Caught in all these chaos was the second prince, Kyrian. Born as a bastard unlike his two brothers, he was casted out from the royal family and from the Occiden people. He has no interest in the throne like his older brother nor does he like to mingle with the people like his younger brother for they were the same people who only looked at him with disgust and disapproval.
He only knew contempt as he was growing up. Yes, he may be a prince and though he lived alongside his so called family, the gates of Occiden never truly welcomed him. He is a bad blood to them, an outsider like the humans that the Occiden looked down upon. And he hated it all. Both the humans, who an illegitimate like him was always compared into and his fellow nephilims who ostracized him. Though Aisling is the only friend who took his side, he too left him for his new found glory in the people. And Kyrian mostly grew alone and was used to that loneliness. For hundreds of years, he swallowed the growing unhappiness that consumed him as no one has ever approached to help him nor ask if he is alright.
The pain and agony that grew out of his people's abandonment and rejection of him killed him in the inside till no warm or sweet emotions survived in him. He trained himself to show a cold and stricken face which shows no weakness, so that no one would ever try to look down on him again. At least with that face, he thought, would protect him from the petty words that people would throw at him. At least with an emotionless face, he told himself, would deem the other nephilim's discrimination of him useless, as they all would find greatest satisfaction if they would see his crying and sorrowful face, knowing that their sharp words cut through him so easily and so pathetically.
For some reason, he found the raging war between his two brothers somehow comforting. It is because at least people were distracted with a bigger problem in front of them and less of his kind are taking the time to give him the usual insult as the war always kept them awake and fearful of what may happen next. Also, he fought for his third brother, the chosen king and emperor of the people and Excalibur. Knowing how he is favored by his brother, he gained lesser enemies and his reputation became less disadvantaged than when he was still just a second prince of Occiden.
Now, he is a soldier of his brother and a general of his own troops. Becoming a reputable person never made any changes. He was still an outcast despite his achievements. Though still unaccepted by some of the nephilims, they acknowledged his swordsmanship, fighting and war strategic skills. But this was never enough to make him truly accepted by the people. However, it did made some of them silent of any affronts but it also made them afraid and fearful of him, as if he still is an enemy to them, only now an immensely powerful enemy, a bastard and an outcast who they would not dare cross paths with.
"That is the evil bastard!" he would hear them say.
"The second prince is the cursed Nephilim," others would even dare say.
"I heard that his mother, the former emperor's concubine was half human"
"No! they say she was a nephilim who crossed the border to help humans. How outrageous!"
"That explains why he reeks of a foul smell. That smell of humans in his flesh is disgusting."
"His father, the former king and emperor was just right to put her mother to death for all her crimes."
"Shhh. Don't be so loud. He'll hear you."
He heard more but he could not do anything. It was because to him, they were right. His mother was speculated to be half human because of the humanely smell that lingered to her at all times. To the other nephilims, it was a smell of the enemy and a completely outrageous and treasonous crime that shamed the empire.
But his mother is a pure blooded Nephilim. She was taken as a concubine in the royal family and lived to bear the emperor a son. She is of the Occiden kingdom but what Kyrian and the other people of his own could not understand is her propensity to cross the border and mingle with the humans, making friends with them and spending most of her days in their lands. Perhaps, it is the increasing time she spent with them that unconsciously, she slowly started to carry their smell, which of course the nephilims hated. She did it in secret, keeping all her actions classified. To Kyrian, she was a mother who ran away from the responsibilities of taking care of her son and who chose the humans over him.
"She is just like the rest of them," he said to himself. "She doesn't want me too. She would rather be with the humans than with her son. She would rather leave me for them."
And so he hated the humans above anyone else. To him, they were the ones who stole his mother away from him. They were the ones who murdered her. "It is all their fault!," Kyrian cried when the former king and emperor, his father ordered her mother's death after hearing her acts of treason, her friendliness to the humans seen as her betrayal of the Occiden kingdom. To the nephilims, she was a sinner and someone worse than a murderer.
On the day of her beheading, she never denied the charges pointed at her. Openly, she said that she takes so much pity on the humans, so much compassion and so much concern and understanding for them, which to the Occiden people is disgraceful, only fueling the anger of every nephilim, who all cried out to kill her quickly.
That day, the Occiden people lost a traitor but to Kyrian, he lost a mother, and oddly he did not blame his father nor his people but the humans, which he was taught to hate and abhor. Maybe it was because he was also a child, a son who simply wished for his parent's love. But his father was distant and his mother left Occiden for Anatoli, leaving him alone in the palace walls. He was just a boy who also desired the people's approval and acknowledgement of him like Aisling, his younger brother or perhaps a friend's companionship and compliment, perhaps from Ezio, his older brother. However, he never got any of those. To him, he was abandoned and left to fester for his own.
"What are you thinking about, Kyrian?," a familiar voice said. His deep thoughts were suddenly halted. Surprised, he turned around him to see his brother, the third prince, Aisling behind him, entering the tent where he was in and stepping closer to where he was seating.
"Your majesty," he greeted, lowering his face and kneeling before the younger brother he now recognizes as king and emperor.
"Oh please, Kyrian. I'm just a prince. Please. Look up"
"You are this kingdom's true king and emperor, your majesty. I firmly believe that you will take your rightful place, one day when we will overthrow the tyrant that wears the crown that is properly yours," Kyrian said looking at Aisling in the eyes.
"Don't say it like that. We all know that Ezio is the first in line to the throne and that legally, he is the king and emperor."
"Excalibur says otherwise, your majesty."
"I had no desire for that bloody throne nor that crown. You know very well how much I hated royal life and the only family that accepted me are the Occiden people who treated me with the love I never got from being a third prince."
Family. Kyrian treated Aisling as friend and family. Though he could not show it to him, Aisling is always a brother to him. He knows fully well how lacking he was in showing his endearment to his brother so he never imagined how hearing him refer to others as family without including him in it would hurt this much.
"It is your pure heart, your kindness and the warmth you showed the people that makes your place as king and emperor even more just."
"Brother Ezio was my king and emperor after our father's demise. If not for his tyranny and corruption, I would've just shut up and let him rule but the cries of my people, my family called out to me to save them and so I have no choice."
Somehow, Kyrian could not come up with an answer to that. The word "family" from his brother's lips seems to hurt him more than he expects it to. It only made him painfully realize that he had no family who recognizes him, no father, mother or brothers who made him feel loved and belonged. The painful truth that he is alone only crushed him again.
"It has been almost ten years of this war, your majesty. We must end it as soon as possible," he mustered saying after a long haul of silence.
"Yes, it shall end. It MUST end, Kyrian," Aisling said in a soft yet burdened voice. Over and over again, he repeated "it must end" as if he was stabbed with a sharp knife. Kyrian knows the hurt of his brother. Aisling is gentle and kind. Though he is the youngest son, he is still equally skilled with the sword like the rest of the royal family, yet he cannot bring himself to kill Ezio, his brother.
Their troops had many chances of victory in the past ten years but it is because of Aisling's hesitance to kill Ezio that many of those chances slipped from their grasps. Somehow, this time, Kyrian saw Aisling's final decision. He was prepared to do what he sees as unthinkable, to kill his brother, Ezio and reclaim the throne. Kyrian knows that if given another chance, Aisling would never do such a thing but because he is ready to bleed for the Occiden people, the people he referred to as family and the same people who cried out to Aisling for help from the tyrant, Ezio, he would sacrifice his brother in order to free these people from war and restore the peace that Occiden deserves.
"It will end with peace, your majesty," Kyrian assured his brother. "You need not to worry about anything."
"Kyrian, "Aisling looked at him, with a smile, both sad and reassured. As if a weight of worries was taken off of him by those words, he smiled. But still, the unstoppable and imminent death of his brother in his hands dawned on him deeper, yet he still mustered a smile as he repeated his brother's name again, looking down in pain.
"Yes, Kyrian. It will end in peace."