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Who am I?" His hands fell away, "I was resigned to being some sort of bastard child& but& not this." Roughly he jerked
away from Raiden's grip.
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Raiden frowned, and hauled him back around. Disentangling him from the blankets, he pulled the oddly quiescent secretary
into his lap and brushed tangled strands of hair from his face. "You're still Taka. There's no reason to be this upset."
"So you say!" Takara raged. "Everyone my entire life has lied to me. Lied to Kyo. My mother isn't my mother, my parents hid
me like a dirty secret. My entire life is a storm of lies!"
"So you say," Raiden mimicked, unimpressed.
Takara said nothing, staring out across the room and not at Raiden.
The merchant continued, "The last time I checked, Taka, when twins are born one of them is always killed. So someone, I
would hazard the queen, loved you enough to keep you alive. Did you bother to think of that?"
"Instead I'm just kept like a dirty secret."
Raiden frowned, hands tight as he held Takara. "You're being childish. Just because you find out you have royal blood
doesn't mean the life you've led so far is worthless. You've a place in the palace, a strong bond with the man who turned
out to be your twin brother, and your mother cares for you, yes?"
"So I always thought."
"So you always knew!" Raiden said sharply. "It isn't like you to bemoan circumstances like this. Stop it!"
The anger in the merchant's voice brought Takara up short. He blinked, stunned into silence.
Raiden pushed on now that he had his attention, "You've certainly never had a problem protesting me, so why aren't you up
in arms over this?" He pressed fingers to Taka's lips, preventing the secretary speaking. "Pretending for a moment that you
were allowed to live, as a prince, do you honestly think you're life would be better than it is now?" His voice gentled, "I think
his Highness would be the first to tell you that his life is not the most enviable."
"Kyo& " Some of the bitterness faded from Takara's face, replaced by worry. "Where's Nankyo?"
"I have no idea. He ran off just like you did. And I doubt anyone rushed to comfort him." Raiden's voice still held a trace of
reprove. "Are you back to your normal self now?"
"That's really not funny."
Raiden paused, then smothered a laugh. "I didn't mean it like that, Taka."
"How do you even know I'm Taka?" the secretary asked bitterly. "Dress me up properly and throw me into a crowd with
Nankyo and no one would be able to tell the difference."
For answer Raiden grasped his face firmly in his hands and kissed him, long and slow. Takara's cry of surprise was instantly
muffled by it, and rather than protest he let the kiss soothe him as was intended.
Pulling slowly away, nibbling briefly at his bottom lip, Raiden stared at him with dark eyes. "I would know you no matter
what."
Takara shook his head, unable to form a reply.
Raiden kissed him again for good measure, resisting a smirk at the secretary's thoroughly distracted expression. "Now that
we've settled that, shall we go in search of your brother?"
"Brother?" Takara repeated. "That's going to take some getting used to."
*~*~*~*
"I'm going to kill them all," Nankyokukai said to the shattered pieces of mirror on the floor before him. He looked almost idly
at his hands, noticing they were still trembling minutely. Mostly in rage.
He stooped and lifted a large piece of the broken mirror. What little of his face was visible was still pale, one eye still dark
with anger and pain. Dropping the shard, Nankyo turned and threw himself into the chair beside the fireplace. His fingers
drummed on the armrests, lips pinched tight as he thought.
"There's no conceivable way his Majesty would have permitted Takara to live. So that means I've seriously underestimated
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mother all these years. I guess I get my craftiness from her after all& " he stared into the empty fireplace, letting his head
fall back against the chair. "All these years& who would have guessed he really was my brother. How eerie, to have a twin."
His eyes slid shut as he replayed the scene in the study. Sighing softly, he opened his eyes again and stared blindly around
his room. "Taka. I hope Raiden is taking care of him."
His expression hardened as his thoughts shifted to the man he'd left unconscious on the study floor. "He's first on my list."
Relieved to have a purpose to distract him, Nankyokukai rose to his feet and stalked from his room and back to the study.
He ignored the Countess, who was kneeling beside Krasny. He was completely focused on the Duke, propped against the
desk on the floor. "You are looking rather pale, Krasny." He loomed over the Duke, smile cold.
Krasny tried to glare, but his sick, pale countenance ruined the effect.
"Feeling cold? You should be grateful you feel anything at all." He knelt beside the ill-looking Duke. "So far as magic goes,
my specialty is glamour. None surpasses my skill in that area. However, I am not too far behind my brothers so far as attack
magic goes. And I have a penchant for freezing things. I was a troublesome child, always freezing things when I was upset -
and that was often. My nurse and the other servants took to calling me Koori, which means ice."
"What!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]