It is hunger that finally drives Ruhban from the dark corner in the furthest barrack. The pain in his stomach finally pushes the dark cloud of grief back enough that he manages to stumble from his hiding place and out into the world again.
He has no idea what time it is, or even the day. Just that the emptiness in his stomach is causing him nausea. It has to have been close to 24 hours, if not more, since he's eaten. Which was lunch before Cecil drug Leonidas out into the woods.
Rage snaps down Ruhban's spine, ringing a low hiss out of him. Shoving the door open a little harder than is necessary, the youngest twin stalks out into the barracks hallway. Cecil just left Leonidas to die. Or, perhaps, he stood there and watched as it happened.
At least that dragon shred Cecil's pride.
It doesn't bring my twin back.
Ruhban moves down the hall, gritting his teeth against the rage and planning to snatch food from the main hall and flee back to his hiding spot. However, as he passes the door to the room holding his bunk, he pauses. The heavy door is cracked, and the soldiers inside are shouting.
"I'm tellin' ya'! A dude in a cloak came through the window!" a deep voice yelps. Ruhban recognizes the voice: It belongs to Andreas.
Ruhban pauses, tilting his head slightly. There was an intruder?
"Yeah, sure," comes the reply. "Some random man in a cloak climbed all the way up the watchtower and snuck through the window, blind-siding you with a kick. More like you fell asleep, slipped out of the chair, and now are making up excuses as to why your head's so banged up."
An intruder through one of the watchtowers? Ruhban scoffs softly and starts to move down the hall again.
"Y'all are sure there's nothin' missin'?" Andreas asks after a moment's hesitation.
"Well, I mean, Leonidas's stuff is gone, but I assume Ruhban took care of that. Haven't seen anyone else in here," the second voice replies. "Nothing else is missing from the keep. Who would break in just to leave empty-handed?"
Ruhban stops short, whirling around before he realizes he has. If Cecil took Leonidas's things--
Ruhban throws the door open so hard it bangs on its hinges, startling the group of four soldiers inside. Indeed, Leo's bunk is tidy and clear. And Ruban's own is just as he left it. No, wait.
Is that a letter?
"Ruhban--" one of the men starts, leaping up out of his seat. He is a redheaded and lanky man by the name of Brawan. The youngest twin shoves right past him, ringing a yelp from the taller boy.
Snatching the carefully folded piece of parchment off his bunk, Ruhban spins on his heel and stalks back out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him.
Muffled through the door, Andreas asks, "Geeze. What's his problem?"
Whack!
"His twin just died, idiot. Be sensitive."
Moving down the hall, back toward the abandoned barracks, Ruhban blocks out the rest of the conversation, turning his attention instead to the letter in his hands. With shaking hands, the twin opens the parchment.
Sitting on top of the text is what appears to be a hastily crafted necklace… hung with a dragon scale.
Biting his lip, Ruhban slips the necklace over his wrist and turns to read the contents of the letter.
Scrawled in Leonidas's hasty handwriting the letter reads:
'Ruhban,
'I'm sorry for the way I treated you, and I'm sorry I can't say this in person. I'm alright, perfectly healthy and alive, and I have a companion to keep me safe. You don't need to worry about me.
'I'm sorry it happened in this way, but I can't come back to you. I can't return to the fort. Cecil is not who we thought he was. Something inside him is dark, he's not the hero we looked up to. I understand if you can't let go of him, and I understand if you choose him over me. I get it: I love him too. But please, Rue, be careful. If you have the opportunity to leave, to get away from him, take it. You're not safe with him, and I can no longer be there to protect you. If I am, I risk my own death, or worse. I'll only bring trouble to you. The best thing I can do is leave.
'If you ever need me, break the necklace I left here for you, and I will come running. I don't have the time to write why and how, but I'll be there. I promised I'd never abandon you, and I don't plan on doing it.
'Cecil lies through his teeth now. He tried to kill me, out in that forest. It was not the dragon prince who did so, but Cecil himself. You're not safe with him. Please, Rue, if you can, believe me and run from him. Get yourself somewhere safe, leave the Fifth Army and get out from his grasp. I don't want to imagine what the High King is like if he's done this to our brother in such a short amount of time. I don't want you anywhere near either of them. You're not safe in that fort any longer. The choice is yours, but I beg you to believe me.
'Did you know, Rue, that dragons can talk? They are not mindless beasts, but intelligent creatures akin to humans. I don't know why this war has gone on so long, but there has to be something deeper behind it than what we're told. Trust me when I tell you: we can coexist with them. It's possible. We don't need to keep killing, on either side. Peace is possible.
'If you ever need me, I'll come to you. Please be safe, my twin.
'I love you,
'Leo.'
For a moment, Ruhban just stares at the letter, re-reading it a total of three times. Then, finally, the spell over him breaks, and he laughs. The sound is choked, nearly non-existent. But it's there, and nearly as soon as it leaves him, relief floods over the boy, and his knees buckle.
Bracing one hand on the wall to steady himself, Ruhban breathes, "Leo's alive."
Of course, Leo being alive muddies things even further and brings up more questions than answers, but it doesn't matter.
Leo's alive.
"My twin's alive," Ruhban breathes again, clutching the letter to his chest and leaning his head against the cool wall. But if Leo's alive… then why did Cecil act as though he died? Why did the eldest brother let Ruhban grieve as if he'd lost his twin?
Not only is it cruel, to both brothers, but it also doesn't make sense. If Leo's not dead, then where is he? How did he survive the dragon?
Finally relinquishing his death grip on the letter, Ruhban smooths its crumpled edges out and reads through it again, more carefully this time. The last three times, all he could see was Leonidas's confirmation that he was alive and well.
"'I have a companion to keep me safe?'" Ruban mutters. "What in the world does that mean, Leo?" As he reads through the rest of the letter, it starts to sink in. 'Did you know, Rue, that dragons can talk?' 'We can coexist.' Those things, on top of the dragon-scale necklace…
The pieces come together, and Ruhban laughs again, this time in disbelief. "Oh, you didn't Leo," he finally breathes.
Somehow, his twin has not only let the dragon prince go but has created some sort of comradery with it. Assuming Ruhban is indeed correctly gathering what his brother's trying to say, then Leo obviously has a bond with that dragon. So was it Leo that betrayed Cecil out in the forest?
No… that doesn't make sense. Cecil has been acting weird, he was cruel to both twins, and he let Ruhban believe Leo dead. Something's definitely not right with the eldest brother. And the tone of Leo's letter seems genuine. Which would mean that Cecil did in fact try to kill Leo, and perhaps that dragon saved Leonidas's life.
Folding the letter gently, Ruhban lets out a soft sigh. Leo was never able to kill, never was too keen to slay the dragons either, but to get so close to a dragon that he's willing to run off with it? Ruhban doesn't know whether to be impressed or betrayed. It goes against everything they've fought for, every belief they've had so far. The dragons have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of humans over the years. They're the one force stopping the human race from experiencing peace. Leo threw away all that knowledge and bound himself to a dragon.
And yet… Leo successfully made peace with one. The crown prince, no less. It's proof, as much as Ruhban hates it, that coexistence is an option. There doesn't necessarily need to be a winner to this war. The killing can stop without it.
The killing may be able to stop without it.
Whatever, I can't jump to conclusions. The ideals of his brother and the possibility of stopping the war can be mulled over later. There are other things to be addressed. Leo's warning about Cecil, for example.
"If you have the opportunity to leave, to get away from him, take it. You're not safe with him, and I can no longer be there to protect you."
"Do you mean desert the army, when you say that, Leo?" Ruhban breathes, tipping his head back to stare at the stone ceiling. It's treason to desert the High King's armies. It carries the penalty of death. And yet Leo would recommend that over staying close to Cecil.
Is he that bad, Leo?
The reality of the matter is, if Leo's words are to be believed, Cecil tried to kill the eldest twin. And if that is true, then the possibility of Cecil being more dangerous than desertion skyrockets. There's no telling if the eldest brother might snap one day and kill Ruhban. But that's all assuming Leo's words are correct.
And if he did desert, then what? He'd be on his own in this frozen wilderness, his only options to go deeper into the country that would want him dead, or cross the border into the territory of the bloodthirsty killing machines known as dragons. He'd be completely alone, surrounded by enemies. He could go home, but Cecil would know to look for him there. He'd be putting the rest of the family at risk. Where else is there to go? The resistance, known as the Encair, is a thing, and they might take him in… but the Encair has stood for everything Ruhban believes wrong. They fight for freedom from the High King. They fight for an end to the war, to bring negotiations to the monsters that plague the human race. And they directly oppose the King's five armies.
"No rash decisions," Ruhban mutters, forcing himself to calm down. First things first, he wants to give Cecil the benefit of the doubt. Ruhban is inclined to believe Leo, for a number of reasons, the first most being that the boys are twins. But Cecil deserves a chance to explain himself.
I'll ask him once, what actually happened out there. And decide what to do from there.
Sliding the letter into his pocket, Ruhban turns his attention to the necklace Leo provided. It is indeed a dragon scale, about the size of a chicken's egg. It is deep and black in color, sporting the tiniest accent of royal purple. From what Ruhban has seen of the dragon prince, this is his scale. There is a hole punched in the top of the scale, appearing to be made by a tooth, and the leather strap it's hung on is uneven and hastily crafted. For all the world, it looks like the dragon himself made it. Despite that fact, Ruhban smiles softly at the necklace, Leo's written words flashing through his mind: "I promised I'd never abandon you, and I don't plan on doing it."
Perhaps, if he did decide to leave, he would not be completely alone.
Shaking the thought out of his head, Ruhban drops the necklace over his head and tucks the scale into his shirt. Before he confronts his brother, the twin needs food. Forcing his feet back into motion, Ruhban exits the barracks and heads for the main keep. The sun is high overhead, the twin notes, and grimaces to himself. So it's been closer to 48 hours since he's eaten, then.
"That's not healthy," he mutters to himself, pushing the double door to the keep open. Inside, the large wooden tables occupy most of the dining hall, their benches sparsely peppered with soldiers. Looks like lunch is just finishing up.
Cecil, unsurprisingly, is nowhere to be seen. He didn't bother to eat with the rest of the soldiers before, there's no reason he would bother now. He's probably holed up in his rooms, having that scrawny assistant of his to bring him food. Walking to the far side of the hall, getting a few curious glances from the other soldiers, Ruhban grabs a wooden plate from the stack and quickly piles it with the leftover cooling food. Then, with sustenance sustained, he picks a seat in the darkest corner of the hall he can find, barely waiting for the plate to hit the surface of the table before he digs into the food.
The hall itself is dark as usual, lit only by candles and the occasional torch along the walls. It's also sparsely decorated, two statues of the hooded High King along the wall opposite the door being the only ornaments present. Each statue has an iron-bound wooden door by its feet, leading deeper into the keep to commander's quarters and guest chambers. There's a meeting room back there somewhere, and access to the quote-on-quote dungeons. Ruhban's been to those before, just to fetch a crate of vegetables for the cooks. The dungeon is pretty much just a massive pantry with a few cells in it.
Ruhban doubts it's ever been used for its original designation. That would require something to actually happen at this fort.
With his meal finished, Ruhban quickly carries his beat-up old plate to the discard area and slips through one of the doors into the depths of the keep. The faster he finds Cecil's quarters and confronts the eldest brother, the faster he can make decisions about his future.
Turning confidently down the corridors, remembering with a pang when he drug Leo here not a week ago, Ruhban makes his way to Cecil's chambers. However, before he can turn the final corner and come to his brother's door, a voice floats down the hall to him.
"Get my things ready, Xayan. I intend to leave by the end of the day." Ruhban halts just behind the corner as his brother speaks.
"Yessir," comes the sniveling reply. Xayan must be the name of that scrawny assistant. "May I inquire why the sudden departure?"
"I need to report to the High King. It's already been a day and a half since the incident in the forest. It's obvious Leonidas does not intend to return," Cecil replies, sighing softly. "I should not have attempted to kill him. I wasn't aware of the potential he has."
For a moment, silence eddies in Ruhban's head. So it's true then… what Leo said.
"Sir, are you absolutely sure that he and the dragon are bound?" the little assistant asks hesitantly.
"Yes. I've told you this already. Not only did the dragon protect him, they even bore matching markings. And Leonidas used magic against me. None of our bloodline has ever been able to use magic before," Cecil snaps, sounding exasperated. "I need to go to the High King and report my findings. Leo could be a massive use to us if we can get our hands on him again. He would make a great weapon against the dragons."
Ruhban presses his body into the wall, back flat against the surface, and tries to breathe through the shock. Leo used magic? He could be used? That is most definitely not the Cecil Ruhban knew anymore. The big brother Cecil he looked up to would never attempt to murder his brothers, and he would never see them as nothing more than a tool.
"And what about Ruhban, sir?" the assistant asks, his voice bland and uninterested.
Cecil pauses for a moment, and Ruhban can hear as the door creaks as it opens. "He has neither proved his worth nor proved he's useless. Keep an eye on his progress. If he makes progress and gets stronger, I'll come to fetch him. If he stays this mediocre, then he can stay in the fifth army until he either is able to retire or is killed in battle. And if he gets weaker… I'll come back and handle his removal myself."
With another creak and a slam, Cecil enters his room and slams the door shut, leaving Ruhban in shocked silence. His hand fisted in his tunic, Ruhban can feel as his heart pounds rapidly with fear.
He'll 'handle my removal himself'? Ruhban thinks, staring blankly at the opposite wall. The stone is grey and cold, uncaring as the youngest twin feels himself slip into a panic. He's starting to understand why Leo picked that dragon over Cecil and himself. And he definitely understands now why Leo refuses to come back to the fort.
What happened to my brother?
Ruhban has confirmation, now. He knows, with certainty, that the Cecil he looked up to is long gone. There is a monster lurking in Cecil's skin now. An uncaring and dark thing that sends waves of fear down Ruhban's spine.
Peeling himself from the wall, Ruhban makes his way back toward the barracks.
It's fair enough to say that Leo was right about one thing: The Fifth Army is no longer safe for either of the twins. Ruhban is not nearly as safe as he believed.
Now it's just a matter of deciding if he's going to run or not.
It's a matter of deciding if he is brave enough to face the lonely wilderness, or if he will stay within the reach of monsters.