Chapter Text
“Brother.”
Jason looked up from his book, raising one eyebrow at the intrusion. He was carefully folded into a small nook of one of the castle’s lesser-used studies, his favorite spot to hide away. Technically, the room was open to the entire family—and whatever guests they might be entertaining—but it was ill-placed and inconvenient to access, hidden by winding corridors and uneven stairs, and not nearly so grand as any of their many other rooms. Jason loved it, and was rarely bothered while sequestered away within its walls.
“Yes, Damian?”
“Our grandfather requests your presence,” came the simple response. It was said with no small degree of distaste.
For the millionth time, Jason wondered whether the attitude was directed towards him or towards someone else. He and Damian had been close once but that time was long-gone now, stolen from them both by the poison their grandfather had filled his younger brother’s mind with about the importance of maintaining an “undiluted bloodline”. Nevermind the fact that Talia had taken Jason in well before his tenth summer and that he was an al Ghul in all but blood, or the fact that Damian had been merely a seed taking root then and that Jason had as good as raised that boy just as much as Talia had raised him, or that they were and would always be brothers regardless of what their grandfather wished.
When Jason had first noticed Damian’s shifting coldness towards him, his heart had hurt. He had done everything he could to remind his younger brother that they were family, for better or worse, and to assure Damian that he had no intention of taking the crown. Jason may have spent the better part of a decade playing a prince’s role, but it was not one he was born for. He had no desire to rule. After a year with no improvement, Jason had resigned himself to the icy front. Someday, he told himself, Damian would grow and realize the lies Ra’s had fed him for what they were. Someday.
So now, when Damian came in like the winter’s slowly falling snow and told him their grandfather wanted to see him, Jason did not question or delay. He went easy.
Jason rose with a simple nod of acknowledgement, but did not set down his book. He kept it held tight in his hands as he followed Damian back out along the castle’s twisting corridors towards the king’s private rooms. It was a small form of protest, the only kind he allowed himself—a wordless, deniable way of saying that he would not put his own interests aside in favor of the king’s.
Someday, he told himself, our mother will return home and right our grandfather’s wrongs.
Until that day when Talia came home from her diplomatic envoy, far across the trembling seas, Jason would continue to tread carefully.
He stepped carefully across the threshold into the bed chamber, feeling the thickly woven Persian rug shift slightly even through the thin canvas sole of his shoes.
Ra’s barely spared either him or Damian a glance, offering only a slight smile—more a smirk than anything—as he carried on fixing his cup of tea.
Jason wanted to shift uncomfortably but held himself still. He had not made it through the past years of trickery by showing weakness. Still, neither he nor Damian could do anything more but stand there until their king properly addressed them.
Ra’s knows this, he reminded himself. He’s doing it on purpose—to remind us both of our place.
He did not allow the dark thought to cross his face. Jason turned his gaze away from where their grandfather sat, carefully and slowly measuring honey onto a spoon to add to his tea, the first of many steps Jason knew he underwent in preparing a cup, and instead focused on the carefully woven threads of the tapestry hanging behind the man. It was close enough that Jason could allow his eyes to drift without his disrespect or lack of attention being readily known.
The tapestry was richly woven, taking up most of the stone wall and made with threads so fine that it was impossible for even a trained eye to mark where one ended and another began. The scene it depicted was one Jason knew from his studies, courtesy of a line of carefully chosen tutors Talia had selected for him over the years. The tutors had, of course, ended soon after he departure—Ra’s thought too much book-learning spoiled a mind.
His grandfather moved on from the honey and began adding milk, droplet by droplet. Beside him, Damian made a small noise of displeasure at the exaggerated display—the boy was barely ten and still a pup, though he was as old as Jason had been when he arrived at the castle. Soon he would have to learn, just as Jason did, how to hide his feelings towards their grandfather.
Jason kept his carefully trained on the tapestry, giving the man only fleeting glances every few minutes so he knew when to snap back to attention. He traced with his eyes the fine golden threads that made up the reeds along the banks of the Nile, the brilliant blue of the swallows in flight, and the opalescent teeth of the snapping crocodile.
Swallows mate for life, he thought idly as his gaze lingered upon the dancing birds.
Jason recalled the voice of his earliest tutor, imparting the fable upon him as a warning against straying too far beyond the safety of your home. Jason at the time, freshly in a new land and new family, had thought the man had missed the story’s point entirely. He had been punished for voicing the thought then but, privately, he still held it—the swallows were strong in each other, not in the land over which they flew.
Some days, especially back then when his new home was still fresh and strange, Jason wondered why Talia had brought him here at all.
Their meeting had been pure chance—she had been in a hurry on her way out from a diplomatic posting in Jason’s city, taking every seedy back alley shortcut she could to reach the docks before sunrise. Talia had quite literally stumbled across him. Jason had been small then, bones whittled down by years of malnutrition even before his parents had died and he had wound up on the streets. It was in one such seedy back alley shortcut that he had been curled up to sleep when Talia tripped over his slight form—slight enough for even someone so well-trained as her to miss in the dark and in a hurry.
She had tumbled down onto the hard stones and Jason had woken up with a loud cry. They stared at each other wordlessly for the span of several heartbeats, both shocked, before Talia had offered him a hand up and Jason had unthinkingly taken it. He had expected her to dust him off maybe, to make sure he was alright after she had stepped on him. He had hoped to get breakfast out of it at least to ease his hunger pangs. He had not expected her to tug him all the way to the docks with her and on to a ship sailing east, one of her hands firmly on his and the other pressed over her stomach.
Jason had been horrified at first, believing she had tricked and trafficked him. He had heard horror stories from the other kids on the streets, but never had they mentioned a woman so beautiful or a ship’s cabin so grand. The journey had taken a long three months, but by the end Jason had trusted Talia. And now she was gone, leaving him and Damian both alone with their grandfather while she smoothed over their bonds with foreign nations.
The careful tinkling of silver against bone as their grandfather swirled his spoon inside of his teacup warned Jason to cease his mind’s wandering.
As he and Damian watched, Ra’s lifted the delicate cup with one hand and inhaled its steam, letting out a deep sigh of his satisfaction. He took one long, lingering sip before finally gesturing for the two boys to sit before him.
They sat cross-legged on the cushions thrown carelessly beside their king’s table—it had only one seat.
“Ibn al Xu’ffasch. Ibn al Bahr. My children,” Ra’s purred as his gaze finally turned towards them properly. With a single gesture, he sent the room’s guards away.
At this, Jason felt a small trickle of unease pass over his shoulders. Had he any less self-control, it might have been a shiver.
What in the heavens could he possibly want that his retinue not be allowed to hear? Jason wondered.
He stared impassively at their grandfather, head tilted only cursorily to show deference to their king.
“Grandfather.” If Damian bowed any deeper, his chin would be touching his sternum. Jason held back an eyeroll. “I have retrieved my brother, as requested.”
Ra’s smiled enigmatically. The steam rising from his cup wound curiously around his face, surrounding him with the tangled spiderwebs of its heat. He did not address Damian, turning instead to look Jason up and down fully with a discerning eye.
“You reached the age for betrothal the summer past, my child.”
Jason’s spine stiffened.
“Yes, Grandfather.” He kept his voice carefully even, his face devoid of any expression. Internally, alarm bells were going off. He tilted his head down further in a bow to shield his next words beneath an added layer of deference to their king. “I thought it was agreed that we would wait for my mother to return before giving away my hand.”
His mind raced as he went through the possibilities, backtracking through all the visitors they had received over the past few months that his grandfather could possibly have given Jason away to. The list was few and the options were dismal.
Ra’s waved a hand in dismissal, as if batting Jason’s words out of the air.
“A mother can only know so much.” His gaze bore into the top of Jason’s skull, drilling in and scooping out whatever softness it could find. “Besides, it is her posting that has allowed us the good fortune of this match.”
Jason’s mouth went dry. He heard Damian let out a bitten off gasp of surprise beside him, but did not risk glancing the boy’s way.
“My mother has consented to this? She has arranged it?”
Ra’s scoffed. He kicked out suddenly with one foot, jabbing Jason hard in the side. He fought to keep from wincing.
“Foolish boy! Do you listen when I speak?”
Jason lifted his gaze to meet his grandfather’s eyes, brilliant blue against murky green. Ra’s had the light of barely concealed glee dancing behind his eyes.
“What your mother thinks is irrelevant. She is not your king.”
He returned his gaze back down, feeling numb.
“Of course, Grandfather.” The words felt bitter on his tongue. “I only meant to inquire how the match came to be. I would not question your judgment.”
On the inside, Jason burned hot with anger and fear as his mind continued to race through who it could possibly be. If not arranged by Talia as she traversed the lands as part of her diplomatic envoy, then it had to be one of the recent visitors. Lord Wilson, perhaps? He was much older than Jason but possessed a vast wealth, one that Jason knew Ra’s wouldn’t hesitate to get his hands on. It wouldn’t be a bad match, necessarily—certainly a better one than any of his grandfather’s other associates. Jason thought he could learn to live with it. Or maybe—
Their king’s voice cut down his thoughts before they could grow any further.
“You need not concern yourself with the details. I called you only to inform you to pack. We will leave with the sunrise.”
Jason looked back up sharply as his grandfather looked away, his self-satisfied gaze turned back towards the tea in his hands. A thousand protests died on Jason’s tongue. What could he say in the face of such iron-fisted determination? He turned his gaze back to tapestry behind his grandfather, its verdant portrait of a devotion that Jason would now never know. Maybe his tutor had been right after all. Maybe it was foolish to place his hopes in something beyond the ground beneath his feet.
He swallowed heavily. His fate was set.
“Of course, Grandfather,” he said again. “Might I know the climate of my new home at least, so I may know what to pack?”
Above him, he heard his grandfather chuckle. This time, Jason could not hold back the shiver that ran along his spine.
“It is time for you to go back across the sea you came to us from, Ibn al Bahr.”