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The moon is little more than a sliver the night Virgil flees his home. It offers little light, but he finds he doesn’t mind—the shadows are more comforting anyway. They pool behind corners and stretch between parapets on the wall, offering him no small wealth of places to hide. He slinks among them with as much caution as his racing pulse will afford him, breathing shallowly through clenched teeth as he struggles to calm the panic in his heart. His hands still radiate unnatural warmth; his brother’s scream still echoes in his ears.
Bile rises in his throat and tears burn his eyes, blurring his vision. He creeps along the wall, the cool stones almost soothing against his burning skin. There, a yard away, maybe two, is a plain wooden door. Like him, it’s nearly concealed in the shadow of a tower, but Virgil doesn’t need to see it to know it’s there. He eyes the distance as well as he can through his watery gaze, keeping one ear primed for voices, for footsteps, for anything that might tell him he’s no longer the only person in the courtyard. His ears don’t betray him and when he a little less than two feet away, caught between shadows and just barely visible in the inky blackness of the night, he hears it: the soft rattle of chainmail through the air, the heavy thud of boots on flagstone.
He draws a sharp breath and lunges for the door, even as the flickering orange glow of torchlight splashes across his skin. It’s too late. He’s too late. He knows, even as he grips the handle, that the guard has seen him. His mouth goes dry even as the light shifts over his shoulder. “Prince Virgil?”
He forces himself to turn around, though he doesn’t take his hand off the door. He doesn’t have much time until Father realizes he he’s missing, and stars he doesn’t even want to think about what the punishment would be for harming the crown prince (harming his brother).
He forces himself to turn around and he doesn’t take his hand off the door. Instead, he smiles widely. Uncle always said that smiles and jokes were the best way to disarm people. Virgil doesn’t feel very funny right now, so he smiles, wide and sharp and tense. He knows it’s not a nice smile, he knows because he can see the way the guard shuffles his feet and licks his lips nervously. It’s all Virgil can manage, though, so he freezes his mouth in that not-nice-smile and waits. (He doesn’t have much time…)
The guard gathers his courage and gives him a much more pleasant smile in return, though Virgil sees how he bites her lip just before he does. “What are you doing out so late, my prince? Wouldn’t you rather be sleeping in a nice warm bed than sneaking around the courtyard in the dead of night?”
“I-it’s nothing you need to worry about, Thomas.” His mind races. What can he say to make the guard believe him, to make him go away? “I just…wanted to take a walk?”
He frowns, raising an eyebrow in that do-you-think-I-was-born-yesterday expression that all adults seem to get just before they call a kid out on their bullcrap. But when he speaks, his tone is respectful and carefully polite. “That is an armory, my prince. I’m afraid you won’t find the view there very interesting. Unless, perhaps, you wished to go there for another reason…?”
Virgil shouldn’t have any pride left. A traitorous prince who burned off half of his brother’s face because of a dumb argument certainly isn’t entitled to any. And yet, his pride rankles at the guard’s gentle, knowing tone. “It’s not what you think! I’m not trying to borrow any of the weapons! Not this time!”
He purses his lips. “Why else would you be sneaking around the armory in the middle of the night?”
Virgil’s mind stutters to a halt. He opens his mouth, but despite his desperate prayer, the words don’t magically appear on his lips. What can he say? He’s not good at lying, not like Jay. He doesn’t know the right words to make Thomas believe him, doesn’t know how to pitch his voice into something she will believe. Even his smile, sharp and ugly as it is, is fading under her scrutiny. He grips the door handle until his knuckles go white. What can he say? The truth burns like fire under his skin, hot and blistering to the touch. The tears in his eyes multiply, pooling together until he can no longer hold them back by force of will alone. They spill down his face in silent rivers, no matter how much he swipes at them. His shoulders shake and tremble and he has to brace himself against the door to keep from falling to his knees.
Thomas gasps somewhere above him. “M-my prince! What’s the matter? Please, don’t cry…”
He tries to listen, but he can no more stem the flow of his tears than turn back time and undue the cause of them. Thomas hems and haws for a moment, but eventually extends a hand to him, patting his shoulder gently. “There, there, prince. It’s alright. You’ll be alright…”
It’s an empty promise if he’s ever heard one and he can’t bring himself to let it pass. Too much fear and guilt and shame is burning inside of him, burning him, and it spews forth in a fiery inferno. “No, it’s not! Nothing about this is alright! I hurt him, Thomas! I didn’t mean to, but I hurt him! He’s in the physician’s wing now because of me and—and I don’t even know how it happened or if he’s going to be ok or—”
The torchlight flares. The flame expands, growing larger than the limited fuel source should allow. It flares with a roar of power, a crackle of energy that sounds too much like a child’s scream. Thomas shies away, holding the torch at arm’s length and Virgil freezes, his breath catching in his throat.
As he holds his breath, the flame shrinks down, back to normal or maybe even a little smaller. His lungs begin to burn, but he captures the air in his mouth and holds it there. He won’t hurt anyone, not again.
“Prince. Prince Virgil, you have to breathe.”
He shakes his head, a whimper tumbling from his lips. Didn’t he see what happened? Doesn’t he understand?
Thomas looks at him and looks at the torch. Then, in one swift movement, he extinguishes the flame, throwing them both back into shadow. “Breathe for me now, prince. Like this,” he demonstrates, breathing deeper than Virgil had since this horrid nightmare began. It takes a few tries, but slowly, gradually Virgil manages to imitate his example, a sense of—not peace, not nearly, but certainly more calm than he had known before—coming over him with every deep inhalation. “Better now?” he asks, and Virgil actually manages a smile—a real one this time—before guilt overcomes him again.
“Are you going to arrest me now?”
The guard actually has the nerve to laugh, though it’s a little high-pitched and strangled. “Of course not! In the first place, I don’t have the authority to arrest any noble-born save on the king’s order alone. And in the second place,” he smiles at him, “you’ve done nothing worth arresting. Unless breaking curfew is now a crime, in which case I need to have words with my superiors about informing me of these things…”
Virgil snickers, though he quickly pushes his mouth back into a frown. This is serious! “You saw what I did! The fire… A-and if that’s not enough, I’m sure Father will order my arrest soon.” He mutters this part, swallowing tightly past the lump in his throat.
“I saw the fire,” Thomas’s voice is gentle. “Has no one told you what it means? What you are?”
“I’m not stupid, Thomas! It means I’m a freak! A monster…”
“No, my prince. That’s not what it means at all. You are different, yes, but not freakish. You’re firebender, not a monster.”
Virgil stares at the guard, turning the word over his mind. A firebender? “What does that mean? Are you sure it’s not another word for monster?” He asks with all the suspicion of a child raised among fawners and courtiers.
Thomas glances about the courtyard as though to make sure they are well and truly alone. For the first time, he shuffles closer to him, mindless of propriety, and lowers his voice to a whisper. “I swear to you it’s not, my prince, though others may tell you otherwise. But on my honor, I swear bending is not inherently evil, nor should the benders among us be forced to hide and deny their gifts.”
“You mean there are others who can do what I did?”
“Yes. And there are those who can move the earth with nothing more than a stomp of their feet. There are those who can turn water into ice and shape the face of the sea. There are those who can bend the air beneath their arms to fly like birds and call the wind itself to their aid.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
Thomas nods solemnly. “Many people think so, and so most benders live in small villages or wander as nomads, hiding their power from the rest of the world. They fear what may happen if they are discovered…and perhaps rightly so. History hasn’t always been kind to those who are different.”
Virgil swallows, gathering his courage as he looks up at Thomas. “If what you say is true, then you have double the reason to turn me in. Not only am I a—a firebender, but Thomas, I hurt…I hurt my brother. I burned him. I-I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I—” Thomas rubs his shoulder, breathing deeply and Virgil takes the hint, cutting himself off with a deep breath of his own. When his heart stops fluttering in his chest, he tries again. “You should arrest me. For that, if nothing else. I attacked the crown prince. I—I’m not safe.”
“No, you aren’t. None of us are. I hurt a lot of people with my sword. Your father could hurt more with a bad law. Even Prince Janus could hurt someone during training or with a careless word. No one is completely safe all the time. But you can choose to be safe for the people around you. I can choose to use my sword honorably to protect the kingdom. Your father can choose to make laws for the good of his people, to help them and provide for them. Prince Janus can choose to submit to the weaponsmaster during training and may eventually choose to have more care in how he speaks to those around him. And you can choose to learn how to control your bending—the same way your brother and father and I learned to control ourselves and our weapons.”
“Do you really think I can?” Virgil whispers, for the first time feeling a sense of hope stirring in his chest. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“I’m sure of it.” Thomas smiles and Virgil can’t help but grin back. “But you’ll need a teacher and there isn’t exactly a wealth of benders in Illiosa. Luckily, I have a cousin who just might be able to help.”
“Are they a f-firebender too?”
“Actually, he’s an airbender. But he might still be able to help. I’ll have to send him a message and get His Majesty’s permission either for him to have an audience with you or for you to go to see him, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Virgil frowns and glances back to the door. “Oh. Uh, I don’t suppose you could tell me where he is? Um, just for curiosity reasons, I mean? I’m super interested in, uh, geography.”
Thomas laughs. “And I suppose this sudden interest in geography has nothing to do with the secret entrance behind the tapestry in the armory? Which you certainly wouldn’t be planning on using to run away without anyone noticing, right?”
“How’d you know about that?” Virgil blurts, his eyes going wide in his head. “Uncle said only family could be trusted with the secret entrances—er entrance! Cause there’s only one, here, in the armory!”
“Your uncle has always had a rather loose definition of family.” He winks at him, but when he doesn’t grin, the guard’s expression grows serious as well. “Prince, I promise you, you have nothing to fear from your father. I doubt he will be upset with you for an accident, especially after he learns the whole story.”
“But you said most people are scared of benders. And that they don’t want them around because of that. What if Father is one of those people? What if Jay is?”
“I can’t speak for Prince Janus. But I have it on good authority that your father bares no ill will toward benders. He won’t hate you for being one, Virgil.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“Because your uncle was a bender, too.
“Uncle was?” Virgil breathes, scanning Thomas’s face and posture for any sign of lie or trick. He had no reason to lie about this, but still. If uncle had been a bender, surely, Virgil would have known.
Thomas nods. “You come by it honestly, my prince.”
Either he truly believes what he’s saying or he’s telling the truth, because Virgil can find no lie in his body language, no falsehood in his expression. He huffs and leans against the door, weighing his options. He can still run. The door’s right behind him and he doesn’t think Thomas would drag him back against his will—not when he’d refused to arrest him every single time he had the chance. He can run and leave the castle and leave Illiosa and go—where? Somewhere where no one knows him, no one knows what he can do. That had been the original plan. Run far far away, maybe sneak aboard a merchant ship, maybe change his name. Run away and pretend like he wasn’t a prince and a frea—a firebender and a brother-burner. And he could still do that! That could still be the plan! Except…now he knows it’s possible to control the fire. Now he knows someone could teach him how to be safe and not hurt the people he cares about. If he ran, maybe he could find another firebender. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Thomas said they like to hide so they’d probably be hard to find. On the other hand, if he stayed, he would probably definitely find a teacher in Thomas’s cousin. At least, assuming Father doesn’t throw him in jail for attacking Jay and being a firebender…
“Ok.” Virgil says after several long moments.
“Ok?” Thomas questions like he’s not sure what he means. Virgil looks up at him and fights the lump in his throat that never really went away.
“I won’t run. I’ll talk to Father. But you—will you come with me when I do?”
Thomas smiles. “Of course. No one will hurt you, my prince. I promise.”
Virgil nods and slowly lets go of the handle. His fingers are stiff from gripping it so tightly, and he clenches and unclenches his hand as he steps away from the door. As the two of them turn to face the castle proper, Virgil can’t help but feel his heart pound slightly faster in his chest.
He doubts Thomas can keep his promise—not against the law, not against Father.
But it’s a nice thought just the same.