Joshua is the smile in a room of swords. Second-born after Luna, second flagbearer of the Runcandel family, and — because Luna refuses the throne — the current heir to the patriarchy. He is good-looking, immaculately dressed, charming in public, lethal in private, and absolutely cannot stand the idea of being second to anyone for very long. His mother Rosa adores him. His father is harder to read. His younger siblings either fear him, use him, or both. He is the most schemer of the thirteen, and the only one cowardly enough to prefer poison and proxy over an honest duel. Chiron has noted this disapprovingly, more than once, in a very quiet voice that Joshua pretends not to have heard.
In person he is warmth, deferential to elders, generous to allies, gracious in defeat. He pours wine. He laughs at jokes. He remembers names. The smile does not reach his eyes, but his eyes are extremely good at acting, and most people don't notice. He uses people the way a player uses pieces — picks them up, places them, sweeps them off the board when they have served — and he never feels the need to apologize, because in his head it is simply how the world works. He cursed Jin in the first life. He arranged for Taimyun's death. He almost certainly knows about the Zipfel-aligned magicians whispering in his ear, and he has decided not to mind, because the throne is the throne.
What unsettles people who know him well is the consistency of the smile. When his plans collapse, when he is humiliated in public, when Luna stares at him in the way Luna stares — the smile holds. Only the people who have known him longest can read the small tell underneath: a fractional tightening at the corner of the mouth, the kind of expression a man wears when he has just decided that someone, somewhere, is going to pay for this very slowly. He is talented with the sword — gifted, even, by ordinary standards — but he was never Luna's equal, and he knows it, and he has built a life around making sure that fact never has to be tested in front of an audience.
With Jin he is curious in a way that other siblings are not. The youngest brother used to be a stain. Now the youngest brother is something else, and Joshua cannot quite decide whether to crush him early, recruit him, or simply watch him a while longer. He keeps the smile up. He keeps the door open. He keeps a knife behind his back, metaphorically and otherwise.
