“I hate this thing so much,” Natalie complained.

Seth smiled but said nothing.

The moment they’d been allowed to leave the living room their parents convened in, Natalie had been quick to leave the house, knowing he’d follow. Now they sat on a bench in the garden while he listened to her complain.

Surrounded by plants of different kinds that bathed the entire place in the well-arranged colors of plants Seth could and could not name, he sat and listened and enjoyed her company.

“You know I told them I didn’t want to wear it,” Natalie scowled, tugging uncomfortably at the somehow evil robe. “Guess what they said.”

Seth watched a bird dive, snatching up something from amidst the garden. He didn’t look at her when he spoke.

“What?”

“That I shouldn’t embarrass them,” she scoffed. “Can you imagine that? Me, an embarrassment?”

Seth turned to look at her now and cocked a quizzical brow.

“Stop that,” she complained, shoving his face away with a hand. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

Seth chuckled. “That’s only because you can’t do it.”

Natalie shook her head in disagreement. “It’s also because that’s your judgy face.”

This time Seth laughed. “I do not have a judgy face.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

Natalie frowned. “Stop that. Its childish.”

“You started it, though. And I really don’t have a judgy face.”

“Really?” Natalie leaned in close so that Seth was forced to lean back. “I bet you were thinking of last month when I asked.”

Seth had been thinking of last month.

It hadn’t been a good month for Natalie. She’d developed an interest for an older boy close to his eighteenth year. Seth knew of them, hearing the details from her even before they’d started spending time with each other. She’d liked the boy and felt the boy had liked her back. Seth knew better. She was beautiful and that was all the boy needed to like.

They’d been sneaking around for more than two months, holding hands, sneaking kisses here and there. He’d been silent when she’d told him they’d done a little more than kiss, knowing it wasn’t new to her. After all, Natalie had been attractive before puberty, and puberty had only done greater things for her looks since she hit twelve. The boys had noticed just as much as he had and she liked the attention.

Last month the boy had visited her on a day when her parents were supposed to be out having a meeting concerning the governing of the Baron’s territories. All the lords of the Baron were to be in attendance. Natalie and the boy had taken it as a chance for a bit of comfortable frolicking. She’d asked Seth to come over, saying something about safety he didn’t care for. All he’d heard was her asking him to stay in the house knowing some boy whose name he couldn’t even remember was with her. Sometimes he wondered if she’d only liked the boy because he was from a lesser house; a forbidden fruit of sorts.

Regardless, her mother had come home a bit too early. They’d been caught, and the boy had been punished. What worried Seth hadn’t been that they had been caught. Instead, it was how Natalie had reacted to the boy’s punishment. For someone she claimed to like, she’d been completely unbothered while she’d narrated the story of his flogging.

Scarier, still, was how no rumors spread on the issue, not even a breath whispered. Seth was certain he wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t told him. It reminded him of how much he needed to fear the gold authorities, even though they included his own parents.

“…You aren’t even listening, are you?”

Natalie’s words caught Seth’s attention. They drew him back to the present. His mind fell into auto pilot and he mumbled something incomprehensible that sufficed for an answer most times.

This time it did not.

“Then what did I say?”

Seth ran through his memories faster than snaffles had attacked him. He found only the sound of her voice. He turned it over in his mind like a soulsmith looking for blemishes in a new batch of iron. Incoherent sounds were his only answer.

With a mental sigh, he turned to her. “They really shouldn’t have said that,” he tried.

Natalie’s eyes narrowed.

“You, oaf!” she snapped at him. “That was like ten sentences ago. I swear I don’t even know why I tell you things.”

Seth moved away, barely dodging a swinging hand. He knew he was the one who asked she speak nothing of what had happened in the forest, but her perfect ability to ignore it and truly encompass the role of it never having happened was impressive, and mildly annoying. He'd almost died.

“You know,” he said, leaning farther away, “you’re quite violent for a girl.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

Seth shrugged. “Girls shouldn’t be violent.”

“Maybe sixty years ago, before the first crack,” Natalie scoffed. “Now, we’re just as violent as boys. How else are we supposed to fight reia beasts?”

This was true, but he wasn’t going to agree with her.

“Besides,” she continued. “I’m not violent. You just think this is violent because you don’t have any muscles.”

She was joking, but it fell flat in Seth’s ear. His lack of muscles had become a recent sore subject for him. He was at the age were his peers were coming into the fruits of puberty; deepened voices, broadening shoulders and slow growing muscles. Unfortunately, it hadn’t hit him yet.

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Growing up he hadn’t cared about much, but priorities seemed to change for everyone as time forced them to age. For him, people had expected him to be taller, like his brothers. His brown hair and brown eyes were—as Natalie had once described them—mundane. He knew with more attention his hair could be presentable, genteel, even, instead of its constantly unruly stance. But he’d never been able to bring himself to focus on it. And that level of care agitated his head ache. The thought of it, even now, made it ache, and he winced from it.

“Is it still bad?” Natalie asked, a tiny touch of worry in her voice.

Seth shook his head, knowing she asked of his headache. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Does the playing still help?”

Seth nodded.

Lies, his mind mocked. The music had never helped.

As a child he’d taken an odd interest in musical instruments. Something about finding and creating harmony had intrigued him. He’d learned the harp, the piano, the trombone. There was scarcely a musical instrument he didn’t placed his hands on.

Everyone in his family had been against it at the start. Even Jonathan had refused to serve as the middle ground, his unspoken role in the family. Music, in their opinion, was a waste for soul mages. They always seemed to forget that there were soul mages who used sounds as weapons. Nonetheless, to have them allow him, he’d lied that playing helped calm his headache.

It was a lie he’d lived ever since and was continuing to live now.

When Natalie had asked why he was playing, he’d lied to her as well, something they were not supposed to do with each other. He had two reasons for it, though they did nothing to justify lying to her nor quell the guilt he’d felt from doing it.

Seth had long since learned that lies and truths were nothing but concepts bound to perception. For instance, if he was the only one who knew the sky was blue but went around telling every other person that it was black, then the truth was the sky was black regardless of how blatant a lie it was. Those with the information dictated the truth. If no one knew playing did nothing for his headache, then the truth was that playing did something for his headache. Thus, telling Natalie the truth would crack the façade. It would give the world a chance to break the veil he’d cast over it.

It was something he would not have.

The truth was what people believed it was. So anything could be the truth if enough people believed it. Seth forced his mind to justification with these words, veiling it with as strong a lie as he did the world.

But the second reason—the real reason he’d lied—to her was simpler, unphilosophical. When she’d asked, playing the harp had seemed too feminine. It had felt like something a man shouldn’t do. He’d felt like less of a man, and the shame had made him lie.

He lied to everyone to make a lie the truth. He lied to Natalie so he didn’t seem like any less of a man than he already was.

“Anything I can do to help?” Natalie added a moment after, bringing Seth back from his thoughts.

Once upon a time the question would’ve been genuine. Still, it could only be genuine for so long. Seth knew she only asked now for the sake of asking. They knew there was nothing she could do. He did not hold it against her. He could not hold it against her.

For the first year of learning of his headaches, each time she’d asked, it had been out of genuine concern. But no matter how much a person cared, they could only take no for an answer for so long.

“You could always kiss it and see what happens,” Seth joked.

When Natalie frowned, he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“I will not kiss you, Seth,” she said. Her tone was curt and her words came down like a hammer.

“No,” he panicked, “that’s not what I—”

“I’m not some whore that goes around kissing just anyone,” she cut him off, rising in anger. “Why would you—”

Seth frowned. “Just anyone.”

He’d intended the words to be a whisper, a mute mumble under his breath, but her silence told him she’d heard them.

It knocked the sails out of her anger and Natalie sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Seth nodded absently. It didn’t matter.

“Seth,” she said softly, lowering herself to meet him.

For the barest of moments Seth felt repulsed. With the feeling, his head ached more and he scooted away from her. She froze, stuck in a pose somewhere between sitting and standing, arms held out in failed consolation.

“It’s alright,” Seth mumbled. “I know what you meant…” … you’d kiss Derek but kissing me offends you. It was a petty thought and he knew it. But he didn’t care. It was true.

Natalie sat with a resigned sigh. “You’re thinking about it again. I didn’t know it—”

“Don’t…” Seth clenched his teeth. The words came out as more of a threat than the warning it was supposed to be. It was harsher than it had been intended. He felt his anger rise without control and he took a deep breath that did nothing to calm it. “Don’t lie to me, Natalie.”

“I swear, Seth. I didn’t know at the time.”

He turned his anger on her and his voice rose. “Then why did you hide it?”

“Because I don’t have to tell you every time I kiss someone.”

“Lies,” he spat, the conversation worsening with every word. “You’ve told me everything, even that time you kissed Jessica and liked it and thought you might like girls. But you kept this one a secret.”

Natalie frowned where she’d been pouting. “He shouldn’t have told you,” she mumbled.

Seth snorted in derision. “He shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “You should’ve. No.” He shook his head, the ache dampening. “You shouldn’t have kissed him to begin with.”

Natalie threw her hands up in frustration. “It was a mistake, Seth. And it was just one kiss.”

Seth’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he felt his anger rise more, a cauldron his mother would be proud of.

Natalie looked down, cowed. She refused to meet his eyes. “Maybe it was more.”

“Maybe!?” Seth repeated, flabbergasted.

He knew how many times she’d kissed Derek. Derek had been certain to rub it in his face. And as much as he disliked his brother, he respected the boy for the fact that he knew exactly how to hurt him and never used a lie to do it.

It took Seth a moment to tamper his anger, though haphazardly. It was misplaced. He had the privilege to be angry with her but not the right. She could kiss whoever she wanted. But she knew how he felt about Derek. She’d been there through all the rants and complaints, the bruises and injuries. She knew his dislike for his brother and had still done it. Had she not cared?

This was not the first time they were having this discussion, this argument. But it had never gone this far. Each time she’d stayed quiet and simply apologized or he would wave it aside, refusing to speak more than two words on it. He wondered what had made today different; why she’d pushed on.

Quietly, he got up from the bench. His left arm dangled helplessly beside him as he dusted his clean trouser out of nothing but a need to do something with his hand.

“And you knew how I felt about you,” he muttered.

Telling her he had a crush on her was probably the only truth he regretted ever telling her. It had established what their friendship was and would not be.

“You have to let it go,” Natalie said reflexively.

Seth agreed. He needed to get rid of his crush. He was thirteen and she was the only girl he talked to. He needed to make more friends.

He turned to her and nodded. “I will.”

As if reading his mind, she shook her head. “Not that,” she disagreed. “You’ll need to get over your crush on me, too, yes. I don’t see you that way. But I was talking about this thing between you and Derek. You have to stop hating your brother.”

“I don’t hate him,” Seth replied, ignoring every other thing she’d said.

“Alright, then,” she snapped, “dislike, disagreement, rivalry. Whatever it is, you have to stop it. He’s Silver now, and you can’t do anything to him. And you’re both too old to be having these kinds of issues. For god’s sake, Seth, he’s your brother.”

Seth’s eyes watched her quietly. His unassuming brown met crystal blue. Her eyes were wet but she was not crying. She wouldn’t cry over this. He knew it as much as he knew the sky was blue and the night was dark.

“I should get over the fact that you kissed him and kept it from me, too, right?” he asked. “I should get over the fact that just moments ago you lied about it.”

“You know what?” Natalie got to her feet, she seemed to tower him with the few inches she had on him. “I don’t need this. I thought you’d get over it eventually and we’d be good, but I was wrong. So I’ll tell you what I want to tell you and be out of your greasy hair.”

Seth fought the instinct to touch his hair.

She didn’t give him the time to do much else as she continued. “Mother and Father have decided on what they think is an appropriate punishment for what I did. They’re sending me to the convent to study, and I leave tomorrow.”

There were a number of ways to react to her words. She would be gone for a while which made a sense of loss one of the things to guide his next words. But surprise stood at the helm of things so that when he spoke, his words came out confused.

“They’re giving you to the church?”