Brotherhood

My son's coronation was something I had to witness. Being king of Warwood has been an adventure and as a father watching my son grow up I wondered what type of king he would be. For that reason I decided to step down as the king of Warwood.
"Son, I need to talk to you." Julian said formally.
"Yes father."
Prince Adrian backed away from his chores leaving both king Julian and prince Adrian standing face to face.
"I am stepping down from the throne and as my only child you will become king. Other people and I have made all the arrangements for your coronation."
After a long pause Adrian spoke.
"Are you ill father?"
With a small laugh, Julian replied.
"No son, I am as healthy as a horse. I have always wanted to see your coronation, watch you rule."
Julian left the room to give his son some space to consider the proposal.
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I remembered the talk I had with my own father about my coronation. He was ill and was going to die in a few days. He had asked for a meeting before he died. I will never forget the time from my father's death to the end for my coronation. My father and I were never close, but like any son I wanted to please him. I wanted to be the best king in history, I had to be. I was fourteen when he died. My coronation was on a Friday afternoon.
"Mom, are you going to be by my side? Or do I have to be alone?"
"I will always be by your side Julian"
She smiled compassionately like if she knew something was going to go wrong.
As time went by and the ceremony approached I was ready to be king and after today I would be. I made my way to Westminster Abbey. I was going to take the long road, I wanted to treasure the time I had as prince. When I reached the church I was introduced to a young woman. She was going to be my wife the future queen of Warwood. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
"It is my pleasure to meet you Rose."
She blushed as I said her name.
"The pleasure is all mine Prince Julian" 
Even though our introduction was short I was intrigued by my future life with her. The ceremony started exactly at four in the afternoon. We were about to start when a young man about the same age as me stood up from the crowd and stopped the ceremony.
"He is not to be king. He is not the true heir."
His voice was deep and strong. Certain that what he was saying is true.
"I am the true heir of the throne. I am the oldest son of the King."
Everyone including myself was so in shock that nobody moved.
"My name is William Smith your rightful king."
The guards reacted at this and escorted the man out but the ceremony could not continue. I went to a separate room and I was told the man was taken to the dungeons in my castle. I was wanted to meet this person more than anything. I ordered my guards to take me where he was I needed to meet him. When I saw him again I could see my father in him.
"William Smith? Taking my father's last name I see. Odd he never mentioned you, yet you carry his name and his face."
He stood up. He was six foot three. We were almost the same height, I had to look up slightly at him; I hated that.
"Hello, little brother nice to finally meet you. Yes I do use our father's last name as I should. And it is clear now how I look more like our father than you."
At this I knew he was right my soft face was more like a woman's. He had my father's strong jaw and golden eyes.
"Looking more like my father than me will not give you what it is mine."
I never really cared for the throne but having someone take what was mine would not happen.
"The throne is not yours. It is supposed to go to the oldest child of the king and that is me."
His words were soft and charming hard to be in the opposite side as he continued. 
"In his testament he said the throne will be for my oldest child, as you can see he did not say to prince Julian. I am his oldest child, the throne is mine."
At that I left; I had to check if what he was saying is true.
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My son entered the room a few hours after I delivered the news of my retirement. He was calm and formal.
"I accept your decision and I will take over the organization of my coronation. I will soon rule Warwood."
And with that he left. My son acted like a thirty year old king; the opposite of me during the coronation.
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"I need to see my father's testament!" I yelled at the document keeper. With a scared look the men ran to his desk and found the testament.
"Here it is."
I read it quickly William was right the testament only said that the crown is for my father's oldest son. I went back to the dungeons to see my new brother again. 
"How did you know what was on his testament? It is impossible." With a grand smirk he came to the front of his cell.
"I am his son. I knew my father. Are you ready to give me the crown?"
"No such thing will ever happen. You may be my father's son but you are not my mother's you cannot have the throne."
William laughed. "Are you sure about that?"
"Your majesty? You are being called to the council meeting." A man entered the room looking for me. I left and joined the council.
As I entered the council  was discussing how alike William was to my father from how he looks, how he stands, how he talks to a crowd and even how he behaves. The moment I entered there was complete silence.
"Well I have visited our prisoner. He is most definitely not going to be the king." 
"Are you sure prince Julian? He is the spitting image of your father."
"I am sure. I am the oldest son of my father king John and queen Elizabeth. I am the only heir."
"Yes I am sure you are we just need the whole council to discuss about our situation. We need to decide what to do with William." That is when I noticed my mother was not here, she was the only one missing. "I will go for my mother and end this."
My mother had not been seen by anyone since the coronation. I knew my mother more than my father. She often would go to a small garden hidden from everyone when life went sideways. When I arrived she was sitting next to a pond.
"Mother, everything is being solved I have talked to the council. They have agreed with me I will be king I am the only heir. There is nothing to be worried about."
My mother was quiet and sobbing softly. I was worried my mother was not the most stable person but with my father as a husband I could hardly blame her.
"Julian you are not the only possible heir. I am not your father's first or only wife." I could not move I was frozen on the spot. My father had other wives, I could have multiple bothers, I might not be king. I was hurt I could not believe my parents had lied to me.
"I need to go." I started to make my way to the door when she spoke again.
"Julian, please stay. I can help you understand." Her pleading voice made it impossible to leave her.
"Help me understand what that my father was a liar, a cheater and possibly might have had an older true son?" I could not believe my father could have betrayed my mother by being with another woman.
"Julian I was married to your father very young and he was older, he had a previous wife but produced no male children they got separated. We met and got married right away but we fell in love. I... I had two failed pregnancies."
My mother stopped and stared at herself in the pond. She watched herself cry as she told the story.
"I was afraid he would leave me; he had no reason to stay with me than our love. We both knew that when getting older having kids is harder so we agreed for him to... to be with someone else and if the pregnancy was healthy and it was a boy that he would marry her; making the baby his heir."
"How would you agree with it you were his wife, his love?" She looked up at me with devastating eyes.
"I had to it was that or be forever apart. You must understand there had to be a male son. He found a woman of good family to agree and they tried. She got pregnant the first time. Your father and I waited until a week before she went into labour. We said our goodbyes, when the baby was born and he was a boy. They were to be married when she recovered, but she never did."
I could barely feel my legs I sat down across from my mother and waited quietly until she continued.
"Before she died I found out I was pregnant. I did not tell your father until after the other woman died; we never got the chance to get separated. No one knew about her or the pregnancy. We decided that if my pregnancy did not survive that we would call this baby ours."
"My pregnancy went well and the baby was a boy. We had no idea what to do about the babies we could only justify one. We were going to give up one of the children right away but your father had been away to attend to the kingdom and I was just recovering from giving birth. Time went by and you two looked so similar; we could not tell who was completely ours." At that moment my supposed mother was fully crying. I wanted to leave to be alone, but I had to stay I needed to know the rest.
"Continue I must know." I was cold, maybe too cold. She is after all the woman who raised me.
"Your father and I decided to raise both of you but we could not raise you together. William was raised at a palace near here and we took turns each day making sure we were present in both of your lives. You two are so close in age we could not tell who was older, but at the end it did not matter to us we loved you both equally."
She stopped and looked directly at me.
"I do not know if it is you who I gave birth to but I am your mother and I love you."
"But you are also William's mother and you love him to." Rage filled me I could no longer stay with her. I had to leave and I went to the only place I could. The dungeon.
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I went to talk to my wife. Rose had to know that our son had accepted my early retirement. She was getting ready for dinner when I knocked on her door.
"Rose, may I come in?" This is the only door I would knock on in the entire kingdom.
"Yes Julian, I am almost ready. Would you mind helping me?" As I enter my wife was wearing a forest green dress which needed to be tied up.
"I am as I have always been at your service."
"How is Adrian? How did he take it?"
"Better than what I thought he would. He asked why, I told him I wanted to watch him rule." My wife looked at me with a disapproving look. She hated when I lied to my son.
"It is not a complete lie watching him rule will be nice and I could not possibly have said the truth. I would not like him to hate my mother."
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"I knew you would come back."
I entered the room something in my eyes must have exposed me.
"You know. I did not believe Elizabeth had it in her to tell you." It felt wrong to hear him say my mother's name.
"She told me but how did you know?"
I stepped closer to the cage; he looked like a trapped animal. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, maybe I could leave him here. No one knew who he was; no one had to know.
"The day father died a letter was sent to me. He had written everything that happened. He wrote about you; I believe he did this to get me to go for the crown. To my understanding I spent more time with our father and I do look more like him. I guess he thought I deserved it and wanted me to be king instead of you."
The way William spoke made me mad he had a smooth reassuring voice like my father's. I knew what he was saying was not friendly yet I still wanted to do everything he asked. It did not help that he knew more about me than I him.
"You are coming with me."
I pulled the keys out and opened the gate. William surprised followed me silently.
"You are taking me to where you were raised."
William led the way. The castle was not far away but it was surrounded with a wall of flowers making it impossible to look inside, I supposed that was the purpose, it was a secret castle with a secret son. When we entered I was surprised, it was so beautiful and incredibly similar to his. There was a painting of all of them together, they looked happy like a family.
"I have known our parents as long as you have, they are my parents too."
William was different now he no longer stood straight or had guarded eyes. He was no longer a perfect image of my father. I could see my mother's touch in him, more relaxed and peaceful opposite to my father. He gave me a tour of his castle; he even mentioned small memories he had with our parents. After a few hours we had dinner together, we were a lot more alike than I had thought.
"William if you were not raised a price who did you think you were? You lived in a castle but did not have the title."
William was grim now.
"I was told that our father used to be king but he was overthrown by his people. Our family was allowed to stay in this castle but we were not real royalty. I believed it how else would you explain all of this?"
William stood up and signaled me to follow him.
"Come it is late we should sleep."
To make sure no one noticed me we stayed in the same room. Through the night we told stories of our childhood. We both noticed all the differences and similarities we had. By morning it felt like we grew up together.
"What will you do today? What are you planning to tell everyone?"
"Those are some good questions I have no idea, we both want to be king but there is no way to determine who is the true heir."
We returned to my castle and we approached the council together. We told them the truth, William brought his letter that our father wrote for proof.
"How could this be?"
Everyone jumped out of their seats demanding answers we did not have. 
"We can fix this." One of the council members said. "We can hold a duel. The winner gets the throne."
Everyone in the council agreed it was a good solution except for William and I for our duels are to death.
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Tonight our whole family had dinner together: my wife Rose, my son Adrian, my daughter Genevieve and I. This dinner was going to be special it was my last dinner as a king. Tomorrow my son would be coronated; he would then be the one sitting at the head of the table.
"Son, are all the preparations ready for tomorrow? I would not like anything to go wrong last minute."
"Yes father, I have checked on everything twice to make sure." Adrian was tired of me asking his about the ceremony.
"After dinner you will be coming with me."
The rest of the dinner went on silently. I took my son to the small garden that used to be my mother's; I decided to take care of it after she died.
"Son, this is your grandmother's garden, it is of great significance to our family. You must take care of this garden after I die. It is important that future generations have this place, no one knows about this garden and it must stay that way." Without second guessing he replied.
"Yes father, I will maintain this garden."
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The duel was to be today we could not keep the kingdom without a king for long. William and I were against it but we did not have another solution. We were brothers, we wanted to be together.
"We must fight. There is no way around it. It is my pleasure to have met you, and I am honoured to be your match."
"I will not fight you Julian. I do not intend to commit fratricide. I am not a killer and I will never be one."
"How else will we solve this? Are you stepping down and letting me be king?" I could not believe this, he was the one that interrupted my coronation.
"I do not have a solution and no I am not. I will be king or nothing."
"The only way for you to be king is to kill me!" He was being unreasonable this was the only way yet he still denies it.
"I need to reflect on this, I will see you at the duel." With that William left the room.
I prepared myself for the duel, today might be the day I die or the day my life will start. I made my way to the garden where my mother was the day before; it felt less peaceful now. This was the place where the duel would take place; it was the only place no one knew about. The garden was a beautiful place to die the sun always shined and the grass was always green. I waited for William to appear I had sent him directions to this place. When William showed up he did not wear any armor but did have a long sword with him.
"William where is your armor? I will not fight you unprepared." A smile appeared on his face.
"That is what I am counting on."
"William stop playing around we must fight we cannot avoid this."
"I am fully aware of the urgency and seriousness of this. Today everything will be settled. Like I have said before I am not a killer and I will not fight you. Today I am the one dying." With that he swung his sword and pierced the land in front of me. He kneeled gripping his sword, with his forehead to the peen block he prayed. I was still in shock when he finished praying.
"I am done now; I give you this sword to keep, for this is the sword that will kill me." Overwhelmed by my brother's words I kneel in front of him.
"What is this that you are speaking of? I cannot kill you like this."
"You can and you will. If you can kill me in combat you can kill me now."
I looked into my brother's eyes and I could tell this was what he wanted, but how could he ask this of me? I cannot slay my own brother for I refuse to be like Cain. I finally gathered enough strength to pull myself up. Thinking that maybe I could imagine him being someone else. How did he expect me to swing my sword?
"You are my brother William, my duty as your brother is to be loyal to you..." My voice cracked and I did not continue.
"Julian I have made my mind." William's voice was just above a whisper. He looked up to me. "I refuse to fight you, I want you to be king, but I will not be part of my father's kingdom without me being king. I believe in you. This must be done and it is you that must do it. Goodbye my brother."
I raised William's sword and swung it at his throat slicing it just enough to kill. I dropped to my knees as his body fell forwards catching him I began to cry. I held my brother's dead body as I grieved for him. When the sun went down, I put my brother to rest under the tree in the garden. Filled with sorrow, I return to the council drenched in blood.
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