THE SECOND
'brother' has no meaning
the second part

―――

"what did keir want to talk to you about?" reese asked.

the princess was looking up from her work as mirella walked into the office, skimming her fingers over the plants reese had decorating the room. "the selection," mir answered, eyes trained on a pot of tulips by the entryway, "he's irritated that i'm trying to be involved with his selected."

reese took a few beats to answer and, for a moment, mirella was worried she'd done something to give away the lie. how would her sister react if she knew mirella was so quick to lie to her?

"why are you trying to be?" reese asked finally, cutting through the brief silence and relieving the taut string of fear that had been curling around mirella's heart.

"you know him," mirella said, "it isn't safe for those girls to go unwarned and unwatched when they're under keir's control."

"he isn't - "

mirella was cutting reese off with a shake of her head and the younger sister was letting out a sigh. silence came over the pair and reese's dark eyes were returning to her work. it was the same argument every time mirella mentioned her disliking or disapproval of their brother. reese would jump to keir's defense, to which mirella would continuously argue that he was no longer the man reese was trying to defend. the sisters /rarely/ argued, yet that was one debate they both knew to steer clear of.

"do you need my help?" reese asked politely.

mir opened her mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by a knock at the office door. stepping out of the way as reese told the person on the other side they could enter, she took a deep breath.

the door opened on a guard whose uniform was drenched in the scarlet substance mirella had become all to familar with during her life as a schreave. the man's face was pale, looking as though he'd be sick at any moment.

"what is it?" mirella demanded.

"your brother - prince rowan," the guard stuttered out. "i think he's dying."

―――

"keir," mirella shouted, banging on her brother's bedroom door with her fists. "keir, open the door. /now/."

she heard stumbling on the other side, but, moments later, ky was throwing the door open, eyes narrowed into slits as they regarded his sister. "what?"

"you tell me," mirella hissed, deciding that /now/ was the time to keep her voice voice low. "rowan is sick again. they're worried he's /dying/. you're not even at his side and this is all mere hours after you mention the fire. what's going on?"

keir trailed his fingers through his mess of dark hair before letting out a short hum. "chaos," he murmured, "that seems to be what's going on. i'd blame the selection for it."

"do you know how to make sense?"

for once, keir was answering her, shrugging his shoulders. he slipped past her and out into the corrdior, closing his bedroom door in the same fluid motion. "bad things come in threes," he said, his gaze down the hall rather than on his sister. "this is only two."

"keir," mirella was grounding out his name through gritted teeth.

"let's go," he said, "where'd they take him?"

―――

( author's note! )

sorry for yet another poorly
written part, but hopefully
this is enough to get some
people interested in the story
again? 😂

anyways, replies will come
later on today! i have a few
more things i want to post
before then.