MATURE: includes profanity and violence

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THREE YEARS EARLIER

Deep inside a war camp, a boy fought a battle with the cold.

He shivered in his tent, wrapping furs closer around his body as wind wailed outside, clawing at thin canvas as it strove to break in. The war camp had been hastily erected, and the tents were made of cheap material, easily battered by the unrelenting winter.

Come on, you're sixteen, Aldric Shadowhart told himself. You're not afraid of the wind.

The tent shook with a heavy gust, and he flinched, reaching for his sword.

Okay, maybe a little, he conceded.

The truth was, he was always afraid.

For most of his life, his father and uncle had been at war with the Silverlings, fighting to win back a usurped throne. A skirmish would ensue, Kael and Xavier would push them onward, and they would enlist soldiers among villagers still loyal to the Shadowharts.

But they had reached the Northern border, and the temperature had plummeted. The winter had swept mercilessly through the Mainland States, killing crops, and leaving people huddled around fires, praying for summer. At least the fighting had come to a standstill; neither side wanted to send their soldiers to freeze to death.

The stalemate was only a temporary respite, however. Kael wanted Aldric on the battlefield as soon as he turned seventeen, but he was not eager to fight. Instead, he felt... stagnant. He was tired of the fighting. Almost all his life had been war, and all he wanted was to settle down and sleep without fear of being assassinated.

This will be the one, Xavier always claimed. We will reclaim the South today with this push, this checkpoint, this town.

But they never did.

"Landon?" he called into the darkness of the tent, his voice punctured by the cold. He wanted the presence of his brother, but only silence called back. Landon had probably gone to stargaze again; at first, Aldric had assumed his nightly absences were to see someone, but after following him he had found Landon sitting in a tree, legs swinging, face lifted to the starry sky. Aldric had left him alone with the stars and not followed him again.

But that night was different. Landon was usually back by then, and it was too cold to be out.

What if he had been attacked? Landon wasn't a fighter... he was quick, but he had never honed his skills with a sword.

Struck with sudden fear, Aldric stood, pulling on a cloak before leaving the tent and slipping around shadows of guards, navigating by the silver light of the moon.

"Lan?" he whispered into the night as he entered the woods, one hand on the pommel of his longsword. "Landon, where are you?"

He pressed himself against a tree as a guard moved past, then ventured deeper even as fear gripped him, constricting his chest—were there wolves lurking in the darkness? Assassins from King Lachlan?

He was about to turn back when he saw a figure kneeling in the middle of a clearing, head bowed. It wasn't hard to recognise his brother; he would have known the fifteen-year-old anywhere.

Seeing Landon's claymore sword sitting unused in its sheath, Aldric felt breath come back to him in a stream, his lungs filling with relief. No one had harmed his brother. It would all be okay; they would go back to the tent and tell each other scary stories until dawn, their laughter echoing through the camp.

Aldric ventured out from the trees, mouth open to call out, but halted when he saw the knife in Landon's hand, dripping with crimson blood.

"Landon?" he asked, his voice full of concern.

Landon was breathing heavily. Eyes blank, lips blue from the cold, body shaking and numb. Water dripped from his tousled black hair—had he been in the river?—and his frail body shivered so violently that Aldric felt his heart crack with sympathy.

"Landon?" Aldric tried again, kneeling beside his brother. "What happened?"

His brother turned to him, eyes glistening with tears in the dark. Some said Landon's eyes were brown, some said green, and most compromised on hazel. It was a rich colour, penetrating but sincere, dark but full of light.

Aldric hadn't seen them glazed with tears since their mother's death.

"I hope you're happy now," Landon snapped.

Aldric vaguely registered his hands gripping the frozen grass as frost prickled his palms.

"Lan." His voice cracked. "I—is that blood?"

The tears were streaming down Landon's face freely then. "I had to."

Aldric took a long moment to process it, staring at his brother uncomprehendingly. His brother stared back, as if they were both unsure of what to do or say.

"Whose?" Aldric finally managed to force out.

Landon looked at him in confusion, then seemed to notice the knife in his hand. A shadow of horror and fear crossed his face. Then he blinked, and blankness replaced it. "I think you know."

Gods, no. He took a moment to realise that he was shaking his head, unable to stop. Left to right, left to right, as if that would make it unreal. "No. I didn't mean, when I told her... I'm sorry—"

"Don't apologise." Landon's shoulders slumped. "You aren't the saint you want everyone to believe. You don't know me, but you... you are so easy to read, did you know that?"

He wiped the blood from the knife onto his cloak and turned to go.

Aldric felt his heart pumping. He had to say something. Something, anything, just make this nightmare end.

"Lan!" He jumped to his feet. "Wait!"

Aldric reached for Landon's cloak, but Landon spun around and pushed him, making him stumble. Up close, he could see water droplets sparkling on his brother, freezing to ice in the chilly air. Even the blood had frozen.

"Don't touch me," Landon hissed, his words swirling into mist.

"Brother—"

"Brother?" His voice sounded strangled. "If I were kin to you, our father would acknowledge me as a son. But you're too self-absorbed to see that you have taken everything, because you're too fucking selfish."

"This isn't you speaking!" Aldric spluttered, then regretted it when he saw the anger starting to burn in Landon's expression.

"And how would you know? You know nothing about me! Nothing about what I go through, what I've had to endure. And you've never asked! Landon's voice dripped with acrimony. "Why not? Because I have always done a good job of playing the demure little brother?" His tone rose with fervour until he was almost screaming. "You should have cared! You should have been there!"

Aldric felt the sting of every word. It was all wrong. He needed Landon to love him, to smile and laugh, promising to help him rule when he was king—this trembling, crying stranger was not his clever, composed brother.

"I... is someone hurting you? If so, I—I can deal with them."

"Gods, Aldric. You do know nothing about me." He didn't hide the disgust in his words.

"You said we would rule together, you said—"

"This is what I mean. You don't get it." Landon's lips curled. "You never have, and you need to get yourself together..."

"Is this because of mother?" Aldric interrupted, although he tripped over his words. "Because I miss her too, you know."

"Stop trying to find a—"

"So it's because of Helena," Aldric concluded.

A moment of silence followed.

"You don't know what she tried to do." Landon's breathing was uneven, his words quivering. "Do you know what drowning feels like, Aldric? Because it is terrifying. Every scream, every shout, every gasp... more icy water, filling your lungs, stealing your senses. You are trapped in a watery grave, screaming for help, and no one is around. No one can hear you. You are choking on your own words, and you know you are going to die, that this is the end." He was shaking then, his face twisted in agony, and Aldric felt the irresistible urge to wrap his brother in his arms and never let go. "Grace pulled me out. And when I got the air back in my lungs, I couldn't think."

Irritation pierced Aldric at the mention of Grace, their strong-spirited cousin. It should have been him pulling Landon out, but Landon wouldn't have suffered in the first place if it weren't for him.

This was all his fault.

"So you killed Helena," Aldric muttered.

Landon faltered. "I... I did what I had to."

"Let's..." The words clogged his throat. "Let's go inside. You don't want to catch a chill."

"I don't care."

"Please, Lan, wait, talk to me. I'm so sorry—" Aldric took a step forward, but it was too late.

His brother—stranger—turned and strode into the darkness.

Aldric couldn't make himself move.

Instead, he fell to his knees, feeling the frost melt and seep through his breeches.

It had been his duty to protect Landon; he had promised mother. Maybe Landon would forgive him and everything could go back to normal again...

But that look. Those hazel eyes, full of such sorrow and betrayal that Aldric had felt an invisible knife slide into his soul. Something irreversible had happened that night, and there was no turning back.

A girl was dead, and his brother was her murderer. Because of him.

He didn't even realise he was muttering to himself until he felt his jaw chattering and his throat going hoarse, numbness seeping through his body inside and out. Tears froze on his cheeks although he didn't know when he had started crying, or when he lost control and broke into racking sobs.

"Gods," he was saying, repeatedly. "Gods, gods, gods, please, don't take Landon, anyone else just not him, never him—"

He raised his eyes to the starless sky. But the gods didn't care.

They never had.

Hi! This is a book that I have completed and am currently editing. The setting for this is a cross between the medieval times, the Tudors and some other time periods that you may recognise. There is no set period for this and you may see a mix of historical references, going from highwaymen to barons to knights. The beginning is a little slow so please bear with it- it hopefully gets a bit easier to understand as the story progresses!

This book is split into five parts, each coming after a turning point in the story. So there'll be five major twists in the plot which will send it in a different direction ;))

Please do not copy this (although why anyone would want to copy this in the first place, I have no clue haha). If I see anyone using my work then I will have it reported 🙃

It means a lot to me that you decided to try out this story - these characters have been with me for years now and I'm so happy to be able to share them with you. Thank you for giving this story a chance 🥰

If you see any spelling or grammatical errors please feel free to tell me! I don't bite and am always trying to improve my writing

This is a re-written chapter- it was originally about another set of characters before being changed later on.

Thank you for reading, sending love

Shelly M x