Perception (Book 7) | Chapter 04 - Is Blood Thicker than Water? (Patreon)

Eric Linnaeus Book 7 | Chapter 4 - Is Blood Thicker Than Water? - Markos Bellerose

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The slow shunk of metal slicing through damp ground broke the quiet of the night. It was cool, and the sky was clear. The only other witnesses to this crime were a small owl perched in the trees not far from us, and the waning crescent moon hanging overhead. I stood leaning back against the nearest tree with arms crossed and a small pinched smile at the corners of my mouth that I couldn’t help while Achaicus worked. 

With his hair tied, and his face set in a determined scowl, he heaved piles of dirt aside with a round-point shovel. He dug into the moss covered earth, hacking and stomping into the ground as if it offended him while I looked on in amusement. Sweat beaded on his brow and stray strands splayed off his ponytail.

“It can’t…” he threw another heap of soil away, “… be true.”

“And yet…” I trailed off, giving a noncommittal shrug.

“Shut up.”

My lips curled into an automatic upturn as I tried to contain myself, best not to let him see how entertaining it was to watch him struggle, but it was difficult. Achaicus’s shovel hit something with a muted thud, and he froze in place, holding his breath. He dropped the shovel to sink to his knees, and began to dig with his hands until he pulled up an age-worn, dirt crusted bone. 

From the shape and size, it was the femur of the adolescent buried there. It didn’t judge the man holding it, but he swayed unsteady and swallowed hard as he began to tremble. The twins had been no more than what human teenagers would have been when this happened, thirteen, fourteen at most.

!Nathaniel had burst into my quarters later into the night, covered in blood with tears dribbling down his face. He retched in my room, all over my priceless kashan rug, and then twice more when we dug the grave. I remembered how his skinny frame sat shuddering on a fallen log, the way his knobbly knees clatted together while I worked to cover his crime. How he was unable to watch as I placed his brother’s mangled body into the dirt.

It was my own fault it ended this way. I’d known of their rivalry, the one sided antagonism between them. The eldest sheltered the youngest through exclusion, and the youngest took that as a sign of contempt. But I had never thought !Nathaniel was capable of this. I’d presumed they would grow out of it, not that their relationship would deteriorate into murder.

I’d failed to protect !Achaicus once before. Twice was an inexcusable tragedy, and I was rueful of the sense of responsibility I felt to the surviving twin. It wasn’t my fault tweeny brats weren’t capable communicators… But he was only a child, and children make mistakes. I couldn’t turn my back on him. 

Lucinde spoke to her brother only in short sentences in the decades that followed, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him, but she couldn’t forgive him either. Achaicus suffered with what he had done. Even now, his complexion paled and he wavered facing what he had done. He laid out the bones one at a time as he found them, a clavicle, scapula, vertebrae, parts of the thoracic cage. Time had decayed some, but the small notches that splintered the ribs remained.

“Why do you always have to ruin my life…?” he whispered, petting the bones gently with his fingertips as if they were precious. He dared not uncover anymore.

“I told you he was still here.”

Achaicus’s attention snapped upward when I spoke, “Then how is he also in the dungeons?” he spat the accusation like I had anything to do with it.

“Perhaps he came back to haunt you,” I’d already explained it to him before. 

It was his idea to dig up the bones. He refused to believe what I had told him about Nathaniel’s claim of using a forbidden spell and was being difficult about the situation. Mundane fears kept him from accepting the truth. He worried what this meant for his place in the hierarchy, how it affected his recollection of events, if it would expose his lies and ruin his reputation. He failed to conceive the true implications.

The illusionist was his brother, all methods proved it, but the implications were chaotic at best. Tampering with space time is forbidden for a reason. Even small alterations can make changes, some innocuous, perhaps the content of a painting hanging on the wall might change. A photograph might be struck at a fractionally different pose, or the color of one's outfit might change. 

Although I would also argue that larger changes are inconsequential, for how would we know of them? If the twins had a different name, if they had another sibling, or if someone’s life ended or was saved, what true difference did it make if no one knew of any other outcome? The speculation was pointless, for the true danger comes in the form of consequence.

Our history books note only one other instance of a time shift being used, and it collapsed the realms into one. Beasts unaccustomed to one another spilled through the cracks. Immense beings haughty with their own power waged wars that leveled continents. Even humans, as populus as cockroaches, nearly went extinct, and still it is more concerning to consider what kind of individual could have used such a spell.

How powerful must one be to successfully activate something as perverse as that? What kind of mind is brilliant enough to reinvent a spell no history book dared record? And why? Was he truthful in what he had said? I shifted my weight to be more comfortable, watching Achaicus stall over the remains of his brother as I thought. I’d never had the opportunity to speak with someone who knew a different history, that could be intriguing… and just how different was this ‘Nathaniel’ to the one I knew?

Eventually, Achaicus stood. He let the bone he was holding fall from his grip and turned away from the grave, “Are you just going to stand there all night? Reburry this then bring the new ‘Nathaniel’ to my sitting room. We have much to discuss.”

He left before I could answer, leaving me to cover his sins for a second time. Rude of him.

***

Sitting back in the velvet lounging chair at one end of the low table between them, Achaicus tapped his fingers in rhythm on the armrest. His hair hung loose over his shoulders offering a casual tone to the meeting, but his eyes narrowed at the corners in shrewd suspicion while Nathaniel waited, seated and handcuffed, at the opposite end of the table. Neither twin spoke.

Nathaniel was too dangerous to allow his freedom. Half the castle guards were stationed outside, waiting in the event that Achaicus and I were unable to contain this walking travesty. He’d already proven he could command me. Although only a simple, one-worded order, there was no way to be certain that was the limit of his abilities, and we weren’t going to take the risk.

Achaicus’s sword lay within reach, and I remained standing, leaning back on the armrest of the chair set in the middle of the table with my hand on the hilt of my scythe. Despite the subtle mistrust, Nathaniel’s expression remained tranquil. His caution was aristocratic, measured in unspoken expectation of civility. 

They weren’t looking at each other, Achaicus focused on the indents his fingertips created in the soft upholstery, while Nathaniel’s gaze was unwavering on the edge of the table. Both were silently judging, oozing arrogance as only Klein heirs could, with so much contempt it was hard not to roll my eyes, children. An intangible tension held the room hostage. 

These two polar ends were being forced together the wrong way, each creating their own force field against the other, but if only one flipped, they would stick steadfast. I waited, expectant, basking in the unspoken strain. Should I throw a stone into this still pond? Sly joy began to tug at the corners of my mouth as I debated how best to broach the subject when the silence was broken.

“You killed me,” Nathaniel stated without looking up. At last, a ripple.

“And yet, here you sit,” Achaicus responded with cold indifference, mirroring his brother in that he did not lift his gaze either.

“..Why?”

“You were a sufferance to endure. I grew tired of it.”

“I loved you…”

The youngest picked at a tiny thread holding a button to the couch, “Did you?” 

“Yes,” Nathaniel answered under his breath, like the admission hurt.

My attention shifted between them. I wondered if that would change anything, but their faces were disappointing stoic masks, impossible to read as each upheld the facade of apathy. I snorted to myself, folding my arms and both sets of green eyes flicked in my direction. 

“Something to say, Markos?” Achaicus muttered.

“Oh no, please do continue,” I assured with a small forced flash of teeth.

“Fine,” he straightened his shoulders and turned toward his brother, “You said you used a time shift to arrive here, is that correct?”

Nathaniel’s focus lingered on me a moment longer before he redirected toward his brother, “It is.”

“And I take it that you’re aware such a spell is a direct violation of the Great Laws?”

“…Yes.”

“Then you understand the punishment is execution.”

“You’re not going to execute me,” he snorted, folding one leg over the other, confident in his assumption.

Achaicus clenched his teeth, but his voice remained even, “Your arrogance precedes you, don’t think you’re above punishment. This is my castle. My lands, and you’re in my custody. You shouldn’t be here, and you’re not welcome.”

“If you were going to reprimand me, there wouldn’t have been any need for this meeting. So, why don’t you stop trying to intimidate, and just tell me what you need. I’m your brother, I will help you.”

“Will you? Even knowing I drove a knife into your heart so many times that I lost count, and so violently that the tip of the blade is still embedded in one of your ribs?” Achaicus flicked the button he’d detached from the couch with his fiddling in his twin’s direction with poor aim.

“Yes,” Nathaniel repeated, undisturbed by the perfectly antagonising statement.  

How entertaining. The man was better than I thought, or at the very least, he knew how to play games. I should have expected as much. Achaicus glanced toward me from the side of his eye, and I gave a subtle nod. No point pretending, this didn’t change anything and it appeared he could give us what we wanted anyway.

“Fine. Your miraculous reincarnation has caused problems. Make those problems disappear, and I won’t nail you to a tree.”

“No.”

Rage flashed in Achaicus’s eyes, and he sat forward, “You just said-”

“I said I would help you because you’re my brother, not that there wasn’t something I wanted in return.”

“I’m giving you your life,” he sneered, but Nathaniel continued unbothered.

“Trying to convince someone that you’re giving them something they need, only works if they believe they don’t have it. But I know my life is already granted. I’m the returned ‘lost heir’, as Markos put it, aren’t I? If you kill me now, you won’t survive the upheaval.” 

I bit back a laugh and reached for the jug of water on the table to cover the sound. This twin had been paying far too much attention to what I had said during his interrogation and gleaned more knowledge than he ought to have. Very clever. Achaicus reached the same conclusion and turned to glare in my direction just as I decided that pouring a glass of water required the entirety of my concentration.

He ground his teeth, but returned his attention to Nathaniel, “What’s your cooperation going to cost then?”

“…Tell me about the Vanir…”

“What about them?” 

“What happened to Leúchtend?” 

“You mean you don’t already know? The castle was lost.”

“What about Mercury, and his son?”

“Mercury is dead.”

“And his son?” he pressed with subtle urgency.

Achaicus’s expression remained neutral, but he took the opportunity, “Is that what you want then?”

“…Yeah,” he exhaled a fraction of pent up tension with the answer. 

“Then perhaps our interests align after all,” he reached back to flick his hair over his shoulder, “The war is not won. My guards are tired and the Vanir are ants pouring out of a nest, ever multiplying. Your ‘return’ will stir the troops. If you join them, perhaps we can turn the tide. So my proposal is this: clear my name for your murder, lend me your military experience and play your part as a soldier. If you agree to do that, I’ll let you be the one to lead the hunt for Mercurisson.”

Nathaniel delayed, considering before offering his counter, “Fine. I’ll uphold your pretty little lies, I’ll even throw in how nobly you tried to save me. Your reputation will shine, and I will gladly lower the population of Vanir for you. But, Mercurisson is mine. I will have him to myself under my control. No one else will touch him.”

Achaicus gave a small, tight smile, “I will let you retrieve your prize, but if you fail to capture him, you understand, we can’t pass up the opportunity. I won’t risk the safety of my people for your petty revenge.”

“I won’t fail.”

“Then we have an understanding.”

The eldest nodded, “Yes.” He sighed, closing his eyes with relief before holding up his shackled wrists, “Can you take these off now? I imagine it would be embarrassing for you if I were to break them, wouldn’t it?” 

Achaicus scowled, motioning me to release him. This wasn’t the exact outcome we had envisaged, but it was near enough. With the chains removed Nathaniel rubbed his wrists. He wasn’t alike to the dead child in the woods. Not shy in his actions or corrosive in his words, he was far more dangerous, calm and calculating in a way I hadn’t yet fully explored. Part of me wondered if that would become a problem.

“What of the children you brought? Did they come with you when you flaunted the laws?” Achaicus spoke up, he like I, was watching Nathaniel still with narrowed eyes.

“No, I found them here,” he responded distantly, “You should keep them, raise them as your Pets.”

“Humans are unreliable.”

“Molly was just a sour bitch, these two are better than she ever was.”

Achaicus stiffened at the mention of his late pet, “What do you know of her?”

“She betrayed you before… and I presume since she is not here, she did again.” A telling silence followed the statement and he glanced up, “Am I mistaken?”

“No,” his brother growled back and Nathaniel smiled as if he’d been told a joke, although it didn’t reach his eyes.

“These two are amenable to monsters,” he assured.

“They are far too old, and one is male.”

“Keep them anyway. You’re good with children, and I know you’re more than capable of caring for things.”

Achaicus clicked his tongue, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I don’t want them,” he argued.

“You will, believe me, they are good for you. Keep them safe, and train them, they will be loyal if you save them...”

“And what am I supposed to tell them? They know our nature, they would never bring us more livestock.”

“I’m not telling you to keep them because they’re useful. I’m saying keep them because they will bring you joy.”

“Preposterous, what would the other nobles think?” he muttered, but the noncommittal way he shook his head already gave him away. He would keep them. 

“If their opinions mattered, they would be in charge. Not you.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Achaicus’s face before he regained his composure, the statement caught him off guard, but it pleased him. Hearing his brother say it puffed his feathers. Now he would be insufferable.

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