Page 28

PRINCE DOMAN

M y security team tried to convince me to wear my Orb-Armor, but I donned the traditional, red robes of the Terosan people.

Adriana is a radiant beacon before the sprawling desert, the sand-red dress blending with the sands of time until she seems part of the planet itself.

Even from the distance, I can see she allowed the Terosans to do her make-up in the bridal fashion, and when she blinks, her eyelids are painted the vibrant hue of the dunes, her lips contrasting in vivid, oasis blue.

She is tiny compared to the outstretched dunes, but her silhouette has a strength to it. She does not defy the sands but lets them become part of her, bolstering her.

Hundreds of thousands of people blanket the surrounding hills.

Behind me, the metallic sheen of my warship contrasts sharply with the golden desert, and when I walked out of it, I had the image of the desert slowly swallowing it up over tens of thousands of years, until there was no trace of the first Aurelian presence on these lands.

Adriana went first, carried on a palisade and dropped into the center of sandy nothingness.

The twin, curved blades reflect the harsh glow of the sun, crisscrossed at her feet.

The sun basks her, kissing her skin, and though it is boiling, she stands perfectly still, awaiting me.

The beautiful femininity of the dress flows over her willowy form, but she is the picture of duty. She came from the verdant green hills of Virelia, opposite of the endless mineral rich dunes of Terosa, but she loves every one of the citizens watching us silently.

Muscle memories, long ago, from Academy on Colossus, guide me as I let my feet slide in the sand. It thickens ever so slightly at my movements but lets me pass. There is a murmur from the near silent crowd, surprised that I know how to traverse their lands.

I slide through the sands until I am before her.

With grace, she bends down, lifting one of the twin knives, and places it gently in my hands. Then she bends once more, ceremonially picking up her own.

Adriana outstretches her right palm without fear, and I place mine next to hers.

I’m three times her size, my own palm dwarfing hers, and I clutch the knife steadily in my right hand.

In unison, we place the blades against each other’s flesh.

They are so sharp I barely feel the cut.

Single drops of our blood drip, falling into the sands.

There is a collective intake of breath from the watchers. In their eyes, we are accepted by the desert, our blood becoming part of the endless stories of these lands.

She places her cut hand over my mine, her fingers tiny against mine, blood against blood.

A unification ritual, yet I have never felt so far from her, my mind tormented by the last words she spoke to me before leaving the throne room.

I stare down at her, the only woman in the universe, every inch of her perfection, her green eyes staring back up at me without defiance yet without acceptance.

She cranes her chin, dutifully presenting her lips to mine, and I kiss her, soft and gentle, a kiss of strangers.

Then I scoop her up, cradling her tiny frame in my arms, and it is then that the people of Terrora raise their right hands as one, the vast carpet of citizens silently accepting the union.

Adriana looks up at me, but her expression is blank as I slide back towards my warship, gleaming white against the red sands.

If she is humiliated to be carried, she doesn’t show it, and I taste nothing in her scent.

I had been expecting defiance, hatred, perhaps shame, but instead, her scent is blank and empty, as if she has no emotions, as if this meant nothing.

The huge doors to my warship are open, and I bring her inside, setting her down as the ship rumbles to life and the doors seal behind us. The moment we are alone, she steps away from me, smoothing her dress where my hands rumpled the fine material.

“Prince Doman,” she says, with a curt nod, and leaves, through the hallways back to her ship.

I squeeze my hand tight, trying to feel a shred of pain from the cut, to feel something. Yesterday’s conversation is fresh in my mind, darkening my mood.

I would do anything to end this war. I have seen so many lives lost already.

Lukas’ battle-brothers, Calien and Tiber, were close friends, and yet in the sea of losses, I can barely remember them.

I’ve seen so many of my soldiers ripped to shreds by missiles, turned to dust and meat, bloodlines ended forever.

But that precious, innocent life under our palace on Colossus… Fay and her babe did not choose a warrior’s life.

I am not na?ve. I understand collateral damage.

I know the cost of this war on the planets where it rages.

We no longer fight, Orb-Blade and against Orb-Blade, Aurelian triads cut down while the buildings stand.

Total war. Now Reavers lace down fire, and apartment buildings are crumbled by stray missiles, cowering human inhabitants crushed under rubble.

I had thought I would do anything to end the bloodshed, but there is one thing I cannot do.

Fay is alone, trapped under the palace where I spent my childhood. She is caged beneath the marble parapets where the white flag of hope proudly flies.

She will be let free when the war is done. She will be.

I stomp through my warship as it takes off, the low hum of the Orb that powers my ship more felt than heard. My triad is in our chambers. I went alone down to Terosa, to speed up the ritual, every second with a cost in blood.

I rejoin them. Our chambers are deep inside the Imperator, protected by thousands of feet of metal of the ship on either side.

Vast and high-ceilinged, flawless marble floors without veins, three huge beds in the center of the main room.

Titus and Gallien are waiting for me, sitting at the wooden table.

I let my weight down heavily on my center bed. I feel like the entire ship is pressing down on my back.

Their auras are pregnant.

“Well. Speak then,” I say, scanning my battle-brothers.

“The ritual went well?” asks Gallien, and I raise my hand in answer, showing the thin line of the cut.

Then I sit, in silence, for them to broach the real topic.

“You know the Queen better than us. We were not born of the Bond,” states Titus, watching me carefully. It irks me, but it shouldn’t. I am leader of this triad, and final decisions rest on me, and me alone.

I run my hand through my hair, throwing it back from my eyes. I long for the battlefield, for my Orb-Blade humming in my hand, for my enemies clear in front of me.

“I don’t want to believe that my fathers and my mother would… would consider it.”

Gallien stands from the table. “The unborn life in Fay’s womb. We do not know what Obsidian will spawn. In hundreds of years, that boy will become a man. He will threaten the Aurelian Empire.”

I pull myself to my feet, staring him down. “How can you do these calculations?”

He shakes his head. “Because she can. Because she will. A threat to the Aurelian Empire is a threat to her family.”

I run my tongue over my teeth, deep in thought. My mother changed since the war broke out.

Or perhaps she did not change, but her molten core was revealed. She is not ice and snow, no matter how carefully she keeps her composure, her visage a mask. She loves me. She loves me and every one of my younger brothers.

“You saw her face when she thought Bruton was dead,” states Titus, uneasy, shifting in his seat.

I clench my fist, hard, until a drop of blood drips down the marble white of my forearm. “The Planet-Killers. We have one in our deepest ship bay, and the other is in stealth. Is this demonstration truly to ward off the Toad Kingdom’s advances… or does she plan to use them against Obsidian?”

Gallien’s eyes narrow. “Even that, she would not do. The planets under his control have billions of human lives,” he says, unable to even consider the possibility. “But Fay and her unborn son… they are a threat to all she holds dear, a threat that will grow.”

“I will not be part of that. I cannot be.”

Titus’ lips curl back. “If we let it happen, we are part of it.”

I stomp back and forth in my chambers, needing to move.

“What would you have me do? Go against my fathers? Call an election, fracture us when we need to be whole? The Elites would not vote for me. This is treason. My royal protection would save our heads, but we would be thrown into a jail cell, until the threat of Obsidian was done. Until… until every threat was gone,” I say, my voice darkening.

I stop. I turn to my battle-brothers.

“The wedding. When we wed her on Colossus, that is our chance.”

“Our chance for what?” Gallien’s aura has a tension to it. We’re alone here. No one would hear a word in our private chambers, but he’s cautioning me to be careful with my words.

“We break Fay free. Adriana has spy networks even on Colossus. We ask her for help, and of my younger brother.”

“She won’t trust us. She’ll think it is some ploy to uncover her spy networks,” says Gallien.

“She will trust us. She will trust me.”

“Fay is the most protected person on the planet. They’ve already quelled three attempts to break her free.”

“I will find a way.”

Just voicing these words is a crime.

I am already a traitor. The Interrogators on this ship would call on Colossus to strip me of my command and send us straight back to my home planet for trial if they caught wind of this.

The Interrogators demanded to take Adriana in for a session when they heard of our deal.

They wanted three triads in a room alone with her, going over her life story from her first memory to the most recent, to see if she was planning to assassinate me in my sleep.

I forbade it. I know they are watching me and reporting everything back to Colossus.

“I stand by you always, Doman. Whatever you command.” Relief floods through Titus’ aura, and it is painted on his face. We’ve all seen terrible things in war. But despite the horrors he’s survived, he travels light, unburdened by the final weight of command that rests upon my shoulders alone.

I am the leader of my triad.

“It’s time we had a long talk with our Mate.” I take in a huge breath and nod to myself, resolute in my decision.

“Adriana is no novice. We have to consider another possibility,” says Gallien.

“What?”

“You don’t become Prime Minster of over a hundred billion souls without the ability to deceive. It could be a ploy. If we’re arrested for treason, she does not have to wed us.”

“What could she report? Just words,” says Titus. “There’s no way to record in our throne room or chambers.”

“And if those words are true? What then? If this deed is being planned, then even a rumor that we know is enough to put our loyalty in question.”

I outstretch my hand. “We felt her aura. We know her. And if we’re going to break Fay free… we need her.”