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“Thrain of Magnar,” states Prince Doman in his deep, booming voice. “Thank you for welcoming us to your planet.”

“Welcome, Crown Prince Doman, Prince Titus, Prince Gallien.”

Doman turns his attention to me, his gaze traveling over my form, and a chill races down my spine as he revels in the way the silver threads of the dress cling to every curve of my body, so different from his own hard lines.

I am glad for the veil, because my cheeks flush red with indignation and shame.

He’s seen me naked. During the Bond thrum that granted us each a vision of the other, I was in the shower, and he knows every part of me, the shape of my nipples, every curve and line of my body, even the tuft of thick hair above my pussy that I’ve shaved ever since, a private rebellion against him, so that I am not exactly how he saw me.

I’m used to wearing shapeless, formless gray uniforms. The silver dress has a femininity to it, and a strength, the heart of Magnar.

“As per the ritual of Magnar, the bride-to-be may state her objections,” says Thrain, looking over at me. There’s a tension in his voice. The Magnarian filming this aims his smart-watch straight at me.

“I have none,” I say, looking over at Prince Doman. His brows furrow, ever so slightly, and he steps forward, towards the thin magma flow, when I raise my hand.

“But as per the rights of Magnar, I may choose the flow which you must traverse.”

There’s dead silence, the only sound the pop of the magma flow as fire sprays. Doman tenses, but he doesn’t break eye contact with me, even as his battle-brothers step in closer.

“Shut off that fucking camera!” barks out Thrain, stomping towards the Magnarian recording.

“Keep them on,” says Doman. “We will show the universe this union.”

The Magnarian is sweating hard, looking from Thrain to Doman, uncertain who to obey. He bites his lip and keeps the feed going, pointing the smart-watch towards us.

I can picture Thrain’s grimace under his helmet. He turns to me, and I know he’s biting back curses, trying to keep his composure on the grand stage, every word broadcasted to an audience of trillions.

“Prime… Minister Adriana. This has been the site of our… betrothal union for thousands of years. I would ask you… respect our customs.” His voice is tense, polite, but every pause as he spoke was him fighting back vulgarities.

“I respect your customs, and your histories. It is still enshrined in your laws that a woman may choose the magma flow that her suitor must cross. I choose Heartbreak River.”

There’s a hissed gasp from the Magnarian recording.

“Take us there,” orders Prince Doman without hesitation to the Magnarians on his side of the magma flow.

One considering glance at me, and he follows them down a tunnel.

Thrain waves away the Magnarian recording, who takes a step back, and he himself grunts as he lifts the humming device that gives off the atmospheric shield, hefting it.

I walk with Thrain down another tunnel. When we’re out of earshot, turning a corner in the smooth, bored tunnel, he turns to me.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I will not have the fucking crown prince of the fucking Aurelian Empire humiliated on my planet. Heartbreak River? You know why it was named that?”

“I am aware of your histories, Thrain.”

“You’re bloody insane.”

“The flow is forty-one feet, three inches. He will see it, and he will not jump. Don’t fear, Thrain.

This is why I made him agree that only our side of the negotiations were reliant on the betrothal ceremonies.

He will still be bound, by his word of honor.

You’ll get all the mining machines you asked for, and your legacy will be secure. And I’ll be free.”

The black vision plate on his helmet stares up at me, and I can practically feel his glare.

“A word of honor you’ve scorned with trickery.

You think Doman is a fool? His lawyers signed off on the final agreement while you were sulking in your room.

Ancient buggers. Some of them might have been a thousand fucking years old, and they’ve been studying interplanetary law since they were ten.

You think there’s no way for them to wriggle out of this? ”

“Watch your tone, Thrain.”

“Watch my tone? After you humiliate us and say we’re a bunch of greedy little children, waiting for presents? You don’t get to play that game, now.”

“No matter what legalese may negate the deal, his honor will not allow them to renege.”

“How do you know that for certain?”

The vision is my most striking memory, the most clear in my mind. The three of the triad, striding towards me, hunger in their eyes, my scent in their nostrils driving them mad.

And I felt them. I felt every inch of their beings, and it cemented my hatred for them.

Doman’s rage, his lust for war, his strength and conquest. A warlord who views the universe as his birthright.

And the need, oh Gods, the need, ravenous, the three men like starving wolves as they hunted me down.

But under all that rage and violence, something else. The platinum thread of honor inherent to him that guides his code. I know, more than I’ve known anything before, that he will hold his side of the bargain, no matter how I wriggled out of it.

“I know.”

“You better be right,” he says, and stomps upwards through the tunnels, grunting as he strains under the weight of the shielding device, and we turn the corner to a cave that holds the source of that tiny little magma flow, which branches off from the main river of fire.

Heartbreak River. Named back when arranged marriages were more common, when Magnar had opposing familial clans who hated each other dearly, the old men and women marrying off daughters and sons to try and wield alliances to gain primacy.

But at the core of the marriages was the sacred right of refusal.

A man could choose not to step over the magma flow, and no one could force him.

And a woman could bring the husband-to-be to Heartbreak Ridge, the huge, over forty-foot gap over a chasm overlooking burning death, the main magma flow that feeds the factories and smelting forges of Magnar.

Many a man walked up to the flow and turned back, staring across the gap at the woman out of reach.

Some others, their hearts broken, attempted to leap across, plummeting screaming to their death.

“Come on then,” growls Thrain, stomping towards the ledge.

Twenty feet from it, he stops, and the atmospheric shield is humming three times as loud, struggling with the intense heat emanating from the pyroclastic flow.

He places the shield generator on the ground and, shaking his head, steps out of sight.

Behind me, the Magnarian is broadcasting this live to the universe, and I cannot understand Prince Doman.

Why would he want his humiliation shown to the universe? Why would he not simply give up, privately?

His conqueror’s aura I felt for an intense moment that stretched like a lifetime makes me sweat.

Because though this is an impossible task, somehow, someway, I know he will not give up.

My ruse might have slowed him down, but when he has destroyed the War-God, when he has crushed all opposition, I know he and his triad will come back for me…

But until then, I will be safe.

Emerging from a shadowed tunnel, Doman and his triad step onto a jagged stone ledge, overlooking the precipitous drop of over a hundred feet below.

The air shimmers with the latent heat from the destructive potential that looms beneath.

Their armored suits may shield them from the impact, but not from the consuming flames that would reduce them to ashes, the flames that would melt their crowns into liquid gold.

The ambient glow of the magma below casts an ominous light on their hard features, making their cold, marble faces even more alien and menacing.

Their Orb-Armor suits glow as they fight against the heat, but even they cannot stop it entirely.

Doman’s golden mane is slick with sweat, clinging to him, and his battle-brothers step back, away from the ledge, as he looks down into the fires of the pyroclastic flow, then up at me.

I do not see defeat in his eyes.

I see only his iron will, that same thread of platinum in his soul that molds with his honor, the hard core of his being.

I understand too late, and my blood runs cold.

He is going to jump.

He can’t give up. Not when his prize is so close.

He is going to plummet into the fires, and then Pentaris will be doomed.

Not by his triad’s hand, but by his Queen Mother.

Our spies have reported on her, and she has changed in the last decades, becoming more paranoid, more cold, willing to kidnap a pregnant woman and hold her captive, willing to do anything to end the war.

She will blame me for her son’s death, and she will stop at nothing to get her retribution on me and everything I care for. It all comes crashing down on me at once.

Doman steps back from the ledge, tracing his steps.

Then his hungry, blue eyes stare at me.

I am about to yell, to admit defeat, to move this back to the small flow before I damn every one of the hundred billion souls of my sector, when he charges forward.

He eats up the ground in huge steps, and without hesitation, his booted foot plants against the edge of the ledge, and he flings himself into nothingness.

He flies through the air, his blond hair whipping in the wind, his eyes only on me, jumping impossibly far, his hand outstretched towards me. Five feet from the edge, and I can see every line on his hard, marble face, when without a sound, he disappears into the chasm.