The sword moved so quickly, Kilyan was powerless to deflect it. All he could do was watch, crying out in pain as the flat edge of the blade cracked into the divot between his neck and shoulder. The impact scoured deep into his muscle, sending a jolt down into the cage of his ribs. The need to escape sent him flailing back. His boots caught, tangled as sheets beneath desperately wanting lovers, and he plummeted. His back hit the dirt, sending up a cold rattle into his already aching lungs.

Breathless.

The sensation was not new to him. Gasping for air that would not come was how he had spent so much of his young life. Paralyzed, suffocating, and defenseless. His own sword had been knocked from his fingers, sliding away across the flat grassland during his collapse. He curled, rolling inward to protect his sensitive throat and stomach from his ruthless attacker.

And he gasped. On the ground. Breathless.

"Old-Ones!" His opponent cursed, her voice tight under the constraint of fear. "Are you alright?"

She dropped to her knees, wooden practice sword abandoned, and crawled towards Kilyan's side. Her hands, as quick as viper teeth, snagged his shoulders and rolled him over onto his back. Their fingers tangled, curling over top of Kilyan's stuttering chest. She squeezed down on his palm, her ice-blue eyes wide with fright.

"Is it your lungs?" She hissed.

Kilyan did not squeeze her hand back, knowing only the panic it would insight if she thought him too worn to speak. He slipped his fingers from her iron-fierce grip and pushed himself slowly up to sit on his legs. He had grown quite tired of lying defenseless on his back, like a rolled and poked worm.

"My lungs are fine, Snowflake." He managed, trying desperately to keep from coughing. The nickname was a pointedly childish one, a teasing address that had been given to her by one of their favorite nursemaids. He employed it now as his best weapon to disarm her fear. "I am merely recovering from being whacked with a blade."

She exhaled sharply, shaking her head until her pure white locks tumbled from the loose braid she had secured it in hours ago. "A stick, Dewdrop. Clearly, we are not ready for blades."

We, Kilyan noted, when he was the one sat in the tangled meadow grass and she had been the one to do it. It seemed only one of them was lacking in improvement. He scowled, shoving his fingers back through his dim-yellow hair to shake loose the dirt no doubt clinging there.

"Give me a moment," he pleaded, "and then we will go another round."

Her sky-toned eyes sharpened into a knife twice as deadly as her wooden practice blade. She was shaking her head before Kilyan could even wince in another short gasp. "We are done, Dewdrop."

"Ksana!" He hissed from behind his clenched teeth. His sister flinched--knowing well that her birth name was reserved for only the most final of warnings. Just as she knew that warnings only came from creditable threats--and Kilyan was as soft-clawed as a rumm-bug.

"Your lungs-"

"Are fine." He finished.

She sunk her pearly white teeth into her soft pink lips, seemingly lost in thought. "If something were to happen to you because of my negligence-"

"Ksana," he whispered. "Snowflake, my dearest sister-"

"-only sister."

"-dearest of all my siblings," he amended, causing her to snort gracelessly. "Please."

Ksana sat back on her heels, her soft lip trapped beneath her pointed teeth. Thinking--not denying. He still had a chance.

"Please, Snowflake." He begged. "Soon this place will not be safe from our ever-present babysitters."

Suddenly reminded of current company, Ksana pushed back on her heels. She twisted her lithe throat to make wide blue eyes at the furry creatures roaming across the hills to their backs. Mulso by the droves. Thick herds of hoofed-beast. Twice as big as the most decorated of war horses--excluding Kilyan's old Doblest, of course--with curled white tusks made for gouging enemies, young royals who did not mind their neighbors, and palace guards. Who never dared stray down to the Sun Fields when they were flushed with migrating mulso.

Ksana nodded in agreement. "The hot season can not last forever, Dewdrop. It will leave soon, and so too will your convenient bodyguards."

Kilyan wasn't afraid of the lumbering boulder-sized grass-grazers. He knew how to keep from their tusks, just as he knew how to avoid unwanted attention inside the marble halls of his cold home. It were those who sought control that had the most to fear from the herd.

"Then all the more reason for us to practice now." He winced.

She blew a breath from her tightly pressed lips and snagged her wooden sword. "Stand then."

He rolled onto his knees, reclaiming his play sword from where it had fallen, and stood on his trembling legs. Ksana shook her head, knocking strings of pearl-bright hair from her eyes. Kilyan held his sword out from his chest, taking careful steps through the uncut lawn.

The Sun Fields had not been tended to since the mulso had moved in. The hills were well trimmed by their flat teeth, but at the basin of the meadow where the giant steel towers remained--the mulso did not dare stray close. They did not like the iron plates, the shadow-casting infrastructure that did nothing but collect rust. Kilyan did not like it either. It reminded him of the painful truth; that his family was running out of time.

Sun farms. Magical poles made of metal that had once collected sunlight to be used by the Empyrean country. Long dead--murdered, if he was to stick to the analogy--by a small group of invading Sea-Witches. Which of course, no one but Kilyan and his siblings knew of. If the Empyrean people learned that the Zaitsev family's tithe had been robbed, that instead of producing magical-light they had been running on a storage of quickly depleting power, then they would swiftly lose their place in the system of feiflords that controlled the country.

The Empyrean counsel of lords and ladies was held together by many pacts--but this one above the rest. The value of the tithe was as well the value of the family.

Ksana darted forward, wooden sword sailing through the air. Kilyan yanked his arm back, just barely knocking her attack off balance with his counter.

"Distracted, Dewdrop?"

"Of course not, Snowflake."

She followed her momentum forward. He took three steps back, placing enough distance between them to raise his blade again. Their play swords connected in the space of air between them, echoing up with a dull thud into the air.

"Quiet, Dewdrop." Ksana hissed, pressing forward against the weight of his resistance. "Would hate to scare off your glue-to-be steed."

A muscle flinched in Kilyan's jaw. He ground his teeth together and shoved his arm forward, breaking her hold on his sword. Ksana stumbled back, regaining her balance before Kilyan could even manage to suck in another breath. "Do not mock Doblest-"

She lurched forward, sword again coming towards his throat. Kilyan ducked, hearing as the faint wind of her movement whooshed over his head.

"You are much too sentimental," she corrected.

"And you-" Kilyan huffed, jabbing upwards with the tip of his sword. His weapon caught the side of her hip. Ksana yelped in pain and jumped back, swaying towards her left to keep her weight off of her throbbing leg. "-talk too much!"

Kilyan snapped forward, driving the flat edge of his sword towards her all-supportive leg. He had her! He was going to finally knock her down--for the first time since they were eight. Ksana sucked in a breath--her sword a blur that Kilyan could not see--and then he could not see anything at all.

His legs came out from under him and he landed with a definitive whack on his chest, face down in the curled lawn. He froze, feeling first the press of her weapon's tip into the back of his neck, and then the throbbing pain in his ankles from where she had swept him.

Then was the anger--viper venom hot in his heart--and the breathlessness consuming his lungs. He placed his palms beneath himself and shoved upwards, swatting her sword aside where it poked him.

"How?" He snarled.

"You put everything into your offensive," she said, "you're not quick enough for that. Focus on your defensi-"

"Ksana." He snapped. "How?"

She grew quiet, so still that soon the only sound between them was the tight rattle of his agitated throat. He pressed his lips down into his elbow and coughed.

"Alright, Dewdrop." She said softly. "Let us put away the swords now."

"Do not." He warned, choking on his own words as they rose to his tongue. "Do not speak to me that way. Like all the others. Like I am. . . sick. Like I am half in my grave."

"I am not!" Ksana winced. "I only care for you as any sister should! I worry."

"Yes." Kilyan muttered. "I know."

Which was part of the problem. His siblings cared too much--afraid he would shatter under even the softest of touches. After the last of their three mothers had perished, his siblings had taken command of Kilyan's treatment. Which meant he had been forbidden from going outside should it be cold, wet, too hot, windy.

Forbidden from running in the halls, practicing with the guard. Forbidden from eating fruits his second eldest brother did not recognize from his travel journals. Forbidden from riding if Ksana did not accompany him, riding doubles on Doblest's sturdy spine. Forbidden from political speculations if his oldest brother was not there to keep him quiet and informed with bite-sized summaries of the world outside of his marble prison.

They cared too much--leaving Kilyan a husk in the haunted halls of the palace.

"I am sorry, Dewdrop." Ksana said. "Now come, let us hide our swords or we will not ever be left unattended again."

She collected his blade from where it had fallen into the lawn and carried them to the foot of one of the magical towers. She knelt, uncaring as grass bled into the knees of her blue dress, and began to dig in the soft earth. She dug until she found the wooden weaponry box, placed their practice swords inside, and buried it again.

"Summon your field mouse." She called over her shoulder, rubbing off her dirtied hands on the front of her light summer gown. "The wooden swords are safely contained."

Kilyan narrowed his eyes disapprovingly. "He does not know the difference, you can not blame him for being frightened."

"He should be frightened of nothing considering how much Rurik paid for him." Ksana snorted.

Kilyan sat back on his heels, rubbing at his chest with his flattened palm. "And you? If mother saw you behaving this way--look at your hair. And your dress!"

Ksana glanced down at her ruined fabric, tilting her head. She twisted, casting a glance over her shoulder at her tangled falling curls. "I braided it before coming out." She pouted.

"Poorly." Kilyan chuckled. He rubbed his hands off on his thighs and tapped the ground before him. "Come here, Snowflake."

She trotted across the lawn, plopping down obediently before him. He took up her crown of ice-pure hair and carefully removed the small pins keeping it in a state of half-up and half-destroyed.

"Doblest," She began, halting at the sound of her brother's breath over her shoulder. At the wheeze creeping into the edges of it. "You. . .can not call for him, can you?"

"As soon as I fix your hair-"

"Kilyan." She pressed.

He sucked in a deep rattle and shook his head.

"Oh, Dewdrop." She muttered, saying his nickname as if it were a curse. "I have told you a thousand times to train that horse to a different command. Just because he grew in the army does not mean he can not be taught something new."

"I want to whistle for him, Ksana." He said, tugging out a particularly tight snag in her curls. She winced, tossing him a sharp glare. "He is a soldier-"

"No, Kilyan." She corrected swiftly. "He was. Now he is just. . . a royal trotter. Too damaged even for a hunt."

"Do not speak of him that way." Kilyan said. If Doblest was too ruined--then what was he? They were the same. Broken souls inside polished white gates.

"I shall call your horse then." Ksana surrendered. "We have stayed out far too long. Any longer and we will miss the council."

"Ah," Kilyan chuckled. "What a shame that would be."

Ksana grew still beneath his fingers. She turned, gently prying her hair from his hold, and fit him with her cold blue eyes. "Kilyan," she whispered, "are you. . . going to do it again?"

The words came as blunt wooden blades, bruising his pale skin. He swallowed the knot forming in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut to avoid her painful gaze. "I. . . I have no choice."

"There is always choice!"

"No," he said, forcing his eyes open. Forcing them, as much as the flinched away, towards the steel towers of their families soon-to-be graves. "No, Ksana. There is no choice. I will do. . . I will do whatever remains necessary to protect us."

"You are building our hearth fire with the bones of the Empyrean people, Kilyan."

"Then they will burn." He swore. "As long as you are warm."

Ksana did not speak again. She pushed herself to her feet and tilted her head back towards the two twin suns in the sky. She formed her lips into a soft circle and blew out her breath into the summer breeze. Her whistle filled the basin, flying up over the backs of the mulso.

Kilyan sat in the grass, feeling it as much as he heard it when Doblest heeded their call. His hooves pummeled the land. His form rose over the hilltops, filling the horizon with his shadow. His eyes roamed the gorge until he spotted the twins at the sun farm below. With a snort he plunged down into the herd of mulso, slicing through them so that they trotted aside with bothered rumbles. A horse twice the size of an ox, as onyx black as night with a soft white nose.

A war horse who could not stand by as the twins played with wooden swords, who flinched at every birdcall, who had been a waste of Empyrean coin. He seemed to Kilyan, who still sat wheezing on his knees, the perfect creature.

Kerning

1 | Broken Boy, Broken Horse

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