“Why are you to say goodbye?” I demanded.

Venan was still expressionless, but I could see the pain in his eyes. No matter the differences my brother and I had, both in personality and in principle, it pained me to see him hurt. I had known the moment Kharid died, Venan would be nearly inconsolable. I had not anticipated a complete emotional shutdown, however.

It was evidently as alarming for my parents as it was for me. Mother stared at Venan with her mouth agape, and Father’s features were hardening as he realized his eldest son was beginning to spiral into the depths of despair.

“I am being taken to P’otes-tat Ulti,” Venan said monotonously. “I am under arrest.”

Mother gasped, Father snarled, and I shook my head in vehement denial. “They cannot do this,” I said. “Brother, it was not your fault.”

“What?” my mother cried. “Venan, what have you done?”

Finally, he met her gaze. His eyes were shattered, his face broken. He had indeed lost his spirit the moment his adored Elder had left our realm for the afterlife, and it seemed that this was his final goodbye. And a strained, pained voice, he crackled, “I killed him, Mother. Our Wise One died at my sword.”

Silence fell upon the house, but it was not the comfortable silence I had come to love about the desert night. It was a silence riddled with horror, disbelief, and more pain than I had thought imaginable. Mother’s knees gave out beneath her, and she crumpled to the floor with a howl of broken-hearted agony. Father swooped to catch her before she landed, but he was too far away to reach her in time, and she crashed to the ground with a thunderous bang. It did not matter. She could not hurt more than she already did.

“I was there,” I said fiercely. “I was witness to the incident. I can attest you were not at fault.”

“It does not matter,” came Venan’s dull reply. “I will have a trial, but, under the circumstances, I am to be held until that time. I am not considered safe to the Albaterran public.”

“What happened?” Mother whispered, still twisted upon the floor. “How did it come to pass that your sword brought about our Elder’s end?”

Venan shook his head. “As of now, it is a classified matter. I am not at liberty to tell you what happened, nor are you.” He turned slightly to stare aggressively into my eyes.

To look back at my twin brother was like seeing my reflection as someone else's in the mirror. He was no longer identical to me. In a matter of a few short hours, he had aged years, decades, maybe even a century. And, yet, he remained steadfastly dedicated to the kingdom and the Elder under which he served, determined to quell the rumors and keep the secrets of the palace. I, however, had never been so unwavering, and to learn now that my brother, who had  devoted his entire life to Dhal’at, was to be imprisoned for a crime that was not a crime at all but in fact an accident splintered my already lacking resolve to live up to my duties as a Dhal’atian warrior.

I turned to my mother, though not before shooting a defiant glare back at Venan. “We were summoned to the palace to address an unknown disease afflicting the Novain colonists,” I explained. Venan started to move toward me furiously, but Father held up his hand to halt him, and I went on. “I was to bring the human healers from the colony, presumably to form a team of varied medical experts to diagnose the disease and its origins and develop a treatment. Evidently, there was already an ill Novai in the custody of the palace guards, as he managed to escape them. During our search for him, he met the human healers and Elder Kharid. We arrived in time to witness the struggle between the Novai and Kharid.”

“Enough!” Venan boomed. “They are not to know!”

“They are our parents!” I burst back, rounding on him. “I do not wish them to be ignorant should this disease begin to spread to A’li-uud! And, at the very least, think you not they deserve to know why their son is being taken to P’otes-tat Ulti under charges of murder?”

I could see he was fuming, but I was unwilling to relent. I turned back to my mother and father and continued with my tale.

“In an effort to save Kharid from the Novai, Venan thrust his sword into the Novai’s back. Unfortunately, the Wise One and the beast were too close together, and, in eliminating the threat from the Novai, the sword pierced Kharid in the chest.” Mother's eyes were so round they were nearly plates, and Father appeared more distraught than I had ever seen him. “One of the nurses and I attempted to dress the wound and stabilize Elder Kharid until one of the palace healers could reach him. It was not enough.”

I swallowed hard, then, as I recalled the last moments of Kharid’s life.

“He died looking at me,” I murmured. “The last face he saw was mine.”

In my peripheral vision, I could see Venan. His chest was rising and falling at a rapid rate, and a vein in his neck was pulsing. He was seething. Whether his anger was borne of the fact that I had revealed the course of events to our parents, or whether it was in jealousy that he who had been so loyal had not been Kharid’s final sight, or perhaps whether it was simply his emotions finally coming to the surface and overwhelming him completely, I did not know.

It seemed I never would. Behind Venan, through the darkness, rose the hulking silhouette of six warriors grouped closely together. The curls of their staves were only visible as they caught the glow of strung geode lights, and their faces were entirely masked by the thickness of night. It was only when they drew up behind him, and the flaming aura of the fire inside the house licked their features did I realize their identities, and they were identities I was not grateful to see.

They were the Council Guard, members of the Dhal’atian branch. I did not know them well, but I knew them, and they were such that they made Venan seem good-natured and cheerful. The scowls on their faces were permanent, and they walked with an aggression one would expect only to see when marching into battle.

“It is time,” said the largest of them. His voice was so low it was nearly a rumble, and he spoke with as little inflection as Venan did in his grief.

Mother clambered to her feet again, and she started to approach the guards with her mouth open, but Father flung an arm around her waist and pulled her back. I knew she wanted to argue in favor of her boy; she would have done so for me as well. Father, however, was right to restrain her. These were not the officials with whom to argue.

Venan turned slowly on the spot. He extended his hands toward them, his thumbs only inches apart, and closed his eyes. I could barely see his face anymore now that the firelight was on his back and his features were in shadows, but his jaw was clenched with stoic determination. The guard clapped two black, slender bracelets over his wrists, and a blinding yellow light ignited around them with a single strand of light between, connecting them. I was more familiar with Dhal’atian shackles than I cared to be, having been a rather troublesome youth, but I doubted Venan knew their dangers. I hoped he knew better than to touch the black bands together, for he would be electrocuted into unconsciousness.

“Zuran,” Mother hissed desperately from my father’s grasp. She was nearly doubled over in her efforts to get away from him and throw herself between Venan and the guards. “You must do something!”

“Oraaka, there is nothing he can do,” Father said with quiet harshness. “Unless you wish to have both sons in prison, you have to let them take him.”

Mother let out a whimper of heartache, and I felt it sting me squarely in the chest. Just this morning, I had been sprinting through the desert in an effort to keep fit with little care in the world. Now, I was watching my twin brother’s arrest on the threshold of my parents’ home while my mother fell to pieces and the kingdom mourned the death of our noble leader. My life had evolved from the trivial to turmoil before my very eyes.

“You are Zuran?” questioned another of the guards. He was rather shorter than the one who cuffed Venan, but he was equally as bulky, and his face was just as nasty.

“Yes,” I replied, straightening my spine in lofty arrogance.

A leer flit across his lips, and he crooked a finger at me. “You will be coming, too.”