Westen had visited Eldar half a dozen times since that first time nearly two years ago. His father claimed he sent Westen to further create bonds between the two great households, between the future King and the future Duke, as well as with Westen’s future Queen. It was good for the nation, he said, to see such a friendship. It helped to solidify the crown’s relationship with the oldest, strongest duchy in the north, just as the King’s childhood friendship with Phenoul Coletti had done.
Westen bowed his head and agreed with his father. He did agree, and he understood. When his friends in the citadel, young peers who were sons of great men and young esquires who would one day be knights asked why he went, such was the answer he gave.
But the truth was that he went for Samuel. Even if his father did not ask it of him, Westen would have gone. Although he had known his other companions as long as he could remember, his favorite friend was Westen. The other boy was easy-going and always smiling. He was bright, like sunshine. He was good, in such a pure sense of the word that when Westen envisioned himself as King, it was to Samuel he looked for guidance of how to act.
The boy was rash and a little bit bad, but Westen had never known him to be cruel. He didn’t think the other boy knew how to be cruel.
There were guards waiting at the westernmost edge of the city to escort him to the castle. A single, winding street ran through the heart of the city, but a hundred other side streets led off of it. He had wandered many of them with Samuel, who had often traversed them before with his sister. The main road presented a city of grand splendor. Every house that faced it stood in perfect order, and the merchants who sold their wares all smiled warmly as they passed. There were less savory parts of the city, though, where merchants glared and looked at everyone as if expecting a thief at any moment. There were houses of ill-repute, houses of debauchery and sin, and there were parts of the city much less well kept than this one.
It was a lie that put a good face on the truth that even peace cannot eradicate poverty.
So his father had taught him when he was too young even to walk.
But the four guards in the white-and-gold Coletti livery where in good spirits, and he dismissed such thoughts to turn and converse with them as they rode.
Eventually, they passed through the arch of the inner wall of the city, which protected the palace, and the two guards on duty there bowed low to him as he passed.
His horse’s steel-shod hooves clipped on the white marble the road became. The trees to either side of the road were still green, standing tall and proud.
And before the great steps of the palace, the duke and his family awaited to greet him.
One of his own guards, in the red and silver of the royal House, offered him a hand as he dismounted. Westen ignored him, and turned to bow to the Duke.
Lord Coletti bowed, and his beautiful wife curtsied, the green skirt of her gown swirling as she moved.
“Welcome, young prince,” she said for the both of them in her musical voice, “It gives me great pleasure to see you here once more.” She smiled at him, and then stepped forward to kiss his cheeks.
It always amused Westen how the Duchess subtly took control of any situation.
The Duke echoed her sentiments, and Westen caught the amused smile lighting briefly on Samara’s face. So she noticed it too, the subtle power dynamic in her family. It did not surprise him; for all that he did not like her, he had quickly realized she missed little.
Once more, he bowed low to the Duke and his Lady, and then the sister was before him, the girl who might one day be his queen.
She met his gaze, and all he saw there was his own reflection. Her lips turned in a smile, and she bowed to him and murmured something about how pleasant it was to see him again. But it wasn’t the smile he’d seen her turn on her twin a thousand times. That smile was brighter even than Samuel’s infectious grins. Her entire face softened when she looked at her brother, as if the whole world had melted away and she beheld only the most precious thing in the world to her.
Samuel looked at her like that, too. It wasn’t as obvious, since he was always flashing his white teeth in a jaw splitting smile. With her, her entire face changed. With him, it was subtler, but Westen had come to see it.
He was jealous. He didn’t mind admitting to it. No one had ever looked at him like that.
His mother… after she had lost Alciun three years ago, she seemed to have forgotten how to smile at all. She walked about the palace like a wraith, like a ghost, half of herself. As if she died with her son.
His father loved him well; Westen knew it, for the King was an affectionate man, and showered him often with gifts. But the King was preoccupied often with matters of state, and paid less attention to his son than the boy might have liked.
Even Samuel, with whom Westen would spend all of his time if he could, didn’t exactly look at him like that.
There was a connection between the two that he could never sever, nor ever hope to attain for himself.
Samuel broke him out of his thoughts with a bone-splitting hug. With a brief look at his sister, the younger boy led Westen into the palace, all the while chatting incessantly about what had happened since Westen had been there last.
Mostly, he spoke of mischief he’d gotten into with Samara. Samuel led him through the halls, one hand still clasped loosely around the prince’s arm. He launched into a long rant about the terribly dull lessons he had to endure, lessons Westen himself had endured at Samuel’s age, and then Westen saw he was being led to the kitchens.
“Really Sam? Don’t you think I might want a bath after my long travels before we go pilfering tarts?”
“Pilfering?” Samuel gave him his best injured face, which was really so pathetic that it was quite clearly faked, and then he said, “I’m wounded, my Lord. Pilfering, I?” He released Westen long enough to press both hands to his breast in mock-agony.
“Yes, you,” he said. Laughing, the prince knocked his shoulder against Westen’s and then slung an arm over the other boy’s slight shoulders. He really was little for his age. Slight of bone-structure, as Westen had been told the Blessed often were. “What else might we be up to?”
“Why, pilfering, of course!”
It wasn’t, not truly. Westen waited in the entry way to the kitchens in plain sight as the brunette pretended to sneak around the kitchens. He did an abhorrent job of it, really, but the servants merely looked on with amusement and pretended not to see him. An elderly looking woman with flour on her cheeks winked at the prince and turned her back on a platter of sweet meats.
Samuel returned quickly and held out the platter, a victorious grin on his face.
“How did you used to manage that in the city, with actual vendors, when it was actually stealing?”
“Mmm?” he asked around a mouthful of bread. He swallowed, held out the platter until Westen took one, and then said, “It was mostly Sam, really. I was always look-out.”
“Aaah. The bad sister. The sneaky one. That makes sense. I never can tell what she’s thinking beneath that mask of hers.”
“She’s not so bad, you know,” Samuel said, defensive of his beloved sister, “She’s just protective of me. I don’t think she likes sharing. But if you got to know her, you’d find she’s actually sweet.” He laughed. “Though, she is sneaky and a little bit bad, and she can be foul-tempered. She’d be proud to hear you say so, actually, I think.”
“Well,” Westen decided, “I’ll give her a chance if she’ll give me one.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Sam warned, “She’s as proud as you are. She’s not like to bow her head first.”
They ate in silence as they found their way back up to the guest quarters Westen had started to think of as his own. He was pleased to find a steaming bath waiting for him. A pretty serving girl straightened from pouring a last pitcher of water into it. When she saw them, she blushed, gave a startled cry of “Your Highness!” and curtsied so deeply he thought she might topple over.
She hastily beat a retreat.
Sam burst out laughing as soon as the door had closed behind her. “Your Highness!” he mimicked in a passing good inflection of her high-pitched tone. “You’d think you were God descended to earth, the way some people treat you.”
He set the silver tray on the bed and settled next to it with his legs tucked up under him.
Westen pulled his dirty tunic over his head and unlaced his breeches. He shucked off his boots, stepped awkwardly out of his breeches, and made for the steaming bath. “It’s always been like that. You should see how they act around my father.”
“I will someday, won’t I?” Sam asked. Westen could tell without looking that the other boy’s mouth was full again. “I ought to visit you, next time.”
“I’d like that,” Westen told him, and meant it. He slipped into the bath and closed his eyes with pleasure. It would be nice to show Samuel around the capitol. The other boy would enjoy it, he had little doubt, ever curious and ever eager for adventure as he was.
A brief silence followed, and then presently, Samuel asked, “Do they really like at your father like that? All moony-eyed, I mean? Do they blush like that?”
Westen opened his eyes to meet Samuel’s white-blue gaze. “I guess not. That’s new. I don’t really understand it.”
“Huuuh,” he replied, drawing out the sound. And then, with his characteristic deficit of attention, he jumped to a completely different subject. “I’m so excited for the fete tomorrow night! The food! And the presents!” His face lit with that thought, and Westen laughed, splashing water in his direction.
“Everything’s about you, isn’t it?”
“’Course not. But it’s my birth-day. Isn’t that supposed to be all about me? I’m going to be ten. Isn’t that supposed to be an important name day?”
“It’s about your sister, too,” Westen reminded him.
“Of course it is,” he agreed, “It’s a day that’s all about Sam. One Sam, because that’s what we are. One Sam.”
Samara spoke more often about how they were one and the same. It always surprised him a little to hear Samuel speak of it in such a way. But it was clear that the brother thought the same way his sister did, even if he rarely vocalized it. Westen forgot, sometimes, just how close the twins really were.
One and the same. One Sam. Completely inseparable.
He might have wallowed in jealousy, but then Samuel was telling him how he intended for them to spend as much time together as possible while Westen was still there. It was hard to be jealous, or hurt, or any sort of bad emotion around Samuel. The other boy’s toothy grin was just too infectious.
The water cooled, and Westen splashed water all over the floor getting out of it. Samuel knocked on the door, and within moments a servant entered to help the prince dress.
The young boy mopped up the water, eyes averted.
Samuel’s lips twitched in a way that Westen recognized as mischievous.
“Samuel -”
“Hey Jamie,” Samuel said, ignoring the crown prince, “Why do the female servants turn cherry-red whenever the prince walks into the room?”
The servant stared at him for a long moment in nervous surprise, but then Samuel flashed his bright grin and the boy relaxed. “Do you mean Gemma, my lord? She’s the worst of the lot. Ever since His Grace,” he looked briefly at Westen, “turned thirteen, they’ve all been acting like idiots.” He made a face, and Samuel laughed.
“It was Mina who was in here earlier acting weird, actually,” he said, “But I saw Gemma yesterday, and she was acting flustered even then. So.” Samuel turned his amused gaze on Westen. “Seems you’ve a few admirers, my lord.”
“They’ve got nothing on your sister,” he dead-panned, trying not to laugh, “Who is the most beautiful of them all, and my future Queen.”
Samuel held in his laughter for half a minute, at the most. When he burst out with it, he nearly fell of the bed. He wiped at his eyes and said, “Yes, we all know how much you and my sister like one another. A real pair, you two are.” And then his expression turned sly, and he asked, “Or maybe you avoid her because you like her, and she you, and it’s not jealousy that makes you hate another after all, but deep, secret love.”
Westen punched him in the arm and pretended to glare. “I assure you, our hate is absolutely genuine, and you are the reason for it.”
“Oh, good. And there I thought for a moment I ought to be concerned you two would run off into the sunset together in the future and leave me all alone. I’m glad that it’s all about me, again.”
The prince punched him again, just for good measure.
Or, rather, he meant to, but the smaller boy rolled over on the bed, dodging the blow and landed spryly on his feet. He came up with his fists raised and grinned. “A good lookout knows when trouble is coming!” He said, pleased with himself. “And I’m the best of the best.”
“Oh?” Westen asked, “Sounds like a challenge to me.” And he jumped on Sam. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs, and the prince quickly got the upper hand over the smaller boy. Samuel nearly managed to wriggle out from under him, but Westen caught his wrist and pinned him down.
And then a knock sounded at the door, and the Duchess entered. “I was told you’ve long been out of the bath, your grace, so I had little fear of finding you indecent and - ” She caught sight of them, and her amused smile lit up her whole face. “I see I have found you indecent all the same. Well then, I’d leave you to it, but dinner is to be served, and you know Samara will be highly displeased if the two of you do not show. And you don’t want to anger her, now do you?”
Samuel pried himself loose and jumped up quickly. He ran a haphazard hand down the front of his doublet, shook a leg out as if to fix a rumple in his hose, and then ran off past his mother.
“He’d never do anything to upset his twin, would he?” The prince asked, righting himself and brushing at the dirt on his own clothing.
“No,” she said with her knowing smile, “I don’t think he would. Shall we?”
She took his arm and led him to the great dining hall. There was a seat open on Samuel’s left side opposite the seat the Duchess took.
Westen sat, greeted the Duke at the head of the table with a bow of his head, and then turned to listen to the twins’ bickering. Apparently, he quickly gleaned, Samara had been off in the garden, climbing without Samuel, and he was jealous.
He watched Samara’s face, and wondered if she told her brother only to remind him what happened when he left her.
She pretended anger until the first course came, a white fish covered in a sweet mango sauce with a side of long crisp asparagus, and then she took her brother’s hand.
Westen watched as she silently accepted her twin’s apology. Sam’s voice immediately brightened, and he dug happily into the fish.
Samara met Westen’s gaze briefly. She narrowed her eyes, and then her face softened into what he thought might be acceptance. She nodded to him, once, and then spent the rest of the meal ignoring him.
Girls.
Everywhere he’d been, at home and here and even in the inns where he had stayed as he traveled between the two duchies, they’d started to fawn over him in a way they’d never done before, nearly falling at his feet or running out of the room when he entered. That, at least, he thought he could handle.
But Arianne Samara acting civilly to him? That just seemed too strange.
When she caught him suspiciously eyeing her, wondering if she was plotting something, she merely arched a dark brow at him, raised her glass as if in toast, and then turned her attention wholly back to her brother.
Girls.
