An Introduction

Silence is a great healer. That’s what my twin brother used to say to me when we were kids. Only ten-years-old and he’d already tried to absorb the adult world by taking in adult concepts like silence is a great healer. I had no idea what it meant then but I do now and it pisses me off.

My twin brother always thought he was hot shit. Angel was the firstborn out of the pair of us but he was still only a second son and therefore unimportant. My father prized my oldest brother Valenio and my lone sister Ellie above the rest of us. To my father, me and Angel and our other brother Rafe were practically useless. He couldn’t get rid of us because the fact was we were backups.

You know, backups. In case beloved Valenio died.

It really pissed my dad off that my mom could never give him a backup daughter, though the reality was that he would have treated that girl like shit just like he treated Angel, Rafe and I like shit. There was no reason to love us, not for him. Some people might think that’s foolish and I would agree; the lack of care of us three boys made us hate our father and none of us would have helped him if he’d asked, though he was more of a forcing man.

Instead of love my dad prized duty. He figured that even if he kicked the crap out of us, even if he ignored us when we needed him, even if he made us hate him, we were still bound to him and if the need arose, and we would do our duty.

It pisses me off that he was right.

No, no, not about me. I wouldn’t have done a damn thing for that selfish bastard if my life depended on it. Neither would Rafe. It was Angel. Angel craved our dad’s attention and his love, so when Valenio got killed it was no surprise that, despite the years of torment, my twin brother stepped into Valenio’s shoes and did our father proud.

Stupid bastard.

The worst thing was that even though I was determined to hate my dad and make him hate me, my dad was proud of me. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate that bastard’s guts to this day. But it wasn’t mutual, see. When Valenio died and Angel stepped into his place, it was like my twin brother couldn’t do anything right. Dad was always riding his ass about something or other: “You saddled your horse wrong”, “That’s not how you hold a sword”, “I don’t want you speaking with those people again”. No, despite Angel’s rise to power, my dad still thought of him as the family fuck up.

Me, on the other hand… well, I was a different story. It’s a story I very much hate. I might tell you the whole thing later on but what I will say now is that my dad’s neglect of me as a kid made me angry, and my anger made me ruthless. When I’d finally finished my studies at home, I joined up with the Imperial Army and I really soaked everything up. I loved war. I fashioned myself into this unstoppable force and I reveled in it. The Empire loved me because I was effective but not out of control; I could take orders and follow them to the letter while also getting my point across.

Boy, could I get my point across. Still can.

Anyway, to show me how valued I was, the Emperor made me one of the first soldiers to join an elite training program to become what he called Tourmasters. And that right there is what pretty much started me down the road to hell. I did unspeakable things when I was a Tourmaster, things I think of and regret every day. That aside, being a Tourmaster sure did make my dad proud. I hated him and I still hate him but he was proud. I was what he’d always wanted of Valenio and what Angel could never be. I was a killing machine, kind of like he was, only tenured with the Empire. I had not only my pay from the Imperial Council but their approval and support as well. The Emperor, whose wife was childless, planned to adopt me, though I don’t have any idea why someone would place a serial murderer on the throne of their country.

I guess they thought I knew something.

Life was pretty good in those days and then Angel, being the fuck up he is, got mad and fucked up my life. He fucked it up real good and now I’m paying for the fact that my brother just can’t stand to lose. My only consolation is that now he’s a miserable bastard.

Once, right after my twin brother took control and right before he fucked me over, he told me a secret. He said to me, “Arhenion, I want to tell you a secret, but you can’t tell anyone, okay?” I’d nodded and leaned in close like we were sharing something great, just like when we were kids, and he said, “I’m going to kill the Emperor.” I’d laughed at him then and told him he should be more careful about what he said. I brushed it off. It was Angel being Angel, meaning he was all talk and no action.

Biggest mistake of my life was when I walked away from him that day. I should have turned him in. I should have gutted him myself.

But I didn’t.

Now, I’m paying the price. Angel killed my Emperor before I’d been adopted and took my throne away from me. Now he rules and I am left to the whims of an angry and tormented twin.

Right after the coup, right before he locked me up, Angel took me aside again and said this to me:

“Thank you for keeping your silence, Arhenion. Without you, this would not have been possible.” Then he patted me on the shoulder and walked away and my life fell apart. I was jailed as a sympathizer. The young wife I’d taken was executed for consorting with the enemy. And I, named Public Enemy #1, was sent to the far north to die in a cave with the knowledge that all I’d loved, all I’d cared for, had been taken from me.

Silence is a great healer?

Fuck that.

Silence ruined me.

Give me noise.

Give me death.

Give me war.