They're so young when they first meet that Andrew doesn't have any conscious memory of it, but his oldest and dearest friend is in every important memory he has. The first chess match he wins. The moment he found out his mother had died. The time he fell out of a tree and broke his arm.
And he knows the same is true for his best friend. He remembers the first time Edgar beat his trainer in a sword fight. Remembers when his grandfather got ill. Remembers when he tried to leap a gap and wound up with a broken arm instead.
They are intertwined like ivy, bonded more closely than they are even with the girls. Even after they grow older, begin to Challenge, falter under the strain of the Suit and their parents' expectations and protecting each other and Rachel and Argine all at the same time, they still can communicate without words. Even after the world upturns and their Four becomes Three and all Three are nursing broken hearts and Two are trying to do so with each other, Andrew knows that in any joy or sorrow, Edgar is still there, and vice versa.
Which is why, perhaps, when the greatest sorrow comes-- when a car crash separates them the way nothing and no one in this world could-- Andrew still feels Edgar there. Still can hear him laughing at a joke he'll tell Eileen and Argine, can feel him clapping a supportive hand on his shoulder when the burden of being King is too much, can sense him smiling when he sees how Rachel has opened up to them again.
And when he is bleeding out in the Spade Castle, he can distantly hear the angry growl of his best friend directed at the man who killed him. When he breathes his last breath, he can feel a familiar hand gripping his.
When he opens his eyes in the next life, he sees his brother smiling and knows that nothing is ever going to try to tear them apart again.
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They're so young when they first meet that Andrew doesn't have any conscious memory of it, but his oldest and dearest friend is in every important memory he has. The first chess match he wins. The moment he found out his mother had died. The time he fell out of a tree and broke his arm.
And he knows the same is true for his best friend. He remembers the first time Edgar beat his trainer in a sword fight. Remembers when his grandfather got ill. Remembers when he tried to leap a gap and wound up with a broken arm instead.
They are intertwined like ivy, bonded more closely than they are even with the girls. Even after they grow older, begin to Challenge, falter under the strain of the Suit and their parents' expectations and protecting each other and Rachel and Argine all at the same time, they still can communicate without words. Even after the world upturns and their Four becomes Three and all Three are nursing broken hearts and Two are trying to do so with each other, Andrew knows that in any joy or sorrow, Edgar is still there, and vice versa.
Which is why, perhaps, when the greatest sorrow comes-- when a car crash separates them the way nothing and no one in this world could-- Andrew still feels Edgar there. Still can hear him laughing at a joke he'll tell Eileen and Argine, can feel him clapping a supportive hand on his shoulder when the burden of being King is too much, can sense him smiling when he sees how Rachel has opened up to them again.
And when he is bleeding out in the Spade Castle, he can distantly hear the angry growl of his best friend directed at the man who killed him. When he breathes his last breath, he can feel a familiar hand gripping his.
When he opens his eyes in the next life, he sees his brother smiling and knows that nothing is ever going to try to tear them apart again.