Jared felt his own jaw slack — his brain went blank. The entire thread of the conversation left him as he stared at his brother. “What?”

Jacob squared his feet, standing his ground with his hands down at his side. Jared could see his brother's hands clench into tight fists, the veins on his arm beginning to stand out.

The tension in the room went from a misunderstanding to a crisis in an instant. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jared asked. He couldn’t pull his eyes away, much less any other part of his body.

“You come into my house,” Jacob said stiffly, “You ask me to go behind Deckard back to give you a sword, and you threaten me with this show? How long have you known about this, Jared?”

He flinched as he heard his name spit out of the man's mouth. As if it was a dirty word and not a family member. “What has gotten into you? You welcomed me!” his voice began to raise without him intending it to, “Its my sword. I need it to protect myself.”

Jared took a step closer to his brother, holding his hands out in front of him. He meant to offer peace, to try and de-escalate a situation that gotten away from him, but instead, the man backed himself up further. A couple more steps and his back tapped the wall.

“You asked me to lie, and you haven’t answered the question.”

“What question?” Jared asked, his voice still loud and high pitched. Nothing at all about the day was making sense, as if some spell had taken away rational thought from the people he knew and cared about.

“You’re power,” Jacob said and pointed to the smoldering hole in Jared's shirt. “How long have you known?”

There was an easy answer to the question. Jared knew it. The first time had felt it happen had been maybe an hour before when his palms had felt hot inside Deckard shop. Yet his mouth stayed closed. His brain refused to send an answer. His jaw clenched and he took another half a step forward. The temptation was strong to try and bluff — to say he knew what it was and that he knew how to control it.

But a lie of that magnitude could never be taken back. He would never survive in the village if he made that threat. The community would never take the hero title away from their previous chosen one. They would never believe that this wasn’t Jared's plan all along. He couldn’t even remember how this had all started as children; what even caused just one of them to be celebrated.

They should have been the same from the first moments of their life. “It’s been in me just as long as it’s been in you.” The words slid out like venom from the fangs of a snake. They had nothing but hurt in mind, and Jared made himself angry. He felt his jaw muscles clench again, teeth grinding against each other. The thing that had come out of him wasn’t a lie — but it wasn’t the truth he needed to say, so he pushed the bile down his throat and tried to speak again. “I never knew until today.”

He wasn’t sure that the second sentence left his mouth. He watched Jacob’s face contort into some ugly version of itself.

“You’ve spent 20 years being petty and jealous, Jared. You never knew how to think about anyone but yourself.”

Jared watched as his body got even closer to his brother. He couldn’t come to grips with what was happening; some other entity was taking control and he needed to make it stop. Every step he took…Every move and every word was making it worse.

“You lift those hands and only one of us will walk out that door,” Jacob said. His lips barely moved as he spoke.

“And If back away? You will let me go and life resumes? I can’t work for a living, I can't be armed, I can’t even be your brother anymore.”

“Back away, and leave. Leave this place and never come back.”

That wasn’t happening, and Jared knew it. He had stuck this long to defend his home. He had made as much as a life for himself as he was capable, and now he was expected to walk away? “With what?” “I will give you till sunset to gather things from your home before I tell the others what I know.”

It was the first reasonable thing that had left the man's mouth during the entire confrontation. It was logical, and it had a sad familial yet pitiful tone to it. As if they were brothers once more, but only for a second. Everything had changed, everything had been damaged.

“I will not slink away,” Jared said. He meant the words, but he did take two steps backward. “I will not be bullied by the likes of you. I have done nothing but want to be me.”

“You are a threat and a menace, and you know it,” Jacob said, somehow leaning himself further against the wall.

“I’m only a threat to your glory.” Jared pointed a finger at his brother, intending to drive the point home before turning towards the door. He thought that he had calmed enough, the heat had begun to fade from his chest.

He also had no idea how the power they shared worked, and let out a small gasp when a flick of flames left his fingertips. It wasn’t a jet or even a ball, or any other trick he had dreamt of all his life. It was not a super-powered move, but it was enough. It landed on Jacob’s shoulder, burning straight through the cloth and sizzling on his skin. Jared flinched as his brother screamed, a scream of pain and fury and shock.

The worst possible thing had happened, and there was no turning back. The day had started so well, too.