"Thank you. You are a kind man."

The words rang in Aron's ears for the thousandth time that day as he stumbled into his bedroom. His leather boots, brown just five days before, were now stained black. Mud, it's just mud, he told himself as he pulled the boots from his feet, but he could not forget the sight of the young woman's blood flowing across the dungeon floor. It's just mud.

For the last five days, she had appeared before Aron every time he closed his eyes to sleep. Her long black hair was tangled and knotted, her grey eyes brimming with tears. She taunted him with her gentle smile and kind words and blood on his boots.

So upon returning to the town, the first thing he had done was to go to an inn and get properly drunk. It had been easy; the townsfolk were still celebrating the victory of the newly-crowned King Odhran over the evil Fae Queen, and they were happy to buy the hero Aron drink after drink after drink. And Aron had been happy to accept.

The alcohol had only made things worse. Reality grew fuzzy and distant around him, and the young woman's face only grew clearer in his mind.

He had stumbled back to the castle, past the guards who greeted him cheerily, and to his own room in search of peace.

There was, however, no peace to be found, for he had no sooner pulled the blood-blackened boots from his feet that a servant appeared in the open doorway. "Prince Aron," the man said. "King Odhran has asked that you attend him in his study."

Aron groaned as he straightened up, rubbing his hands against his eyes. It wasn't Prince Aron any longer, only Aron. "I've only just returned. Can't he wait until tomorrow?" He won't wait. He already knows I'm the one who took it. Why must I be such a fool when it comes to crying women?

"He asked that you attend him the moment you returned."

Aron nodded and sighed. "Can you get Fiachra to come?" he asked. Aron was no diplomat at the best of times, and especially not after he'd been drinking. But Odhran had a soft spot for Fiachra, and their younger brother could always smooth things out when they quarreled.

The servant shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot. "King Odhran has asked for you to attend with him now."

Aron sighed, then laughed. "All right, but I'm still the king's brother. And I order you to go fetch Prince Fiachra, from wherever he is, and bring him to me. The king's not going to murder me in front of Fiachra. Would absolutely destroy their relationship, and Odhran couldn't stand that."

The man made no move, and Aron sighed. "What, must I become my brother to have you obey me? I can yell and scream at you to fetch Fiachra, if you like. I don't have Odhran's rage or volume, but my language is far more colorful and inventive than his. Comes from drinking in inns, you know."

"Aron." Odhran's voice boomed down the hallway from the door of his study, and Aron sighed in defeat.

"Yes, my king?" The words were still strange in his mouth; by the time Aron was born, their father was already king, and it felt wrong that Odhran should now replace him. "Get Fiachra now," he hissed to the servant, then turned and walked towards Odhran's room. He wondered if he looked as drunk as he felt, for his head spun in circles and his feet seemed to be in danger of slipping out from under him with each step.

Odhran had taken over their father's study already. The heavy pine table, scuffed and weathered from years of use, had been removed and replaced with a much finer desk of a dark, textured wood that Aron didn't recognize at first.

Oh, he realized. It's redwood. Of course.

"Where have you been, Aron?" Odhran's voice dripped with barely-concealed rage, and Aron's attention was torn away from his brother's new office decor. "It's been five days."

The younger man shrugged, spreading his hands wide. "I've been drinking. Very friendly lot of folks we have here. They all seem to be happy to treat their dear hero Prince Aron. I slew the Fae Queen, or haven't you heard? They're writing songs about me in the pubs, though the words leave something to be desired. Why on earth anyone would think that 'queen' should rhyme with 'time' is absolutely beyond my--"

"Where is it?" Odhran's voice roared, bringing Aron's ramblings to a close. His jaw was clenched, his blue eyes rimmed with red and full of fury.

Aron laughed, though he could not say if it was the drink or the exhaustion that made the situation so hilarious to him. "Where is what?" he asked, spreading his hands widely and looking about the study. "You must give me some kind of hint if you want to play a guessing game, Odhran. And I really am too drunk for it."

Odhran brought his fist down on the redwood desk with as much strength as he could muster. A delicate glass inkwell, only a few inches away from the blow, rattled and shook with the impact as though shivering in fear. "You know what I mean. The witch's demon offpsring. I know the bitch was pregnant. Where is it?"

"Please?" the woman had asked, her voice cracking in desperation and fear. Tears had long ceased flowing down her face, but her gray eyes were red and swollen and full of sorrow.

The alcohol that had brought him temporary relief a few hours ago now clouded Aron's thoughts and made it impossible for him to answer. "I've been drinking, as you can see, and I know how you hate talking to me when I've been drinking, dear brother. Perhaps we should discuss this tomorrow with calmer heads. We could even ask Fiachra to attend and bring him up to speed on where his best friend's wife has--"

The inkwell that had narrowly escaped Odhran's rage only moments before went whizzing by Aron's head and smashed against the wall of the bedroom. For several moments, the only sound was of tiny drops of ink that dripped down the wall and formed a dark puddle on the floor below.

"Perhaps, dear brother," Odhran hissed, "You might have known what the witch had done to Fiachra if you hadn't been running her errands for her instead of doing as you were commanded by your king."

Aron blinked several times, as though clearing the sleep from his eyes would clear the drink from his mind. "I'm... What? She's dead, Odhran. What has she done to him, haunted him? Does he wake up with nightmares?"

For some reason, that seemed to greatly amuse his brother, who laughed loudly and joylessly for far too great a length of time. He said nothing, but walked past Aron to the heavy wooden door of his bedroom, which swung open at the lightest touch. Though he had not been commanded, Aron followed.

The guards who had been standing at Odhran's door fell in step with them, their boots stomping loudly on the stone floor. Aron's gaze fell on his own feet, and he realized that he had forgotten to put on anything after he had pulled off his boots. The toes of his woolen socks were dark from the dirt of the hallway. No, they're red, Aron thought, his mind hazy and dulled. Red, red, blood red.

"Thank you," she had said with a smile.

They arrived at the door to Fiachra's room, and Odhran swung the door open without knocking. "Hey, he's eighteen now, you can't just be barging in on him at this time of night without announcing it," Aron slurred. "Who knows what he might be up to."

But the handsome, blonde-haired young man in the bed was only sleeping soundly, his hands folded gently across his chest. Not a care in the world, Aron thought with a twinge of jealousy.

Odhran still said nothing.

"Well, are we waking him or not?" Aron made an attempt at a whisper, but his words slurred out at a higher volume than he had anticipated. "Blast it. Oi, Fiachra. Get up, then." He leaned forward, roughly shaking his sleeping brother's arm. "Fiachra. Come on, then, before Odhran kills me and says it was an accident."

But although his head lolled back and forth slightly with the shake, the youngest prince remained still, his eyes closed.

Aron stepped back from the bed, rubbing his face with his hands. "I've drunk too much," he muttered. His head spun. "I've drunk to much."

Odhran strode towards the bed and gently rearranged the sleeping prince's sheets, smoothing them out carefully where Aron had wrinkled them. He pushed the young man's blonde curls back from his face before pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. When he turned away from the bed, Aron could see a soft wetness around Odhran's eyes. "Are you crying?" No, I'm drunk. He didn't even cry at Mother's--

The king's heavy fist slammed into Aron's temple, filling his vision with stars and flashes of light as he stumbled and fell to his knees. His hands instinctively raised, covering his head to shield him from more blows. "I don't understand," Aron muttered.

"What is there to understand?" Odhran demanded. "He's not woken for five days, not since the day the witch was killed. She has cursed him. He doesn't move, he doesn't stir, he barely even breathes. And you've made some bargain with the bitch and hidden away her spawn! I know you have!"

"I hope nothing but peace and happiness for you and your brothers," the woman had said. And she had closed her eyes and sung quietly in a language he didn't understand, swaying back and forth ever so slightly until his sword had come to meet her neck.

Too many thoughts and too many drinks swirled in Aron's mind as he knelt on the floor.

Odhran paced by Fiachra's bedside. "I love him," he raged. "He is the only person left in this world that I love. And now he is gone, thanks to that witch. Now, because you are my brother, I will do you the favor of asking you one last time. Where is the baby?"

Aron closed his eyes. He had known his elder brother never loved him; that was no shock. But it was the only thing he could make sense of in the moment, and so he clung to it like a drowning man scrabbling for a handhold on a piece of flotsam. Maybe if you had loved me, you would have been kinder to me, he thought. Or even if you didn't love me, you should have been smarter. I would have traded the child in an instant for her safety, for your permission to live with her in peace...

He tried to conjure up an image of a beautiful woman with a crown of ivy in her hair, laughing and smiling with him, but she faded all too quickly. In her place came the young black-haired woman, smiling sadly as she laid her sleeping infant on the cold dungeon floor.

And you. If I am such a kind man, then why do you haunt me so? Aron wanted to ask her, but his lips were dry and his tongue thick. The woman did not reply to his unasked question, but only closed her eyes and hummed, swaying softly from side to side.

And then another one of Odhran's blows fell on his head, and the dark-haired woman faded away, leaving behind only darkness and peace.