It seemed there would be no end to the suffering. Each day was hell, each night a torment. Why had they not simply let him die?

With an effort, Kaori pushed his bitter thoughts away. He knew he was lucky to be alive. Were it not for the neverending pain, perhaps he could see that. Except...

He looked down at the arm of his favorite chair, at the place where his right hand would once have rested. The empty space was a cruel reminder that there was part of him missing forever. He clenched his eyes shut.

"Kaori, are you all right?"

The sound of Aun's voice breaking into his thoughts no longer startled him. Since they had been back in the palace, she had hardly left his side. Although Aun had seen as much of him as was needful given her role in his life as his healer, and although she was always free with orders and advice, she had mercifully maintained a professional distance. Even when she helped him to change his clothes or to bathe, as she had just this morning—things that filled Kaori with restless frustration and shame—she was calm and courteous, leaving him to believe that the embarrassment and inconvenience was completely one-sided.

Kaori had begun to know her a little, this woman who had saved his life. She misliked idleness and could seek out something to keep her busy no matter where it might be hiding. She had a frank manner unlike that of any woman he'd ever known and a sense of humor that was bright as a copper coin. For some reason, she'd been a constant presence since he'd been wounded in the Battle of Hanpe, although Kaori had not been a willing patient. In his darkest hours, he had craved solitude, and more than once he'd longed for death, but none of his hard words had turned Aun away.

He heard her moving close at hand, heard her set something down on the table before him. The click of a cup against a saucer told him it was tea.

"Tell me there's something in there," he said.

"There isn't. I can only give you so much," she replied.

"Aun." The stump of his severed arm and the slash across his chest still gave him constant pain; Aun's tonics were an occasional relief, the only thing he looked forward to as the hours crept by.

He felt her cool fingers on his brow. "Do you feel feverish?" she asked.

Kaori opened his eyes. Aun's expression was calm, but there was concern in her voice. "No," he admitted. "But I do not see why that stays your hand. Have some mercy on me, woman."

"Good," she said, calm as ever; she usually ignored his biting comments. "Drink this tea, and then...Then I will bring you some wine. One cup."

With a sigh, Kaori reached for the cup of tea with his left hand. It had always been the clumsier one; he was weak now, his fingers constantly atremble, and the tea sloshed over his fingers. "I always considered myself easy of nature, but I'm beginning to chafe under all these orders."

"Beginning?" She raised her eyebrows with a purse of her lips. "If you can joke, it's a good sign. You remind me of Matei—" and here she stumbled, her brow creasing— "which, I suppose, is logical. It's strange...Not just to see a little of him in you, but to know that he has a brother at all."

"Brothers." Kaori sipped the tea. It was hot and strong and not too sweet—just as he preferred it. Kaori wondered why Aun, a healer and a woman of skill, chose to spend her afternoons making tea for crippled men. She was Arcborn, but even so. "Koreti has two brothers."

"That name...Koreti...it doesn't suit him." Aun sank into the chair next to his. Again, Kaori recognized how different she was from other Arcborn women he'd known. When he had been a prisoner in her camp, the power dynamics had been clear: she had been in control. But here, in his own parlor, in his father's palace, it was disorienting to watch her sit next to him without so much as a by-your-leave. It would be easy to explain away her manner as ignorance, but Kaori did not think ignorance explained it all. She used his name and no title, made forays into conversation, and joked with him; all of it seemed deliberate, as if it were her intent to assert that she did not see any difference between them.

Kaori held his cup to his lips, enjoying the scent and the steam from the brew. Despite himself, he felt calmer. "You may not have liked him so much when he was called by that name. He was like the rest of us."

"A child. Susceptible to the ways of his elders."

"Well, if things had not happened as they did, I have little doubt that your Matei would not be so kindly disposed toward the Arcborn."

Aun regarded him with a calculating expression, her brows raised. "And you? Do you wish to see me and my kind put back into our place?"

Kaori bought himself a few seconds of time by sipping his tea again, reflecting on her question. He had never spared much love for the Arcborn, but his disposition toward them had not been infected by his father's extremist views. He had seen plentiful destruction wrought upon his own Starborn kind in the Battle of Hanpe, but he was a realist; the Arcborn had been guarding their settlement against an ambush attack. There had been elderly. There had been children. Even some of the Arcborn women had been called upon to wield weapons—an extreme to which the Starborn would never have fallen.

Not being a military man or much of a fighter at all, Kaori had witnessed enough bloodshed in the space of a night to last him for the rest of his life, and he had had plenty of time to reflect on what he had witnessed—enough to understand that sometimes, there were no right answers. "I wish for peace."

"Well, I hope you have secured it by passing the crown to Matei. It is rightfully his."

"For what it's worth, I think so, too. He was raised to it. He has more experience leading people than I will ever have. The Starborn may hate him, but if anyone can manage the difficulty of a divided realm, it's him. I wash my hands of it." He froze and, with a glance at the ghost of his right arm, he said, "Hand." 

Aun was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, it was with disregard for his self-pity. "We will have no end of opportunities to talk about Matei if he is to rule, Kaori. Let's talk about something else."

And there would be no end to surprises when it came to Aun. He looked up at her, knitting his brow. "Something else?" 

"Like you. Why do you say you were not raised to the throne as Matei was? If you are the elder, would that not have made sense?"

"Yes, but you know—or I hope you know—that the emperors of our line have always chosen their successors from among their lawful heirs. They were not bound to select the eldest simply by virtue of his age. The truth is that Koreti was the youngest, but the brightest of us when it came to the work of ruling. He had the perfect blend of my strengths and Koren's, and more."

"Your strengths."

Kaori shrugged his good shoulder. "I was always the scholar. I spent half of my life reading, learning anything I could put my hands on. Meanwhile, my brother Koren had to be forced to read by our tutors. He preferred swordplay and all other kinds of active pursuits: riding, archery. Koreti and I would tease him for a fool, and in exchange, he'd tan our hides. Mine, at least; he could not often catch Koreti." He drained his cup at last and held it out to Aun for inspection. "The wine?"

She cocked her head at him, raising her brows. "Wine?"

"Please."

Aun rose and went to the sideboard. "Have you always lived here in the palace?"

"What do you mean?"

She unstoppered the decanter of wine. "I mean...is it really your home? And have you ever been anyplace else?"

"I have traveled a little, but only to accompany my father on affairs of state, most of which kept him in the northern region of the empire—no farther south than your Duskwood. He had ambassadors for most of the work requiring extensive travel or difficult bargaining. He thought it necessary for me to see some of the realm to get an understanding of our affairs and our responsibilities, but he did not travel for pleasure."

"How can one rule a realm without truly knowing all the people, all the regions?"

"Delegating." Kaori accepted the cup of wine Aun held out to him. "Thank you, Aun."

"Don't you get lost in this big place?"

Kaori shook his head. "Not when you've grown up here. You know how to get from one place to another. I could show you six ways to the kitchen from here. The servants grew tired of us haunting their discreet passageways." He smiled in recollection. Then he turned his attention to Aun. "Have you always lived in Hanpe?"

She shook her head. "I'm from the countryside. My parents lived well south of Karelin, not so very far from the Duskwood."

"Farmers?" Kaori sipped his wine.

"How keen of you, Your Highness," Aun replied with an impish smile. "Father was. Mother was a healer."

He noticed her use of the past tense. "Are they still with you?"

The smile faded. "No. A fever took them both one winter. We could not get enough food and medicine into the village to care for all the sick." She was silent for a moment, and then her smile returned, warm and sympathetic this time. "But I am not the only woman who lost the parents she loved, and they went more peacefully than many. I can't know what you feel, Kaori, having lost both of your parents, too—and...in such a way."

Her comment, so unexpected and perceptive, threw him off kilter. He stared into his cup of wine, which was already half empty, so that he would not have to meet her searching eyes—and he searched, too; he searched within himself, trying to understand his own feelings.

"I don't think I've truly grasped it yet, Aun. I lost Mother so long ago....but I thought she went as peacefully as could be expected. Now, when I think of what it must have been like...when I think how frightened she must have been..."

Aun leaned forward in her chair and reached out. Kaori watched as her gentle, work-roughened hand came to rest on his, which was still wrapped around the cup of wine balanced on his knee. She did not say anything; she just touched him, her eyes deep and sad.

"I shouldn't...It was a long time ago," he said, fumbling for words. "There are those whose grief is fresher."

"No, Kaori. Grief does not die. For many, it fades, but even the smallest thing can make the pain sharp and cold again. You have much to think about. Your grief has changed." She sat up again with a soft sigh. "But we shall not speak of it if you do not wish to; only know that you need not apologize for your sorrow. Others' pain does not diminish yours. It's been war. All of us have dead to grieve."

When she took her hand away, Kaori felt an unexpected emotion: loneliness. His mother and his father were dead; the lorekeeper who had been his mentor through childhood had proved doubly false—not only was he a rebel, but he was his brother's father. Koren had fled the capitol with his wife and son, and Koreti had been dead for thirteen years. The man who had come back was not the same person, and the woman he'd brought back with him, their cousin Mhera, was different too.

Kaori was the only one who was the same...and yet, he, too, had changed, in body and in mind. He realized how terribly alone he was. With an effort, he pushed these thoughts away to deal with another time. Kaori had nothing but time now that he was an invalid, unable even to stand without near fainting from his pain.

"You are a strange woman, Aun," he muttered, and he was not sure, even as he said it, whether he meant to compliment or insult her.

She gave him a clear-eyed look, a small frown on her lips. "No, Kaori, you are a strange man. Perhaps you are simply not used to friendship." She stood and began to clear away the tea things.

Squeeee!!! *Runs around the room waving her arms. Then hides behind a sofa and peeks over the top.*

Ahem...This is the first of your two surprise POVs, my friends! What do you think of our admittedly grumpy prince?

Your next update is coming on Tuesday! Woohoo! *Disappears behind the sofa again*