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“Do you promise?” She sounds so weak, so desperate, I almost get a pang of pity for her. But I’ve got to be cold. She’s working against me, undermining me domestically when I need support more than ever.

“I promise,” I say, and end the call. “Come in,” I say, louder, and the door opens, the royal servants filing in. They’re all in their late forties or early fifties, and I imagine they were women who aged out of harems and found good jobs in the palace. I’m shocked at how natural it feels to sit back and have them attend to me.

They finish with the final touches, braiding my hair loosely, and to my surprise, one of the servants opens a pouch and takes out dried flowers from Virelia, the colors of my childhood, delicately placing them in my hair. When she’s done, I realize where the look comes from.

“You know my planet well,” I say, and the hairdresser smiles.

“It was bold of me to presume, my grace. We can change it,” she says, but I smile and nod, letting her weave the flowers into my braids.

And old children’s tale, that everyone who grew up on Virelia knows. “The Princess in the Trees,” a fable about a girl who was abandoned by her parents during a blight and who grew up raised by the trees, who could speak with the forest, learning the language of the leaves. She married a local prince whose father, the king, was planning to cut down the forest for lumber. She used the marriage in order to plead that the trees be spared, thenfell in love with the prince when he stood up to the king and stopped the destruction.

On her wedding day, she wore a mixture of crimson and golden flowers woven into her braids. Like every girl on Virelia, I had silly fantasies of being her.

Now, as I look into the gilded mirror, that is what I see. Not a Prime Minister, but a princess of my world and Doman’s.

“All done,” says the hairdresser. “Is there anything else we can do for you, your grace?”

“That’s all. Thank you,” I say, and they exit silently. It’s not feeling strange anymore, being addressed as royalty. I sit straight-backed and wait, wishing I could feel the breeze, wishing I could smell the gardens below. The extra shielding around my tower gives a strange haze to the air outside.

When the news comes in, I don’t smile. I get only a sense of grim satisfaction as the breaking news flows in through my smart-watch. The hive of Pentaris media has been kicked, and the hornets buzz, each trying to outdo each other with headlines of war and chaos foreseen from Etherion.

Aeris publicly denounced the Sovereign Dawn. I watch the holo-vid feed on low volume. She looks so pale, shivering as she tells the worlds of visions of chaos and bloodshed if the Sovereign Dawn are allowed to take power.

I cut the feed. It’s more than enough. It’s the first time in over a century that a planetary representative of Etherion has gone public with a vision, and never so clearly. They’re finished. Even the pragmatic public of Magnar has superstitions about the visions of Etherion, and the support for the nationalist party has been ripped out at the roots.

With nothing more than a promise to ask a question, I’ve killed off my greatest political rival.

For now.

Others will rise...

I request a call with Doman. He picks up, but the screen stays black. “I should not see you, before we are in the Arena of the Gods,” he says, keeping the call on audio only.

“I thought this wedding was nothing but a sham.”

“Even so. There are customs to a wedding. I would see you first with my own eyes.”

“I’m ready. Would you send a Reaver for me?”

“Of course,” he says, but he hesitates, hearing something in my voice. “This line is secure.”

I had my security team pick scan the tower, not caring if it would offend. Even the four servants were scanned and patted down, and they didn’t protest.

“Aeris has a question for you.”

“So that’s what she got in return. Gallien’s told me the news from Pentaris. Well played.”

“The Planet-Killers. Are you using them in the defense of Colossus?”

“No. They’re too fragile. We don’t know what happens if they get hit. It’s safer that they lay dormant.”

“Good. Good, that should calm her down.” I wait a moment, before a thought wriggles into my mind. “Have youseenthem in storage?”

He pauses. “No. I haven’t.”

“Is there any way to?”

“I can find a way, after the wedding. Is Aeris putting visions of oblivion in your mind again?”