The silence did not last.
A low whisper started at one end of the long table.
It was like a little snake, slithering through the quiet.
“No wonder,” a minister hissed.
“No wonder he acts like that.
All that wild behavior.
The flirting.
The fighting.
The disrespect.
He isn’t noble after all.
He’s just… feral.”
The words bit into Ace’s skin.
He felt them like little knives.
Another voice, louder.
“So the Duke only has two true sons.
Alex and Jade.
That simplifies the petition, doesn’t it?
If Jade is the firstborn… things get much easier.”
A fat minister snorted.
It was an ugly sound.
“Do you remember what he said about Lord Jade when he arrived?
Called him a bastard.
A whore’s son.
Gods.
The irony.
He was shouting about himself the whole time.”
The whispers grew.
They swirled around Ace, a storm of mean, happy voices.
They had never liked him.
The wild prince.
The problem.
Now they had a reason.
Ace looked at Alex.
His brother was still staring, his face pale.
He looked from the Duke to Roseline to Ace.
He looked… lost.
Like someone had just moved all the furniture in a dark room.
He hadn’t known either.
Ace looked at Jade.
Jade was still sitting.
He had put his glasses down on the ledger.
He was looking right at Ace.
His face was not mean.
It was not happy.
It was… confused.
And sad.
His crimson eyes were wide.
He shook his head slowly, just a tiny bit, as if to say, *I didn’t know.
I didn’t want this.*
They were both puzzles.
Alex and Jade.
Two brothers who were real.
And Ace was the piece that didn’t fit.
The noise in the room got louder.
The ministers were talking openly now, arguing about what this meant for the petition, for the future.
“Ace.”
A voice cut through the noise.
It was the Duke.
His voice was rough, like stones grinding together.
“Ace, stop.”
Another voice, softer, full of tears.
“Ace, please.” It was his mother.
Roseline.
But their voices were far away.
They were at the end of a very long tunnel.
Ace’s vision blurred.
The room swam.
The dark stone walls melted together.
The faces of the ministers became ugly, laughing blurs.
He saw flashes of his life.
Like pictures in a book that was burning.
He saw himself as a little boy, maybe four years old.
He was running through the great hall, laughing.
He tripped on a rug and fell, skinning his knee.
He started to cry.
Big, loud sobs.
His father, Duke Aster, had been talking to a general.
He stopped.
He walked over.
He didn’t yell.
He picked Ace up, so high.
He sat him on his big, broad shoulder.
“A Valebane does not cry over a little blood,” he said.
But his hand was gentle on Ace’s back.
“We save our tears for real losses.” Ace had buried his face in his father’s black hair.
It smelled like safety.
Like home.
He saw himself at ten, trying to sneak a pastry from the kitchen.
The cook caught him.
He winked at her, his best, most charming smile.
“For my dear brother Alex!
He’s studying too hard!” The cook laughed and gave him two.
He ran to Alex’s room and shoved one at him.
Alex frowned.
“You stole these.” Ace just grinned, his mouth full.
“I liberated them.
For us.” Alex shook his head, but he took the pastry.
He ate it.
A tiny smile touched his lips.
*Brothers.*
He saw himself at fifteen, in this very castle.
He had flirted with a visiting lord’s daughter.
He had made her laugh.
Her father was angry.
Duke Aster had to apologize.
Later, in his study, the Duke looked tired.
“You must learn control, Ace.
Your charm is a weapon.
Do not fire it at everything that moves.” Ace had just smirked.
“Why not?
It’s fun.” His father sighed.
“One day, you will care about more than fun.” But he didn’t punish him.
He never really punished him.
He just… worried.
He saw his mother’s face last week.
She was brushing his hair after a training session.
He was complaining about a minister.
She smiled her soft smile.
“My wild boy,” she said.
“My heart.” She kissed his forehead.
Her scent of roses and vanilla was the scent of love.
It was the scent of *mother*.
All of it.
Every hug, every lesson, every scolding, every smile.
It was all a lie.
They had been playing a game.
A pretend game.
And he hadn’t known the rules.
He thought he was the prince.
He was just the orphan they felt sorry for.
And Jade.
Ace’s blurry eyes found him again.
Jade, who was watching him with that sad, confused look.
Ace remembered the first day Jade arrived.
Pale, quiet, in his green tunic.
Ace had been so cruel.
He had called him names.
He had laughed at him.
He had tried to make him feel small and unwanted.
He remembered the garden.
In the snow.
Jade drawing the wolf.
Calling it ‘brother.’ Ace had felt a strange pull then.
A feeling he didn’t understand.
He remembered the festival.
The dance.
The moment the music swelled and Jade looked at him.
For one second, the wall between them felt thin.
Like they were the same.
Two red-eyed boys in a cold castle.
But they weren’t the same.
Jade was the real son.
The true blood.
The one with the right to be here.
The one who belonged.
Ace was the fake.
The charity case.
The one they had all been too kind to tell the truth.
While Ace had been yelling at Jade, treating him like dirt, thinking he was protecting his family… he was the one who wasn’t family.
The pain in his chest was so big he couldn’t breathe.
It was a black hole.
It was eating him from the inside.
He felt hands on his arms.
Strong hands.
One pair was big, familiar.
Alex.
The other pair was slender, colder.
Jade.
He didn’t even know how Jade got there.
A second ago, he was sitting far away.
Now he was here, right beside him, holding his arm.
His face was close.
His winter lily scent mixed with Ace’s own broken smell of smoke and sour cherry.
“Ace,” Alex said, his voice tight.
“Don’t listen to them.
Come with me.”
“Brother,” Jade whispered.
The word was soft.
It was not a claim.
It sounded like a plea.
*Brother.*
The word was the final knife.
It twisted deep.
Ace yanked his arms free.
He shoved them both away.
His strength surprised them.
Alex stumbled back a step.
Jade’s glasses, which he had put in his pocket, fell to the floor with a tiny *clink*.
“Don’t touch me!” Ace snarled.
The sound was raw, animal.
It didn’t sound like his voice.
“Don’t you *dare* touch me!”
He looked at Alex—the brother who wasn’t his brother.
He saw the hurt in Alex’s eyes.
But he didn’t care.
The hurt in his own heart was too big.
He looked at Jade—the real son, the one he had hated for no reason.
Jade just looked back, his eyes full of a pain Ace didn’t want to understand.
He looked at the Duke.
His father.
The man who had lied to him for twenty years.
He looked at Lady Roseline.
His mother.
The woman whose tears were for the lie ending, not for him.
He saw all their faces.
The truth was written there.
In their pain.
In their guilt.
In their silence.
It was all true.
He was nobody.
Ace turned.
He didn’t run.
Running would mean he still cared what they thought.
He walked.
One foot in front of the other.
His legs felt like wood.
He walked past the long table.
He walked past the ministers who stopped whispering to watch him go.
Their eyes were like bugs on his skin.
He walked to the big, heavy door of the council room.
He pulled it open.
The cold air from the hallway hit his face.
He did not look back.
He stepped out into the hall.
The door swung shut behind him with a soft, final *thud*.
Inside the room, the noise started again.
Louder now.
Excited.
The ministers had a new game to play.
Outside, in the cold, dark, empty hallway, Ace Valebane—the boy who was not Ace Valebane—stood alone.
He had no name.
He had no family.
He had no home.
He had nothing.
And the worst part was, he never really had it at all.