Chapter Text
Illustration by myself, ManCatRex, on Tumblr
The bastard is born when Avad is only two years old. He hears of the nameless child that had killed his mother from his carers years later, a curious tale among many he puts out of his small mind.
When he is nine years of age he sees the boy with a face like his and eyes like ice running among the soldiers of the yard.
When he is eighteen years he sees the same cold eyes in the line of recruits that marches below the balcony, led by his cousin to the all consuming war.
The eyes of ice that rest in his own face leave his mind, and he does not think of them again for years.
——
Now he is twenty two years of age. Three weeks ago his eldest brother gives him a gift of engraved gold armbands to celebrate his year’s turning.
Today, his eldest brother's blood seeps onto the floor of the sun ring. Uncertain, fearful cheers of strangers in the crowd fill his ears. The ringing sound deafens the pounding of his heart.
Father watches him closely. He can feel the heat of the tyrant's gaze, hotter than the searing sun above. He shows no weakness. He shows no emotion. Below, his brother’s blood soaks into the sand and begins to dry.
That night he paces his room. He hears some of the guards leaving. He hears his father sending more after them, and hears their screams in the halls.
But Avad does not leave. He watches his father’s mad eyes. He waits for the moment his heart stops pounding.
——
Now he is twenty five years of age. The sun crown sits atop his head. The weight of the crown does not block out the whispers. The silky voices all ask the same question. All the same question. Whose blade killed his father?
Only he knows, for only he lived to walk from that bloody room.
The whispers continue. He pretends not to hear.
At night he sets the crown upon the shelf of his new royal rooms.
Was it worth it, brother?
A voice in the empty room. A question not yet asked. He spins. His heart throbs in his chest, a painful stab as if by a knife.
It is not his eldest brother’s face that greets him. But ice blue eyes instead of his own that look back from the mirror of smoothed metal, set in his own sunken cheeks.
The mirror rings like a gong. The eyes warp and twist in the ruined surface. They are now his eyes, dark on his face. He looks at his aching hand as the servants run at the strange sound.
He gently wraps his bloody knuckles, the pain mixing into the tightness in his chest.