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1.
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The city the stranger talks about is named Hsyeoitgeaik. It is a name that no one can recall or understand, so it is merely called the city. There are no cities before or after.
The city hangs with the mists and droops on the highest peaks of the mountain. The mountain ridges are black and are always shrouded with fog and grey clouds.
There once lived a King and a Queen until the Queen died and the King murdered; and later there will be the last Two Kings, but most will often remember them as the King and the Prince.
They will rule. Or, the King will rule and the Prince will watch with his sharp smile.
/
The Prince will appear out of nowhere.
It is a winter's day. Or so the story goes.
There is a chill in the air when the Queen first ventures out and finds a boy crouched on a pile of guards. They are immobile and upon closer look they are found dead.
A boy could not have done that, the Queen decides. The boy is fast asleep and when the Queen touches his arm, it feels solid frozen.
She takes him inside.
But that is how the legend goes. Or, let us put it another way: it is the legend that the Queen told her husband and the King proclaimed and what the peasants believed. The courtiers will titter and bow and murmur of course, of course, we all like a good scandal, and snap their folding fans.
Poor young Prince, they say, when the boy is escorted in, with his solemn eyes and devilish smile that is not fitting for youth, poor Prince, he shall now have to fight for his throne.
/
"This will be our son," she tells the King, and calls her other, beloved son. "Keigo."
The boy the Queen calls on is cold (as ice, they say, because in his eyes we are to perish with winter) and beautiful. He has a fine figure and a graceful walk, with which he comes down the grand hall that is never empty. Titter tatter.
"Mother," he says.
The room is grey in stone that is decked with wisps of webs made from silk string. The hall is alight with candles that drip waxen gold.
Upon this light the child look ablaze on fire. He kneels down and sees the sleeping child.
"This is your brother," she tells him, "He came from the heavens."
The King thins his lips because she does not mention the dead guards (that she claims).
Keigo stares at the child. He is pale and sickly with his black hair and ghastly skin. When he does open his eyes, Keigo understands a dread that he never learnt to shake off.
"Your eyes, child," the Queen says, leaning close, "They are gold."
The child smiles a smile that is not a smile. He says that he will be thus called Ryoma.
(Ryoma: It is the name of a dragon or a warrior. It is also a name that bespeaks of revolutions and traitors and blood.)
(That is peasant talk, courtiers say later, that is peasant talk, tsk. It is the queen who had said the name. Said, his name shall be Ryoma. The child cannot make names; let us not make that boy a legend. )
It is too late now; legends are what we have left, the stranger adds quietly.
/
The first Prince watches his brother.
"We are nothing alike," he once said to his tutor, his grey eyes imploring, serious. It is how he looks as he debates philosophy and knowledge; it is how a ruler should look, his tutor thinks fondly.
"You are bounded by the same destiny."
Keigo drew himself straight and declares, "I am tied to no destiny." He picked at his warm fur cloak, draped it around his shoulders. He is regal already, at this tender age.
Behind, the newly found prince tottered over to where they are standing. His eyes in fervor, his smile outstretched.
"There's a rabbit dead in the courtyard," he declared, alight and excited.
There Keigo whirled upon his brother, snapping, "Do leave such thoughts inside your little mind, dear brother." The younger one had stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide.
Now, Keigo watches; they are a good distance apart and this child, he had been living in his domain a little over a season.
"Repulsive child," he mutters, and they are far enough so that the wind may dissipate his disdain.