The clatter of steel against iron echoes across the moonlit palace training grounds, sharp and rhythmic in the quiet night air.
Aurelian drives his practice sword against a wooden dummy with relentless, punishing force. Sweat glistens on his neck, his eyes burning with an unfocused rage that has been building for five unbearable days.
*Clang. Clang. Clang.*
"Is the dummy fighting back, or are you just trying to break the wood?"
Aurelian catches the wooden blade mid-swing, breathing heavily as he turns toward the voice.
Tristan stands at the edge of the torchlit ring. He isn't wearing his formal banquet clothes tonight—just a simple linen shirt, leather trousers, and the dark steel dagger Cassian gave him strapped firmly to his waist. His broad shoulders are tense, his blue eyes filled with a mixture of raw hurt and stubborn defiance.
"I'm training, Tristan," Aurelian says coldly, wiping sweat from his forehead with his forearm.
"Go back to the ballroom. I'm sure someone wants to hear another story about your grand sword progress."
Tristan doesn't leave. Instead, he steps into the ring, his boots crunching heavily on the gravel.
"What is your problem with me?" Tristan demanded, his voice tight.
Aurelian turned his back, raising his sword toward the dummy again.
"I don't have a problem."
"Don't lie to me!" Tristan snapeed, stepping closer.
"For five days, you've treated me like scum on the bottom of your boot. Every time I speak to you, you give me some biting remark. Every time I try to practice, you walk out of the room. I thought—" Tristan's voice breaks slightly, though he quickly forces it steady. "I thought we were brothers."
Aurelian freezes. Slowly, he lowers the practice weapon and turns around, his jaw clenched tight.
"Brothers?"
Aurelian lets out a harsh, humorless laugh.
"Is that what we are? Because for nineteen years, I was the only son. And now suddenly you're everywhere, hanging off Cassian's arm, taking his gifts, listening to his advice like you're his absolute favorite."
Tristan blinks, stunned.
"His favorite? Are you insane?"
"Look at you!" Aurelian steps forward, pointing his wooden blade directly at Tristan's chest.
"He gave you star-iron! He spends hours guiding you through court etiquette! He walks with you in the gardens! Meanwhile, he barely looks at me because you've taken up every inch of his attention!"
Silence falls over the training ring, heavy and suffocating.
Tristan stares at Aurelian as if he is looking at a complete stranger. Then, a look of profound, bitter disbelief washes over Tristan's face.
"You think he's replacing you?" Tristan asks quietly. "You think I'm taking him from you?"
"I don't think it, Tristan," Aurelian growls, his pride flaring. "I see it every single day."
"You idiot," Tristan says, his voice dangerously low. He steps directly up to the tip of Aurelian's practice sword, unbothered by the steel pressing against his chest.
"You absolute idiot."
"Watch your tongue—"
"No! You listen to me!" Tristan shouts, shoving Aurelian's sword aside with a hard slap of his hand.
"Cassian didn't choose me over you! You pushed him away! You told him to his face that he was a stranger! You treated him like garbage the night he came home while I was terrified out of my mind that he was going to kick me out into the street!"
Aurelian flinches slightly at the raw anger in Tristan's voice, but stays silent.
"He gives me attention because he knows I grew up thinking I was a mistake and yes he is willing to accept me into his family and become his son!" Tristan's eyes shine with unshed tears, his chest heaving.
"He's trying to make sure I know I belong here! But every single time he enters a room, do you know who he looks for first? You!"
Tristan reaches out and jabs a finger against Aurelian's shoulder.
"He looks at you, waiting for you to stop acting like a arrogant, stubborn prince and just speak to him! He wants his son back, Aurelian! But you're so wrapped up in your own stupid pride that you'd rather pretend you're being replaced than admit you were wrong!"
The words hit Aurelian like a physical blow. His hand holding the practice sword trembles slightly.
"I've looked up to you my entire life," Tristan whispers, his voice thick with hurt as he steps back.
"I wanted to be fast like you. I wanted to wield a blade like you. But right now? You're just a coward hiding behind your own anger."
Tristan turns on his heel and walks away, his boots heavy against the dirt as he heads back toward the palace.
Aurelian stands completely alone in the center of the ring, the torchlight flickering across his pale face. The silence of the night closes in around him, cold and absolute.
"Then go back to being the bastard nobody wanted!" Aurelian roared after him, his voice cracking under the weight of his unfiltered venom.
"You're just Lucien's tragic mistake, and Cassian only pities you!"
The words sliced through the quiet night air like a venomous blade.
Tristan froze mid-step.
Slowly, deliberately, Tristan turned on his heel. Every ounce of hurt in his blue eyes had burned away, replaced by an explosive, blinding fury. He didn't say a word. He lunged across the gravel ring like a unleashed beast.
"Tristan, wait—!" Aurelian barely had time to raise his guard before Tristan's fist slammed hard into his jaw.
The force sent Aurelian staggering backward, the metallic taste of blood bursting in his mouth. Snapping into pure instinct, Aurelian tackled Tristan around the waist, bringing both of them crashing heavily onto the dirt.
They tore into each other—a chaotic, brutal mess of flailing limbs, desperate shoves, and heavy strikes. All the unspoken resentment, pride, and fear of the past week erupted between them in a violent, unrefined brawl.
"Take it back!"
Tristan snarled, pinning Aurelian's shoulders and raising a fist.
"Take it back right now!"
"Get off me!" Aurelian yelled, bucking his hips with explosive elven agility.
Aurelian managed to break free, scrambling to his feet. Driven by panic and adrenaline, as Tristan charged at him again, Aurelian planted his foot and shoved Tristan with all his physical might, channeling a sharp burst of raw mana into his palms to push him away.
He hadn't aimed. He hadn't thought.
And Tristan was immediately hurled backward through the air.
*CRACK!*
A sickening, brutal sound echoed across the stone court as the back of Tristan's head slammed violently against the sharp, reinforced iron corner of a weapons rack.
Tristan's body went instantly limp. He fell forward like a doll, hitting the dirt face-down.
For a while he didn't move. He didn't groan. He didn't even twitch.
Silence collapsed onto the training grounds, heavy and suffocating.
"Tristan?"
Aurelian gasped out, wiping the blood from his own lip as he took a trembling step forward.
"Tristan, get up. Stop playing."
No answer.
Then, Aurelian saw it.
From beneath Tristan's dark silver hair, a thick, deep red crimson began to pool rapidly across the grey gravel, gleaming under the harsh light of the wall torches.
Aurelian's breath hitched in his throat. The world seemed to tilt violently on its axis. The blood in his own veins ran completely ice-cold.
"Tristan!"
Aurelian fell to his knees beside him, his hands shaking so violently he could barely function. He rolled Tristan onto his back. Tristan's eyes were half-open, glossy and unseeing, his skin rapidly draining of color as the crimson stain pooled out beneath his head.
"No, no, no... Tristan! Open your eyes!" Aurelian screamed, pressing his trembling hands desperately against the wound to stop the bleeding, but the hot crimson flooded right through his fingers.
"Tristan, please! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Wake up!"
A wave of sheer, paralyzing terror seized Aurelian's chest.
'I killed him,'
his mind shrieked in absolute horror.
'I killed my brother.'
"SOMEONE HELP!" Aurelian shrieked into the empty night, his voice breaking into a desperate, sobbing wail as he held Tristan's lifeless body against his chest. "LUCIEN! CASSIAN! HELP HIM!"
*****