Kris held her breath as she stood before the entryway to the tent she called home. The rain had long since stopped now, but the tattered old canvas was still soaked through, dipping low in the middle around the poles that supported it. With a nervous breath she pulled aside the flap, stepping into the dim, candle lit interior.

Her little sister’s silver-green eyes looked up at her, framed by ringlets of jade coloured hair.

“You’re back? Where’s Pa?” Harriet asked innocently.

Kris shifted uncomfortably, hoping Harriet wouldn’t notice. “He’s… working.”

“Oh,” Harriet said back simply. The five year old looked away, back down to the ragged stuffed rabbit that she held in her hands. The toy’s neck flopped unnaturally, a result of having too much of the stuffing fall out over the years since Kris had handed it down. “Will he be back soon?”

“...I hope so,” Kris responded, though there wasn’t a single part of her that meant it.

Kris walked over to sit next to her sister, who instantly leaned in close. Harriet was warm, at least warmer than Kris, who was shivering in the cold night air and the lingering dampness from the rain.

“Did you get anything?” Harriet asked quietly. The thin canvas walls of the tent did little to block out sounds.

Kris nodded, but kept the coinpurse hidden under her shirt.

“Oh,” Harriet whispered back simply, and Kris could already feel her starting to slump lower down on the wooden crate they used as a seat. “Can we eat it?”

Kris smiled sadly, cupping her little sister’s cheek gently with one hand and resting her nose at the top of Harriet’s head. There was an ever present smell, a result of none of them being able to bathe regularly for months now, but Kris hardly noticed.

“No, we can’t eat it. But I’ll go get us some food now… just sleep for a while til I’m back, aye?”

Harriet nodded, and Kris could tell the little girl was already drifting off. Kris was just getting ready to leave when a rustle at the front of their tent made her heart skip a beat.

Two pairs of eyes, silver and green, turned nervously towards the entrance. What Kris saw sent that already bad feeling in her gut into a nauseating spiral.

“Hello, Pa,” Kris said, as Harriet hugged the side of her arm for comfort, half hiding behind Kris’ shoulder.

The man that had entered the tent spared them a hollow, dark glance, before responding in a simple grunt. He was a lean man, tall and thin but with wiry muscles that stretched under his skin like rope. His high cheekbones might once have been proud and regal, but now were sunken and hollow, leaving him halfway between corpse and man. Worst of all were the eyes, the same shade of silver that Kris’ were, but ringed with such heavy bags he seemed to have not slept in weeks. There was little to no expression in them, or anywhere in the man… he stumbled through the tent like the living dead.

“Your mum’s not back?” The man asked, his voice hoarse and dry.

“...Haven’ seen her,” Kris said back carefully. Harriet shuffled a little closer to her side, peeking out from behind her back. Kris moved a little in front of her sister, patting her shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting way.

“Hmph,” their father responded, popping the cork on a bottle he pulled from under a basket in the tent. The foul smell of strong liquor instantly cut through the other stenches in the air, and Kris’ nose wrinkled up in disgust. She watched as the man she barely even recognized anymore as her father first took a swig, then poured some over his hands. It was only then that she noticed his bloody, swollen knuckles and the fresh bruises along the visible parts of his skin.

“Prob’ly best she don’t come back tonight,” he said as he finished cleaning his hands with another swig from the bottle.

“Why?” Harriet asked.

He looked at Harriet as if he had only just noticed she was there, that hollow gaze sweeping across the room unnervingly. His eyes were glossy and hazy, glazed over with a sort of milky film that turned his sclera an odd, muted grey, broken only by the red lines that crept in from the corners. Kris shuddered a bit at the sight.

“You were here, Hari?” He muttered, staring intently towards the two girls.

“We were just leaving, Pa,” Kris said quickly, pulling Hari to her feet and pulling her towards the tent door.

“Don’t come back empty handed,” the man said, seeming to lose interest just as quickly as it had come.

As Kris passed close to him on the way to the door, a different smell punched through the others, one that she’d come to hate, and fear, more than any other. It was the smell of thick, heavy spices and rancid meat. She turned up her nose as a tremble went unbidden through her body, and she pulled the confused and still half asleep Harriet quickly through the tent door behind her.

“Where are we going?” Hari asked simply, rubbing at her eyes with the wrist of the hand that still held her old stuffed rabbit. Kris kept a firm grip on her other hand and began leading her through the maze of tents.

“Away,” Kris said quietly, eyeing every person that passed nearby with suspicion.

“Can we go to Ma?”

“...No,” Kris said, shifting uncomfortably again. It wouldn’t be good for little Hari to learn what kind of work their mother was doing these days to keep them fed.

“Oh… okay.”

Kris felt her heart break a little bit more at the sad, defeated tone in her baby sister’s voice, and she hadn’t thought that could even happen anymore. Ever since they’d lost their home back in Addiron, life had been one heartbreak after another, until things that would have rocked her to the core just a few years ago now left her feeling little more than numb.

“Let’s find something to eat, aye?” Kris said, trying to put a smile on her face.

“Mm,” Hari hummed in response, though her eyes at least seemed to brighten a little.

“Come on, there’s a market not far from here, I know where the best foods are.”

A sliver of light broke through the curtains on a new day, as Lukas groaned and rolled over in bed. He’d barely slept a wink the night before, and the sun burned his reddened eyes when he tried to open them.

Still, he forced himself to get up, taking the time to bathe in the private lavatory connected to his guest bedroom. Looking himself over in the mirror it was clear that he hadn’t slept well, the red tint to his eyes and the slight bags under them were a clear indicator. Still, there was little to nothing he could do about it that wouldn’t be obvious to his family, so he dressed himself in some typical daywear and went back to his bedroom.

The clothes he had thrown off after the night before still lay on the floor not far from his bed, and he felt a moment of panic that maybe a servant had come through and seen them. A quick glance at his door showed the chain lock was still in place, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

That would have been an embarrassing way to get caught, he thought, rubbing at the back of his head nervously.

Since he was little, his brothers had taught him a particular saying that he’d learned to take to heart over the years.

If you’re going to go behind someone’s back, make sure they don’t turn around.

He hurriedly gathered up the bundle of clothes from last night, hopefully the only remaining evidence of his venture, only to notice something was wrong.

Where was his coin purse?

He shuffled through the pile of clothes once, twice, thrice, each time with increasing fervour. Where was it?! He threw the cloak off to the side, turning the pants and belt around and around, looking and feeling through every possible place for a sack of coin that simply wasn’t there.

With a befuddled look on his face, he dropped the clothes back into a pile at his feet, as the realisation hit him.

I was… robbed.

His mouth hung open a bit, until he shook his head abruptly.

This can’t be happening, it simply can’t, he thought, but there was not much denying it now and he knew that.

Who was it? His mind roamed to every close encounter he’d had, every bump with a random stranger on the street… until his thoughts went back to a boy with glossy black, jagged hair and eyes like moonlight.

‘M’lord, m’lord! I’m sorry, are you hurt?’

Lukas could feel himself going red in the face, as embarrassment washed over him. He thought he’d been so careful, so clever about watching his surroundings, keeping an eye on every face he passed… and he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the bloody book.

His face and ears burned, right up until a sudden knock at the door forced him back into action. He shoved the clothes from the night before under his bed, took some deep breaths, and tried to calm himself.

“Morning, Brother!” The too-bright voice of Adlet pierced through the heavy wooden door. “I trust you’re not oversleeping, hm? We’ve some merry carousing to get to today!”

“Adlet,” Sarian’s deep baritone said in an unimpressed voice. “I’d hardly consider meeting my

Fiancée, the crown princess of our empire, to be carousing.”

“And I’d hardly consider it a proper meeting if it didn’t involve carousing.”

Lukas opened the door abruptly, looking up with eyes like a dead fish at his brothers, who in turn looked down with very different expressions. Sarian looked instantly concerned, a slight frown pulling at the corners of his mouth and his eyes narrowed in what might have been worry, while Adlet instantly smirked.

“Late night, was it?” Adlet asked teasingly.

“So we’re to meet your Fiancée this morning then, Brother?” Lukas said to Sarian, ignoring his other brother.

“This evening for supper,” Sarian corrected, and it was then that Lukas noticed just how formally both were dressed. Not in normal daywear, like Lukas, but in regal suits that seemed fit more for military parade than wearing around their relatives’ house. Adlet wore black, trimmed in gold and red, the colours of the Lichtenwald Noble Guard, while Sarian was dressed in a white suit, also trimmed in gold and red, but with far more gold in the form of ribbons and tassels that decorated his figure.

“...Was there a call to dress that I missed?” Lukas asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious of his own state, not that his clothes were anything to scoff at. They just weren’t… that.

“Yes, there was a call, but you did not receive it. We’re to take you to a tailor today, in preparation for tonight,” Sarian responded.

“Mm, can’t have our littlest brother looking so poor and forlorn as he does now,” Adlet added. “Dressed as little more than a merchant, bags under his eyes after a night spent gazing at the moon, thinking of his fine, fair lady back home, wistfully longing to return to her…”

“Adlet, I don’t have a maiden back home,” Lukas said, ears burning again at the teasing. Adlet, who’d clasped his hands together and begun swooning like his imaginary maiden, peeked down with a smirk.

“Oh, goodness, Little Lu,” Adlet said knowingly. “Denial is a sure sign that you’re hopelessly smitten, my dearest brother. You should listen to your older, more experienced brothers on the matter, isn’t that right, Brother Dearest?” Adlet directed that last part towards Sarian.

“Don’t let anyone outside these halls catch you in your acting performance,” Sarian said back curtly, keeping his eyes on Lukas. “We’ll leave for the tailor’s after breakfast. Come, it’s nearly ready.”

Lukas followed his older brothers, bickering with Adlet almost the entire way about one thing or another, until they arrived in the dining hall. It was a towering room, the ceiling three stories high, and with a single table running the length of it that could have seated perhaps a hundred, though today it was only three.

“Where is everyone else?” Lukas asked, mind wandering to the other brothers that he hadn’t seen since they left Selerica. Their Father and Mother too were meant to be coming, but not for another few days.

“Father had some other business for them to attend to,” Sarian said back simply in between bites of roast duck and other rich foods. “They’ll be meeting us in Castle Kasin tonight for supper.”

The rest of breakfast passed quickly, and with only menial small talk until it was time to go. The servants began cleaning up the dining hall the moment they had finished their meal, and the three brothers made for the front door, until Sarian slowed down to walk beside Lukas, letting Adlet walk ahead.

“Are you well, Lukas?” He asked quietly.

“I-I am,” Lukas responded, a bit surprised at the sudden question. “Just a late night is all. This trip, your marriage, it’s all been weighing on me.”

Lukas was a little proud of how easily the half-truth slipped through his lips. A little bit of truth mixed in made any lie more believable, and he’d always subtly enjoyed the intricacies of truth and lie.

“Good. It won’t do to have you feeling unwell at a time like this, “ Sarian said, and he sounded genuinely relieved. There was a level of concern to his voice that Lukas rarely heard from any other, even the brothers like Adrian who were closer to him in age.

Then, Sarian lowered his voice until it was barely audible, careful not to let even a mouse under the floorboards hear him.

“Though I’d recommend keeping your night adventures more tame in the future.”

Lukas stuttered and slowed in his pace, and Sarian walked ahead without so much as a glance back.

How does he know? Lukas’ mind swam, thinking of every clue or evidence he might have left behind. Had the guard he’d shown his insignia to told? Had his boots left footprints? Did Sarian see him?

Try as he might, he couldn’t put his finger on it. There were near limitless possibilities when it came to his eldest brother, the man was without doubt the most mysterious of his family. Perhaps even more so than their father, in some ways.

Worse still was that, unlike their father, Sarian knew Lukas very well. Had it been something he said, or even just an expression?

Would he ever even know? Maybe he should ask.“Little Lu! Are you so tired you can’t keep up? Should I have a maid carry you the whole way?” The teasing voice of Adlet called from the front door at the end of the hall, and Lukas sped up again. He’d have time to think this through, and maybe even ask Sarian directly, after this business with the tailor was done.