First message
The blood had already begun to clot between the cracks of the stone by the time I knelt beside it, brush in one hand, rag in the other. Strange how noble blood never looked any different from common blood once it reached the ground. Father’s latest inconvenience lay cooling in the flowerbeds behind me, stripped of anything that could betray his name. By dawn, there would be no trace he had ever drawn breath on our estate. I scrubbed in silence, the scent of iron clinging stubbornly to my gloves, when the measured rhythm of heavy paws sounded across the gravel. I didn’t need to turn around.
“You’re walking too loudly, Leontius.”
He stopped beside me anyway. Even in the corner of my eye I could picture him perfectly—his immaculate mane trimmed with military precision, his powerful lion forepaws folded neatly behind his back, every inch the heir our father had always wanted.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
“You missed a spot,” he said at last, nodding toward a streak of crimson beneath the bench.
“…Thank you.”
I wiped it away without complaint.
“Father wishes to see you.”
I gave a dry laugh that carried no amusement. “Has he run out of enemies already?”
“No.”
“Then another one has appeared.”
Silence.
I rinsed the brush in a bucket that had long since turned pink. “Does he ever ask how I am?”