very desk I found you this evening, that he was unsure of his abilities to raise the next sovereign. He did not explicitly voice his fear, but I had been his attendant too long to miss it. Your father was more fearful the day you were born than when the High Priest laid the crown upon his head.” He pauses, looking down. “What he didn’t know is that the sovereign blood was already in you. He needn’t fear raising the next king, as he was so conditioned himself. And yet he instilled something in you that he had not expected; a compassion such as this world has not seen.”

  Taeg laughs, a small huff. He folds the letter again, cleans up the photos, and locks his father’s case with a snap. “Do not cajole me, Gideon,” he grins up at the older man. “You know far more than I give you credit for, and you have served our family loyally. I believe I have never thanked you for that.”

  “No need, Your Grace—” Gideon starts, shaking his head.

  “My father would never have stood for such insolence as denying the thanks of the king,” Taeg snarls, standing.

  The Chamberlain looks up in surprise at his growling tone, and he meets Taeg’s eyes to see their smiling gleam. As a grin spreads upon Taeg’s face, Gideon’s stomach begins to bob with laughter.

  “You are your father’s son, my King,” he chuckles.

  “If you say so.” Taeg smiles, looking back at the fading sun. After a pause, he turns back. “Gideon, I need to see my mother.”

  The portly man nods. “Of course, Your Grace.”

  —------

  He finds his mother reading in an isolated room at the back of the Church, where a lively young acolyte unlocks the door to let him in. She is sitting in a padded chair by the only window, eyes glued to what looks like a copy of the city herald. Her hair is brushed neatly, gray as heather.

  “She is well today, Your Highness,” the acolyte sings before bowing and closing the door behind him.

  His mother looks up from her newspaper. “Taeg. It’s so good to see you,” she smiles—bright, familiar.

  “Hello, Mother.” He steps tenderly into the room, his eyes locked on the newspaper she moves from her lap to the table at her side. Her eyes are too clear for his gaze today.

  Her head tilts and her smile softens. “What is wrong, son?”

  His eyes flick to hers and he sighs. “How are you today?” he says.

  “I’m well, thank you. You, on the other hand, look a bit pale.”

  She stands to wrap her arms around her son’s shoulders. Taeg exhales into her hair, his skin buzzing with tension, before pushing her gently away and sitting his mother in her chair once again.

  “I want to ask you something,” he mumbles, squinting at the window. The fading sunlight heats the room, forming beads of moisture on the glass. “Its about my brother.”

  He holds his breath. His mother’s eyes narrow with concern. Taeg turns and struggles into the chair next to hers, the wood squelching under his weight, and he reaches for her hand.

  “I do not want this to alarm you, but you told me once that I have a brother. Do you remember this?”

  She stares into his eyes, her hands clasped in his. “I… Maybe you are confused, my love,” she hums. The smile that crosses her lips does not find her eyes. “You have never had a brother.”

  “Mother.” He looks at the floor, shaking her hands in desperation. “You had a son, conceived out of wedlock. You gave him up to a young castle maid who had lost her child, right?”

  Vilania swallows hard, blinking. Her eyes dodge his gaze. “How do you know this?” Her voice is weak.

  “Mother, I will keep your secret. You’re safe,” he says. The lines on her face are deep, drawn. “But before I lose you again, I need you to know. Please look at me.”

  Slowly, his mother’s eyes – so much like his – meet his own. Tears begin to redden her face. He continues.

  “You are fading away from me, Mother. I lose you every now and then, and it is happening more and more. Do you know where you are?”

  “The church,” she chokes out.

  “Do you know why you’re in the church?”

  She shakes her head. Taeg catches the corners of her lips beginning to turn down. The small wrinkles on either side of her mouth begin to twitch.

  “Your mind is not clear.” His throat catches. “And while you’re here with me now, I wanted to ask you something.” Taeg swallows audibly, thinking of the garden. He fills the space with his next question before she can interrupt. “You told me that I have a brother, a half-brother. That he died.”

  “Taeg—”

  “I want you to tell me about him.”

  She purses her lips and begins to push up from her seat.

  “Please,” Taeg begs.

  Vilania paces to the window, squinting into the evening light filtering in.

  “I will not discuss this with you,” she says.

  He sighs. “Mother, I am not one for such an abuse of power, but I cannot give you any other option.”

  She sniffs. The dust fluttering in the window’s light swirls around her frame. Her salt and pepper hair is shining, cascading down the middle of her back. Her hands rub together as if to comfort one another. “He was the son of a noble.”

  Taeg waits, silent.

  “I was young, na?ve. Too eager for love. He was just as eager, though not for the same things I sought. We were seventeen.” She looks down at her hands. “My father told me I was to be married to the new king not long after. I was terrified. As a noble woman of a young age, it was expected that you would be married off to a man of at least the same rank. But the king?” She chuckles, looking back out the window. “I was not fit for the king.”

  She turns around, a sad smile still on her face. “Your father was gentle, kind, though somewhat distant at first. He was nine years older than me. I was intimidated by him.” She steps across the tiled floor back to her seat, easing herself into it. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was sure I would be executed. I was set to marry Roen in two days’ time. In my panic, I confessed to my handmaid, and she suggested that I wait until the marriage was complete, convinced me that I was not too far along to let the king believe the child was his.” A shaky exhale leaves her lips and her shoulders drop. “And in two days, we were married. But my body was showing too far along to match my time with your father, and my boy came early. My handmaid, bless her soul, informed me that there was another maid within the house. She had been pregnant, but the child did not settle in her womb, and she had birthed him stillborn.”

  “You went to the High Priest about this maid,” Taeg says.

  Vilania looks down. “He told you.”

  “Yes.”

  Her face contorts. “I agreed to give my child up to the girl.” Drops of salt water build in her lashes. Her lip quivers. “When I felt my water break, I instructed the maids to inform your father, but with a warning that the child may not survive, that he was too early. The king was distraught. He locked himself within the drawing room so he could not hear my screams. I delivered your brother on our bed. He was beautiful.” Tears begin to draw lines down her cheeks, her thin shoulders shaking.

  “I had to give up my son,” she sobs, her voice breaking under the weight of her remorse. “They told your father that his firstborn son was dead,” her breath hitches, “and it destroyed him.”

  Taeg’s mother crumples into her lap. She folds her shaking arms into the tear-stained fabric of her dress, her spine collapsing over her chest. Taeg removes himself from his chair to kneel at her feet. The young acolyte, hearing her cries, cracks the door with a worried look upon his face. Taeg waves him away.

  “Mother,” he croons, wiping her tears from around her lips. “Father knew.” He grabs her by the shoulders, shaking them gently. “He knew. And he kept it secret for you. He loved you.”

  She sobs into her hands. Some time passes before Vilania regains her composure, her delicate hand covering her mouth. Her eyes finally meet his, red and swollen.

  “He knew, Mother. And he wanted to meet him.”

  The Queen Regent shakes her head, tears still dripping from her lashes. Taeg watches her cracked lips part, then close again. Realization hits her in the form of heavy brows scrunched over her watered eyes, her lips turning down. Another cascade of tears threatens to break the dam.

  “I have met him, my brother.” Taeg takes his hands from her shoulders with care, looking down at his palms. He purses his lips. “He is as you say.”

  Silence follows. The footsteps of physicians and acolytes echo in the hallway past the heavy wooden door that holds them in.

  “Where is he?” she whispers. “I want to see him.”

  Taeg looks up at the queen. Her jaw is set. She brushes disheveled hair from her shoulders. Taeg clears his throat, then swallows hard. He gazes over her shoulder at the particles floating through the sunshine.

  “I’ve sent him to Tauris.”

  “To Tauris?” The words rip from her mouth. “Whatever for?”

  “There is something we must do before he can come home,” Taeg measures his words carefully, eyeing his mother’s expressions. The anger flares in her eyes, the same anger he had witnessed in the garden. He stands, taking her hand again in his. “I will send him to you when he returns, Mother.”

  She tears her hand from his, slapping it down on her thigh. “You will send him to me at once!” The tendons in her neck heave up and down with her breath.

  Taeg gathers his bearings and turns from her. He can hear her lift from her chair. Each step away from her echoes off the walls. He reaches the door, grasping for the handle, feeling its rough texture in his hand. His mother stamps across the floor, not far behind.

  “I want to see my son!”

  Her voice rises from behind him. He presses through the door, slamming it shut behind him and hurrying past the confused acolyte, down the hall. The sound of her fists pounding against her wooden cell door follows him out into the night.