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PRINCE DOMAN

M y two battle-brothers step back, wary, blades in front of them. The Orb-Blades are dulled, manipulated for practice by our minds, the Orbs dormant, unaroused by the caricature of violence. When we go to war, they glow, deep blue-black, ready to drink blood.

Titus fit right in with royal life as the second of my triad, adorned with his platinum chain even during training, the huge diamond of it glittering, crafted by the imperial gemsmith.

The massive diamond has a padparadscha sapphire molded into the center, cut in the shape of the rising sun crescent that flies on the flags about the royal palace.

His thick black hair is held back by a sweatband, which is like a dam failing to stop winter melt as sweat streams down his face.

He pants in exertion, heavy gasps as he sucks in air.

Despite his exhaustion, he keeps his blade up, the platinum cuff around his wrist gleaming with more inlaid diamonds.

He looks like a barbarian who raided a palace.

Gallien is moving like water, constantly testing me, stepping forward and back, waiting for me to leave him an opening, keeping out of sword’s reach and making me waste my energy on blows that he is always slightly out of reach of, my blade whispering past him.

He conserves his energy, his aura taut with exertion.

We have sparred for two hours straight. Our muscles burn.

For the first hour, we kept a shell on our emotions, a battle of wills to keep our pain hidden from the Bond.

Cracks formed as our muscles burned, and now our auras pulse pain and determination, three exhausted, panting animals, none of us wanting to give in.

I sense it. A quick tension in their auras.

It’s there for a blink, and they charge forward, blades outstretched.

I duck, and Titus’ dull blade sweeps over my head, but my chest flares in pain as Gallien drives his weapon into me.

My sword falls, and I drive forward, knowing I’ve been hit, grabbing them both and lifting their enormous bulks.

I growl with exertion as I drive them into the air, throwing them down against the mat with a meaty thud.

I draw my dirk from my boot and tap Titus’ throat with the flat of the blade.

The ring flashes red. He snarls in annoyance at my hidden weapon, but the fight is not yet over.

I turn to Gallien, who is laying back, his blade nowhere near him.

His triumph flows through the Bond. He makes no move to defend himself, grinning in victory, as if the ring had flashed red to mark my simulated death and not Titus’.

“Bullshit!” I yell. “That strike of yours missed my heart!” I gasp it out, stalking to him, but I pause, touching myself on my chest where his practice blade hit. I blink, in confusion, because I was right—the blow was not an instant kill—when the entire ring turns red to mark that I am slain.

“It did miss. And my estimation, if you hadn’t paused, you would have had a few seconds to even the score before you bled out.” He waves his hand, and the holo-projector beams out data. I look up and growl in anger.

The AI analyzing our mock combat feeds back the report.

Gallien hit me with a fatal blow—but I had seven seconds, flush with adrenaline, to kill them in return.

My strike on Titus’ neck ended him, but my hesitation as Gallien controlled his aura perfectly, flooding me with his triumph, stayed me, making me hesitate just long enough that his strike put me out of the game.

“Trickery,” I snarl.

“The victor writes the rules,” respond Gallien and Titus in unison, but Titus shakes his head in annoyance. He didn’t know I had the second weapon in my boot, and I took him by surprise.

I let myself slump down on the floor of the training dojo in my warship Venator, my arms over my head, catching my breath.

The victor writes the rule.

That phrase makes us all go back into our memories, to our hundred years of Academy on Colossus.

If I thought I would be seen as a celebrity as the crown prince to the Empire on my first day, walking in from the palace where I had spent my first hundred years of life towards the marble barracks in the city, I was in for a shock.

I was put in a bunk like every other cadet and found myself in a sea of boys who were alien to me.

Their slate-gray eyes looked at me dully, sizing me up, knowing I was different.

Every other Aurelian boy in my year had woken up that same day in the cryo-chambers, brought up from deep underground, seeing the sun for the first time. My first memories are my family. Theirs are a blade being thrust into their hand, their first night the bunks of the training barracks.

They were all blank slates, ready to be written on with nothing but war.

The trainers saw me and knew they would have to break me down to rebuild me. I didn’t know it then. I was invincible.

I rose to every challenge easily. When they made me run around the training ground three-hundred times after I wasn’t paying attention in strategy class, I did it with a smug smile on my face, knowing that the other boys would have fallen to the ground in exhaustion.

I came back to class sweaty, the day’s exam half finished, and completed it first, handing in my paper with a smirk.

I demolished my opponents without practicing. I lazed in bed while they trained endlessly after hours. I slept while they studied.

I had a century of weapons training under my belt. I held a sword before I could even walk. My earliest memory is looking up at my three fathers, who used their fingers to gently wrestle with me as a babe, and I saw the pride in their glowing eyes.

I didn’t care about the petty resentments of the other Aurelian boys. It was a given. I knew they would be shamed by my excellence. It felt natural, and I enjoyed the grim set in their slate-gray eyes while mine glowed blue, marking me as different, marking me as better.

I was taller than them. Stronger than them. I thought myself smarter than them, filled with noble blood.

At the mess hall, each separate class divided by year sat at the rows of tables.

Nearest to the food and serving themselves first were the closest to finishing Academy, readying themselves to become squires in the army.

We ate last, and I resented it, seeing boys older than me with half my skill eat while I had to sit and wait.

On the walls, the holographic projecting listed the names, each year ranked separately.

By the first month, I was on the top by far, exceeding in sprinting, fighting, wrestling, war tactics, and even trivial subjects like basic medical training and anatomy.

I loudly boasted that they should list the statistics of the entire Academy together, not just by year, so that I might have a challenge.

Callix, the combat instructor, simply watched, silently.

That night, my belly full, I yawned in bed, longing for my holo-vid projector back home, for my giant bed, for the servants who would bring me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.

I yearned for my fathers, who could beat me in combat easily, for my younger brother Bruton, who had a skill and ferocity with a blade that kept me on my toes.

The food in Academy was good, hearty, simple fare, but I had been raised on delicacies from across the universe.

I was used to learning from my fathers, who always took time from the weight of leading to spend with me, and from my mother, the Queen Jasmine, who taught me deep lore of the human species.

My younger brother, Bruton, had been sick with envy when I was old enough to go to Academy. I tousled his black hair, telling him I’d set records he would never beat—with the thought that at least he would have something to aspire to.

In short, I was a right spoiled brat, but I didn’t know it.

That night, as I went to sleep, I noticed that the other boys were deep in study. It wasn’t too unusual, that they stayed up later than me, studying and preparing. Just another advantage. I always faced them when I was well rested.

That morning, when we woke, smart-watches were laid out at the base of our bunks. I slipped mine on, fiddling with it, trying to get it to work, but it remained blank. We marched to the training grounds for our morning exercise.

The training grounds were barren. The training dummies were gone, and the sand, instead of the normal bright white, was deep red, thick enough to be up to your ankles. We stood in the sands, filled with anticipation, at attention, our heads up, our backs straight.

Callix walked in with a huge sack of blunted metal swords. He strode up through the sand and threw them into the center of the arena. They gleamed under the morning sun, and my hand itched to grab one.

“This test will be a battle royale, on the sands of Terosa.”

My mind raced. Terosa. I knew that planet—one of the five of the Pentaris sector, the fiercely independent human-controlled territories that bordered us.

“Activate,” said Callix, and our smart-watches glowed. Our bodies were bathed with green light. We were all clad in the same white linen pants, shirtless, not yet earning the robes of battle.

“Each watch is attuned to your voice. A strike on the watch is a death. Strike your own watch to end the drill, or say stop.”

He looked over our ranks, one by one. “Any questions?”

“It’s last man standing?” I asked, not because I was confused, but because I loved the sound of my own voice.

“No. Quite the opposite. Was I not clear enough, Doman? The drill ends by striking one’s own watch or saying stop.”

I blinked in confusion, my mind trying to piece it together. This was unlike any other training—when I realized, as the other boys started to look over at me, their slate-gray eyes simmering with pent-up anger.

This was not a drill with one winner.

It was a drill with a single loser.