Chapter One

"I will beat you hard, so that your father will not beat you harder later on," Farro whispered to him in the dead of night. He was crying, he didn't want to do this, not to his best friend.

Noah did not say anything. Nor had he for the last month. Not a sentence, not a word, not even a sigh. This was why he was being punished. He was mute now, and his father did not like that.

It was understandable to those who knew of their family.

"Noah?" Farro asked, voice louder but hushed. He did not want to wake the master.

Noah remained silent, belly to the cold grass in the courtyard, staring at the dark outline of the nearby pond with equally dark eyes, black hair disheveled around his ears.

"Noah," Farro tried harder, fidgeting with the large bucket of water in his hands, "If you would just speak. Just a word-"

Silence.

"At least give a hint as to why you are so!" his voice raised slightly with frustration, "Tell me why you won't speak! Why? It's all I ask..."

Noah blinked, and that was it.

Farro's lips persed, and he quickly dumped the entire bucket of freezing water onto Noah's back. Noah winced, which brought a twisted smile to Farro's lips. He let the water soak into his young master's clothing for a few seconds, then raised the belt he had been carrying, preparing to strike, viciously, without thought. No, no thinking. Guilt could wait. It had to.

"I'm sorry."

The hand whipped downwards.

And still Noah did not speak.

---

"That poor boy...," a maid murmured to another as they cleaned around Noah's room. The boy lay still in the middle of his huge four-poster bed, drappings wide open, as well as the flesh of his back.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" the second maid asked, a little too loudly, dusting around the dressers.

"He is. How can you be so insensitive about this?" the first maid tutted, hanging up clean jackets in the closet.

"My guess is that he's--" she twirled a finger near her temple- the universal sign for crazy, "--just like his brother. But that's just me."

"Oh... You mean the brother locked up in the dungeon?" the first maid took a seat at the desk, the second maid sitting on the desk.

"Ssh! We maids aren't supposed to know all that!"

"Right, right. Sorry."

"And of course I mean that brother! There's nothing wrong mentally with the other one. He's just blind, is all."

"Where is Daniel, since you mention him?"

"Off in his own bedroom, reading those Braile books of his, I suspect," the second maid gazed at her fingernails.

"Does he know--" the first maid waved a hand in Noah's direction. He had not moved, "--about this?"

"I suspect he does. You know how twins are. Gabriel probably knows it down in the dungeons, too."

The first maid pondered for a bit on their master's three sons- the triplets, as they had long ago been nick-named. Somewhere far off, a bell tinkled softly,"Oh, we're being summoned."

They left.

Noah lay in silence, alone at least. He groaned, but not too loudly, not wanting to be heard. He tried to raise himself up onto his elbows, but his back protested and he whimpered, giving up. He lay still again. He flinched when his door slowly creaked open and closed quieter. He listened as foot steps padded toward him- his face was turned away from the door, you see- and held his breath until he could figure out who it was behind him.

A careful hand came down to meet with a small patch of unbloodied skin near his waistline, tracing it lightly, making Noah shutter despite himself.

"I ask Farro's question, Noah," it was Daniel. The three brothers all had the same voice, but Gabriel was incarcerated at the moment, so their was no other choice. Besides, Gabriel had never spoken so softly, so kindly.

Noah wondered for a moment how Daniel had been able to find unruined flesh if he could not see. The thought passed when Daniel spoke again, hand now over Noah's nape, which had not been touched.

"Noah, give me a clue as to why you are such," not a question, an order.

Noah struggled a bit but finally managed to turn his head toward his brother without making a noise of pain. He stared up at Daniel, who should have been a mirror's image, had it not been for the pale, unfocused, unseeing eyes. It was strange, seeing those eyes, for Noah was still used to the dark eyes he used to share with him more than three years ago. Daniel sighed silently, a mere raising and falling of the chest before sitting on the bed as carefully as he could manage without disturbing Noah's wounds.

"My first thought, when word first came you were mute, was that maybe you were trying to find a way to see Gabriel. But that idea quickly passed, and I began thinking harder than I ever have before. About you. About us," he stopped, letting the silence of the room close in on them. Noah watched his brother intently for him to continue, and sensing he was being watched, Daniel turned his head toward him.

"I began to think of a phrase I recently heard," his hand abruptly shifted to below Noah's left ear, rubbing under it with a thumb. Noah's eyes fluttered shut, "It goes See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Have you heard it?"

Noah nodded, making sure Daniel could feel it with his hand.

Daniel laughed through his nose, "I've come to associate this with us. The three of us."

Noah opened his eyes half-way, thinking.

"I am see no evil, for obvious reasons," his hand faltered for a second, a twitch against Noah's skin, "Gabriel is hear no evil," Daniel paused and sensed Noah's confusion, "He is deaf to everything but the voices in his head, Noah. He hears people who are not there, hears dogs bark that have never existed. He is deaf to everything but his own imagination."

Noah nodded again, reclosing his eyes.

"And you Noah... you are speak no evil. I believe that something terrible has happened to you, something indeed evil, and now you refuse to speak of it," he drifted into silence again, feeling the sudden tenseness in his brother's shoulders, "I hope that... one day... you will tell someone what happened. I know you have reservations against telling me, and it is understandable with father breathing down our necks all the time. And you sure can't tell Gabriel," it was a joke, something rare and exotic and sweet coming from Daniel, so Noah smiled, "But I hope you will tell someone. A courthorse, a dog, even that cat of Gabriel's with the piercing... I'm... worried about you," he stopped, not used to confessing these kinds of things.

The silence stretched on longer and longer, until Noah could not take anymore. He shrugged away from Daniel's soft hand, breathing loudly, "Daniel...," he whispered into the silence.

Daniel did not seem fazed, "Yes, Noah?"

"Daniel...," he sat up painfully, stretching wounds, causing blood to flow again. He ignored it all, pressing his face into the crook of Daniel's neck, winding his arms around his brother's, "I'm... I'm... I can't..."

Daniel stayed silent as he stood up, bending over his brother and kissing him softly on the cheek. It always amazed Noah how he knew what he was doing, even without sight. Daniel left swiftly.

Tears pricked at Noah's eyelids and he lay back down, face smashed into the pillow, focusing completely on the pain.

Pain. Pain was what he deserved.

For what he has done.