“Your father decides what he will think of me and ignores all else.” Vhalla pushed around some meat and gravy on her plate, hoping it would soften the stale hunk of bread.

“You know, I’ve decided I like this side of you.” Baldair regarded her thoughtfully, and Vhalla gave him a look that encouraged him to continue. “The bold confidence,” he clarified. “I see shades of Aldrik to the point that I know your boldness will give me a headache sooner or later—when it’s directed at me. But, at the same time, it’s opposite him. It’s far more vivacious. You’ve become quite headstrong.”

“Have I?” she asked, unconvinced.

“You have,” Baldair declared with conviction. “And I see it putting life back into my brother, which I haven’t seen in years.”

Vhalla didn’t want to miss an opportunity. “Tell me more about you and your brother.”

“What do you want to know?” Baldair mustered all the tact he possessed to ask so delicately.

“What happened between you both?” He sighed.

“You both seem to be fighting for the same things, even for each other’s happiness, or so I’ve seen and heard you claim,” Vhalla observed. “So why do you treat each other as though you’re enemies?”

“There’s some ugliness underneath that question that I’m not sure you want to see.”

“What? Do you think it’s going to shatter the beautiful picture I have of my sovereign family?” Vhalla asked incredulously.

Baldair was laughing again. “Why not ask Aldrik?”

“I will, later.” She wanted to hear what both princes had to say. “But I’m asking you now.”

“You’re insufferable.” There wasn’t even a hint of malice. “So I’ve been called before.” Vhalla grinned wildly.

“Oh Mother, I don’t want to even think what my brother has called you.” Baldair shook his head and hung it a moment, taking a breath. “We were closer when we were boys.” The golden prince tilted his head back. “I looked up to him. He was everything I thought was admirable in the world. He was magical, powerful, kind, and composed, even when he was a boy. He was going to be the Emperor, and he was my brother.”

Vhalla chewed quietly, not wanting to distract Baldair from his memories.

“All the servants would remind us that someday Aldrik would become a man, and he wouldn’t be able engage in child’s play with me. So I always knew such a time would come.” Baldair took a deep breath. “But it wasn’t as they said.”

“What wasn’t?” Vhalla asked quietly, not wanting to break the younger prince out of his memory-induced trance. It was the most she’d learned, outside of off-handed stories from both princes, and Vhalla knew there was something important to be said here. In the back of her mind something lingered hazily, something that wanted her to remember an important piece about what Baldair would say next.

“I expected it to be when he became a man, after his coming of age at fifteen.” Baldair shook his head. “There was a rainy night, he was still fourteen. I don’t even know what happened, but everything changed. He shut himself in his room and refused to leave for weeks. Clerics came and went with somber faces, but I never found out what he was sick with.

“He ignored me the whole time. No matter how many times I went to his door calling for him.” Baldair’s tone turned bitter. “When he finally left that room, he was no longer my brother.”

The words made Vhalla’s heart ache for both of them. Something had gone wrong, horribly, unnaturally wrong.

“He spent more time in the Tower. He did nothing but haunt the library, even after our lessons were over. He was an automaton, an empty shell.” Baldair clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the table. Vhalla jumped, but the prince didn’t even seem to realize his action as he continued. “That’s when I knew, I knew it was because he was the crown prince, and I was just the spare. I wasn’t good enough. I’d never be good enough.

“I began fighting, I took to women the second I was old enough to even know what they were. And that felt good—still does.” Baldair chuckled, but it was a sad, hollow sound, void of its usual melodies. “Why did it matter? No one cared, they still don’t.

“I called him the black sheep.” Baldair paused, as if thinking about it for the first time. “I told him the black sheep was an unwanted person. Someone who wasn’t right and didn’t belong. That he was the black sheep for his dark hair and sorcery. None of the rest of our family looked as he did, after all. I think it was after that, that he started wearing more black.”

The golden prince’s eyes were suddenly filled with a child-like panic. “You don’t think that he, that now he wears black because I ... do you?”

Vhalla opened her mouth, instantly censoring the truth. She knew enough of her prince to have no doubt that Aldrik’s choice in clothing had been directly influenced by his brother, even if it wasn’t the only catalyst. “You should ask him.”

“Haven’t you been listening? Haven’t you seen it?” Baldair shook his head. “We don’t talk. There isn’t a happy end to this, Vhalla. This isn’t the story where the two estranged family members come back together, apologize, and build a new bond.”

“Why not?” Vhalla asked.

Baldair seemed at a loss for words.

“Why don’t you start writing a new chapter?” She smiled. The instant flash of emotion, of hope, on the younger prince’s face gave him away. “Aldrik’s more trusting than you think.”

“Of you,” Baldair pointed out.

“Then I will help.” It wasn’t her business to do what she was doing. The lives of the princes had been set a decade before Vhalla had even met either of them. But she was too committed to stop. There was an odd sense of absolution in helping them, as if it could shelter a small part of her soul. “If you sincerely want to build a new bridge with him, I’ll help.”

“Why?” The younger prince seemed at a loss for all other words.

“Because I love him.” To Baldair’s credit, he didn’t startle at her words. “Because he’s not as smart as he thinks, not when it comes to this, and you’re too emotional to say it the way you really mean.”

“You wound me,” he scoffed with a laugh.

“Right, right.” Vhalla waved her fork through the air, scooping another bite into her mouth.

The doors on the far end of the hall opened for Aldrik, the Emperor, and a host of majors behind them. Vhalla’s eyes fell instantly on Major Schnurr, and she rose to her feet with muscles taut. The man clearly didn’t like her, given the look he wore upon seeing her. Vhalla regarded him with equal skepticism, remembering that anyone among them could be a spy. If she were a betting woman, her money would be on him.

“I am glad to see you awake, my lady.” Aldrik was a half-step faster than his father and a breath quicker.

“Good morning, my prince.” Vhalla lowered her face respectfully but kept her eyes up, to see what information she could glean from his expression. Aldrik beamed down at Vhalla, genuinely happy to see her.