The first swing was pure rage.
Ace didn’t think.
He just moved.
He lunged forward, the practice sword whistling through the cold air as he brought it down toward Alex’s head.
*Crack!*
Alex blocked it easily.
The two wooden swords met with a sharp, solid sound.
The impact vibrated up Ace’s arm.
“Good,” Alex said, his voice flat.
He didn’t move back.
He just stood there, holding his sword against Ace’s.
“Again.”
Ace snarled.
He pulled back and swung again, this time from the side.
Another block.
Another crack of wood on wood.
“Again.”
Ace attacked.
Again and again.
He swung high, low, tried a quick jab at Alex’s stomach.
Every time, Alex was there.
His blocks were not flashy.
They were simple, efficient, and rock-solid.
He didn’t try to hit back.
He just stood his ground and let Ace come at him.
The sounds filled the quiet courtyard.
*Crack.
Thud.
Crack.* The noise of Ace’s anger hitting a wall that would not break.
Sweat began to bead on Ace’s forehead despite the cold.
His breath came in harsh, white puffs.
Every swing was a word he couldn’t say.
*Liar.*
*Crack!*
*Fake.*
*Thud!*
*Orphan.*
*Crack!*
“Is that all?” Alex asked.
His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it now.
A challenge.
“You hit like you’re afraid of the noise.”
That did it.
Ace let out a raw, wordless shout.
He stopped using any kind of form.
He just charged, swinging the sword like a club, putting all his weight behind it.
Alex didn’t block this one.
He stepped to the side.
Ace’s wild swing met nothing but air.
The force of it spun him around.
He stumbled, off-balance, and fell to one knee in the snow.
The practice sword slipped from his hand and skidded away across the icy stones.
He knelt there, panting.
The cold of the snow seeped through his trousers.
His shoulders heaved.
Silence.
Then, footsteps.
Alex walked over.
He stood in front of Ace, looking down at him.
His expression was unreadable.
“Get up,” Alex said.
Ace didn’t move.
He stared at the grey stone between his hands.
A drop of sweat fell from his chin and darkened the snow.
“I said get up, Ace.”
“Why?” Ace’s voice was a broken thing.
“What’s the point?
I’m not even your brother.”
The words hung in the air, ugly and final.
Alex was quiet for a long moment.
Then he crouched down.
He was now eye-level with Ace, there in the snow.
He didn’t touch him.
“Look at me,” Alex said.
Ace didn’t want to.
But slowly, he raised his head.
Alex’s crimson eyes were serious, he grabbed Ace’s jae with one hand lifting his chin up more .
“Do you remember the summer you were seven?
You decided you were going to climb the old watchtower.
The one with the broken stairs.”
Ace blinked.
The memory came, bright and sudden.
The hot sun.
The smell of dry stone.
His small hands gripping the rough edges.
“I… yeah.
I fell.”
“You fell,” Alex nodded.
“From the second landing.
You broke your arm.
I was supposed to be watching you.
Father was furious with me.”
Ace remembered the pain.
The dizzying fear.
Then Alex’s face, white with panic, appearing over the edge.
Alex climbing down to him, ignoring the danger, telling him not to move.
Carrying him all the way back to the keep, running so fast.
“Do you remember what you said to me?” Alex asked, his voice softer now.
“While I was carrying you?
You were crying.
And you said, ‘Don’t tell Mama.
She’ll be sad.'”
Ace’s throat tightened.
He remembered.
“That’s what a brother does,” Alex said.
He let go of his jaw then reached out and picked up the fallen practice sword from the snow.
He held it in his hands, looking at it.
“He climbs down into a dangerous place to get you.
He carries you home when you’re hurt.
He keeps your secrets.
Even the stupid ones.”
He stood up and offered the sword back to Ace, handle-first.
“The blood in your veins?” Alex said.
“I don’t care about it.
I never have.
The blood we spilled when you fell out of that tower?
That mattered.
The blood oath I swore to protect you the day you were brought into this house?
That is the only blood that counts to me.”
Ace looked at the sword.
Then he looked up at his brother’s face.
He saw no lie there.
No doubt.
Just the same steady certainty that had always been his anchor ever since he was a cub.
Slowly, Ace reached out and took the sword.
Alex’s hand brushed his as he let go.
It was warm.
Alex straightened up.
“Now,” he said, his voice returning to its normal, firm tone.
“Get up.
We’re not done.”
Ace pushed himself to his feet.
His legs felt shaky, but he stood.
“This time,” Alex said, settling back into his stance, “I’m going to hit back.”
And he did.
The next half-hour was not a fight.
It was a lesson.
A punishment.
A release.
Alex did not hold back.
He came at Ace with controlled, powerful strikes that forced Ace to block, to dodge, to move.
Every hit that landed on Ace’s arms or side stung, a sharp burst of pain that chased away the numbness in his mind.
“You are Ace Valebane,” Alex said, his voice steady between strikes.
“You are the son of Aster and Roseline Valebane.” *Crack!*
“You are my brother.” *Thud!*
“You are the heir to the Northern Merchant Guilds.” *Crack!*
“You are a prince of this house.” *Thud!*
Each statement was punctuated by a blow.
Each blow drove the words deeper, past the hurt, past the confusion.
Ace stopped thinking.
He just reacted.
He blocked.
He parried.
He fought back.
The world narrowed to the sound of their breathing, the clash of wood, the burning in his muscles.
Finally, Alex stepped back.
He lowered his sword.
Both of them were breathing hard, sweat gleaming on their skin in the cold air.
“Enough,” Alex said.
Ace stood, panting, the practice sword held loosely in his hand.
He felt raw.
Empty.
But the storm inside him had quieted.
It wasn’t gone, but it was tired.
Alex walked over to the well at the side of the courtyard.
He drew up a bucket of fresh, icy water.
He took a long drink, then splashed some on his face.
He gestured for Ace to come over.
Ace did.
He dropped his sword by the rack and walked to the well.
Alex handed him the bucket.
The water was so cold it made his teeth ache.
He drank deeply, the cold clearing the last fog from his head.
He poured the rest over his head, gasping as it dripped down his neck and back.
He stood there, dripping, and looked at Alex.
“They all know,” he said quietly.
“The servants.
The lords.
Everyone.
They look at me like I’m a stranger.”
“They are strangers,” Alex said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Their opinions are the wind.
They blow one way today, another tomorrow.
What matters is the stone.
The foundation.
This family.
That does not change.”
“How can you be so sure?” Ace asked, the doubt creeping back in.
“Everything is different now.”
“Is it?” Alex leaned against the well, crossing his arms.
“Is Mother different?
Did she look at you this morning and see a stranger?”
Ace thought of Roseline, asleep in his bed, holding onto him.
He shook his head.
“Is Father different?
Do you think he loves you less because of some old secret he was too scared to tell?”
Ace thought of the Duke’s face in the council room.
The pain.
The guilt.
But not disgust.
Never disgust.
“Am I different?” Alex asked, his voice dropping low.
Ace looked at him.
At his brother, who had searched the castle for him in the middle of the night.
Who had carried him home.
Who had just spent an hour in the freezing snow, beating the truth back into him with a wooden sword.
“No,” Ace whispered.
“Then nothing that matters is different,” Alex said simply.
He pushed off from the well.
“The world outside these walls will talk.
Let them.
We know who we are.”
He picked up his practice sword and walked toward the door back into the keep.
He stopped and looked back at Ace.
“Are you coming?
Mother will be awake.
She’ll want to see you.
And you,” a faint, almost-smile touched Alex’s lips, “smell like a wet dog.
You need a bath.”
Ace almost smiled back.
It felt strange on his face.
He nodded.
He followed his brother back inside.
The hallway was still quiet.
They passed a few servants.
The whispers started again, soft and hissing.
But this time, Ace didn’t just hear them.
He heard the solid sound of Alex’s boots on the stone floor beside him.
A steady, familiar rhythm.
He kept his eyes forward, his shoulders straight.
He walked beside his brother, back to the family wing, back to the rooms that were still his home.
The whispers were just noise.
The foundation, the stone, was right beside him.
And for now, that was enough..