LIII.

Larsa had again gone silent—Gabranth wondered which was the heavier blow: losing Gramis or losing Drace. He walked morosely at the Judge's side from the docking bay to the throne room, and Gabranth almost hoped that his trance would endure long enough for Vayne to see what he had done, but the moment the brothers caught sight of each other, they lurched forward and met in an embrace. Vayne fell to his knees, squeezing the boy until he wheezed for breath and gesturing for the two generals in attendance to leave. Gabranth stood silently in the doorway as they passed.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Vayne demanded. He was still smiling.

"I'm sorry," Larsa replied, leaning out, hands clasped on Vayne's shoulders.

The emperor's expression dimmed then, one hand passing over the boy's hair and smoothing it back.

"What?" Larsa asked.

"I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, Little Brother, but you look like hell."

"I, uh, feel like hell."

He gripped the boy's shoulders. "Don't scare me like that again."

"I'll try."

Vayne stood, face hard. "You know you're lucky to be alive?"

"I know." Larsa's gaze fell to his feet. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just wasn't—really—thinking properly. After Father died."

"There's nothing wrong with that, but you could have just come to me. You know I'll always make time for you." He was still for a moment, and then blinked, his tone softening. "Where did you go?"

Larsa gulped. "I was scared, and—I didn't know what to do, so…"

"Rabanastre," Gabranth interrupted.

Vayne turned to him, brows low, but eyes lifted.

The Judge stepped forward. "I found him in Rabanastre with Penelo."

"Who?"

"His Dalmascan friend."

"Ah…"

Larsa managed half a smile. "I—I didn't mean to…"

Vayne cocked an eyebrow, and Gabranth stepped in once more: "It's alright, Larsa. Don't be shy."

"I just wanted to see her again. She cheers me up, you know?"

"I see," said Vayne. "Well, next time, why don't you just tell me and I'll arrange to have her brought here? We can't have you wandering about in public unprotected."

"I understand."

Silence.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Vayne asked.

"Yes."

"Nothing else you need to tell me?"

"No."

Vayne looked him over, holding eye-contact with concern that seemed to border on suspicion, and Gabranth carefully stepped in a third time:

"Lord Vayne?"

The emperor looked up, a threat behind his eyes that Gabranth feared even Larsa could see.

"He's just a little embarrassed," Gabranth said quietly.

"I kissed her," Larsa added.

Vayne's gaze snapped back down to him. "You what?"

Larsa took in a deep breath. "I told you I wasn't thinking."

This changed Vayne's expression entirely, and he once more mussed the boy's hair. "Well, you little scoundrel! If ever there was a legitimate reason to run away, that would have to be it. I hope she didn't slap you."

Larsa grinned nervously, but could not muster a response. A subtle rattling of steel broke into the room: Zargabaath entering behind them.

"Your Excellency? A word?"

Vayne nodded to him. "Right." And then, addressing his brother: "Go clean yourself up. We can talk over dinner."

Larsa nodded. "Okay."

He turned and headed for the door, but Gabranth lingered for a moment, eyes on Vayne. Despite his helm, Zargabaath seemed to be mirroring his expression, and Vayne at last rolled his eyes and nodded after his brother. Gabranth left.

In the hall, Larsa stared forward vacantly—the closest he came to pouting anymore—and Gabranth walked at his side in heavy-hearted silence.

"You didn't have to do that," the boy told him.

"Yes, I did," the Judge groaned in return.

"I may be young, Gabranth, but I know how to take responsibility for my own actions."

"You committed treason."

"So? What's he going to do about it? Kill me?"

Gabranth bit his tongue. The ever-burdening helmet hid the shock on his face from Larsa, who heeded his silence by turning his gaze to the floor and saying gently, "I know he did it."

"Larsa, your father's murderers have been tried and convicted—"

"And executed—I know, but that doesn't change anything."

"Drace knew what she was doing. She always did."

Larsa seemed to withhold a sigh. "Did you get to talk to her? Before?"

"She was at peace with it," Gabranth said quietly.

"I won't let him do that to you," Larsa insisted.

"Don't worry about me," he replied, tasting blood.

His mind ached, and for a moment he felt quite old, but other thoughts pressed these back into the shadows, forcing him to mull over the rather amazing talent he had developed for lying as of late. But it didn't surprise him. Vayne had only to threaten Gabranth with relief of his duties to cow him into submission. It had brought him to the point that he no longer even knew who he had become, much less how or why he had become it, and some dark thought always managed to creep into his considerations of it, to comfort him with assurances of necessity, to convince him that the benefit outweighed the cost.

Larsa looked to his feet, to the passing marble floor. "It's strange," he said. "I thought I'd hate him forever, but—I don't know. It's harder than I thought it would be."

"I suppose that's a good thing," Gabranth replied.

Now Larsa turned his eyes to the side, determined but unsure. "What happened between you and Basch?"

Gabranth's voice remained sturdy, but his tone softened. "What does it matter?"

"Well, hasn't it been long enough? Can't you just talk to each other?"

"It's complicated."

"A girl?"

"A country."

Larsa returned his gaze to the floor briefly before leveling it straight ahead. "Who started it?"

"I did, of course."

"What if you didn't?" he pressed. "Would you forgive him?"

"I'd try. I can't know for sure."

"How can you not know?"

"Do you know why Vayne does what he does?"

The boy's face seemed to dim, his expression dropping into furrowed discontentment, and at length he shook his head. "I never thought he'd do this."

"I'm sure he never thought he would either," Gabranth added.

"That doesn't help."

Gabranth withheld a sigh. There were times when Larsa reminded him of Basch—that earnestness, that idealism, that roiling insistence that justice would always win out in the end. And the mischievousness: Basch could never keep himself out of trouble, could never learn except by hard, harsh, hilarious experience. Even in the army, Gabranth had outranked him. When he joined the Archadian ranks—completely on his own, for once—he had found himself drifting with such a lack of responsibility, burdening himself with laborious duties to keep his mind apart from his sorrow. Technically, he was older than Basch, and he had never passed up an opportunity to remind him of this, but since the fall of Landis their roles had completely reversed—suddenly Basch had his head on straight and Gabranth just took what came his way and ran with it. He didn't have the same tact for it that his brother had, though, and it wore on him every day—doubly without Drace.

But he refused to submit himself to a futile battle. He had seen too many of his countrymen give their lives for a vain hope and a lost cause, and he could not bear the shame of it, much less the pain. He understood in some shadowy way that he had surrendered himself to the will of a cruel and uncaring Imperial machine, but he could not live with the thought of surrendering without profit or dignity—he could not handle the way in which so many others pledged their lives to a stubborn monarch and a foundering army, or how he'd feel such a mindlessly faithful hound to cling so to a fallen kingdom. But Basch—Basch could do it, and take pride in whatever fate followed.

He remembered biting back a remorseful laugh upon learning that Basch had joined the Resistance—no surprise there. But Archadia had taken far more from Basch than it had from Gabranth, and in his youth he'd held a distaste for compliance, anyway—as had his wife. Before they married, Gabranth had feared he'd have two siblings to keep out of trouble, but in the end she figured out how to tame Basch, though it was a secret she insisted she could not share. And good gods, Penelo: The resemblance did prove striking at first, but it took only a passing inspection to see the difference—though one thought persisted in the back of Gabranth's mind: Basch must be terrified of her.

And it made no sense: that Gabranth should be given all that had so violently been torn from Basch. Gabranth forsook his home and his blood, and from it received an empire and a family. He wondered now if his punishment had been delayed; if he'd been given this joy for the sole purpose of losing it. Perhaps in the end, Basch would get his rightful revenge and Archadia would fall, and then their fates would at long last equalize. And yet, even if he lost Larsa now, he'd had more than Basch ever had, and he hated himself for it.

At times, he wished that he himself would be dealt a proper end, but he could not allow such misfortune to befall Larsa. But still, the day he returned from Nalbina—his payment for selling out his own brother—on that day, when he had been returned to Larsa's retinue, when all that had gone wrong was supposed to again be made right: For a moment, Larsa's joy made it worth the agony, but then he realized his great oversight: such a traitor had no right to look after the boy, no right to teach him honor and respect and love. Murderer. Hypocrite. Larsa deserved better.

Somehow, Drace saw this—somehow, she saw everything—but she never humored Larsa when he sensed something amiss, and she never pressed Gabranth when he insisted he felt fine. She understood what he had done—what he had really done—and needed no details or excuses. He revered that in her. Of course, there had always been things of which they did not speak—their lives before the Judiciary, their opinions of the war, their real names—it was a list of unfortunate length, but it kept suitable boundaries in place, and both knew they needed that.

He had once told her in Landisian that he loved her—barely a year after they had met, when he'd had perhaps a bit too much to drink and Larsa had been too small to pick up on such things. They had just put the prince to sleep and were about to part for the night, and somehow he lost track of what he was thinking and what he was saying—thank gods he still thought in Landisian. He had apologized for the slip up, blaming it on habit, but she paid this no heed, asking instead what it meant.

"Goodnight," he had told her, nearly choking when she nodded and repeated it back.

It was nearly four years later that he discovered she had been fluent all along.

"Sometimes we do things we know we shouldn't do," he told Larsa. "Things we don't want to do."

The boy's voice quivered with disdain. "And he's Emperor, so none of his decisions are his own."

"Your father told you that?"

"Always."

"Justification," Gabranth sighed.

"I think so," Larsa agreed.

"Vayne may make his own decisions," he went on, "but he makes them on behalf of his people. It's easier to blame him than it is to understand him."

"I know. It just makes me wonder if he ever really…"

"You're brothers." The strength of his voice surprised him, though Larsa seemed to anticipate it. "Nothing can ever change that. He just can't admit to himself that you're stronger and always will be."

Larsa looked angry for a moment—his eyes trained low, an accusation in them that Gabranth would know, or at least that he should know—but this expression soon passed, and he glanced briefly up at the Judge before turning his gaze back down.

"I've always wished you were my father," he said.

"You don't mean that," Gabranth replied.

"I do."

"Then you shouldn't say it."