I break apart and return to Brahm’s side.
“Just like old times,” he says jovially as we descend the stairs. His red beard is trimmed neatly to make his jaw look squarer, and his hair is coiffed short, the way our father once wore his.
I scoff. “If it were just like old times, you’d already have a glass of ale in your hand and you’d forgo the stairs for the window.”
He laughs. “Times have changed, brother. A king must appear a king, always. I have a staff and citizens to think about. Gone are the days of being the spare to the heir with nothing to worry about but my own hide.” His eyes crinkle at the corners with his laugh.
“I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you to manage the many changes that have occurred in the kingdom. Father’s death, your marriage, carving out a lasting peace… It couldn’t have been easy.”
We slip out the door and stride toward the gardens and the forest beyond. “Nothing is free, you know? Our lives, as they were before, were hard-fought. And our lives now are paid for in blood. Peace requires sacrifice.”
“Is that the real reason you continue to starve Bolvet? To teach them a lesson?”
His smile holds but fades from his eyes as if his expression were replaced with a cardboard cutout of a smile. A mask. I’m no longer looking at my brother. I’m looking at the king. “You’ve been gone a long time, Damien. Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”
“Who’s judging?”
“Before the war ended, we were losing a hundred shades a day. When I married Nevina and signed the peace accord, concessions had to be made.”
“Making her queen wasn’t enough?”
“They were winning, Damien. You were gone.”
“Abducted.”
“We’d lost our three strongest warriors. Nothing was left of the umbrae but a hundred battle-worn shades who were showing signs of starvation. Everyone was. The elves had cut off our shipping routes through Aendor. Every time we tried to grow anything, it would be trampled in battle. The battles were on our lands and had frightened the herds of stags north into Dimhollow. We were living on vespers. Barely living at all.”
Something he says gives me pause, and I shuffle to a stop, kicking up dried leaves at the edge of the woods. Is he admitting his lie to me? “You told me that Father died of wasting disease.”
Brahm turns his face away and stares deep into the shadows between the trees.
“Is wasting disease another name for starvation, brother?”
“Starvation brought on by disease, caused by war.”
“Father, Mother, and Karyl. They starved to death?”
Brahm reaches for a low branch and toys with a moon-washed, bright-green leaf. “The condition was eventually irreversible. I wasn’t able to strike a deal fast enough to save them. I tried.”
“You tried by caving to what Willowgulch asked for.”
Brahm whirls on me, baring his teeth. “We had to give them something. In exchange for peace and retaining access to our lands and all neutral grounds, grounds we already lost, brother, Nevina would become a princess of Stygarde and the castle would adopt the dark elf tradition of the provincial blood tax. One child per generation would be sacrificed to public service.”
“You knew that the citizens of Stygarde would never agree to that, Brahm.” Shade children are few and are revered as a gift from the goddess. No one would willingly hand over a child.
He runs a hand down his face. “Many already have. The villages of the west are the last holdouts. I honestly don’t know how they’ve survived so long.”
I growl. “You’re the king. Change the law. Stand up to Blackspire and that evil shit who rules it, and free those slaves.”
“Watch your mouth.” Brahm shakes his head. “Willowgulch is now our closest ally. You don’t understand the cost of peace.”
“Then help me understand.”
“Nevina and I, we ended the war, but those bigots in the west will never accept her, simply because she is a dark elf. By having children from each of the territories work at the palace, we insulate ourselves from an attack. If any one of them storms the castle, they may find their own children guarding the gate.”
My stomach drops. “By forcing them to give you their young you make it impossible for them to challenge you.”
He tips his head, looking toward the woods. “We also need the labor. Without them, who would work the fields? Clean the castle? Cook in the kitchen? They are a divine gift from Thanesia”
