Remember The Pact of Our Youth


Where you go, I'm going, so jump and I'm jumping,
Since there is no me without you.

- David Le'aupepe


Victor Hugo had said once that, in legend and in life, there are men who seem born to be the opposite, the reverse, the counterpart. He had named them: Pollux, Patroclus, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. They lived only on condition of leaning on another; their names were sequels, only written as an afterthought, with an "and" grafted to the front; their existence was not, was never, their own; it was the other side of a destiny not their own.

Pollux had Castor, Patroclus had Achilles, and Set had Trajan. For as long as stories had beginnings and endings, it had been so. Sometimes, Set wondered if it would ever be otherwise.

To lose that other half of yourself – it was, he sometimes thought, as though some part of himself had been hewn from the whole, like he had lost a kidney and half of his heart, and now the wounds would never close again. And so he just stood there, the whole time, in front of the whole world, bleeding. Bleeding, ceaselessly, and unable to stem the flow, unwilling to stem the flow.

He had been his brother's shadow, and his brother was gone. He had been his brother's confidante, and his brother was silent. He had been his brother's guard, and his brother was dead.

What did that make him? What was he now? Sometimes he wanted to ask, but it was the one topic that he could never – would never – broach with Ysabel. There was nothing between them that was secret, nothing except these two things: Trajan, who had been her husband, and Demetri, who had been her son. Trajan, who had been his brother, and Demetri, who had been his nephew.

These two things, and these two things only.

And so he asked Ulpia – Ulpia, who had gone across a broad sea when she was no older than Mordred was now, to marry a strange king in a foreign land, and who had herself become strange and foreign. And she had replied, who else could you be? What else could you be?

And to that he had no answer, because it always been so – Trajan and Set.

Who else could he be? What else could he be? If he was unwilling to come up with an answer for himself, it soon became clear that others would do so on his behalf. Just as quickly, he was Set the usurper, Set the treasonist, Set the king-slayer.

Trajan and Set. He almost missed it. There had been a time that he had seen a similar relationship in Mordred and Demetri's future, the same he-and-he dynamic, one in which Mordred's fate was to be forever appended to the end of Demetri's.

But then Demetri had been taken. Set hadn't really tried to predict anything since then. He hadn't even tried to guess who would win the prince's Selection. Did it matter? Did he like any of these girls, even a bit? He spent some amount of time with the Altai girl, that was true, thought it was an open secret in the palace that she had a girlfriend waiting for her back in Yukon. There were a few other girls from Sonage and Dominica and Fennley that seemed to be popular with the audience… Set had given up long ago trying to figure out how the Selection worked. He was grateful that this, at least, had been Trajan's burden alone.

Set had only ever had eyes for one woman, after all.

Speaking of the Selection – as he departed his office in the direction of Advisor Akiva's, he caught a glimpse of a tiny girl swathed in plum-coloured fabrics. Opal McIntyre was distinctive in the palace on three accounts: firstly, her diminutive height; secondly, the traces of a Scottish accent that clung to her voice like a burr; and thirdly, her status as a former member of the rebel Selected. Set knew her better from her files than in person – he knew that her lighthouse-keeper father was a first-generation immigrant, that she had worked two jobs as a teenager to put meals on the table, that her highschool sweetheart had chosen revolution over romance and ditched her in favour of life in the Wastelands among the false Demetri's ruffians. In person, she was pretty, though her features were rather swallowed up by the enormous glasses balanced precariously, casting tiny golden shadows across her high cheekbones.

She paused, and wavered, when she saw him, before lowering herself into a stiff-backed curtsey, casting her eyes to the ground. "Lord Set."

"Ms McIntyre." He could see her tightening her jaw slightly, as though considering whether she ought to correct him. She was meant to be lady here, after all, but could she really risk correcting the second-most powerful man in the kingdom? He could almost see the cogs turning in her head. "Are you lost?"

She rose and clasped her hands in front of her. "No, sir."

"I see. And where were you off to?"

"I was on my way to the Women's Room, sir."

"Well then," Set said, his words affable though his tone was slightly detached. "Please. Let me accompany you. I'm heading in that direction."

"It would be an honour, sir."

"You don't need to say sir that much."

"Better safe than sorry." Opal's lip twitched, like it wanted to curl. "Sir."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Very well. After you."

She was coming from the direction of the kitchens, Set thought, and beyond that, the stable yards. Maybe she had been returning from one of her visits to her poor ex-boyfriend, trapped so far from the sky. Running a Selection like this in the midst of a civil war depended so much on a strange blend of intimidation and incentive – behave badly and someone will suffer, behave well and someone will be spared. There always had to be a suggestion that blood might spill. There always had to be an equivalent, a counterbalance – for every Opal McIntyre, a Theo Malone; for every Saran Altai, a Naran Altai; for every Liara Lee, the family of Wickanninish Harjo. It was all about balance, Set thought. When things fell out of balance, things tended to get bloody.

He had not debriefed this girl when she had first arrived – that had been the duty of Advisor Akiva – but he had supervised from afar, listening to the conversation as Opal slowly, grudgingly, let truth slip from behind her teeth as though it were indeed her teeth being painfully pulled. Where was Demetri? She could not answer that. She could not answer any questions about Demetri. They had barely seen him, she had said. He had not spent time with the girls. They had spent their hours in each other's company, and associating with the rebels, but about them, Opal had provided little of use either. She knew Uzokuwa quite well, but for her quite well had been making small talk over breakfast.

Butterflies in jars, Set thought, that was all these girls had been. Pretty distractions. Hostages. One Selection mirrored the other.

"You've been spending a lot of time with his Majesty," he said, rather blithely, as they turned a corner towards the Women's Room.

"Yes," Opal replied flatly.

"You sound unhappy."

"What," she said, "could I possibly have to be unhappy about?"

What indeed.

"How do you fancy your odds?"

His affable tone seemed to have stirred more suspicion from the small Hansport girl than perhaps his usual brusque stoicism would have. Well, Set thought, that would show him for trying to show the girl some bit of friendliness.

"I don't," Opal said. "I'm just here as… collateral. Sir."

"Yes," Set said thoughtfully, "yes, but – but at the end of the day, there must be a queen. An dtuigeann tú?"

She blinked and blanched at the sound of her father's beloved Gaelic from the mouth of the enemy. "Tuigim," she said, almost instinctively, as though it had been ripped from her by the sheer shock of it. "Yes, I understand." She paused. "No. I don't."

"Give it a little more thinking. You might."

"Sir?"

Set did not look at her. "There must be a winner. There must always be a winner, a bheagadán."

"Yes. The One."

"No," he said, "that's the last woman standing in the Selection."

"And you meant….?"

They were at the Women's Room now and, rather redundantly, Set said, "here we are."

Opal hovered at the threshold, her thick brows creased as though she was constructing a debate in her mind. "I..."

"Well," Set said briskly, "I won't keep you. Enjoy your afternoon, Ms McIntyre."

"And you," she replied, "Lord Set."

He watched her until she had gone into the Room – all the better to make sure she did not attempt to escape elsewhere, if she had been trying to go to communicate with someone, if she had been trying to find a way out, if she had been trying to spring her boyfriend from his oubliette under the earth – and then he lingered, a moment longer, to make sure she would not attempt to backtrack as soon as he was gone. Then he felt able to resume his path, back the way they had come, to the office of Advisor Akiva.

Their spies in the Saharan Federation had much to tell them. He couldn't keep them waiting, could he?

Their spies in the Saharan Federation, it soon transpired, did have very much to tell them. Advisor Akiva had the files piled up high and his head in his hands when Set stepped into his office, and he was sitting in a similar stance more than six hours later when Set was getting ready to excuse himself for dinner.

"It's hopeless," the advisor was saying, grimly.

"If Ysabel hears you say that," Set replied, "the war will be the least of your worries."

"You disagree?"

"I didn't say I disagreed." Set cleared some files off his jacket. He would be late to dinner, at this rate. "Just keep your voice down."

He glanced down at the file in his hand – they were inundated, he thought, too many spies too far away to matter, too much information that didn't matter, and Set's s secret ace in the wind and with it his best hope of understanding what Demetri's doppelganger was up to dissipated like so much dust. Uzokuwa's mutiny had been destructive in more way than one – it might have crippled the Army in Exile, but the Crown's spy network had splintered apart as well. Balance again, Set thought, cause suffering and suffer in return.

"The Lee girl," he said, quite abruptly, as the thought occurred to him. "Have you..."

"I'll tell you the same thing I told Mordred." Akiva picked up his pen and gingerly pushed a file towards Set. There was a photo pinned to the front of the girl in a long black skirt and bodice, her hair arranged in a crown shining under silvery lights as she moved down the steps of Enhle's home. Over her shoulder, where a bodyguard might usually have been posted, a pale and blurred figure was visible with its face turned aside so that its features were concealed by Liara's shoulder. They never had managed, Set thought ruefully, to get a picture of the imposter king's executioner. "She was at the palace in Masr. Still has all her limbs. Still had both eyes. That's as much as I can say."

Mordred, Set thought. Of course Mordred would be the first one to ask. Not Ysabel, who had been like a second mother to the young Liara. Not her own father, who had attended meetings with Akiva only earlier that day to choreograph the army's next offensive. Not Liara's friend in court, the Selection's Lady Ciel of Angeles.

No. Mordred. That should have been obvious.

Well, Set thought grimly, reason enough to have the Selection. It might keep the young prince's mind off other, sadder thoughts.

He was preparing to leave when the advisor raised his head. "And Set, the summit..."

"What about it?"

"The Federation is sheltering insurrectionists, pretenders. Surely we should–"

"All the more reason we should have a chat with them." Set pulled on his jacket. "Ysabel will kill me if I delay any further. Can I trust you to get this done?"

"Yeah," Akiva said, "give me… a few hours."

"Good man." Set smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. "We might win this war yet."

He had to wave aside cameras as he left the office – forget anything nice he might have thought about the Selection, he mused grimly, they were like gnats buzzing around a fresh wound – and took one of the shortcuts to the banqueting room. He and Trajan had grown up in this palace. For many long, summery years of blissful childhood, this had been their dominion, their kingdom, the one thing in the world over which they had total control. Sometimes, if her work could spare her, Jael had joined them – sweet, thoughtless Jael – and they would sneak into the throne room when King Hadrian had adjourned his court for lunch to take turns sitting on the throne and ordering the others around.

When it had come time to run, Trajan had always been the fastest. Set usually got left behind. It was a habit he had kept, even into adulthood, and he found that it played true now, for as he stepped through the door into the banqueting room, he found that the chamber was abuzz with the voices of the Selected, digging into lavish meals on the long benches that lined the majority of the space. Set could see Opal McIntyre, still in that silken purple dress, sitting with the Mongolian girl from the north – Altai's granddaughter, one of the twins – and one of the lower caste girls from Fennley, talking quietly amongst themselves. Ysabel and Mordred were at the table on the dais, and as Set stepped forward and bowed to his nephew, he distinctively heard his wife say, rather derisively, "someday I'll give up hoping you'll be on time."

He kissed her hand. "You can only improve a man so much."

Mordred was distracted. That much was apparent from the way he was holding his fork, the point digging into his plate and swivelling back and forth, almost as though he thought with enough time he could bore straight through the ceramic. One cheekbone rested in the palm of his hand, observing the portrait which swallowed up a portion of the wall to their left, under whose shadow they dined – or rather, the curtain which obscured the portrait, for Ysabel had ordered it covered up the day of Demetri's disappearance. It would only be uncovered again when they found Demetri, she had told Set, the same day that Set had taken his brother's ring from a corpse in a mass grave of the Wastelands and realised the awful truth of Demetri's fate. Set had not had the strength to tell his wife this. He knew that, in her bones, she had realised the truth as well. Wasn't that why she was so virulently opposed to the idea that the Demetri of Exile could possibly be her son?

They all knew better than to hope.

"How was the date this afternoon?" Set asked as he took his seat. The staff were briskly clearing away entrées – Mordred briefly smiled in appreciation at the waitress with the eyepatch who took his soup bowl. It was only a moment before his usual thoughtful expression returned to his face, tinged with the suggestion that there were few questions he would have less appreciated his uncle asking.

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Lady Ciel and I have known each other for many years. The conversation was pleasant."

"Yes, you had so many mutual friends… if there was any interest on either side," Ysabel said, "I suspect we would not have needed a Selection."

"And Lady Naran?"

Mordred shrugged. "Astute," he said, and looked unlikely to elaborate, before he then added, "Lady Opal has agreed to go fishing with me tomorrow."

Ysabel set down her knife, looking amused. "Mordred, you don't fish."

"No," Mordred agreed, "I don't."

"If you happen to learn," Ysabel said, "bring back something nice for dinner, if you can. I was in the kitchen this afternoon, helping with the roast – I really hadn't realised how much difficulty we were in with regard to stock."

"The blockades," Set agreed. "No fruit from the Federation, no fish from the north, no crops from the south..."

"Lady Lee was complaining to me earlier today that she can't get her perfume from the Middle East." Ysabel shook her head. "Well, if this is war, none of us can complain."

Mordred stayed silent, and merely moved his hands to accommodate the waitress setting down the next plate in front of him, taking a sip of his wine. His brow was furrowed, and he shot his uncle a look that suggested he expected an audience after dinner. Set wouldn't have wanted to say no, even if he could.

Dinner that evening was a rich beef wellington, the same meal that Ysabel had made for Set their first time having dinner together. She had burnt the beef. They had driven out to central Angeles near-midnight to get noodles from a street vendor instead, and had wound up watching the sun rise over Clarkson bay that morning. The memory made Set smile, and he could see that Ysabel was thinking of it too as she said, "everyone, please enjoy."

There was, for a moment, silence but for cutlery on crockery as everyone set about their meal. Set savoured it.

If he had known what was to come next, he would savoured it more.

"Mordred," Ysabel was saying, "Mordred, are you…?"

For the king had gone very pale indeed – pale, and his veins stark against his skin, stark as though they ran with dye rather than with blood – and his pale green eyes were staring, staring, staring, like they could see something.

He drew in a great, shuddering breath, and collapsed to the ground. There was a scream – somewhere on the main floor – one of the Selected – another cry out somewhere in the crowd – and then the roar of chairs being thrown back – people rushing to the table – and Set threw up his arm and ordered them back – and Ysabel was kneeling at her son's side – prying at his lips – his eyes – his wrist – no pulse – he wasn't breathing – "for christ's sake, someone get a doctor!"

Wine on the ground, sinking into the floorboards.