Unity watched the distant figure of Lavastro Kaiosyni disappearing back into the tunnel, murmering a silent word of thanks to whichever mystic had set up his seat’s view magnification.

Muscles moved beneath her skin with each step, visible through the tissue-thin silk adorning her, shifting like the pistons of a steam engine. Thick, dense and mechanical.

Pit, but those legs look like they could drive any machine.

He eyed the woman for a few moments more, enjoying as much of the sight as he could before she reached the tunnel and put an end to it. Unity barely minded. A few seconds to look at that arse was ample time for him.

“Could you try to be less obvious when you’re oggling her?” Unison asked from behind him, voice thick with the weary resignation he seemed to reserve for everything Unity did.

“Why bother? Nobody has a decent line of sight to me in this box anyway.” Answered Unity, not bothering to turn as he spoke to his brother.

“Would you care if someone did?”

Unity’s smile was hidden by the back of his head.

“Probably not,” he admitted, “It’s not like I haven’t been caught doing worse.”

“And how exactly did that end for you, again?”

He knew what Unison was referring to, just hearing mention of the incident made his fingers twitch with a phantasmic pain.

“With a hard-learned lesson, and a brother who seems not to acknowledge it.”

Unison’s steps were a low shuffling across the stone of their viewing box. He appeared by Unity’s side a moment later, leaning across the balcony. Eyes on the horizon, words on him.

“I’ll acknowledge your moment of personal growth when I don’t need to keep an eye open to make sure you don’t grab another fistful of someone’s chest. How does that sound?”

People began to file out from the stands below them, and Unity found himself watching as they moved. There was something captivating about the sight; thousands of bodies, thousands of judging eyes, all melted free of their scrutiny and hostility. No more judicial than droplets in a great stream.

“What are you thinking?” Unison asked, drawing his eyes back.

His brother’s face held more than a touch of concern, his eyes more than a shade of suspicion. It was an unpleasant look to receive, but Unity loved him for it all the same. It held no hate, no disgust. Something he could expect from no one else.

“A lot of things.” He told the man. To Unity’s own surprise it was the truth, at least in part.

“I mean about the Sieve,” Unison pressed. “You didn’t get through the first stage so easily as you expected.”

“Oh, that. What can I say? Lady luck is as vicious a whore as Kaiosyni.”

A smile creased Unison’s mouth, smoothing away the rough edges of his face and giving the sanguine rubies of his eyes a disarming glint.

“It was poor luck that had you thrust your arm infront of that girl’s spear, was it?”

Unity fought his face as it threatened to betray him, hiding his thoughts beneath a smile.

“It was an impulse that overpowered my temperance, a problem I’ve had for some time now.”

To Unity’s frustration, the knowing smirk on his brother’s face didn’t diminish a scrap.

“How about our little chat with Kaiosyni?” He blurted out, “You seemed quite disappointed at her foregoing a public meeting between the Gemini and myself.”

Stolen story; please report.

“I told you before we came here that we were expected to fulfil certain duties. Failure casts a poor reflection, as does unreliability.”

Unison’s answer was perfect. No hesitation, nor any great tension threading his voice. It would surely have fooled most.

Unity wasn’t most.

“Failure does reflect poorly, but this would hardly have been yours alone. Phoria himself picked my two guards, didn’t he?”

“The Alliance isn’t so understanding.”

His brother’s answer came with such bitter sincerity that it came close to banishing Unity’s doubt.

The Alliance was the bloated, pus-oozing carcass of a once-great empire, exhaling miasmic shit as it split from the pressure of its own

putrefaction. He knew better than most, having seen first-hand the fat maggots writhing in its festering sludge, calling themselves Faction Leaders and Princes.

But so too did he know that, if there was one thing the maggots hated more than Zora Mylif’s bastard son, it was the artificial child of her and Xia Lorisel.

Unison had told the wrong lie to the wrong person.

“We both know they’d love nothing more than to pin this on me, I may as well be a political shield for you. What is it that really pissed you off about what I did?”

The look his brother gave him defied expectation. Lacking in embarrassment or irritation at being caught out, holding only bafflement in their place.

“You think I’m talking about me? Unity, I’m angry because you put yourself at risk with what you did.”

He didn’t meet his brother’s eye, didn’t want to.

“You should keep your concerns for yourself.”

It was a weak protest, even in his own ears, and his brother was moved no more by it than Unity would have thought.

“Like you?” Unison asked. His voice was no softer or more yielding than granite, somehow dragging Unity’s gaze around to meet his through words alone.

“Yes, like me. You can take care of yourself, I’ll do likewise. That way neither of us needs to worry about the other, or be weighed down by some idiotic sense of duty.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. The crimson of Unison’s eyes suddenly held a fierce intensity, like rings of fire blazing in the dusk.

“You've misjudged yourself Unity.” Unison said at last, stare not wavering. Voice not shaking.

“I have myself gauged perfectly, dear brother. You’re the one with rose-tinted glasses.”

Lichos watched as Kaiosyni approached him in the tunnel, his shoulders pressed to a smoothed wall and hands held stiff at either side. The stance wasn’t needed, he knew. Outside of Wrath, he was just a bodyguard.

He stood to attention all the same. Something about the woman seemed to demand it of him.

“That went well,” He noted as she approached. Kaiosyni’s face registered his words only with the raising of a single eyebrow.

“Were you expecting otherwise?” She asked, voice imperious as ever.

Lichos wasn’t sure how to respond, settling for a shrug.

“Truth be told I wasn’t really expecting anything. Nobody tried to kill you though, so I’d say it went well.”

The corner of her mouth twitched into something precariously near to a smile.

“I’m glad to have your approval.”

She passed Lichos, plucking him from the wall to follow in her wake by presence alone. He felt himself match her smile.

Severe though the woman was, bearing strict and demeanor hard, he couldn’t help but like her.

So much that he risked a question.

“As someone with more experience, how would you say that display went?”

“I would say nothing. It was a simple task, one there was never any risk of failing at- and one that could scarcely benefit from being performed particularly well.”

Lichos eyed the woman, not missing the stiffness of her lip or tightening about her eyes.

“You don’t seem very happy with it, if that’s the case.”

He regretted the words almost as soon as they’d left his mouth. Kaiosyni shot him a sidelong look, staring with a dangerous coherence that almost seized his body into a reflexive salute.

“Don’t be so careless with your tongue, soldier. I’m not your comrade, friend or equal, nor will I tolerate being addressed as such. The occasional bit of snark is amusing, don’t push it any further than that.”

Feeling himself flush with rage as much as embarrassment, Lichos said nothing. His silence seemed an acceptable answer for the woman, as she turned back ahead without another word.

They continued in silence, his thoughts loud enough even without speech.

Lichos had made his mistakes before. Saved men he knew he couldn’t, defied orders he knew he shouldn’t, lived his life inches from a noose before finally learning to keep his neck farther away.

It seemed he’d need to remember more of those lessons around Kaiosyni than he’d thought.