The boy who grew up in his brother's shadow would one day use shadow against another brother, and lived to regret it. My hands were clean. It was a dream. I was asleep. Those were the words he whispered to himself, and spoke aloud to the only man he trusted. He saw the look of disbelief on the other man's face, and knew that look is mirrored in his own hearts of hearts. He would use the shadow against another man later, and this time he did not lie to himself. I am a man capable of this act.
The man capable of that act would lose a battle, and for a while thought he had lost the war. The priestess spoke of a bigger battle, the only war that counts, against the forces of eternal darkness. A sacrifice, a boy with the blood of a king flowing through his veins. His brother's child, conceived in the man's marital bed, yet another slight in a lifetime full of slights. What is the worth of one boy, over all the boys and girls in the kingdom, whose fate hang in the balance? "Everything", the only man he trusted insisted.
Everything. He pondered the word. But I am a man capable of killing his own brother for a few thousand soldiers. What is one boy, to save countless other lives? The only man he trusted saw the folly of his ways, and spirited the boy away. Honesty. Loyalty. Service. These he had demanded from that man. Honesty to tell me the error of my ways. Loyalty to my cause. Service in protecting my people. "The boy is one of your people. I protected him, as you had asked of me", the only man he trusted had answered, to the charge of treason laid at his feet.
His own words were being used against him. It is about duty, not wants, or rights. A king's duty is to protect his people, here at Dragonstone, or far North at the Wall. What is a man, if his words are just wind? What sort of man am I, if my words are merely words?
His army would win a battle against a force superior in number, yet inferior in weaponry. The victory would turn out to not matter to the outcome of the other battle, the battle to win supporters for his claim to the throne. The enemy beyond the Wall only mattered to the smattering of Night's Watch men, men sworn to not take side in the war of kings, men who would never be his to command.
The man who was the boy who grew up in his brother's shadow would laugh bitterly at this turn of event. What is this, if not the encapsulation of a lifetime of disappointment and bitterness? The folly is mine, for expecting anything different. Yet it is beyond this man's ability to yield, to turn back, to run away. I have spilled too much blood, contemplated too many wrongs, it can only end with victory or my death.
The boy who grew up in his brother's shadow, who secretly grieved that his brother loved another man like a brother, would not have been surprised had someone told him, back when he was still a boy, that his fate, in the end, would be determined by a desolate march to that other man's home. Of course it would end that way, intertwined as our lives are. The brother of my brother, the chosen kin of my blood.