“But you haven’t,” Jarryn insisted. “You’re still the scared little boy, wanting to hide behind Father’s cloak. Who is it calling the shots now? Is Mother whispering into your ear about all the nasty things you should do to me? Do you keep the council of tired and lewd old men who like to fondle girls and boys indiscriminately before joining you in session? Have you had a single thought that is your own?”
Leander glanced between the two royal brothers, praying to any god who would listen that he would escape this nightmare unharmed, with Jarryn at his side. It was seeming less and less likely now.
“Guards!” the king called.
Four men entered the tent within seconds. Nevari’s eyes burned with accusation as he glared at his brother, convinced of Jarryn’s patricide, just as Leander had wanted all those months ago. “Take him. Ride west for twenty minutes and execute him.”
Leander’s skin temperature dropped a few degrees.
Did the speed at which Nevari made his decision make it merciful or brutal?
“No, what are you doing?” Leander made to approach Jarryn but one of the guards stepped in between them and grabbed hold, his iron grip inescapable.
He still struggled, a futile effort that had him grunting and making all manner of high-pitched noises, such that there was nothing left in him but that sheer, unmitigated and absolute terror. “Please, no!”
“Restrain him,” Nevari said dismissively, his tone almost bored, a veneer of bureaucratic disinterest.
The guards were manhandling Jarryn out of the tent, the prince silent and not resisting. Leander’s fear and anger bubbled as he fought harder to free himself and get to Jarryn.
“Stop!” Leander screamed. “He didn’t do it! It was a lie!” His voice, previously trembling with desperation as he pleaded with Nevari, was now shrill with a mix of fear and guilt as he implored the king to pause and listen to him and see reason.
Nevari raised a hand, and the guards stopped before they dragged Jarryn out through the entrance of the tent.
“What did you say?” Nevari’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
But Leander had eyes only for Jarryn, whose cobalt eyes were locked onto Leander’s brown ones. The air thickened with the turmoil of betrayal and the painful realisation that the truth had been twisted into something grotesque.
In that moment, as the silence dragged on, the trio stood at the precipice of the forced unravelling of Leander’s deception, with the fragile bonds of trust hanging in the balance.
“Speak, Leander!” Nevari demanded.
“It was me,” Leander spoke directly to Jarryn, not Nevari, admitting his single greatest transgression. The most terrible of them all. “I came to him that night. He was young and suggestible. An easy target.”
Nevari was now circling Leander slowly, but it was Jarryn’s expression that really allowed the menace in the air to build.
“I didn’t know you back then,” Leander tried desperately to explain himself. “He was just another mark. It was the easiest lie I’ve ever told... and the most destructive. The one I regret the most.”
There was a blur of motion and an impact as Leander felt his back slam against the thick pole in the centre of the tent. Winded, he tried to drag in a shaky breath, only to feel the compression of an arm pressing against his neck. He blinked in confusion and his eyes met Nevari’s.
The king’s expression, initially one of shock, morphed into a darkly delighted grin. “Oh, Leander. You are known to be many things, a liar chief among them and I doubt that’s changed just because you are now mortal. Was that the lie you told? Or are you lying to me now?”
Nevari shoved his knee upwards and it collided with Leander’s stomach. He coughed and bent forward as Nevari released his hold on his neck and Leander doubled over, falling to the ground as he clutched his lower torso.
“You kneel before my throne, the sole person utterly aware that it was borne of lies. To my shame, I have made no effort to control my fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. Your mother’s proud nation will be brought to its knees, all because my brother couldn’t stand up for himself.”
Breathing heavily, Leander lifted his head to seek out Jarryn again. His master had not uttered a word.
“It’s not your throne,” the demigod eventually addressed Nevari with a hard glare.
“Bless us with your silence. Because it is. Desanne will never accept Jarryn as king now. Lie or not.” The king paused to kick Leander in the stomach. “Now. I’d tell youthat this isn’t personal, but you know better than most that I would be lying.”
Another kick to the stomach, this one finally disabling Leander and he stopped trying to get up.
“There is something truly satisfying in knowing I am about to win after a year-long battle. But that won’t stop me. Your mother’s city, your uncle’s kingdom, all shall know my wrath. I just want you to know that when I rewrite history today, I’ll leave your name out completely.”
Leander fought back the sob of incomprehensible pain that threatened to tear him from the inside out.
The shadow of Nevari left him as he gave his next command. “Take him with you as well.”
