“Can you do it again?”<br/><br/>Cyrithil chuckled softly, low and almost inaudible to anyone but himself. Despite his balk and awe at being amused by something so redundant, he cupped his hands together and focusing hard on them before pausing and encircling his hands around Ionwe’s instead. “Focus,” he said, grinning at his brother’s childish excitement as the realization of what Cyr was doing settled over him. Ion’s hands trembled with tangible amounts of adrenaline as he felt the familiar warmth of fire against his palms. Pale blue eyes sparkled in unabashed fascination as they drank in the flame’s dance.<br/><br/>“Is this what it feels like for you? Wielding magic,” he sighed breathlessly, looking from the flames to find his older brother staring at him. Cyr nodded and he looked back down with a polite and embarrassed smile. “So tomorrow’s the day. You’re getting<span style="font-style: italic">married.</span>Are you excited?”<br/><br/>The flame flickered out and Cyrithil watched as the shell of his brother clasped his hands together, clinging to the last remnants of the fire’s comfort. Concern welled up in his chest and lined the ones gentle and aloof features of his expression. “It won’t change anything.”<br/><br/>“Won’t it?”<br/><br/>“No.”<br/><br/>The room that the royal guard had imprisoned him in might as well have been considered a cell. It was lovely, as every room Yridhren was, but he was not permitted to leave it. Ion was, in the eyes of the courts, guilty of the act of adultery with a man. Cyr was sure that it didn’t help that his brother was considered a cripple, overwhelmingly sickly and unable to use magic of any sorts. The first Elyrian in centuries to be disabled in such a way, or so the Council claimed. When you call a man a cripple and then condemn him for something as mundane as who he shares a bed with, the result is Ion. Sitting in bed all day, eating little and surviving on little social contact, growing sick with depression and resentment.<br/><br/>Ion’s hands clasped together on his lap, fingers idly toying with the fabric of his blanket. “I promise, nothing will change. The marriage is politics for now. Eventually I’ll be expected to attend events with her and produce an heir, but the rest of my time is going to be spent here with you.”<br/><br/>“Until my trial, you mean,” Ion  interjected, pointing a finger to accentuate his point. “You know Mother intends to find me guilty.”<br/><br/>“Well it’s not<span style="font-style: italic">Mother</span>hearing your case, it’s Father and the Council.”<br/><br/>“Mother practically<span style="font-style: italic">is</span>the Council,” Ion muttered, crossing his arms and throwing himself backward into an unnecessarily large mass of pillows. “Locien is her puppet. He’s going to claim that I’m guilty, which I’d like to point out that they have evidence that I<span style="font-style: italic">am</span>, and they’re going to sentence me to this place until I die.”<br/><br/>Cyr rolled his eyes and readjusted himself on Ion’s bed, brushing away his brother’s dramatic conclusions with a reassuring grin. “You’re eccentric. Locien doesn’t mean a thing to Father or, really, the Council. I should know, I’m on it. Father doesn’t care who you fuck, Ion. Your trial is in a few weeks, just try to hold out until then. You’ll be found innocent and then we can go riding or something. You’ve been in this room far too long.” Before Ion could protest, Cyr picked up a silver goblet of water and thrust it out. “You’re sick again. You need to be drinking.”<br/><br/>“You need it more than I do. You’ve been staying up for nights on end lately. You look like hell, to be honest.”<br/><br/>Cyr erupted in a wholehearted laugh at his brother’s impeccable honesty, ever graceless and brutal as it always was. “Yeah, well. I have a lot of work that I need to be doing,” he defended himself, though relenting and taking a drink to appease Ion anyway. The goblet was returned to the bedside table, which was cluttered with an array of other, empty goblets. Making a mental note of it, Cyr pushed himself off of the feather bed and straightened his bedclothes. “I’ll send someone to collect your dishes. They should be doing it anyway. But I think that I’ll be heading in for the night. Though to be clear, I’m not doing it because you told me to.”<br/><br/>The brothers shared a laugh, though Ion looked hollow and alone all over again as they said their goodnights. It felt awful, leaving him alone in that room every night to die a bit more on the inside. Cyr padded his way a couple of doors down to his own bedroom, stopping only once to advise one of the help of the mess accruing in his brother’s room and then continuing on until he was in his own.<br/><br/>White-blonde hair feathered out around him on the violet coverlet beneath him as he stared up at the shadow of the chandelier dancing overhead. They seemed to sway and blend together, melting and twisting around each other until his head was swimming and light. By the time he’d registered his dizziness, he could no longer move his mouth to call for help. He kept calling for Ion over and over and over again in his head, but it would not reach his lips. Shadows seemed to surround him then, and he succumbed, fading into the dark.<br/><br/>When Cyr awoke, it was unpleasant and alarmingly cold. The familiar coarseness of tree bark rubbed uncomfortably against his back through his evening attire. His head was still unsettled and his vision hazy, but he could clearly make out the silhouette of one of the shadows that had danced in his mind before he lost recollection. He straightened as best he could with being tied to the large elderwood, tilting his chin up higher to let the shadow know that he wasn’t going to dignify their presence with a response.