Thousands of people, close to the whole town, had left the comfort of their homes to take to the street. They surrounded the castle with their little burning lights and cheers. The guards watched them with lazy gazes as their voices lifted high to the castle itself.
"Queen Weira!"
The Queen herself could not hear them now, but another watched them from a large balcony. Crown Prince, until that evening anyway, Phobos scowled down at the crowd. From this height, they looked like a writhing mass of glow worms he thought.
I hate them.
He wondered if they had acted like this when he was born. Or if they stayed in their little huts, with words of loathing and uncertainly on their breath. Either way he had never been shown such love by the smallfolk as they showed to his, unnamed, unseen, and newly born sister. Phobos had never dwelled on the unfairness of anything, believing it for the weak, but tonight as people screamed for a little brat that would take everything he held dear, he reconsidered.
His father had spent a good ten minutes, a new record actually, knocking on his room trying to coax him out. Apparently, he was supposed to look at this little spawn of his mothers. His mother would have had Raythor drag him out, but his father held no such power. Instead Phobos had the galhot guard his door so no one else could bother him in his brooding. So far his cousin Rayne and aunt Helena had both been rejected.
It brought great pleasure to Phobos to hear his aunt's agitated huffing at her nephew's perceived crime. Once his mother felt up to par again he surely would have to deal with the consequences of such an act, but for now it felt good to have a smidgen of control over his life.
Because after tonight he would lose it for forever. Until now people had looked at him with this almost morbid curiosity. His mother had suffered miscarriage after miscarriage in her quest for a female heir. Commoners and courtiers alike wondered if the great line had finally broken, if this boy would ascend to Leryn Escanor's throne for the first time in five hundred and fifty-six years.
But no, after years of trying Queen Weira had finally carried a female child to term, and Phobos had been pushed aside for her. Now his mother could sell him off to the highest bidding family to be their new stud. Phobos clutched the railing so tight his knuckles at turned white at the thought.
He was of royal blood, a wielder of ancient and arcane magics; a King. A King who had been passed over for a tiny infant…
Despair. It was familiar presence but he wasn't sure he had ever felt it so acutely before. His magic, fueled by his despair, pulsed under his skin so strongly he wondered if it was visible to others at this point. Visions of foreign courts and strange, domineering women danced around his head. His mother had told him her ideas for his sister's name, Adira, Philomena, Sibyl. Phobos knew they all meant 'power' in some tongue or other.
He struggled to keep his jagged breathing in line. Even his sisters name would dwarf his, he who had been named for their mother's fears.
Its. Just. Not. Fair.
Phobos had half a mind to fling himself off the ramparts, when a noise from behind halted that. He whirled around to face the intruder, most likely his father, to yell his discontent.
Rather than his father, Cedric Borjen was slipping through the door. He was dressed in his normal red and gold furisode with those huge sleeves Phobos thought looked like wings. He gave Phobos a repentant, and yet still mischievous grin.
"What are you doing in here?" Phobos deadpanned,
"I told Raythor not to let anyone in, and that includes slippery little snakes."
Cedric folded his arms behind him, and laughed.
"I think we both know very few people can keep me from going where I want to go."
Phobos shot an incensed stare at him. Since Queen Weira had plucked the shifter King's last heir from Sevit, he and Phobos had been rather…close. Cedric held the remarkable position of one of the only people Phobos could stand for long periods of time. But not tonight.
"Get out. I'm in no mood for you, or anyone else."
Instead of leaving, the shifter sauntered closer, close enough his face was barely an inch from his own. Phobos held his gaze. Cedric always smelled oddly sweet to him, and any salacious glance from those violet eyes sent blood racing to wrong end of his body.
He remembered reading a book once, about Janus Escanor, an ancestor of his. He, like himself, he had hoped to become ruler of the land. In his quest to do so, he had all his lovers murdered. The book cited the reason as them being a serious distraction or something of the sort. Phobos hadn't understood the logic of that until Cedric Borjen and his violet eyes, and his long, soft, golden hair, and tight red robes appeared on the scene. Phobos often thought he might be content to just spend the rest of his days in his bed with the other had he not been such an ambitious man.
Cedric began pulling at the ties of waistcoat, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Cedric was notoriously serious, unless he wanted something of course and would attempt to play Phobos or whoever anyway he could.
He snatched the shifters fingers.
"No."
Cedric pulled away as the chanting grew ever louder outside. Phobos stared out at them, his face full of disgust.
"She's just a baby. She doesn't even have a name" he spat. He felt something caught in his throat. "They'll never love me like that."
Cedric seemed to be searching for words, even as he tried to convey his sorrow with his eyes.
"I've been their only heir for years! I've been her only heir for years! They never even gave me a chance. I would have been great. Instead I'm to be shipped off to live with some whore that mother chooses."
Honestly, he wondered why she hadn't already. He was well past his first year of manhood, when most matches where typically made. Maybe she just didn't care enough to do so. Maybe he would just live at the castle forever, unmarried (a major shame for any male Escanor) in his sister's shadow. He wondered in anguish, which would be worse.
His sister was the ruler now; she would get everything. Another errant thought chilled Phobos to the core. Political matches almost always brought peoples together, with little regard to the partners themselves. His sister would need a husband and who better than the heir to Sevit. It would be an unprecedented alliance, shifters and humans. Twenty years or so wouldn't be an unheard-of age gap after all, especially when Cedric would remain youthful looking for least a 100 more years.
From the chill, he felt a fire in his blood as he gazed at the other man. Cedric was his. His sister would not get this prize, no no no.
He grabbed the other man and pulled them back inside, he slammed the doors as he did; ending that infernal noise. He shared his thoughts with Cedric about his sister's future husband.
Cedric grasped him then, panicky. His eyes lit up in a fanatical light, one had Phobos had only seen when they had first taken him from his home.
"I will burn this city to the ground before I let that happen. I won't let them do that to either of us."
Had it been anyone else Phobos wouldn't have believed them. However, he recalled that one of Cedric's ancestors had done the same thing to a part of Sevit under similar circumstances. There was also no love loss between House Borjen (what was left of it anyway) and the Escanors. Still, he wasn't a damsel in distress by any means; he would handle his fate with some dignity.
"I don't need a protector."
"But I need you."
Phobos narrowed his eyes at him. It was first weakness he'd ever heard or seen from the young shifter. Even when he'd first met him, when he was bleeding and broken, he walked proud. Clearly shaken, but still strong.
"Don't look at me like that. What am I supposed to do if you leave? I have nothing left."
"I'm sure you'd manage." He remarked snidely. He was dealing with too many emotions right now. The people outside had grown impossibly loud, Cedric's cold fingers were hurting his wrists, and his head felt like it was filled with murk.
"What are we going to do?" Cedric asked, anxious. For some reason Cedric's despair and panic made Phobos feel better. He wasn't the only one not pleased about his new sister or what her arrival might mean. Phobos tugged lightly on Cedric's long hair, one of the few ways Phobos showed his affection for him. When he first met him, he often wore it in ornate buns and braids but Phobos told him once he preferred it free and from then on it normally was.
It was always strange he thought, to have someone of equal standing be so loyal to him. A strange sense of resolved filled Phobos. He might never be King here, but maybe…maybe he could elsewhere.
"We'll run away, go to Sevit and..." he trailed off.
Cedric eyes went wide but he didn't interrupt. He merely looked at Phobos inquisitively. They had never talked about Cedric's lost home, not even once. He didn't even know if the shifter wanted to go home.
"I'll raise an army and kill every man in my way, and throw down Alistair Lisle off his golden throne."
Cedric stared up at him in admiration, his breathing unsteady. Phobos grabbed his shoulders, desperately hopeful.
"I'll rip apart every Lisle soldier, kill every traitorous courtier, and hang Lisle himself in the square. The streets will run with blood…"
Phobos considered his next words. It was all well and good to raise an army, but to take a throne he had no claim to? What would he be willing to do to get a claim to that kingdom? To any kingdom? Perhaps Janus was wrong after all.
Cedric seemed to understand to understand what was going on his head at his point. He looked uncertain himself now. The chanting was still clogging Phobos' thoughts. His mind was racing despite that though.
What a silly idea he thought.
Cedric sat down on the bed and held Phobos' hands. His hands were always cold Phobos thought to himself.
"Let's worry about that bit later, we can leave tomorrow. We don't ever have to come here again after tomorrow. Just come here."
Phobos joined him on the bed and started fumbling for the little ribbons that held Cedric's robe together. The room finally seemed to be quiet, the peoples voices had disappeared finally. He was King in his little room, if nowhere else.
I supposed to be writing another story, and doing work, but somehow this slipped out. *coughs* This ties into the other story I'm writing, but it's really more of a foil to my other story Understanding (though not in the same verse). In future chapters, we find out why their little plans didn't work, but it doesn't matter for this little drabble.