I am a boy.

You remember me as the beautiful child with deceptive eyes. You remember me as cruel, the boy with marble skin that holds captive secrets of my land, long buried beneath dirt. You remember me, the young prince with brittle bones hiding lies in its marrows, with curses woven into the inky black strands of hair that sit atop my head. You remember me, the firstborn and only born, with a hollow chest and cold blood, with chaos trickling through my veins. You remember my starved face and the cunning in the tilt of my lips. You remember me.

I am Prince Khrysandros, 'Son of Domaeniq', Aetós.

You follow my ragged breath, my faltering footsteps through the marble hall. I drip crimson.

You know me as a son.

To a father who never held me. A father who was then engaged in a war far closer to home than you'd have thought. The glorious Caedan Empire, with its marble towers and cold-blooded soldiers marched onward through the blizzards of winter, battling an equally magnificent Novirean Empire. While the root of this war, stood innocent, oblivious, in our courtroom. A boy, a bastard child, with bronzed skin, kissed so thoroughly by the sun, you could feel his blazing warmth halfway across the hall. Such was the might and vigour of my closest confidant. You came alive in his all-encompassing presence while you withered and died in mine.

You remember him as Lord Silas Petrou.

You remember him as my father's favoured, my mother's darling. You remember him as my golden brother but you do not know the truth. Not a single soul does. You believed I hated him, for his beauty, his simplicity, his kindness, the warmth he brought to the icy courts of Caedis. You know him as the ward of a noble, a boy who would sit beside the prince on a throne occasionally. You would watch him distribute food and linen to the poverty of Caedis while I would be in the council, facing hostile eyes with nonchalance. I would debate the fate of my empire with my ruthless wit and a tongue sharper than Silas' blade. You would watch me uncover plots between kingdoms, you would watch me strip away treachery. You would watch me kick children, kill horses, flog the 'innocent' and hang the traitors. You would whisper about my tyranny behind my back, whisper about my sullied hands. You would compare me to Silas, the ray of sun the masses worshipped. You did not know he slept in my bed. You did not know I held him when he woke up screaming about death and doom and where he came from. You did not know I sang him to sleep and told him 'men can cry'.

Princes cannot.

You know me as a prince.

You tell your children to stay far away from me, the malicious young monarch who had his own 'brother' pelted with stones upon his arrival at the palace. You pray to the Old Gods for forgiveness on my behalf, for the crimes that I have committed and the banes that I have bestowed upon Caedis. You hear rumours about the priest I solicited in the twilight hours of day. You failed to see that it was not I who put his hands on an unwilling child. You hear me laugh at nothing funny. I know what you thought. Horrors such as those are not meant for men, much less princes. You were mistaken.

You know me as a scandal.

When my noble mother and father were murdered, my precious Silas taken from me, you took one look at my bloody palms and thought I had finally brought the empire to ruin. You saw me stay awake night after night, immaculately dressed, not a hair out of place, discussing, negotiating war. You saw me tear down courtrooms and plunder villages and sentence more men to the gallows. You saw me turn from a prince to a king and thought me a heartless scum. I never mourned. I never grieved. No, not for my family, I despised them. For Silas, the boy who took my decaying heart with him when he disappeared. For Silas, the name, the angelic face I could barely remember.

I hate you, for remembering him better than me.

You did not hear how my sobs broke through walls in my achingly empty chambers. You did not see the lashes on my back from a priest whose purpose had been to care for the child-king. You did not hear my pained shrieks as I was punished for loving a boy, punished for being a prince, punished for reasons I did not know and nor did you. You did not attend my training, as I was broken down to flesh and exhausted limbs. Then built up twice as strong, a monarch fit to rule my crumbling empire.

You know me as a tyrant.

You wreaked havoc, sent my villages into turmoil, raised mutiny. Millions of men, women rebelled. You endeavoured to have me killed.

Hell to the tyrant king.

You did not know what I knew. You did not know I protected you. You did not know our world was falling apart and I bore the wrath of the Gods on my shoulders.

And then, finally, finally, finally— you returned him to me.

No longer a boy, his skin was darker, hands rougher, eyes older. He held anger he had not before. You did that to him, I will never forgive you. He did not remember me. I hate you for remembering me better than him. He knew only the worst of me and I, only the worst of him. He came to slit my throat that dawn, but it was me who clasped chains around his. I gave him room in my dungeons but no more my chest.

You did not know that I no longer sat in my quilts, drenched in sweat and tears. Silas was mine again.

Year after year, the plots unravelled. Everything you believed was a lie. Your reality was soaked in carnage, slaughtered bodies of hundreds. Fighting a fabricated war, a lost cause, because you did not know the liars were the ones you believed to speak the truth. But I did not care. I spent my evenings smiling a childhood I did not have, amusing Silas. I dressed in gowns and spoke prettily because I could, because Silas loved when I put flowers in my hair. And I loved the crooked upturn of his mouth when he was happy. You thought he was my prisoner, but I was his slave. You did not know, through the wars and lies and secrets, that I did not want to rule. I only wanted to watch the stars with my dark-skinned friend. I only wanted to lean into his embrace behind curtains where you would not pry, and pretend we could live.

You did not know that he was hunted too.

You did not know. I did not know. He did not know.

That a crown was to be placed upon his brow, and no longer would he be called a lord.

King Silas 'Son of T’yzad' Lurco, of the Novirean Empire.

We were not king and captive anymore. We were king and king. The lies and secrets and schemes were out in the open. It was a battle of swords, of men, of courage. We were not fighting for kingdom games or power. We fought for freedom, we sought riddance from the society that crippled us. We did not have armies. We did not have the trusted. I had only Silas. And Silas had only me.

Tired, I was so tired.

You watch me rip my circlet from my blood-caked hair. You watch me throw my royal signet ring to the ground, you watch me roar twenty-six years of frustration into an empty throneroom. You watch my chest heave. You hear my pain echo. You see my trudge on forward.

You stand beneath the balcony among the crowds of peasants, wide-eyed and disbelieving as I fling the wooden doors open. My bare, calloused feet slip on marble, on liquid red. You have never seen my hair this unruly. My eyes this wild.

You watched.

Silas waited for me out on the marble platform. Above countless eyes, beneath clear, cloudless skies. I hoped the Old Gods watched like you watched.

I stepped forward, always forward.

"I killed a man today."

I whispered to him.

"Who?" He whispered back, with the most gorgeous smile I had ever laid eyes upon.

I looked at him, with all the adoration I could never put into words.

I looked at you, with no anger, only unnerving, everlasting calm.

"Me."

Everything you knew burned in our fire and we rose from the ashes. Empires fell and monarchs lost their crowns but we never lost our love. I was not the boy you knew before. I was not the prince you knew before. I was not King Khrysandros, 'Son of Domaeniq', Aetós and he was not King Silas 'Son of T’yzad' Lurco.

They were dead and I stood before you in their place.

Boldly, I gripped my forever's chin and stood on my toes. Boldly, I wrapped my arms around his neck. Boldly, my soul touched his.

I heard your gasp.

I heard a thousand gasps.