Caleb is fourteen years old and there are twenty-seven Imperial Heirs left. 

It’s fewer than half the number that they started with, a galaxy’s worth of children shivering in the throne room a mere five years prior, their anxious hearts pumping that precious royal blood through their fragile arteries. 

He’d stood there in the eerie grandeur of that hall, cold despite the balmy artifice of the Skycurtain, and thought with the ache of phantom limbs that this new home was not so different from his old one, after all. That the teachings of his old masters would serve him well under the new: that is, that every being in that hall was an asset or a threat who must be wielded accordingly; that there is nothing more poisonous to the preservation of self than a genuine friend… 

Then his eyes landed on her, and he was reminded anew of what it means to be utterly helpless before one’s fate. 

Still, despite the odds, Caleb has managed to keep them both alive – a fact he reminds himself of whenever he wakes cold and sticky with sweat, the thick scent of fear lingering in the air. He has offered double of himself to time’s slow erosion, chipping away at morality, at empathy, and, not the least, at his surplus of siblings. 

The first murder was the hardest by simple nature of it being the first: a young boy from a mercantile sector who had inherited only a little of his family’s financial cunning and none of their diplomacy. The next few were significantly easier: children with fragile dispositions he could coax to illness; children with violent enough temperaments that their servants could be turned against them; children with access to fewer resources with which to defend themselves. 

His fellow Heirs had run their own gambits, their successes weeding out the competition and failures, well, also weeding out the competition. Neither the court nor Lysander tolerated a half-witted schemer, and those who were discovered were quietly shipped off to planets with those who either needed the political marriage or enjoyed a… naive sort of spouse. 

The Heirs that still remain are of a different calibre. They require more than juvenile desperation and an innate talent for subterfuge. 

Which is to say that, when Lysander gathered them all into the throne room to announce the Empire would be hosting a showcase from Valkyrie’s illustrious military academy, the assembly of whom included the rising prodigy that had even the court leaning close with interest, the best of them correctly identified the exchange for what it was: a chance to gain allies. 

The banquet hall has been refurbished into a particular kind of splendour for the occasion. The death of the former Imperial dynasty and Sioh’s brief regency coincided with the obsoletion of gold, and the fresh blood of the new emperors brought its own aesthetic. Warm, passionate reds and yellows were exchanged for sleeker indigos, gilt accents shaved down in favour of rhodium’s noble shimmer. A cooler, costly palette. 

Caleb thinks it fitting, a preferable alternative to the lie that any comfort might be found here. 

Lysander has ordered the teenager to stand at his right hand, today. Usually, Caleb would consider this a useful honour – though the term ‘honour’ does little to smooth over his feelings of revulsion – a means to leverage the court’s opinion of him against the ire of his fellow Heirs, but not today. Today, there is a crowd of people from across the galaxy, eager to watch the upcoming tournament, and his position at Lysander’s side means that she – his beloved little sister, destination of his dreams and empress of his heart – has been left alone without him. And everybody who has survived this long in the palace knows that the only thing more dangerous than being alone is being alone in a crowd. After all, the palace is home to so many strange accidents… 

The unpleasant buzz of anxiety crawls along his spine like the Fevrel wasps the menagerist showed him a few days ago. In the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of her hair. Her handmaidens have pulled it into formal, complicated braids befitting the occasion, combing it with scented oil and decorating it with jewels that catch light and attention with every elegant tilt.   

The actual outcome of today does not phase him – he beats even the most cutthroat of his siblings in strategy eight times out of ten and often one of those losses is of itself a concession calculated to gain something more valuable in exchange – his real concern is that she makes it through the day unscathed. 

Everything else, Caleb thinks as the first matches are paired and he is guided by attendants to a waiting table, is secondary. The court’s esteem, Lysander’s expectations, his siblings’ veiled stares, his own personal wellbeing… 

Fortunately, he makes a practice of executing multiple objectives at once.

“I see your little shadow is happily fraternising with the opposition,” Mareva says with a smile the colour of old blood. She is a year his senior, and one of the few siblings Caleb can admit to being even slightly close to. 

At times, he regrets that they are required to kill each other. 

Caleb eyes her most recent manoeuvre: a sudden warp of an innocuous transport vehicle away from her supply lines. “Leave her alone,” he murmurs. He has recently been forced to adopt the habit, so as to smooth over any awkwardness caused by his fracturing, pubescent voice. “I just want her to have a happy childhood.” 

It’s suspicious. Too suspicious. 

But, also, too obvious. 

He considers the young woman before him. Her penchant for bluffs and double-bluffs. 

Her smile sharpens: a blade glutted, but only for so long. “Too good to sit in hell with the rest of us?” Her eyes are the crystalline yellow of topaz, framed by coils of ebony hair that fall in tight ringlets around her shoulders. When she leans closer, he catches the scent of the desert after rain: sun-baked petrichor and earthen spices, cardamon and sage, cinnamon and thyme. “Don’t think I don’t know blind adoration when I see it, little brother. You think you’re raising a bitapup but, really, she’s a Thytche scorpion.” 

The warning needs no consideration before it is dismissed. Instead, Caleb considers the play, considers his options. The board is set too simply for a layered attack – even if it turns out to be a trap, he will have at least one defensive move. 

“I know exactly what she is,” he replies, resupplying a warship near a key strategic point. 

“Is that so?” Mareva asks, amused. She uses her next turn to warp a battleship next to the supply unit, placing one of Caleb’s holding planets under threat. 

He doesn’t bother to answer her question. His own knowledge is sufficient: the girl in question, currently giggling beside one of the Academy’s finest, is nothing less than his spiritual twin, his origin and original sin, the very starmap of his conscience. 

The planet is abandoned without thought as Caleb presses the offensive. 

Three moves more and Mareva is forced to yield, offering her hand, graceful in surrender. 

When Caleb goes to shake it, however, she abruptly twists her grip, leaning over to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. 

A custom of her homeland, his memory supplies. An invocation of kinship and a blessing of protection. 

A daring move to make in front of a crowd filled with court members who demand Heirs sacrifice their individuality to prove their ‘unquestionable allegiance to the empire’. 

“Just remember,” she whispers conspiratorially. In the audience, he hears the faint giggling that he’s been keeping track of throughout the game cease, feels a flash of foreign rage and jealousy, a white-hot brand searing into his soul. “It is a scorpion’s nature to sting.”  

Caleb feels a wry smile tug at his mouth. He doesn’t, for a moment, believe that Mareva’s declaration of support is anything but a deliberate calculation – to believe otherwise would be disrespectful to the threat sitting across from him. 

A temporary alliance, then, he thinks, eyes drifting over the faces of their spectators. Amongst them, he sees a man with a full, kempt beard that does little to hide his clenched jaw. 

Caleb lets his gaze drift casually back to Mareva. He subtly inclines his head in question. 

Her yellow eyes glitter. 

“Then, she’ll fit in nicely,” he replies dryly. 

The elder sibling laughs, flashing her perfect white teeth at him.

“That, she will,” Mareva agrees. Right now, she reminds him of a desert cat, the anticipation of the hunt coiling tight. “Well played today, little brother.”

“And you,” he replies graciously. Then, adds more meaningfully: “Would you like to have tea with me later? It’s been a while.” Being owed her favour is only one aspect of it – Caleb makes a habit of knowing all the sordid details of his siblings’ games.

Elsewhere, he feels the jealousy sharpen, a knife to the throat in the gleeful hands of a talented torturer. 

It is as awful as it is exquisite. 

His smile widens, pleased. 

“Send the invitation to my secretary.” Mareva rises from her seat with perfect, effortless decorum. The betrayal of it is subtle, but those who know her well would recognise the accomplishment of her true objective. Caleb ponders the price he will exact for his help. “Good luck with the tournament.” 

The second game of the day lasts significantly longer than the first. Not because his opponent is more skilled but, rather, because he is not skilled enough to know when he is utterly defeated. 

Caleb understands this and lets the match play out, countering moves with a swift, deliberate cunning, putting his sibling’s incompetence on full display. Allowing for the spectators – the ones that matter, at least – to realise what is going on and reconsider their alliances in real time. 

By the end of the round, the win whose inevitability Caleb has held in his hands for over twenty moves is not nearly so sweet as the pale, furious face of his opponent’s preceptor, his sibling’s dawning realisation that he’s better suited to networking than he is to warfare. 

After the third match, the remaining contestants are allowed a brief recess, during which Caleb learns that the prodigy has, predictably, earned his own string of successes. If they both continue as projected, they will be each other’s match in the grand final. 

Between the bodies of sycophants pressing close and sips of lemon over crushed ice, Caleb catches glimpses of his opponent-to-be. 

At seventeen years old, Zayne Li has grown into most of his height. His hair is the colour of black velvet. The cut is neat and efficiently parted in a way that matches the rest of him: he has neglected to follow his fellow students’ attempts to embellish themselves for the occasion, but the Academy’s formal uniform is impeccably pressed and tailored to fit his developing shoulders, his compact waist. It speaks of a disinterest bordering on insulting, an impression inculcated by his perfect posture, etiquette that is respectful without fanfare, and a mask so smooth and frictionless the nobles’ teeth glance right off it. 

Caleb decides immediately that, while he respects the older boy, liking him is another matter. 

He also thinks that the prodigy ought to tithe a jewel or two to the Sanctide’s coffers, because Zayne’s only saving – and, perhaps, surviving – grace, is that his beauty begs absolution for his cold demeanour. 

There is nothing the imperial court finds more hateful than complete apathy towards its spectacle. However, there is nothing that coaxes the court’s forgiveness more than a beautiful talent and, even from afar, Caleb can recognise it: the sharp bones emerging from the soft youth of his face, the sturdy chin and defined jaw, the tapering of that full mouth into refined, daggered points. 

His is beauty undeniable but, more importantly, untouchable, and it is exactly the sort of thing bored nobles go mad for. 

Through the lens of their desire, his eyes become cut emeralds, precious and precise, and the fall of his hair becomes intrigue, curtains shrouding the treasures within. They throw themselves at him, clawing and cajoling in equal, fruitless measure, and Caleb watches in both pity and amusement at each new failure of high society to peek behind the veil. 

“Might you bestow upon me a moment of your time, Your Highness?” asks a wheedling voice then, restoring Caleb’s attention. 

The young prince smiles charmingly as he recognises Leveuro Caprize, a newly-invested Count from a planet recently discovered to have several large, remarkably pure deposits of at least three rare minerals. 

“Count Caprize,” Caleb greets him. “I’m delighted you’ve come. My condolences regarding the former Countess.” 

“Thank you, Your Highness,” replies the Count gratefully, bending to kiss Caleb’s signet ring. “You honour my mother with your sincerity.” He pauses then, glancing about before leaning in furtively. “Actually, I came today because I wished for your audience regarding a small matter.” 

Caleb’s smile stiffens slightly. “Is that so?” 

Caprize nods. “Indeed. It is a small matter, but of some urgency…” 

The prince breathes through his nose, then takes a look around the hall. Like a compass to a lodestone, he finds her almost instantly: his baby sister is now the centre of the Academy students, prodigy excluded, and positively glittering with the attention. Mareva reclines beside her. 

Sensing Caleb’s attention, the elder sibling gives him a smirk and a lazy wave. 

“Wait here,” Caleb tells the Count, before walking to the nearest guard. “You,” he signals to the man, who startles at the sudden address. “If the princess over there comes to harm before I dismiss you, I will make you watch as I personally execute your entire bloodline. Have I made myself clear?” 

The guard tenses immediately. “Yes, Your Highness!” 

“You’d best move closer, then,” Caleb dismisses. His shoulders are still tight as he returns to the Count. It’s nowhere near ideal, of course, but it’ll have to do. “Follow me,” he tells the nobleman. “And don’t forget to make it brief…” 

The final game of the day is announced with all its usual pomp – Lysander has always loved a good party. The voice of their adopted father, Emperor of the Cosmic Empire, fills the Banquet Hall as he announces the remaining contenders: prodigy versus Imperial Heir, the match the court has spent the entire day anticipating. “Caleb, our prince of Alore, defends against the Aggressor, Zayne Li of Valkyrie Academy. We have seen both of them acquit themselves with dignity befitting our glorious Empire, and…” 

As he talks, Caleb lets the fanfare wash over him. While he enjoys acknowledgement, he finds that ceremony strips sentimentality and makes anything with even a sliver of authenticity all the more rare in this glimmering, dispassionate place. Of course, authenticity is a knife to the throat, and therefore equally unappealing – what he truly wants is a quiet place where he can be alone with his baby sister. No games, no pretenses, no blood on his hands. 

Alas, she has set her unwaveringly avaricious sight on the throne and so here Caleb is, setting up his pieces on the board. 

“Classical rules apply. All moves will be judged according to the Empire Codex and current inter-galactic treaties. No time limit will be imposed.” Lysander informs them. “Now, if the contenders are ready, you may begin.” 

The game opens slowly, both boys attempting to get the measure of each other. Caleb pushes an early feint, which Zayne allows, turning it into his own trap within three moves. It’s an awful, artful retaliation, a variation on standard manoeuvres that the prince has never seen before. It’s both unsettling and exciting, adrenaline pumping through his arteries and turning his thoughts to crystal. 

When Caleb manages to escape the trap with his own clever compromise, he sees his opponent’s gaze sharpen, body subtly leaning closer, his posture shifting into something like actual interest for the first time in what has been a long day. 

Caleb feels it then: that fluttery feeling in his gut. That mutual recognition, the kinship one can only feel in well-matched competition. He’s aware that he’s the Empire’s darling, but so much of his work is done behind the scenes. Accidents on accidents, conspiracies buried under layers of feints and forgeries… It is rare that he gets to openly indulge in the thrill of an actual challenge. 

Of course, there are still stakes: now that father dearest has thrown his weight behind this match, Caleb must live up to expectation. He must be the proof of Imperial glory, unbeaten and undeniable. To fail will mean disappointment, and disappointment will mean pain. 

Nothing physical, of course – even Lysander must bow before the Empire Codex – but his father has countless ways of making something hurt without technically causing harm. 

A memory intrudes then. Caleb standing in the cold rain of a foreign, familiar planet, wondering to himself why he is clutching the bloodied, shivering creature in his arms when he never takes these kinds of risks. A voice, sultry and amused in a way that holds teeth: "This is a surprise. I was beginning to think that blood would be the only thing to bind us." Regret immediately seized Caleb’s throat, and he’d nearly abandoned the bitapup right there, but the voice was already continuing. "Well, I suppose there's enough blood. Still... are you sure you're not going soft, Your Princeliness?"

Caleb’s hackles raise, shoulders tightening in that way that happens only when he is being observed by a particular pair of lovely, mocking eyes. But when he glances subtly around the room, hunting for tourmaline, he finds green and gold instead, the cool way his opponent takes in his unwittingly clenched fist. 

Panic seizes the young prince. 

Behind them, he feels the pressure of his adopted father as he watches their match. 

Caleb does not look at Lysander, but the refusal of acknowledgement is damning in itself, because the Li boy’s gaze goes from his haphazardly composed face to the dais behind him, then back. It’s far too deliberate to be anything but keen understanding, and Caleb withers under an exposure he hasn’t felt in years. 

Still, his hand doesn’t shake when he manoeuvres a warship into position. 

Across from him, a dark eyebrow crooks ever so slightly. Barely a movement – only noticeable because of Caleb’s proximity – but it serves to deepen his alarm. 

A pale, graceful hand moves its own warship into place, and suddenly the natural formations of planets and asteroid belts that had looked like defenses now feel like iron bars. Caleb feels the metal teeth of a trap closing around him. 

He looks at the board, pondering seriously. 

There’s still maybe enough time to retreat, but not without revealing the move for the awful blunder it is. 

What else? he thinks as he gauges distances, re-catalogues manpower. Defense is not the only option to him – collaborator, as he is, with assassins and other suspicious ilk. An offensive, then? Are there any-

His eyes land on one of his opponent’s strongholds, and he has to bite back a smirk. As they say, ‘a house divided…’

He escapes Li’s trap through sheer audacity, forcing the prodigy to reroute his efforts towards defense while Caleb presses the attack. It’s an ugly solution, but effective. The warship that threatened him is turned into debris and disseminated within the asteroid belt. 

Unfortunately, this poses new problems: his move constitutes a formal declaration of war in a way that prior skirmishes had not, and a new set of rules governs their conduct moving forward. 

They trade blows back and forth, each rallying their forces accordingly. There is even a moment, a short, precious moment, where Caleb thinks that he has all but won. 

It is not that Caleb is arrogant – he is aware, for all his enormous talent, that things can always, always go wrong – but he is generally confident in his ability to do whatever is necessary, stoop as low as it takes in order to survive and crawl out the other side… 

Except then his opponent makes a move – a subtle repositioning of a piece – and it is like the handful of prophetic revelations Caleb has had the privilege of attending, the way the Sanctide’s clergy would unfurl the starmap and the secrets of the divine. 

Damn it, he thinks, illness forming in the pit of his stomach. 

And for all his ingenuity, all his moral flexibility, Caleb looks down at the pattern laid out before him and knows with a cold, brutal certainty, that he is going to lose and there is nothing that can save him from it. 

Should I resign? he wonders dully, feeling the eyes of his father on the back of his neck. He doesn’t look back – nothing that would break decorum. He’s too well-defended to force a draw… 

Still, ruling is not always about winning. Sometimes, a judicious monarch must also know when the cost of resources outweighs the victory. 

Nobody else has noticed the outcome is already set, but if he lets the game breathe for a few moves, they’ll catch on… 

He can do this, justify the loss with pardonable grace. 

Caleb closes his eyes and allows himself a single, tiny breath. Alright. Opens them. 

When he does, he sees curiosity in the green-gold gaze of his opponent. The way those eyes take him in, assessing his posture, his demeanour, the tension of his hands. 

The older boy understands that Caleb has seen the move and recognises it for what it is. Now he waits, quietly anticipating, to see what he does next. 

Caleb takes his main starship and, locking eyes with his opponent, adjusts its coordinates laterally. Damage mitigation. Preservation of resources. The feeble death throes of an opponent bound by the inevitability of loss.

The boy doesn’t dignify Caleb’s move with a glance. He remains motionless, his gaze so oppressive that Caleb feels like one of the countless defectors Lysander’s left to bleed on the battlements. He’s always felt that he’d be the type to face the bullet hurtling toward him, but this time Caleb lets his eyes fall.

The hall is quiet – the audience hushed with anticipation. Caleb would’ve thought he’d hear a grunt of victory from his opponent, at least. Instead he hears the slightest rustle of fabric as Zayne shifts forward. The quiet clack of a piece slotting into place.

Around them, court erupts with the furore of cannon-fire, but all Caleb can hear is a muffled ringing in his ears. 

Damian only stares at her, appalled and…oh, that heat he’s feeling is in his cheeks. “What?” he manages. He shakes his head and ignores the way his voice shakes, too. “T— tt.”

The woman winks at him and Damian is frozen.

“Robin?” someone else calls. “Are you coming?”

Nightwing hops down and his gaze swivels between Damian and the woman. He grins his impossibly charming grin at her. “Did you need something?”

She eyes him with uncertain interest and Dick tries not to feel too insulted when she shakes her head, albeit ever-so-slightly. “Nah,” she says to herself after she finishes her appraisal. “Robin’s definitely cuter.”

“And, despite his newfound height, not yet eighteen.”

The woman stares at Damian again, then lets out a disappointed sigh. Suddenly, she smiles and her eyes twinkle. “When’s your birthday? I’ve got the perfect—”

“We have to go,” Dick interrupts and Damian gives him a curt nod.

They hop away and the woman shouts her number into the distance.

With the safety of a rooftop, Dick pulls Damian into his arms. “Her pickup line wasn’t nearly as good as any of mine,” he murmurs, amused, and his finger crooks under Damian’s chin as he leans in. “I’m just saying.”

Damian kisses him hard before shifting away slightly. “‘Not yet eighteen,’” he mimics, in far too eerie an approximation of Dick’s own voice.

Dick shrugs. “You know I hate that.” Then, his cowing turns to false confidence. “Anyway, my job is to stop them from committing crimes, not me.”

“Are you planning on committing a crime, Grayson?” Damian asks, but his smirk belies his earnest tone.

Laughing, Dick nuzzles Damian’s throat. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Are you going to stop me, Robin?”

“Tt,” but then Damian’s breath hitches. “I might be willing to concede defeat. Just this once.”

“I guess I should be happy you’re not sleeping with supervillains—we’d all be dead.”