"I hate you."
The boy in black scowled. "I hate you more."
"Mother likes me better."
"Father doesn't even care about you."
That stung. "Only 'cause you were born first!"
"And that's why I'm the crown prince," Rasiel drawled, a smug smirk adorning his face. "You're nothing but a spare."
Bel fumed, glaring at his brother through his bangs. This was just a small part of an endless battle, each twin struggling to one-up the other. Throwing rocks, throwing boulders- until one day, Bel won permanently.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! The princes are trying to kill each other in the central courtyard!"
The king directed a disdainful stare down at the quivering messenger and languidly lifted a hand. "Let them be. Boys will be boys, after all." He smiled coldly.
"But-!"
"Dismissed."
"Yes- yes, Your Majesty."

A half-crazed laugh pierced his ears. Bel dodged a blade that would have taken off his head and snatched it out of the air. He gripped it in his hand and darted towards Rasiel, who swung an arm at him. Ducking under, he stabbed forward, at his chest.
Rasiel flung himself to the ground, reaching out in an attempt to grab Bel's ankles and pull him down. In response, Bel kicked him hard in the face, feeling a satisfying crunch as blood dripped down his brother's chin. Rasiel spat jumbled curses out of his mouth, along with a tooth and a few globs of blood. Specks of red landed on Bel's pant leg, but he had no time to wince in disgust.
Rasiel chopped the back of his knee and it buckled, bringing him down. The two scuffled on the ground, pulling out each other's hair and hissing profanities. As he grappled at his twin, he suddenly had the thought that if their older sister, Isayla, saw them she would likely curl her lip and call them barbarians.
A discarded dagger ripped through the back of Bel's shirt and gouged a shallow cut in his skin. Ignoring the pain, he pulled it out from under him. Rasiel started and lashed out in an attempt to knock it out of his grasp, but Bel simply drove it straight through his hand with an audible squelch. Rasiel exhaled sharply and clenched his eyes shut. Bel simply laughed.
Gazing down at his brother's unblemished face, he felt the urge to take the knife and run it over that porcelain skin and carve lovely little patterns- designs that would be painted in beautiful red. He gently set the blade against Rasiel's cheek, tracing an invisible line down to his chin with a softness reminiscent of a lover's caress.
Perhaps sensing his intentions, Rasiel bucked underneath him, but was unable to resist, still engulfed in pain. Bel grinned.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement. Tilting his head, he saw Isayla. As usual, she was clad in a delicate white frock full of lace and a sheer silver robe. The tiara for a princess of Accidia was nestled amidst her blonde locks. She could have been watching a two-bit play for all the alarm she showed at their situation.
Deciding that the audience was of little consequence, Bel returned to perusing his twin. After being satisfied with the number of seemingly delicate, but in reality, quite deep, spidery lines on Rasiel's skin, he paid no mind to his anguished glare and stabbed him a few times in the stomach.
He stood. Suddenly, a thrill rushed through him, sending delightful shivers down his spine. Bel realized that his hands weren't shaking with fear, or shock, but instead excitement. He'd reveled in the warm stickiness of the blood spattering across his white shirt, staining it the color of sweet roses. He'd relished the feeling of the red rivulets of it trickling between his fingers. He'd savored the moment of triumph as his brother's eyes clouded over.
Bel was a murderer. And he loved it.

Craving more, Bel stalked inside to look for prey. Hearing a frightened squeak, he turned to see two young servants huddling together down the corridor. Her eyes were fixated on his bloodied shirt. He grinned dangerously.
The duo shrieked wildly and ran off, nearly tripping over each other in their haste to escape. Bel dashed after them, adrenaline humming at the prospect of a good chase.
Unfortunately, the dark-haired maid tumbled to the floor after a scant thirty seconds. The blonde hesitated for a moment, then took a glance at Bel, who was fast approaching, and darted around the corner. He kicked the brunette back down, slashing her throat, and continued after the other one. He'd never been taught not to hit girls.
She turned another corner and when Bel followed, he saw neither hide nor hair of her. Shrugging in a decidedly non prince-like manner, he slowed to a jog. He would find her eventually.

Everyone in the castle was dead, save for his mother and his sister.
Bel found Isayla in her bedchambers. She was watching their mother, oblivious to the events happening around her, read under a juniper tree from the stained glass window.
Without turning to face him, Isayla spoke. "Are you going to kill me, Belphegor?"
She wasn't a fighter. If he did decide to attack her, there was nothing she could do to defend herself. However, she had an air about her that always made it difficult for anyone to do just that. Bel supposed that was how she'd stayed alive for seventeen years in a kingdom of warriors and assassins and crazy little kids like himself.
She'd never given him the cold shoulder like his father, or belittled his like his brother. That was just another of the many reasons why he wouldn't murder her like he did nearly everyone else.
"I won't," Bel announced finally. A small smile quirked the edges of her thin, pale lips, as if she had known what his answer would be all along. She probably had.
"I hope you will also spare Mother," Isayla said.
When he left her, she was still sitting by the window, hands folded neatly on her lap. Her gaze, though her ice blue eyes were shielded by burnished gold bangs, never strayed from the queen.

As Bel took in the scene of desolation- corpses, broken debris, and blood across the walls- he felt a sense of satisfaction. No matter that his sister would step out of her quarters to her castle and her family in shambles. No matter that his mother would finish her novel only to look up and be shocked by the sight that greeted her.
He'd done what he'd been wanting to do for years.
Bel turned and fled through an open doorway, across countless leagues of rippling emerald grass, through unfamiliar forests and towering mountains, running and running until he could no longer understand the words of the plebeians around him.
Later, much later, when he finally returned to where his story began, his tiara would still be perched atop his head and his bangs would still brush his cheeks, but everything else would be startlingly different.