That Which Defines Us

The room wasn’t meant to be lived in.

The air was dry and tasted of mothballs, old velvet, and neglect. Tall, gaunt furniture stood like ghosts in corners. A cracked chaise covered in sheets, a lopsided armoire, the leg of a broken table peeking out from behind a tapestry that hadn’t moved in years. The only sign that someone lived here at all was in the careful way the dust had been cleared from a narrow path across the stone floor and around a single window, kept scrupulously clean by the room’s lone occupant.

Alakis sat cross-legged on the floor beneath the window, pale arms wrapped around his knees. The light streamed in, soft and watery, the color of distant things. It fell across his silver-white hair, which hung loose around his shoulders like melted moonlight.

He rarely moved unless he had to. Movement stirred the dust, and he had come to hate the way it clung to his skin. He had no proper bed, only an overturned chaise he’d lined with old drapes, where he slept with his arms tucked tightly around himself as though bracing against a world that had long ago forgotten him.

The silence here was not peaceful. It was thick, and it had a shape. Sometimes it sounded like breathing when he was alone. Sometimes, it didn’t.

Outside the window, life in the palace passed him by.

He watched the people below. Servants and guards bustled across sunlit courtyards, and laughing courtiers floated past on gilded sandals, their voices rising in bursts of honeyed gossip. Musicians played in the evenings. Horses whinnied in the early morning. The city beyond the walls shimmered in golds and oranges, busy and alive, so different from this forgotten place of wood rot and cobwebs.

He didn’t wave. No one ever looked up.

He didn’t know what it meant to be part of it.

Sometimes he wondered if they even knew he existed.

He hadn’t spoken aloud in so long, his voice had begun to fade. He whispered to himself sometimes, just to remember how it felt. He didn’t say names. He didn’t remember the last time someone had said his.

Alakis.

It sounded foreign even in his own mind.

He had made a small, strange home here, a sort of sanctuary. A wash basin hidden behind a wardrobe. A small bookshelf missing half its shelves. A broken mirror turned to the wall. He didn’t like to see himself.

The walls were lined with old portraits — faded nobles long dead and nameless, their eyes following him even in the dark. He had stopped being afraid of them. They at least, couldn’t physically harm him.

Sometimes he traced the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes and pretended they were constellations. At night, he lay awake for hours listening to the palace breathe. Sometimes he cried without making a sound.

But most often, he just stared out the window.

He liked watching people who didn’t know he was there. Liked seeing the way they moved as if they mattered, as if someone was waiting for them to arrive. He imagined where they were going. He invented names for them. The red-robed woman with the tray of oranges became Yelari, the fruit-seller’s daughter. The tall guard with the chipped armor and crooked smile was Fareth, a soldier secretly writing poetry in his off hours. The maid who tripped over her own feet in the mornings was Daya, the illegitimate child of a nobleman who would one day become queen.

They had stories. He gave them meaning, because he had none of his own.

And when night fell and the window darkened into a mirror, he curled into his corner and pretended the silence was a blanket, not a cage.

And so he days passed, usually identical to the previous and the next. But every once in a while something else would occur.

When one got used to the sound of silence, it was easy to tell when it was about to be inturtupted. Broken silence was like the stillness that comes just before something breaks.

The door crashed open like a siege battering through the wall of his world.

Alakis didn’t flinch. He didn’t move at all, not even as footsteps stormed across the stone, scattering dust.

“Well, would you look at that,” a voice drawled, smug and syrupy. “Still breathing.”

Alakis turned his head slightly, just enough to see them. Two of them. His brothers.

The tall one was Ronash, sixth born, built like a panther with a smile too white to be kind. The shorter one, broader, in sleeveless silk and heavy gold, was Kelir, fifth born, and twice as cruel for having never been the favorite.

The scent of oil and spice clung to them like rot. They were dressed for the palace’s inner halls. The warm parts, the soft and shining parts that pulsed with music and perfumes. They didn’t belong in this dusty place. And yet here they were, bringing company and noise into Alakis’ world of silence.

“Still keeping rats for company, little brother?” Ronash asked, toeing an empty bowl near the door.

Kelir bent to pick up one of the draped fabrics Alakis had lined his sleeping place with and held it up with a sneer. “Is this a curtain or a shroud? Either way, it suits you.”

Alakis stood slowly. Not out of pride. Not defiance. There was simply no point in staying on the floor when they were here. He didn’t speak. They didn’t expect him to.

Ronash circled him once, eyes glittering. “How do you think he’d look painted up? Or should we leave him dusty? Might be more authentic that way.”

Kelir chuckled. “Let’s find out.”

They didn’t tell him where they were taking him.

They never did. That was part of the game.

Alakis didn’t ask. They wouldn’t answer truthfully anyway.

Ronash led the way with a confident stride, silk robes brushing marble, while Kelir walked just behind Alakis, occasionally prodding him with the flat of a jeweled ring or flicking dust from his shoulder with mocking disgust.

“No wonder they keep you tucked away like mold,” Kelir muttered. “You smell like old books and bed sores.”

Alakis’ feet ached from the stone, his body cold in its thin tunic. He had cleaned it yesterday, but his definition of clean had changed over the years. Now it meant less dirty than usual.

They dragged him through a corridor reeking of roses and wine.

And then they arrived.

The air was thick. Indigo and violet saturated every wall and pillow. The ceiling was strung with silks that danced lazily in the warm breeze from hidden vents.

Incense coiled upward, forming a haze that brought with it a sluggish atmosphere that dampened the lilting strings and breathy flutes.

The concubines were sprawled across lounges and cushions, their eyes painted, lips red, skin oiled and glistening. They were half-dressed and wholly amused, their laughter curling like dragon’s breath from their mouths. They lounged like jungle cats, baring teeth in amusement as Alakis was shoved into the room by his brothers.

No one asked why he was here.

They knew.

“Darlings,” Ronash announced, spreading his arms with the grandiosity of a theater performer, “a rare treat for you all. Our father’s most precious disappointment, plucked from the shadows just for your entertainment.”

Laughter rippled around the chamber.

Kelir caught Alakis by the arm and dragged him to the center of the chamber.

A woman in a gauzy violet robe stepped closer. “What is he?” she asked, leaning in to study Alakis the way one might examine a peculiar animal.

“Look at him. Look at those eyes. Like dead pearls.”

“He’s even paler than the marble.”

“Do you think he’s sick?”

“Is he a phantom?”

“Maybe,” Ronash purred.

Another woman giggled, swirling wine in a golden cup. “What’s the game this time? Are we to teach him how to please? Or are we simply watching him break?”

“Oh, break him,” said a third. “Please. I love the sound things make when they shatter.”

Someone flicked a grape at Alakis. It bounced off his chest and landed on the floor with a wet sound. Another threw a silk scarf, which settled over his head like a mock veil.

“Look at his bones,” one whispered, circling Alakis like a lioness sniffing a wounded cub. “You could play him like an instrument.”

“His wrists are so small. Like a girl’s.”

“Not even a pretty girl,” said another. “He looks like something that crawled out of a mausoleum.”

“More like a pit of peasant corpses.”

Someone yanked at the neckline of his tunic, exposing one shoulder. A smear of ash was drawn across his collarbone with a fingertip dipped in wine.

“Let’s decorate him,” a woman said. “He needs color.”

A concubine with gold bangles pulled a paintstick from a pouch and began sketching curls and flowers along his other arm.

One took a brush and teased his tangled hair, tsking as strands pulled loose. “It’s like spun spider silk. No weight at all.”

Alakis stood there and let them.

He was too pale. Too thin. He was ugly. There was no strength in his limbs. His shoulders sloped like a child’s. His hair was unnatural. His eyes strange. He didn’t have his brothers’ golden skin or squared jaws or broad chests. He didn’t have their booming voices or war-born scars.

He had nothing.

He had always had nothing.

He thought maybe he had been born wrong. Like a mistake the gods had forgotten to destroy.

He didn’t remember his mother. He didn’t know if she’d have wanted him. He only knew she had died, and he hadn’t. And that had been the beginning of everyone’s resentment.

“Does he even speak?”

Alakis opened his mouth, then closed it. What would he say?

Someone else laughed and stepped closer. “Make him perform something. Let’s see what tricks the ghost knows.”

Ronash snapped his fingers and tossed a coin at his feet. “Dance, little dog.”

More laughter. Cruel now. Demanding.

Alakis stared at the coin for a moment, the glint of gold against the rug. He didn’t know how to dance. But he moved.

He did what he thought they wanted. It was a jerky, pitiful mimicry of the movements he had seen once from far across the garden walls. Arms lifted, feet slid, a strange swaying like a marionette half-strung.

They hooted and hollered.

“This is too much!”

“My shawl could do better!”

“How creepy!”

Something was poured over his hair, oil or wine Alakis couldn’t tell.

“Aish!” One of the concubines clicked her tongue in disgust. “Those movements are an affront to the meaning of dance. He cannot be allowed to deface such an art. Little ghost, stop that nonsense and crawl!”

That got them screaming with laughter.

He lowered himself until his cheek nearly brushed the rug and crawled in a circle. Not because it made sense. Not because it had meaning.

Because they had told him to.

Because if he didn’t do what they wanted, maybe they’d hit him. Or worse, forget him again.

And somehow that thought hurt more than the laughter.

The humiliation was not new.

It was just louder here.

It was Ronash who caught sight of the shadows shifting in the corner. A figure arriving, taller than the rest, silence wrapping around him like a blade unsheathed.

The laughter stopped.

Even the music faltered, dying mid-note like a throat cut too quickly.

The King of Elgar had arrived. Vandu, the Lion of the Eastern Dunes, Lord of Iron Banners.

He stood in robes that hinted royalty in every thread. Dark bronze with accents of indigo and bone-white accompanied a crown wrought like twisted flame, gleaming on his brow. His eyes were sharp, sunken slightly, as if the weight of ruling had long since begun to hollow him from within.

But his presence was heavy. Heavy enough that even Ronash stepped back, wine cup lowering in instinctual reverence.

“What is this?” Vandu asked. His voice was not raised, and yet it carried.

Ronash made a low bow, feigning grace. “A jest, Father. A bit of sport with—”

“Silence.”

Alakis felt the weight of that gaze now settle on him.

Vandu’s lip curled. “So this is where you’ve scuttled off to,” His piercing gaze followed the slow bead of honey that dripped down Alakis’ face.

Vandu approached, his footsteps heavy. He lifted the boy’s chin with the crook of one ringed finger.

“You’ve grown,” he said. It was not admiration. It was accusation. “And yet you are no more than you were. A pale, trembling blemish.”

Alakis lowered his gaze, knowing that the King was taking note of every bruise, every stain, every bit of him that was not right.

“It’s time,” Vandu said simply. He turned away, as if speaking further was a waste of breath. “You’ll be of use to your kingdom, after all.”

Ronash looked up, startled. “You mean—she accepted?”

“She did.”

All eyes were suddenly on Alakis, but not in the same way as before. Some of the concubines shared looks of pity, while others raised their brows high in shock. Even his brothers were at a loss for words.

The room remained quiet for a breath too long. Long enough that the concubines no longer bothered to pretend they weren’t listening.

Finally, Kelir stepped forward. He kept his tone neutral, even as a flicker of unease stirred beneath the surface. “Sending him to her…” Kelir said slowly, eyes flicking from Alakis to the King’s broad back. “That will be of use to us?”

“It will.”

“But she—” Kelir caught himself, removing any note of defiance and teplacing it with confusion. “Forgive me, but… she asked for him?”

“She did not ask for anything. She expects a gift.” Vandu said, and this time his voice carried that iron note that crushed uncertainty into obedience. “He is proof of my intention. That is enough.”

Alakis’ heart thudded harder in his chest. He looked to his brothers, from Kelir to Ronash. There was no comfort in either of their expressions.

Ronash scoffed quietly, more to himself than anyone else. “Can he even survive more than a few hours with her?”

The jibe wasn’t even cruel. Not in the way Ronash usually was. It was tired. An exhale of disbelief, as though someone had declared a cat fit to lead a warband.

Vandu stopped.

Not dramatically. Not with a turn or a glare. He simply ceased movement, as though hearing something that made the air itself too thick to move through. Then, slowly, he turned his head enough to look at Ronash from over one shoulder.

There was a pause.

“You will find,” he said, “that she does not measure men in the ways we do. That is why she has remained where we could not tread.”

“She’s a monster,” Ronash muttered, though not quite loud enough to be bold.

“Yes,” Vandu said, turning back toward the door. “What else could topple Nahr’Zul’s six-century empire as though brushing sand from a table? She shattered the Rilks and their cavalry of fifty thousand, and scattered them like frightened dogs. She reduced Sharuhl’s legion of fire-sorcerers to blackened bones in temple ash. And Qassira with its parade of armored war-elephants, each one a moving fortress, still brought to its knees before a single year’s end. One after the next, within a decade.”

Kelir let out a quiet breath. “So we are to bow and scrape, to sell our pride so cheaply?”

Vandu’s voice was low, threaded with the dry rasp of a seasoned general. “As I have no sorcerers, no cavalry, and not a single gods-damned elephant, we play the dog. We wait. We smile when spoken to. Because survival, for now, demands obedience to what should have been dust long ago.”

This finally silenced the battle-craving princes, but they shifted, uneasy energy rippling through them. Their instincts screamed against what they were being told, but the weight of their father’s words held them in place.

Vandu’s eyes narrowed with that cold, tired wisdom that only time in the field could bring. “You don’t bury the mountain you must cross. You endure it. And hope it doesn’t collapse beneath your feet.”

Ronash scoffed. “So you are sending him to stand in our stead? To represent us?” The amount of contempt in the words could be wrung out to fill a bucket.

Alakis flinched at his mention. His skin crawled under the weight of the moment, the creeping certainty that he was being offered up like a sacrifice, though he hadn’t yet begun to understand what this bargain demanded of him.

“Yes,” Vandu said simply. “He will.”

Ronash’s hands clenched, his face twisted with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. “And if he dies?”

Vandu eyed Alakis the way one might look at a dagger chipped and left in the rain, only to find use for it still

“Then he dies in the service of Elgar.”

Kelir, still unable to accept such an outcome, opened his mouth to speak, but before the words could form, Vandu cut him off with a look that carried the weight of many victories.

“You speak of pride, but the price of that pride is death. And I will not see our kingdom fall to that.”

The younger princes were silent now, the harsh truth of their father’s words settling over them like a cold wind.

The world had changed. The weight of Elgar’s pride had buckled beneath the pressure of kingdoms far mightier than theirs, and now they were forced to play the role of the subservient. The kingdom, once a beast that tore through its enemies with teeth bared, now needed to walk a quieter path.

And Alakis, the boy who knew nothing, and was nothing, was to be its most delicate bargaining chip

The world had finally come to collect what it had left behind.