The palace was exactly as I remembered it, though significantly darker. I noticed, as Duke and I meandered through the various rooms, that not a single fire had been lit and all of the lamps on the wall were doused in nothing but shadow. Only Duke’s torch and a lifetime of memories guided us from room to room until we were in the small dining alcove behind the kitchen, which was normally used as eating quarters for palace staff.

As we took opposite chairs across the table, I clasped my hands together and studied my brother through the dim flames. “You have become averse to proper vision, have you?” I asked, only half-joking.

Duke lifted the torch and tossed it into the sooty hearth nearest us. Sparks billowed into the air, and the gentle blaze began to spread to the stack of fresh wood beneath. Within moments, the air was beginning to warm and the walls around me were becoming visible. I watched the scorching curls lick one another, and then looked back across the table.

“You greeted us in English,” I reflected idly.

“I have grown accustomed to speaking English,” Duke replied. “For Emily’s sake.”

I started to tell him I understood and perhaps jibe him with a tease or two, but, before I could get another word out, he leaned across the table and stared at me intently.

“What do you think you are doing, De’inde?” he asked sharply. I reared back, startled to hear him using my formal name and even more startled by his aggressive tone. He didn’t retreat. “You have brought a human back with you.”

“Several, actually,” I corrected. I purposefully kept my tone light, airy, and unconcerned because I knew it would irritate him. “I think the count was somewhere around twelve. Thirteen, if you count Roxanne.”

His eyes darkened, and his mouth turned down into a severe frown. “The entire war began because humans were here. Now you have brought some back? The Council will have your head!”

“I had no choice. Quite a bit has happened in your absence.” I injected extra weight into my words to impress upon him the responsibility he had in the current state of things.

There was a second in which I was certain he was going to start yelling at me, and I felt my inner-warrior rear up. Then, however, he leaned back in his chair and rested his joined hands on the tabletop.

“Explain,” he said.

I launched into my life over the past few months. I told him about conquering town after town, rescuing captured A’li-uud and avoiding capture ourselves. He listened carefully without interruption. When I reached the news of Ki’lok, his face crumpled with sorrow and rage, but he restrained himself from speaking. I relived my days in the prison, alone in the dank room with nothing but my sword as my companion, and recounted the meeting with Roxanne that had led to this point. I left out the more intimate details that occurred on the journey back home, of course.

“A peace treaty,” Duke murmured when I’d finished speaking. He’d adopted a faraway expression, his eyes looking right through me. “They cannot expect us to believe they have peaceful intentions.”

I knitted my brows together. “Perhaps too much time has passed since our last conversation, brother, but I think I recall you adamantly insisting I gather the warriors scattered around Earth and return them to Albaterra. Has your attitude changed so drastically since then?”

“My attitude is no different,” he retorted. “My interest has been and always will be the preservation of A’li-uud life. Our numbers on Earth were mere shadows of the humans’. It was suicide, a poorly-research plan that could have meant the demise of our best.”

“So, you believe in the war, then.” It was not a question, and I didn’t wait for a response to continue. “You believe we need to eliminate humans.”

“I believe the Council made a hasty and bloodthirsty decision based on a very real threat to our existence,” he said coarsely.

I groaned scornfully and sat back, kicking my feet up onto the table and propping my hands behind my head. It had always been humorous to me to test my brother’s militant discipline and stern attitude, no matter how old we became or how much authority the other had. “A politician’s response,” I chided.

Duke slammed his fist down on the tabletop without warning. His regal face was marred with temper, and he’d become straight-backed like he did when going into battle. “You are a child!” he spat, his eyes burning holes into mine. “You are naïve and arrogant, and you do not understand the weight you bear! This is no laughing matter, De’inde. You may have compromised the future of our entire race!”

I flew from my chair, standing and bending over the table. My chest was heaving, my breaths coming in shallow beats, and my hand went impulsively to my hip where the hilt of my sword rested comfortably. “You made me Elder, Duke, which makes me your superior. I suggest you keep that in the forefront of your mind when you speak to me.”

“You are not my Elder,” he shot back, also getting to his feet. “I turned over the powers of Elderhood to you as my blood brother, but the Council recognizes you only as Elder designate. Until you perform the ceremony amongst the Council, I am still your Elder.”

“A powerless one,” I snorted.

“The authority is intact,” he hissed, “and you will do well to keep that in the forefront of your mind when you speak to me.”

“So, this is how we reunite, brother?” I asked angrily, holding my arms out on either side in a wide gesture. “With conflict and posturing? For all you knew, I could have been dead in the Earthen dirt with humans dancing on my bones. This is how you wish to spend my homecoming?”

Duke remained steadfast, unwavering in his tangible ire. “There are more important things at hand than your homecoming now that I see you have brought humans with you,” he declared. “One human, in particular.”

“Roxanne?” I was so stunned by his specifically mentioning her that some of my anger actually evaporated to give way to dumbfounded surprise. For him to have a problem with Roxanne was incomprehensible to me after he’d forfeited his Elderhood for the sake of a human, even bringing her back to Albaterra with him. “How can you have any disagreement with Roxanne when you did what you did because of Emily?”

“What I did was firstly for my people!” Duke barked. “Do not imply anything different!”

I narrowed my eyes at him, and my voice went icy as I said, “What I did was for my people, too. If I did not agree to the Board’s terms of allowing the humans to accompany me, I would have been thrown back in the prison cell. What good would I have been to my people then? How would I have been able to return them to Albaterra as you requested before you left with your human?”

Duke swelled, his chest puffing and his shoulders widening. In contrast, his eyes flattened into slits, and he stared at me as though I were a stranger to him. “You think I am so stupid I do not know my own brother?” he asked, speaking slowly and emphasizing each syllable almost like they were individual words. “I saw the way you looked at her. I am no fool. Perhaps you can trick yourself into believing she is just a mere human to you, but you cannot trick me.”

“You are determined I should fail as Elder,” I growled. “You are afraid I will be greater, more powerful, and more beloved than you ever were, and you are determined to find any fault with me you can. You know nothing of me, and even less of Roxanne. While I was acting as Elder and warrior on the mission ordered by the Council, you were playing house with your girlfriend, and now you feel inferior. As you should.”

“I will not allow your hormones to bring the demise of the A’li-uud!” he bellowed, slamming his fist again on the table. It rattled against the tile floor, drowning the crackling of the fireplace.

“And I will not bow to the whims of your hypocrisy!” I roared back.

Duke leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the tabletop and peering directly into my face. “Then, feel the death of our race in your blood, brother, because you have condemned us all.”