but I had always had a dual purpose—proving myself a credit to Kouje’s teachings as well as to my father’s bloodline.
Perhaps, in the end, that was why I did not share my brother’s strength of character. A man divided could never be as strong as a man with a single purpose.
At times, it seemed a favor from the gods themselves that Iseul had been the firstborn, since any man among us could see that he would make a much better emperor than I. I wondered how he would conduct the talks the next day, and whether he would inspire fear in the men and women from Volstov in the pale morning as he’d so clearly done that night.
“Do not lower yourself to speaking their language so easily,” he’d chided me after the talks. “Or do you not see what it means, that they have not yet taken the time to learn ours?”
“It is an insult.” I bowed my head, knowing that it was the only thing that could have caused Iseul to grow so quietly angry.
“You do what you think is best,” Iseul said, with an imperial wave of his hand. He’d learned that from our father, but had only just begun to employ the gesture. It spoke more than his words. “But if you continue to bow so low, you will be a discredit to this house; you will poison our name.”
Iseul had never spoken to me so coldly before, but I could only assume it was the strain of his responsibilities weighing on him. Not only did he have to adjust to his new role as Emperor, but he had to supervise me, as well, to make sure I committed no dishonor to our house.
It was a true gift and a boon that I had not yet done so. At least even Iseul admitted that I had some head for strategy. But if I did, it was all through Kouje’s teachings and through picture scrolls of the histories. I could use a bow, but none so well as most of my brother’s men. I had no cleverness with a sword, nor strength, either.
“You are like a prince of old, when we were more than warriors,” Kouje once told me. I might well have been no more than thirteen at the time.
“When we were less, you mean,” I countered.
“And what skill have I with the brush?” Kouje asked. “Were I given twice my own age to master calligraphy, do you think I could manage it?”
Kouje had no hand for the arts, that was true. His broad palms were callused, and his fingers blunt and strong. Yet the Emperor, I knew, would not accept my watercolors—unfolding images of cranes and clouds, of imagined mountains.
“I’m going to run away to the mountains,” I told Kouje firmly, in the clutch of a terrible sulk. How he bore with me during those awful years, I’ll never know.
“Will you be needing my services there as well?” he asked, not daring to smile at me. I was not entirely insufferable, but I had my moments of jealousy, same as all children. “There are demons in the mountains, you know, with long, terrible claws. They like to kidnap beautiful young princes—never to be seen again.”
When I had nightmares that night and for weeks after, he regretted it, but I refused to let him apologize. He’d rallied my spirits, at least, as he always did.
In the many years since then, I’d done my part. All I wanted was to keep my men safe, or feel Kouje clasp my shoulder after a well-chosen tactic proved invaluable. My brother was the warlord, and I was in awe to see him Emperor, so fiercely proud, recognizable, and yet suddenly a complete stranger to me. He’d changed in an instant, as though the brother I’d known had been but a shadow cast from the future.
It was a hard night for sleeping. My thoughts were too tangled. I could feel the cool breeze stir against my face, as on so many nights before.
It was then that I mourned for my father.
Kouje was not there. He would not see me in my moment of weakness, and I was glad for that. We were long past the time when I could allow him to comfort me, and my unhappiness would only trouble him, without allowing him any means to undo it.
My father had not, in his way, treated me as most fathers treated their sons, second or no. But that was to be expected.