For an entire year, the Hebikoti Clan celebrated.

Victories were strung together like beads on a string, the Hebikoti Clan collecting one after another. Each beautiful and blood-soaked; plucked from the bodies of Tilican soldiers by the blackened fingertips of a young man and then presented to his father. In these battles, there was little that Tilican soldiers could do.

Burning the plants enraged them. Either drowning or drying the leaves did nothing but ensure more suffering. Uprooting the plants just made those same bitter roots hungry for vengeance. Suffocating them made them twice as determined to suffocate you. Even if you managed to destroy one, ten more would take its place. Five thousand men could die in a matter of minutes to the whims of one.

Death on this scale was not unheard of before. In the battle that the Angel of Death his name, it was said he had frozen two armies solid - down to their blood. But when people with no means to counteract this powerful Magick faced it, they had little choice but to retreat. There was no way of defeating it.

Victory after victory.

Soldier after soldier.

For an entire year, the Hebikoti Clan celebrated these victories and when that year was completed they celebrated even more for at long last, the Tilican force had been driven from their borders. Peace and trade would return, or at least that was what everyone hoped.

Nerluce did not think they should get their hopes up.

Tilican soldiers had died on Itorohian ground. Itorohian soldiers had died on Tilican pikes. Those facts alone were enough to raise hostility. Though Itoroh and Tilica had never officially gone to war - Tilica continuing to deny knowledge of the troops until the very end - there had been enough death on both sides for it to feel like it.

Plucking an apple from the branches of the tree Nerluce had found to be his afternoon perch, Nerluce sighed and took a bite. He wasn't built for politics. He wasn't built for war either. He didn't have much stomach for either. He was built to eat apples and nap in the afternoons. After everything he'd been through in the past four years, Nerluce felt as though this was a well-deserved break.

No battles needed to be fought. No chores needed to be done. No strategies had to be discussed. No Magick had to be learned. No expectations of Nerluce in the slightest.

He tossed the core onto the ground and plucked another apple from one of the nearest branches. The farmer knew Nerluce was here. Knew he liked to lounge and steal apples from this tree. He didn't yell or chase Nerluce off as he had when Nerluce was a boy, though. He simply let Nerluce be. It was his way of thanking Nerluce for saving the country.

For some reason, the apple between teeth was no longer as sweet.

"Nerluce," Coam said.

Nerluce had seen her coming. Her long, white hair stood out like a beacon against a world browning with the expectation of colder weather, darker skies, and snow.

"Coam," Nerluce said. "You're back from the border." He smiled. "Did everything work itself out?"

"What do you think?" Coam asked.

Nerluce hummed and took another bite of his apple. "I think that it went to shit. I think that extremists on both ends did what extremists do best." He tossed the core to the ground and licked the juice from his fingertips. "Riot."

"So you've heard," Coam said.

"The border riots are all anyone is talking about lately," Nerluce said. "How could I not hear? I just wanted to know if you settled it."

"Things are stable," Coam said. "For the time being at least. It still feels too fragile for me to be away but... Lord Father summoned me and I can't disobey his orders." She sighed heavily and looked much older than she really was. Nerluce was reminded of how many wars she'd fought in. "I've been in contact with Tilican dignitaries."

"Oh?" Nerluce asked.

"Yes," Coam said. "I'll be meeting some soon. Whenever I go back. Would you like to come with me?"

"I don't know," Nerluce said, reaching up and plucking another apple.

Coam frowned. "You should not be stealing from the peasantry."

"I'm not stealing," Nerluce said. "He lets me have them."

"Did he give you permission or is he just too scared to tell you off?" Coam asked.

Nerluce scoffed and flipped his wrist. In an instant, all the apples he'd plucked regrew on the branches. "There," he said. "No harm, no foul. The old man can still sell his apples at market and I can still have something to eat." He bit into the apple to prove a point and jumped down from the tree.

"I still wish you wouldn't do it," Coam said. "We have more than enough money. You have more than enough money. Wouldn't it be easier to just buy apples at the market?"

"I don't like them as much," Nerluce said.

Coam thinned her lip probably thinking that Nerluce was acting like a child. Nerluce huffed and threw the rest of the apple away, even though he'd only taken a couple of bites from it. Coam had spoiled his appetite. He started back to Yusatsu and Coam followed him, only even out here in the first place to find him.

"Would you think about coming with me?" Coam asked.

"Fine," Nerluce said, though he truly had no intention of doing so. He had no interest in the border or the conflict there. In fact, he felt that his presence would only make things worse.

Coam smiled, though, and Nerluce supposed the small lie was worth it. "I think you would make a good diplomat," she said. "And I think you'd like meeting the Tilican dignitaries. Rumor has it that one of them is a princess of Tilica around your age." Coam glanced at him. Nerluce stared blankly back. "It might be a good match."

"A Tilican princess?" Nerluce asked, his lip curling.

"Don't make that face," Coam scolded. "It would... soothe a lot of people if you happened to marry someone connected to Tilica."

For some reason, Nerluce's traitorous mind went straight to Aristide

"I'm not interested in courting right now," Nerluce said if only to distract himself from the thought of Aristide. The thought of Aristide and him getting... He cleared his throat. "Also weren't you the one who thought it would be best if I married for love?"

"Yes, well it would be very convenient if you loved someone from Tilica," Coam said.

Well... it wasn't actually.

"Lord Father has the opposite opinion," Nerluce said. "He thinks that I should marry into one of the younger upcoming Itorohian families. Many of them have lovely daughters. One was even at Ethera with me..."

"If your heart is already spoken for, I won't dissuade you," Coam said. "Will you court her? When you're... ready to court people, of course."

"I don't know," Nerluce said. "I just saw her name on the list of candidates Lord Father gave me and I suppose that if I had to marry any of them... I'd prefer it to be someone I know." He sighed. He had half-known Jurine's name would be on the list but... seeing it was something else entirely. "But she's not my first pick out of all the people in the world."

Coam considered his words for a moment and then frowned. "Who is?"

"It doesn't matter," Nerluce said.

"It does matter," Coam said.

"It does not," Nerluce said, giving his sister a hard glare. "I am the son of Lord Hebikoti. The person I marry needs to be befitting of a certain... base requirements."

Specifically: female.

"Is it one of the girls in the Yusatsu?" Coam asked, her eyes wide.

"It is not," Nerluce said.

"You can court her when I become the leader of the clan," Coam said. "I promise. I just want you to be happy."

Nerluce clenched his jaw, face burning. "Coam. He isn't-"

Shit.

Coam stopped dead as well, turning to look at Nerluce with wide eyes. Nerluce felt his face heat, burning up, up, and out in embarrassment.

"Oh," Coam said. "You're..."

"No," Nerluce said. "I like women." He glanced. "I just... also like men. That's not unusual. Most people-"

"Yeah," Coam agreed. "But-"

"I'm not going to force you to bear the heir when you can't even stand having a man kiss your hand, Coam," Nerluce said.

She flinched and her cheeks pinkened as she rubbed the back of her neck. "But I don't want to force you into a marriage when... when you already have someone else."

"I don't," Nerluce said, giving her a hard glare. "It's just... I like him. I'm not ready to start courting until... my feelings for him have... become a bit more... muted." He closed his eyes and inhaled. "I'm only nineteen, Coam. It is very likely that I will be able to fall in love with a woman before our lives end."

"Fine," Coam relented. "But I wish you would reconsider."

"I won't," Nerluce said.

They walked silently the rest of the way to Hebikoti Palace, not speaking to one another or to any of the villagers who called out to them. Not many did when they saw the dark expressions mirrored on both siblings and the pace at which they walked.

Once back at Hebikoti Palace, the servants kept a similar distance. Nerluce had noted before how good they were at reading the moods of their masters and staying out of sight accordingly. That power seemed to be amplified with the pair of them walking together as Nerluce didn't catch a glimpse of a single servant in the yard, along the halls, or in the throne room, where Lord Father sat waiting for them.

Nerluce and Coam both bowed before him.

"Rise, my children," Lord Father said.

They obediently obeyed his command.

"Thank you for fetching your brother for me, Coam," Lord Father said. "I do not like repeating myself so I thought it best you both be here." A small smile stretched onto his lips. "You, my children, are the pride and joy of the Hebikoti Clan. Coam, you are a general who has fought to protect our kingdom for many years. Nerluce, you are a hero who saved our kingdom from the jaws of another war. You are both worthy of the name Hebikoti."

"Thank you, Lord Father," Coam said, earnestly.

"Thank you, Lord Father," Nerluce echoed. He had heard those words before. He'd been told he'd done good work. He'd been praised. He'd been rewarded. It was everything he thought he'd ever wanted.

Yet he felt like he sounded: an echo. Something fake. Something hollow.

"The Empress of Itoroh has sent an invitation," Lord Father said. "She requests that the Hebikoti Clan send its finest Magickians to the Golden City to compete before her for glory and honor and fame across Ecekasuri." Lord Father raised a bushy, white brow. "Will you, my children, be willing to go and present yourselves before the Empress as the pride of our Clan?"

A pause.

"Y-yes, of course," Coam stuttered out, her eyes wide.

Nerluce couldn't even muster up that much. The Empress of Itoroh was inviting them to the Golden City? Only the most high-ranking and impressive nobles in Itoroh ever got the honor to visit the Empress's domain.

Lord Father had never even been invited to the Golden City before.

"Of course," Nerluce said, a little breathless.

Lord Father nodded his approval, pride radiating across his face. Nerluce had never seen Lord Father look at them like this before.

Nerluce kind of hated it.