Rhaegal realized what he'd said only after he'd said those words. He called himself stupid, but by then it was too late. How he wished he had that memory-wiping water right now… but sadly that wasn't the case, and whether he liked it or not now Darbi knew things he wished he didn't know. "Um... brother, I can assure you that..."
"Shut up for a moment!" Darbi exclaimed in a shaking voice. "I need... a minute... to process everything"
Rhaegal sighed. Darbi clearly hadn't expected to get all that news in one fell swoop. Maybe it was too much for him. He could understand that, even he would have trouble accepting everything immediately upon hearing it. He felt a little sorry for his brother: he just wanted to help him, and instead now he was forced to be involved in something not very positive and in a very important secret for their family.
Darvi was truly silent for a full minute, breathing like a mad bull and rolling his eyes like he was drunk. "Let's go in order" he finally said. "You said... that Black Vulture... tortured you?"
It was obvious that he would start with that detail. It would have been the same detail that Rhaegal would have focused on if he had been in his brother's place, and one that any other member of their family would have immediately noticed. "Exactly" Rhaegal admitted.
"I will kill her" Darbi declared showing his teeth and claws and emitting a ferocious hiss, as if he were a snake ready to bite someone with its venomous bite. He began to walk quickly towards the outside of the oasis, and almost certainly would have continued all the way back to the Jurao Kingdom if Rhaegal hadn't jumped on him and pinned him to the ground with his weight. "What the fuck are you doing!?"
"Brother, no! It's not worth it!" Rhaegal exclaimed.
"Of course it's worth it! Those bastards have to pay!" Darbi roared in a voice that sounded almost demonic. His eyes, normally calm and kind and amused, had turned into a field of furious flames. "I will slaughter them all! That assassin, her accomplices, even their king! I will break their bones piece by piece, feed on their flesh, drink their blood, and make sure to keep them alive at all times so they can suffer as long as possible, and when they will scream I will smash their skulls...!!!"
Rhaegal had to make an extra effort to hold him, despite being in a better position than his brother. It was indeed true that anger could be transformed into strength. He almost felt bad seeing his more jovial and likeable brother transform into a beast thirsty for blood and revenge. All traces of calmness and playfulness had disappeared from Darbi's expression, giving way only to the most unbridled fury. Rhaegal couldn't blame him, because that was exactly how he would have reacted if he were in his brother's place. In their family, each of them could bear anything… as long as it was aimed at him. The moment someone touched their brother or sister, there was no compensation other than the death of the culprit. A very, very painful death. "Darbi, please calm down! It's not a problem, I don't remember anything she did to me! She used some kind of magical memory erasing water, it's like nothing ever happened!"
"But it happened! That's the point!" Darbi roared. "We can't let her get away with it! She has to pay! Everyone has to pay!"
"And they will pay! One day! But now is not the time!" Rhaegal replied. "Why do you think I kept this hidden?"
Darbi continued to tug in an attempt to free himself from his grip, but his movements had gotten a little slower. Rhaegal didn't know if it was from exhaustion or because his words had moved something in his brother, but given the resistance that dragons possessed, he believed the second hypothesis was more valid. "What do you mean... now is not the time?"
"Look around you! See where we are! Do you remember why we are here? Because we want to isolate ourselves from the world! And we want to isolate ourselves from the world because we want to be safe until we are strong enough to face any danger!" Rhaegal exclaimed. "If you go now, Haku and our sisters will notice your absence and will come to take their revenge too! And killing Black Vulture means making the entire Jurao Kingdom antagonize us! The army of humans will be upon us! And even if by some miracle you'll manage to go without anyone noticing, we both know you'll probably get caught! Our siblings will come looking for you, and someone will die! You know they will! We're not strong enough to fight against a nation!"
His brother's movements finally stopped. He seemed to have given up, but Rhaegal still preferred not to let go. Rather, he continued, "I didn't tell anyone about that, because I knew you'd react like that! We can't let vengeance rule us, not now! And even without counting the risks, think of everything we'd lose! We brought here the newcomers because we want to build trust and peace between us, to finally be able to live somehow without needing to hide constantly, to be able to have friends! But if our sisters knew the truth, do you think they would still trust the mewcomers? Do you think that Haku would still trust them? You know how paranoid he is! Already now he doesn't trust even the people closest to us, how much do you think he would trust them if he knew what other newcomers did to me? He'll probably feel that living close to them is too dangerous! I can't let what happened to me, through my own negligence to boot, ruin everything! We can't put our family in danger! So now calm down, take a deep breath, let off steam in a tree if necessary, and then keep your mouth shut!"
Darbi shivered visibly. A few tears formed in her eyes. Rhaegal felt a pang in his heart: very few times in his life had he seen Darbi cry. "It's not fair" he whispered. "This is not fair..."
"I know" Rhaegal murmured. "But tell me, brother, what would you do if you were in my place, knowing the consequences that the truth could have?"
Darbi bit his lip. "I'd keep my mouth shut" he admitted. "I understand why you did it. But it's not fair anyway"
"This whole world is unfair, haven't you figured it out yet? Sometimes we can fight its rules… but often we have to follow them" Rhaegal replied, finally letting his brother go. Now he was sure he wouldn't run away. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have involved you. I don't even know why I did it. Forget everything, just like I did. I told you, I don't remember anything. I don't even know what was done to me. It doesn't count worth mulling over something you don't even know what it is"
It wasn't true: even if his mind couldn't remember, his body remembered very well… but at the moment it was better that he didn't tell his brother. "Who else knows?" Darbi asked.
Rhaegal sighed. "Only Efren. No one else"
"Efren? Did you tell him and not... your family?"
"You know I couldn't tell any of you, I've already listed the reasons. I needed to vent to someone and Efren was the most trusted person I could turn to, I knew he wouldn't betray me... and in fact he didn't"
Darbi let out a furious huff and started spinning in circles for no apparent reason. He was probably disappointed that Rhaegal had confided that secret to his friend rather than his family, but he could understand why. "You should have told some of us about it. You should have... you should have...". He brought a paw to his face and almost scratched himself, then let out a roar of anger and swung his tail against a tree; the trunk was at least two meters thick and protected by a very solid bark, but it snapped as if it were made of paper and collapsed on itself in an instant. Darbi threw himself on it and began to take it with his claws, reducing what until a few moments before had been a majestic plant to sawdust. Evidently he had taken his brother's suggestion to vent against a tree literally.
Rhaegal let him; it was right for Darbi to release some pent-up anger, and while chopping up a tree wasn't exactly the best way to calm down, at least it would deplete him of energy. Only when his brother started biting into the broken branches of the tree did he decide to intervene. "Ok, that's enough, brother. Now you really have to..."
"Are you going to tell the others?" Darbi cut him off, looking at him with a seriousness Rhaegal had never thought to see in him.
"I can't do that, you know. Not now"
"So do you want to keep deceiving them? Keeping it all inside, until you explode like you did to me just now?"
"I'm not deceiving them, I'm withholding some details. And telling you the truth was a mistake. I told you, I didn't want to involve you"
"They have the right to know"
"But knowing would endanger them. It would endanger all of us and our entire future. Maybe one day when we don't have to worry about things like strength levels and other bullshit anymore, then I'll tell them… but I can't right now. And neither can you"
Darbi seemed willing to protest again, but Rhaegal stopped him: "That's enough, brother. I'm directly concerned and I'm the only one who has the right to decide about it. And this is my choice. It's not worth throwing away away everything we've built so far to pursue a revenge that, personally, I don't care about. We didn't do it for Haku, we won't do it for me either"
"Haku wasn't tortured"
"However, he had been humiliated and used like a circus beast, and he didn't always come out of the arena unscathed. Maybe I will have suffered something more, but I don't remember it anyway, so the situation is almost the same"
"It's not the same, and you know it"
"For me yes. And as I told you, I'm the only one here who has the right to decide"
Darbi let out an annoyed snort. His claws dug into the ground and his teeth continually scraped together, but he refrained from tearing the tree apart again. "Okay... the secret is yours and you have the right to decide. But don't expect me to approve"
Rhaegal sighed. He hadn't expected Darbi to approve of his decision… but at least he'd managed to get him to keep his mouth shut. However, that wasn't enough for him. "Could you promise me that?"
Darbi glared at him. "Really? You don't trust me?"
"Of course I trust you..."
"Yet you want me to make a promise, an unbreakable vow to a dragon"
"Brother... I just want to make sure this family is safe"
"So you don't trust me"
Rhaegal didn't answer; he just looked at the ground. Darbi shook his head. "It's unbelievable… fine, I promise. Do you feel safer now?" he grumbled in a disappointed voice. "You complained about how Haku treated us during the first months of our life, but you are becoming exactly like him. Lots of secrets and no mutual trust. I hope it ends differently for you, because otherwise we have a big problem"
Those words hurt Rhaegal badly. However, he said nothing. He felt it was better not to contradict his brother, not this time. And then, maybe he wasn't entirely wrong after all.
Darbi jerked his neck and head a couple of times, as if to shake a particularly annoying fly from his skin. "I need to think of something else. Tell me about the rest. What did you mean when you said that according to a prophecy our brother should become a king?"