A Darker Shade of Magic (Collector)

BROTHERS (p.412 - 414)

"Have I ever told you," said Tieren absently, "of the Origin of the Magician?"

Rhy shook his head, trying to hide his excitement. Of all the stories Tieren told, those involving magic were his favorite. Rhy spent hours wondering what shape his own power might take, dreaming of the day it would show itself.

"Well," said the priest, slowing his step. "It is about a pair of brothers."

Rhy's eyes grew wide. He had always wanted a brother. It was, after all, a very large palace, and one could only achieve so much mischief on his own.

"In the beginning," said the Aven Essen, "there lived a pair of brothers.They were not brothers by birth, for one of them was mortal, and one of them was magic. One came from a woman, made of flesh and blood and bone, and the other came from the river, made of silt and sun and autumn leaves."

Tieren had a knack for telling stories, and soon Rhy felt his shoulders loosen, the rise and fall of the priest's voice like a hammock in the sun.

"They were as summer and winter," continued the priest, accompanied by the hush of his shoes on the palace floor. "So little in common, their differences so vast, that at first, they did not get along. The mortal brother was passionate, where the magic one was steady. The mortal brother was caring where the magic one was slow to warm. Each saw himself as strong, his brother as weak. But strength and weakness are part of everything—the strongest stone is still traced with cracks, the most delicate fabric can be wound into rope—and in time, the brothers came to realize that what they took for weakness in each other was simply a different kind of strength."

The priest and the prince had reached the doors to the Rose Hall, where the king and queen received their guests, but the story was not yet done. Tieren's steps slowed, and then stopped, and he turned to Rhy.

"You see, small prince," said the Aven Essen, "they came to admire each other's strengths, and longed to be more alike, and so the brother born of flesh spilled some of his blood, and the brother born of magic spilled some of his power, and from these two substances, they made a thread. And then they bound themselves together, so that each became a part of the other. A thread so strong, so full of love, that it never broke."

His old hand closed around Rhy's wrist, and turned it upward so the prince could see the raised path of the veins that ran along his forearm.

"We are all made of both brothers, of blood and magic bound together."

And with that, the priest let go of the prince's hand. He nodded at the royal guards that flanked the Rose Hall, and the doors were opened.

Rhy followed Tieren into the hall, startled to find it so empty.

It was either too early or too late for public meetings, and so there was no audience. The prince could see no one but his father and mother—the king and the queen— and a strange boy standing before their thrones.

The stranger was taller than Rhy, but shorter than his parents. Fair-skinned, with a shock of red hair and simple black clothes. At the sound of the approaching steps, the boy turned, flashing a pair of mismatched eyes, one blue as day, and the other black as night.

"Who is that?" the young prince whispered, looking to Tieren.

"Rhy," said his father, the King of Arnes.

"This is Kell," said the queen, who was also Rhy's mother.

They were their formal selves, though Rhy did not think to stand on the same ceremony. One glance at this Kell told Rhy all he needed to know—that where he was summer, this boy was winter. Where Rhy was loud and bright, Kell was silent, a shadow.

They could not be more different.

Rhy beamed, and held out his hand.