Born out of Empress's ass as she strained to give birth to my twin brother, I was the elder by (I am told) a quarter of a minute.

I was, in a sense (and so my mother alleges), a virgin birth.

I have known since my earliest years the treatment of a foreigner, one whom society seems to welcome, but whom they do not completely trust. I have not been shunned, and yet I have lived under injustice. Nonetheless, by my birth, unnatural as their circumstances were, I have been placed among the highest echelons.

It was my seventh birthday. I had sensed within me then a spring of charity and goodness, that, in my childishness, I longed to prove to the court. A few fellows, playing the game of tag, had invited me to join. The feeling of being watched gave me energy and a nervous strength, and I broke the nose of a young serving maid as I chased a boy between the dining tables.

Today is my seventeenth.

Since the age I had recognized the way I was seen, the person I stood for, and the precariousness of my future, I had worked sedulously toward excellence and uprightness. I excel in magic, swordsmanship, riding, argument, and oratory. I have striven never to indulge in pleasure or comfort. I rarely raise my voice. I speak "gently" even in crowded rooms, even in the danger of going unacknowledged. When I masturbate, I strive to keep in mind only girls' faces and personalities.

Among the knight commanders, I am respected more than my brother. Among the soldiers and many of the knights, I am mocked.

I am used to the ridicule of the crowds. And, in fact, I feel a kinship with the idiotic stubbornness of prejudiced old men.

The Empress had long been embarrassed in my presence. At my birthdays, she would make the briefest of appearances. Since my fourteenth, she has stopped in doing even that.

But I cannot say I am unhappy.

"Here it is, the Orb of Beauty and Truth, one of five legendary orbs in Juniper, the great empire and our motherland, bequeathed to those among our worthiest who have been proven by the blood of their ancestors and made deserving by the merit of their deeds and reputation." (Lord Commander)

Six ambassadors in stiff red cloaks stood beneath a purple arboreum.

Three handmaidens held the long blue train of the daughter of a Count, whose face was partly enshadowed by the statue of a demon in its death throes. Now and then, she would dart smiles to the friend by her side.

Twenty-three High Knights in the imperial regalia of celebration stood at the edge of the cascading gardens of the palace, the center of which flowed with silver water.

A jester showily held out his arm and sprinkled the grass he torn from the lawn as though they were confetti for a celebration.

Four nobles, dressed gaudily but in such a manner that they were protected by sartorial custom, watched the Prince pour wine from above his head into the mouth of a slave who lay supine on the grass for this purpose.

Four knights squatted in the shadow of pedestal that bore the statue of a legendary shield bearer.

Sixteen youths of noble bearing stood up from picnic tables sheeted in white silk and clapped. A cup fell.

Forty-five youths of noble bearing, clad in the grey and blush uniforms of Imperial Servants, remained standing between the pillars of the loggia.

Two merchants, dressed in disdain of the sumptuary laws, traded rumors beside my sister's music tutor.

One high priest, stiff as a teenager, nods his head from behind the Lord Commander to the Emperor, my father.

Since the beginning of the celebration, I had sensed something strange afoot. And now, as my eyes met those of my vaginal-born brother, I feel myself confirmed in my suspicions.

 

* * * * *

 

Though my brother and I are twins we look, to anyone looking in, unrelated. While he possesses the light blonde hair of my father's family, I possess the auburn hair of my mother's father, who was a princess of Gidian Kingdom. My skin is darker as well, a glowing tan color.

I am taller than the prince. However, though a taller man often makes his company seem shorter, conversely the prince makes me seem abnormally tall. So it gives me no advantage over him.

And I do not want an advantage over him. In fact, this is part of the problem in our relationship.

Since as far back as I can remember, the crown Prince, my brother, has had the advantage in magical and physical ability, in learning, in insight, in personal grace and beauty, and in everything that a noble courtier aspires to. But, as of late, he has become wild, contemptuous of good manners, civility, and learning, contemptuous of being understood, arrogant to his people, and hideous in his vanity.

He no longer attends his lessons, no longer takes practices among the knights. He squanders his wealth on slaves, gladiators, courtesans, and on trips to foreign countries. Often he would spend days confined to a room through which only whores, actors, and his closest friends pass.

Though he was born every natural talent, he has fallen off in recent years due to his idleness and voluptuousness. Because of this, for many years I have been anxious about what would happen when I show myself superior to him.

He has lost the love of the court, which he once possessed in spades. The "wise ones" he annoys with his juvenility. He disappoints the gentle with his lack of principles. He arouses disquiet in the loyal and patriotic by his consistent indifference to his responsibilities. He is hated by the people.

Among others, he is merely tolerated. It is possible that no one outside of his circle likes him as much as I do. I do not like him because I admire his lowness or desire him to sink in the esteem of the Empire, but because he is my brother. And though, in actuality, we have never been closer than two associates of a single court, I want him to be higher than me.

When I see him or hear of him, I feel embarrassment.

Ambassadors and Counts praise me in the presence of the Emperor. The stories one hears about him reveal only a stupidity that has been thoroughly mapped by human predecessors.

In the past, due to my anal birth, it was prophesized that I would bring ruin to my House. But recently, my unusual birth has been taken rather as a sign of my eminence among students of the Academy. There are even rumors that I will become the successor over my brother.

Why did he attend the occassion of my seventeenth?

 

* * * * *

 

"This boy you see here, who calls himself my brother, and around whom, of late, rumors have swirled concerning the succession rightfully mine, is nothing--I swear to my patron Goddess--but a traitor, a bastard, and a pretender to the throne. Gestated in shit, and though he has been gilded since in the culture and manner of our Empire, he is today--and till his death shall be...the mongrel sire of a demon!" (Crown Prince)

"Impetuous boy!" (Lord Commander)

"Let him present his case. Prince Herod, if you mean by this another jest, another game and work of petty vanity..." (Lord Chamberlain)

"Oh, how by those words, Uncle, you've stabbed my conscience to its core. Another jest, you say! Oh, how I've been misunderstood! Oh, but alas, how I could not except be misunderstood! How I could not play the part in part..." (Crown Prince)

"If, as you seem to suggest, this yearslong dissolution has been 'only pretend'..." (Lord Commander)

"Let my brother speak!" (Son of House Turio, friend of the Crown Prince)

And though only moments before, the four of his friends were watching him pour crimson wine into the mouth of a breathless slave, their eyes now are wet with tears. The slave has risen, his white tunic blotched with wine, and now holds a shining shield, enchanted (one can guess by its ring of golden mana) by high level barrier magic.

And my brother's bearing, suddenly, has regained its nobility and grace.

"I have suffered. I will reveal all." (Crown Prince)

He tells that I am not in fact the son of my Father, but the son of an Incubus who had planted me in my Mother's bowels, in a decades-long plan by the Demon King to avenge himself on the Empire.

He tells that since childhood I had been aware of my birth and been in communication with agents of the Demon race. He tells the story, holding up letters he had intercepted, of how he had first become aware of my double nature.

He produces witnesses from the country who had been disguised as royal gardeners, who regale the audience with the tale of a similar anal birth, of the poison that the mongrel had poured into the minds of the people, of the trickery that had opened them to foreign invasion, of the destruction that ensued, of the joy they saw him evince as they fled their homes in flames.

He explains the doubt he had and the lengths he went to to make himself fully certain, how he had used the pretext of pleasure travel for investigations, how he had scoured the underworld of the City, lived among whores, thieves, and convicts, in order to gain information about the infiltrators.

This goes on. Often, I would feel the Emperor looking between me and my brother, but I hold myself as stiffly as a High Priest. The High Priest himself has since forgotten himself in his interest, craning his neck forward like a man watching a vulgar street incident.

I, myself, bear all this with the perfect stillness of a heroic statue. I breathe slowly. I do not speak.

I am already embarrassed by the fact that the Lord Commander, the strongest advocate for my advancement, and the one who holds my merit in highest regard, had risen publicly to my defence. In spite of this embarrassment, I am, at the same time, less distressed in my confidence that he, at the very least, will see Justice done, and this Justice is one that bears, perhaps, a fatherly affection for me.

"Young Prince, your manner is grave and seemingly sincere. Your matter portends, necessarily, a serious end, and deserves long study and consideration. But this is not the place to give it." (Lord Commander)

"No, my Lord. There is no better place than this. For it is here that he--the anal brood of an Incubus--had planned to murder his rival for the succession!"

As everyone watches him and myself, the shadow on the train of the Count's daughter begins to elongate. The statue above her is falling over. Though I have not lost my self-possession, I leap forward, believing myself justified in the eyes of the world.

Instantly, the shield borne by the slave with the stained tunic becomes a Grand Barrier. The four friends of the Crown Prince take out swords, rapiers, and wands and release the spells that they had all along, secretly, been channeling. The Grand Chamberlain cries for the guards. The High Priest toddles backwards. On my left, the Ambassadors, among them a famed Magic Knight, have casted spells to detain me, in their eagerness to see a dramatic conclusion.

The spells hit me before I am able to unsheath the awkward ceremonial saber, the only weapon on my person, which would have been useless, in any case, against anything but a falling mass of stone.

Behind me, the blow that knocks me unconscious is delivered by the Lord Commander.