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His expression falls and Phantom picks up the tale. “Our father thought she was the one from the prophecy. And he took her for himself.”
"Took her? Since when can a man just take a woman? We're not luggage."
Rayne gives a little laugh, but Phantom is the one to answer. "You met our father."
I shiver.Okay, fair enough."But then, did she put up a fight? I can't imagine many people would have been happy to see him dragging off a woman, you know, before your world went crazy."
Dusk answers. "That's not how it's done with royalty. We hadn't technically expressed our interest in Shenra, but we had an understanding between us. An understanding that we wanted to announce with an engagement at one of my father's big parties with the neighboring royalty."
"Okay... but then something went wrong?"
Dusk's brows draw together. "It was subtle, but it also wasn't... I don't know. One night at dinner, he took Shenra on his arm. He walked her about as if she were his partner for the night. She sat next to him at dinner, and the three of us didn't know what to say or do. We'd always assumed our father knew that we were interested in her, and that we felt a connection to her, but that night we all wondered if we'd been mistaken. If he hadn't known. We wanted to clear it up, but then, Shenra didn't seem... upset about the arrangement, just flustered."
Phantom rubs his face, like the memories are making him tired. "We had a decision to make. Did we address it with our father? Did we confront her and ask her how she felt? Whether she wanted him or us? But we were young and inexperienced. We'd never seen our father take an interest in a woman after our mother, nor had we seen Shenra blushing and flirting with another man. We knew if we spoke the words aloud, if we tried to lay claim to her and she rejected us, it would create a rift between our father and us, as well as a rift with her. We weren't sure what to do."
"And then one night became many nights, with her on our father's arm and us lost about what to do."
Onyx signs, and Dusk speaks for him, even though I pick up many of the correct signs. "I approached her one day, a brief moment without her ladies or her guards. It was uncomfortable. She seemed to want to tell me something, but she stopped herself. Instead, she said that she hoped that things were still good between us and that she planned to clear up a confusion with our father."
"We thought that was the end of it," Dusk said, sounding defeated. "But then our father wed her in a private ceremony that night. The news was all over, as was the news that they were spending their days and nights in his room, enjoying their lives as a married couple."
"We were shocked," Phantom says, not that he needed to. I would say hearing their father married the woman they loved would shock anyone. "But it was also strange. For days we didn't see her or our father. The maid who cleaned their room seemed upset. The guards kept us from their floor. We didn't want to make things worse. We assumed that perhaps she had decided being a queen was better than being a princess, even though we'd never suspected her of being that type of woman."
"And then our father appeared once more, behaving as if nothing had happened. We causally mentioned her, and he avoided the topic before finally confessing that he felt the marriage had been a mistake. That it wasn't what he had thought it was, and that she had returned to her family's lands." Dusk looks disturb. "We had no reason not to believe him. He was our father. Cold, calculating, but our father. He'd only ever been kind and gentle with our mother, so why think otherwise?"
Onyx nods again and signs, “But we believe he killed her.”
“Why?” It isn’t me who asks, but Rayne.
“Because the shadows whispered that our mate would bring the person she’s with great power, enough power to rule a world, and he wanted it for himself.” Dusk stares at Onyx as Onyx finishes signing, then nods and continues. "From a young age we knew we'd share a mate, and once our connection was formed, the shadows began whispering. The Elders are the only ones capable of hearing the shadows, but they relayed the messages to the king and queen at the time, and their parents seemed excited. The idea that we could bring more power, more strength to our great nation, and that we were destined for a mate, it was all good things."
"Until Shenra," Dusk says in a sad voice. "Until our father took her as his own and nothing about our world made sense any longer."
“At the time, we didn’t have any proof, you understand. We thought she chose him over us, then retreated in shame when she couldn't make him happy.” Phantom nods to Onyx. “But Onyx didn’t buy it.”
He shrugs. “This was just before the destruction of our world.” He speaks so quickly with his hands, I can’t keep up. I look at Dusk, who translates. “The king was as charming as ever, so it was logical for us to think she chose him, loved him, wanted him. There was nothing in our father's behaviors that seemed strange. And he had never seemed interested in having more power than he already had, so we didn't think anything of the prophecy.”
“But Onyx asked if we truly thought all Shenra cared about was a title and power. In truth, we'd never seen her that way. We argued that perhaps her parents pressured her to make him her husband, but again, Onyx didn't feel she could be pressured to do that. She was... soft spoken and often submissive, but she could be a lion when she needed to be. So her complete betrayal didn’t sit right with him. He had faith in her feelings, in his own. Faith that we didn't have, perhaps because the man who had taken our love was our own father.” Phantom stares down at the fire for a second before he looks at me. “Then Onyx found her body a couple of weeks later in the moat. At least, what we thought was her body. It was... difficult to tell by then, but she had white hair, and a cream gown similar to the type she slept in.”
Dusk whispers, “But still, we couldn’t believe our father could do that. I know that makes us sound like fools, but it seemed more likely that rather than return home in shame, she... well, she made a rash decision.”
“We didn’t know for certain that it was her at all though,” Onyx emphasizes with his hand and looks at Phantom. “We'd sent word to her family, but we hadn't received word back yet if she'd made it to her home.”
I'm trying to process all of this, but it's hard. All three of them have stopped though, and they're looking at me, so I try to sort my thoughts appropriately. "It makes sense. I mean, if you accused your father of something awful, then learned she'd just gone home, it'd be terrible. And you'd all already lost your mother; it's normal that you wouldn't want to lose your only other living family member." I clench my arms. "I did the same kind of thing with my mother. I-I, well, I sometimes forgave things that I shouldn't have, or pretended my mom was someone different, even though all logic said exactly who she was. A child's need to be loved by a parent is strong."
The men exchange a look, and then Dusk stares back at me, overwhelming emotion in his eyes. "We never saw it that way. Just felt like we were fools."
Onys signs, "And maybe I wasn't understanding enough because I'd never had that bond with a parent."
Unable to stop myself, I reach out and squeeze Onyx's hand. His eyes widen in surprise for a moment before I let go, and he turns away from me again.
"And killing your woman was what led to all of this?" Rayne asks, frowning.
"I wish," Dusk mutters, shaking his head.
“We didn’t believe Onyx when he tried to show us his 'proof' that father had murdered her. We got into a fight, something we never do, and he went off alone to drink because we’d wounded him to his core. We chose our father over him, and I think it made him feel like... he wasn't part of our family, even though we're brothers in all ways except blood.” Phantom’s breath shudders out of him, and I appreciate the pain they're in to tell us this story.
“At the tavern, I overheard someone say that the king was engaging in some dangerous magic,” Onyx signs as Dusk speaks his words aloud. “Surprised, I went around town, listening to every shred of gossip I could acquire. Everyone in town was afraid, and everyone had a different story. Some had seen the king in the forest, talking to trolls or rot monkeys. Others said the king was seen in graveyards, digging up bones. Some said he’d gone to the sacred cliff, the only connection to the moonstone, and a place that's forbidden, and they worried about why. All things that are the signs of a madman. A man up to no good. So, I again returned home and warned them.”
