Aleksander sat on the train with his legs dangling out of the box car. He stared straight ahead, watching the world blur into a single point, barely hearing the hiss of the steam or the clack of the wheels against the rails. The boy's bracelet was digging into his ribs and he closed his eyes. He could have simply shifted, let the bracelet slide deeper into his uniform pocket, but he did not.

Instead, he removed it from his pocket, letting his thumb run over the smooth metal. When the tip of his nail found the engraving, Aleksander closed his eyes; the memory of the boy did not need a name to match. He was tempted to hurl the bracelet from the train and let it be lost in the snow, to let his thoughts fall away like autumn leaves until there was nothing but stillness, but neither was possible.

Regardless of what he tried, he couldn't get the sounds out of his head. The splintering of bone. The last dying gasp. The muffled thud as the body of the boy— the boy he had once known— hit the ground. They played in his mind like an orchestra and they wouldn't abate, reverberating through his brain and down to the marrow of his own bones.

He'd given the boy the chance to run. He'd held that feral instinct at bay, and still the boy hadn't fled— just the opposite, and so what choice had Aleksander had? Still, even now, it felt as if he were awash in the heat of the flames; memory or condemnation, he wasn't sure. Why couldn't he have just taken the opportunity and run?

But even as he thought it, he knew the answer: pride was more important than life. Had the boy returned, his soldiers dead and his camp razed to ash, he would have lost everything. Coward, his comrades would have called him. Weak. Useless. He would have neither their respect nor their confidence, so wasn't it better to die a hero?

Aleksander opened his eyes again, observing how the snow whirled past in small flurries. There were no heroes, only survivors and corpses, and the boy was a fool for choosing to be one of the latter. Surely Aleksander bore no blame for that. Surely, he told himself.

Shoving himself back from the edge of the box car, he stood and made his way to a corner, settling down with one leg stretched out in front of him. From the shadows, he watched the soldiers at the other end, one hand resting near his boot in case he needed to draw a weapon. He'd sat at the edge, right in front of the tracks; he'd given fate its opening, but just the same as every time over the years, either fate or the queen's orders protected him. He preferred to thank the former, to believe that his purpose stayed the soldiers' hands. Not that he would stand idly by and let them rob him of it. There was only so much of an opportunity he was willing to give.

So as the train screeched to a halt, he kept his eyes on the men, not looking away until the last one exited. Rising once more, he stepped off the train, rifle in hand. Gravel and snow crunched under his boots. An officer stood about a body-length away, one hand outstretched.

"Your weapons," he said, and Aleksander curled his lip, considering shoving the man onto the train tracks.

But all of the soldiers were undoubtedly tense behind him, and while he had an advantage in being able to inflict fear or pain without touch, they had an advantage in numbers. After a moment, Aleksander handed over his rifle and his knife, and held out his arms so that they could search him. Rocks, bits of scrap metal, even sharpened branches— they had found those before, but by now he knew better than to try and smuggle in weapons that way.

They pulled off his boots, checking the insides and the soles while his socks became cold and sodden from the snow. He stripped off his socks and tucked them alongside the bracelet before stuffing his feet back in the boots, then glanced at the officer, who seemed satisfied that he was hiding nothing.

Aleksander's feet were cold, the wintry air finding its way through the gaps in each boot and down to his toes, but better that than to lose mobility entirely from frostbite. Each step was uncomfortable, bordering upon painful from the onset of numbness; still, he would have chosen that dull ache if it meant that he could avoid what was to come.

It was only with great reluctance that he made his way into the city, and even greater reluctance that he lifted his eyes to look up past the smokestacks and steeples to see his destination: the queen's castle.

Had he been an ordinary person, he would have been in awe of Borg Rjustad. The white marble was smooth and shining, almost luminescent in the moonlight, the towers seemed to stretch into the mist, and the trim of the roof was real gold, bright and gleaming. It extended as wide as the hill it rested upon, appearing from its height almost as wide as the city below. Peace had been made there and wars had been declared. Murders had been committed in many of the bedchambers and executions near the lowest tower. It was a place of history and a place where history would continue to be made.

And Aleksander hated it. He wanted to shatter the hundred windows, topple the high-rising towers, and tear it all apart, walls and columns and even the ground it rested on. He wanted it to be nothing but rubble, and then he wanted the rubble ground into dust, to be scattered into the wind and carried far, far away from him.

As he walked, surrounded by soldiers on all sides, his feet felt heavier and heavier, and not from the cold. He felt as if he still had chains around his ankles, dragging him like an inexorable current to the bottom of a dark sea. The old Aleksander would have taken one look at this castle and laughed, would have cut his way to the throne room as if it were nothing. The man he was now was barely keeping himself from running until he could no longer see the border of this country.

Coward, he thought. Pain is nothing that you haven't felt a hundred times. A thousand. What is another drop in that ocean?

He passed through the gilded iron gate, counting the scuff of boots against cobblestone. Perhaps a dozen soldiers, he judged, and if he had to, he could take on all of them at once. He could make them fall to their knees and beg for their god, but he couldn't necessarily stop a bayonet to the spine before he carried it out.

Sighing, he squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. Vengeance requires time, time requires patience, and the price for your patience is paid in scars, he reminded himself, but he couldn't help the slight shudder to his next exhale.

Waiting at the doors to the castle was a familiar man. Aleksander's hand immediately shot toward his belt before he remembered that he no longer carried a weapon. Years of habit were hard to unlearn.

The man nodded once to the soldiers, and they left immediately. He then looked over at Aleksander, a slight smile on his face and a tilt to his head as if asking a question: Well? Will you?

Aleksander was faster. He was stronger. He could end this man in half the time it had taken to kill the boy with none of the guilt that followed, but then it would be over. Only one man dead out of a list of so many. So he dipped his head ever so slightly: Not today.

The man was about to speak when Aleksander cut him off. "What do you want, Marek?"

"Why must I always want something from you?" Marek replied, holding open the door. "Can I not simply enjoy your company?"

Aleksander snorted. "A wolf always enjoys the company of a lamb."

"Spare me, Aleksander," he said, letting out a quiet sigh. "You're no lamb, and I was hardly the one to lead you to the slaughter."

They walked through the hall side-by-side, and although Borg Rjustad could have rivalled the mountains with the amount of gems and precious metals to be found, Aleksander's focus was solely on Marek's face. It was a study he'd practiced for years, scanning any minute change in expression for hints as to Marek's intentions. It often ended in frustration.

It wasn't as if he could glean nothing from Marek— there were always thoughts lurking like predators in the depths of those bright blue eyes, or a slight, cynical curve to his smile, but the question that remained perpetually unanswered was what those meant. Aleksander was never sure whether they were directed toward a hapless, unsuspecting target or simply at an observation of the world in general.

The other drawback to this constant analysis was having to keep his eyes on a face he never wanted to see again. The two of them looked all too similar— Aleksander's nose might have been crooked from all the breaks, but he and Marek shared the same angular features. Marek's hair was swept back and styled, but it was the same rich, dark brown. They even had the same build, wiry but strong. But Aleksander was half a head taller, and usually the attention was on him; Marek seemed to belong in the opulence of the court in his tailored suit and perfect command of their language, whereas Aleksander's navy blue soldier's uniform and his reputation were causes for wariness.

Despite those differences, whenever Aleksander saw his own reflection, he hated it both for showing his face and for reminding him of Marek's.

"So I notice that you're missing something," said Marek, jolting Aleksander out of his thoughts.

"Pleasant conversation?" he suggested, a caustic edge to his voice.

"The queen will not be pleased."

"I'm sure that you're terribly concerned about what pleases her."

Marek cast him a sidelong glance and Aleksander paused. Was it possible that...? No, there were a thousand things that could be read from that expression, and false conclusions with Marek were, as he had learned first-hand, just as dangerous as a battle.

Leaning against the doors at the end of the hall, Marek said, "Do you intend to stand there all day? It's not the best strategy if you hope to ingratiate yourself with her."

Aleksander smiled humorlessly and gestured toward the doors. "After you."

So, this chapter got a lot longer than the original. Yeah... has it improved, or not really?

Borg Rjustad (BOHRG | RYOO-stahd): Castle Rjustad, with Rjustad being the capital city.