In shadows they met, brothers by blood and bounty. In their hushed discourse was disclosed truths disproven -- a man alive, a beast -- nothing more -- remaining, and the fragments of the family psyche being pressed together with bloodied fingers and heavy trepidation.
"You're certain?"
"I must be. For now, the catacombs were the only solution."
And hidden in the shadows were eyes and ears, rabbitquick and privy to words not meant for him. With dawning clarity, the Prince-in-hiding trembled, fingers taught around the curtain concealing him. His father and uncle spoke on, the candle-light casting their speculation into throes of obscurity.
It couldn't --
There were vague remembrances that cast his footfalls alight with resolution -- large hands, soft words -- romanticized recollections that were clinging desperately to the periphery of his young mind's loyalty to nothing but itself. But still, the darkness cloaked him in the journey from castle to cathedral, and nary a naredowell followed.
The doors hearkened his arrival with their sighing hinges and saddened groans, their burden as heavy as the echoes of sin and solace, of Turn and Altar's abandonings. He stood -- before the pyre, between the rows of empty pews, infitesmally minute in the wake of their Gods' grandeur -- and for a moment, he shook, caught in the hunt of consciences cleared. He paid the alter brief reverence, brushing past its glory with a far lesser man his intended audience.
The Priest was found nearby, amongst the shelves of an office that branched off the main cathedral chambre. He stood before them, aligning spines with clinical precision, his fingers caressing them with a distinct perverseness that reverberated in the Holy air around him, made it quake with desire and disgust. The Prince drew forward, closing the door behind him as he spoke -- as Claude froze.
"Claude,"
a whisper, nothing more.
"I assume," the Holy Brother sneered, rounding with startling fluidity on his younger brother. "That you either want something, or are here to come to terms with your indiscretions. Whichever the case may be, I pray, don't waste my time, little hare."
"I--" He trembled -- under scrutiny of their gods and his only brother, he choked down all his resolve, becoming nothing but a child in the wake of power and fear.
"You," the Priest offered dryly, drawing near. His fingers breached the distance between them, taking unto themselves the hem of the Prince's cloak. Brocade and velvet lingered heavily in his hands, rubbed with the pad of his thumb that had been stained by ink. Claude smiled down to his brother, all too close for comfort. The boy took a step back, mimed by the man above him.
"Dorian is here. I want you to take me to him."
The resulting laughter shattered the stone walls around them. The reverberations folded in upon themselves, cutting the Prince down to size and somehow magnifying his ilk -- growing his silhouette into a fearsome, dark shadow that cast himself into every corner of the room.
"Felix, Felix..." Pity seeped from the High Priest's lips, dripping onto that burgundy cloak like honey. Its stickiness stilled Claude's fingers, tightened his grasp on the lush commodity that kept his little brother safe and warm. Felix looked up with confusion, Claude down with condescension. "What have you gotten your little fingers into this time? Hallucinogens really are taking it a step too far."
"I'm not altered--" Felix pressed away, fingers tightening around Claude's wrist in a silent command to release him. It was not heeded, and the Prince spoke on -- insistent in a way he'd not often been before. "Uncle Acelin and Father were discussing it in the Grand Hall. They brought him to you."
There settled between them a pause, and in the silence Claude released Felix's cloak. He wandered slowly to the far corner, where a copy of the Sacred Texts sat -- open, exposed -- on a heavy oak stand. He paged through with a slow deliberateness, each page slicing that fearful air.
"You lie. I wasn't even aware of Uncle Acelin's presence in the city until now."
"And you lie too well." Honey eyes settled on his brother, tracing his turned back with a muted malice.
Claude laughed once more. Turning to Felix, a sneer painted his features horrible, fingers caressing the air as he spoke.
"Perhaps, but I think you've been indulging in that opium a bit too heavily, little brother. Rest a spell," he drew near, drawing a chair from the table that occupied the centre of the room. "Rest where any amount of men can't divert your efforts and confuse you even more." His hand remained on the back of the chair, the insistence in his voice running taut as violin string.
Wordlessly, the Prince drew forward, a slow saunter at the mercy of unwavering eyes. When the chair clattered against his legs, he drew a knee up, steadying his weight as he leaned near to his brother, a heavy perfume of roses filling the spaces between them. His other leg followed -- tangled in the seat of the chair -- and with arms outstretched he wound his brother near in those willowreed arms, eliciting fromt he older man a gasp and trembling hands.
"I only want your distraction, Brother."
The Prince's hands moved quickly, his lips millimetres from his brother's ear. With a whisper and a sigh, he made short work -- fingers deft and deliberate -- and whether or not it was intention or negligence that stopped Claude from clasping that hollow wrist, it was left to speculation -- left to the spines of the sacred texts lining the walls.
The Prince left with the keys to the catacombs clasped tight in his fist, Claude stock-still in the silence.