Oh but how he loathed to share that very tale of himself! Dorian, for nearly all of his adult life, each endless century, had refused to utter but even a word in regards to Ferdinand's death. Indeed, he had been so silent upon it that even history had been unable to properly recall just how the previous Italian King had died. Those arguments between historians persisted even now with precious few suggesting any sort of assassination. Those that did so never suggest Dorian himself. Those authors favouring suggestions of political enemies or jaded lovers. History had spared him. Whether by fate or chance or luck he hardly knew and yet, for as long as Dorian could so recall that very knowledge of his actions that night had all but tormented him. That boy whom had stabbed Ferdinand in a veritable fit of rage was not the man Dorian strove to be. Indeed, he had promised himself that very evening that he would never allow such violent intent to overcome him again, even in anger. To live with his actions had hardly been easy and yet to share them with Sebastian was a monumental task. How he dreaded to see that look of horror upon his lovers features! Dorian near assured any sharing of such a story would see Sebastian recoil from him. The very notion that his vampire husband had, surely, been involved in far more than one bloodied death in his life so hardly occurred to the Monarch in that moment. Dorian so distinctly caught up in the notion that a murderer was surely not how Sebastian had thought of him- until now.

Those very words of admittance caught upon his lips and within his throat as if they were reluctant to offer themselves even now. Dorian's silver gaze drifted away from his husbands. The Monarch seeking that ruined floor once more to focus his attention on in some effort to spare himself the very look he was assured would overtake his lovers' features once he continued. What if Sebastian so wished to divorce him? The vampire would surely have grounds for it. To conceal that monstrous act from his lover would be akin to being dishonest about who he was. Oh heavens but this was a mess. Dorian, in that moment, was positively overcome with a mixture of emotions far too convoluted for the Fae King to attempt to understand. One hand lifted up. Dorian's fingers ran through his brunette locks in that moment. That subtle sign of stress the only indicator of that torment that turned within his thoughts as the Monarch struggled to organise his words once more. That admittance, at last, tumbling in a torrent from his lips. That murder of his step-father so finally revealed after so many centuries. Those words were near painful and yet- not nearly so painful as the silence that seemed to follow in their wake. Whatever Dorian had so expected from Sebastian in those moments that followed- silence had certainly not been it. That lack of a response from his husband was near akin to a fist clenched about his heart. It was worse than he had believed. Sebastian was too horrified at him to even speak.

Dorian's silver gaze shifted slightly upward, the Monarch daring to glance toward his silent lover just as Sebastian stepped forward to...embrace him. That distinct conflict of emotions so momentarily resulted in a decidedly confused look upon the Monarch's features before Sebastian's lips pressed gingerly to his forehead in that sweet and yet subtle affection. The vampire was content to insist that his crime had been a long time ago.

"You mean you....do not intend to divorce me?"

This, it seemed, was the singular most potent fear to plague the Monarch in the wake of his admittance, his silver iris so turned upward his lover then before Dorian's own arms lifted to wrap about Sebastian's waist. His head turned to rest upon the vampires chest.The monarch, in that moment, unable to help the sigh of relief that left him in that silence once more. It felt....curious to have admitted that very burden he had carried for so terribly long and yet that Sebastian hardly intended to leave him was, perhaps, a far more pleasing feeling. The vampire's sudden query on just what Ferdinand and himself had been fighting about that evening prompted a frown from Dorian's features once more in consideration. It had been so very long ago and indeed it was hardly that argument before Ferdinand's death that Dorian so often recalled yet- how well he remembered it all the same.

"Mother had only died a few days before. We'd not yet buried her. Her body rested in the chapel as was custom so that we all might pay our respects to her. As her husband Ferdinand was supposed to sit beside her body in vigil and observed prayer for two evenings. He refused to do so. I went to speak with him about it. Upon reaching his chamber I discovered he was already with another woman. I sent her from the room and we argued. He did not respect my Mother in life, did he need to disrespect her so in death as well?"

Dorian paused but momentarily. Even now, so many years later, that near familiar anger turned somewhere within himself like a dull and distant spark.

"Ferdinand was wild with me. I was a bastard child, I had no right to speak to him of disrespect when my existence was so apparently a disrespect to himself. He struck me and I was knocked down by the force of it. I had a black eye for weeks after that. Yet- that was when Cesare began to cry. He was only an infant, barely a few months old and still at my Mother's breast when she died. His room was next door to my Father's chambers, his crying could be heard through the walls. He'd been near inconsolable since Mother had died, he refused to feed from the wet nurse he screamed day and night. We would learn later that he had already contracted Mother's Plague."

Cesare had surely been sick for days, his pain unrecognised, was it any wonder the babe had squalled as it did?

"Ferdinand was already furious with me, Cesare's crying pushed him over the edge. He said he would not have two bastards squalling at him and that he intended to do what he should surely have done with me when i was born and drown him. I fully believe in that moment he intended to do it too. He was wild with rage. He had killed children before. He would do it again. I threw myself at him. I was furious at him for myself, for my mother, for Cesare. We fought and I stabbed him. It is why I am so loath to summon those blades you have seen me summon before. I fled Ferdinands chambers and he was not found until next morning. Cesare died less than four days later from Plague. I never knew whether he was Ferdinand's or Matteo's. He was human, not Fae, he could have belonged to either of them. He died too young to know. I'm not sure if either of them truly knew who his Father was. It hardly matters now I suppose."

Dorian Aragona