He looked down at the sharp, glinting tip of the saber pointed towards him, and his gaze slowly followed to the old but strongly-muscled arms and finally landed on his father's face, which was even colder than the current winter frost. Feeling heavily defeated by his own fate, he sighed softly, then tried to earn himself a point, one last time, "That was not my intention."
At that, his father just sneered coldly, before he said each word coming out of his gritted mouth, "Agate, you have done enough. No one can save you, even the darkness will be swallowed by you. Get out of here now, or I won't say once you were my precious son."
Agate blankly looked at his father, who had somehow lost his previous years' grandeur, now looking much older and tired, but the spine on his back was as straight as his pride and stubbornness.
"Go where, Father?" his blank words came with the white mist of winter.
"Leave Aisling."
"And?" he questioned, his voice still as calm as ever.
"Go to Anthousai," as his father's voice landed, Agate looked at the ground, the piling snow around his feet and on his boots. After a few seconds, he chuckled with anger, finally, his stable composure showing signs of breaking, exasperatedly he asked, "And where is Anthousai? Does it even exist? Why should I be the one to be expelled to a no-man's land when I did nothing wrong?"
Before his father could say anything, there came a loud and commanding voice, "Say that again?"
He looked behind his father at the newcomer, his elder brother. He laughed amusingly, asking, "What part of what I said was wrong, brother?"
His brother, all too familiar with him, indifferently spoke, not entertaining his amusement to the least, "What have you done right? Oh, the time you saved Tansy? That time that you conspired to first put her in danger and tried to become the hero, saving beauty? Or are you talking about the time you threatened whom? The crown prince of Aisling!!! Or the time when you used our father's love for you to defy everyone and give out our military's weapon forging scroll to the Oleander? Or is it about you claiming to have found a cure for our mother's illness, the all-healing pill that you brought, which was the reason her condition worsened, leading to her death? Which...which one are you talking about?" By the end of his talk, his voice was rising high, his refined tone showing the hint of unbelievable anger.
Agate was silent as he again looked down at his feet, cold snow slowly falling down, he had no words to say, nothing left, he felt wronged, but he did not know where the feeling came from. All he could think was Why? Why? Why? He never intended all of this. While his method may have been crooked, his intentions were real, so why did it turn out like this?
His father's dejected gaze fell on his face, filled with disbelief. Suddenly, without saying anything, his once lowered saber rose again, this time quickly without any forewarning, as it lunged towards Agate at full speed with the full intent of killing.
"Father!" Aconite's voice loudly reverberated with shock as he watched his once the darling of everyone, his younger brother, being heavily pierced by his own father, who now held the gaze of looking disdainfully at the dead.
Before everything could even be registered in his mind, he felt immense pain hitting him, making his whole body tremble, as he was down on his knees, looking up at his father's bloody saber, in disbelief. He shakily asked, his eyes brimming with tears, "Why?"
The father who had sworn to protect him always, when he was a child, now looked down at his dying son with so much hatred that Agate finally realized he had no choice. It can never turn back the way it was; no one, not even his father, understood him. He laughed condescendingly as he looked at his bloodied hands and the deep gash appearing on his chest. Finally, he looked back at his father and brother, smiling with the same disdain they had shown him, something finally dawning on him, before he turned around and staggeringly headed towards the city gates of Aisling, never looking back. That winter, their previous family of three abandoned one of their's, in the frost, leaving nothing but dread in his heart, and a deep scar right above his heart, on his previously chiselled chest.