by Ashley West
Kael forced himself to swallow his first impulse. He wanted to tell her that they had no time. That he had already waited far too long to repopulate and his people were looking to him for guidance. That to give the humans leniency where others had received none would be unjust.
But in many respects, Danielle was right.
They had never absorbed a race dwindling so quickly as the humans. Usually, when they conquered a people, the race was facing decreased numbers from conflict, but not a population that was decreasing with no chance for recovery. Not one ravaged by disease looking for a savior.
And in that respect, he found guilt churning in his stomach. He still hadn’t told Danielle, or any other human, for that matter, that they had been saved to assuage his own empire’s very real need. That they needed the humans as much as the humans needed them.
But now was not the time.
“How much time are we discussing?” He worked to make his words as diplomatic as he possibly could – so much so that he thought his sister might be proud of him. Danielle made a most unqueenly face before replying.
“It’s hard to put a label on things like this…these are their families we’re talking about Kael...their entire lives. Some will take longer than others.”
“If you had to put a timeline on things…absolute minimum.” The young woman frowned even as her gaze turned thoughtful, and she was silent for a moment before raising her voice again.
“One year One HUMAN year.” She spoke clearly, her eyes never leaving his. “You’re asking me to do something impossible, Kael…this is the best I can do.”
She could obviously sense his displeasure. Half a moon? His people had waited two entire moons already. He didn’t know if implementing such a timeline would lead to unrest. But if he didn’t try…then they might face rebellion from their newest citizens…atop the problems they already faced with the Remans.
And that, he could not afford.
He would have to speak to the council to see about implementing yet another delay in the repopulation, and he would have to do it fast to quell the rising dissatisfaction amongst the humans. But to address them…he would need his wife.
“If I were able to give them this time…would you address them?”
Danielle’s lovely eyes immediately widened. “Address them? How do you mean address?”
“I mean speak to them publicly.” He didn’t mince words. “They know that a human has married the prince of their empire, but they have seen nothing of her. It would comfort them, perhaps, to know the face of the woman in the royal house….speaking as their representative.”
Of course, she might never have thought of things this way – but with time, and a little luck, perhaps she would.
“Alright.”
He was momentarily taken aback by the speed at which she answered. He arched a brow. “Alright?”
Danielle nodded slowly. “If it would help you…if it would help the empire…I’ll do it.”
And in that moment, he saw, for the first time…that the empire might soon have a queen worth reckoning with. Danielle might not have been a woman he’d choose for himself in another life, but he could not say that life with her in his household wasn’t interesting.
No.
And it would only become more so as time went on.
Chapter Six: Unrest
She had been utterly terrified.
Even though a full two weeks had passed before Kael had thought the human population of Garinia calm enough to be receptive to her, when she had walked out onto the podium before them, she had been almost paralyzed with fear. She looked radiant, from her impeccable updo to her shimmering golden dress, yet still, she was human in the trembling of her hands and her unease.
Not yet two months a princess, venturing upon something most never attempted in their lifetime. But he could do nothing but watch her crest those steps and ready herself to deliver a speech that could make or break the human population she spoke to. Even with Kaia watching anxiously beside him, the prince still expected that things would end disastrously.
Danielle surprised him.
He had worked with her on the speech that she would present to the humans, making sure that she honed every aspect of her address to deliver the most impact. On certain aspects however, she had cautioned him to be gentler – that she had to emotionally connect with her people as one of their own. In that aspect, he could not guide her, and so he had allowed her to write those parts herself.
When he listened to the words she spoke – watched her eyes glow with the passion of her belief as she addressed those who had traveled to Garinia from so far away, he could see the first stirrings of the queen she might become. The more she spoke, the more her nervousness ebbed, until her voice was firm and decisive – her stance tall and proud. Beside him, Kaia smiled, watching her student blossom.
When he realized that his wife wasn’t going to fall apart, however, Kael turned his eyes to the human population at large. Every one of them had been gathered into an immense atrium, and they stood, gazing wide eyed up at his human wife as she assured them that she knew their suffering and pain. That they would be given time, but when that time came to an end, they must try their very best to fit into the world to which they’d been brought. They had to live, for those on Earth who would die.
Then, in halting tones, the Prince listened to her speak of her own personal experience with the virus that had killed off the vast majority of the human race. Her story was enough to make him turn his attention back from the assembled crowd of wide-eyed humans and to the woman standing on the podium before them.
She had lost both her mother and father when she was very young, and then, shortly after, her two elder siblings had succumbed to the disease. While she had been devastated, she’d kept on living to care for her youngest brother, who had fallen ill when he was eight years old. He died when he was fourteen – a scant few weeks before the Prince had arrived on Earth, and when he had, Danielle had felt like she had nothing left to live for. She’d been utterly crushed.
The one reason she’d chosen to keep on fighting was so that she might find a cure; and the only cure that they were able to contend with was the one that was being offered to them right now: to have children with Garinians that would carry permanent immunity in their genetic code. Once mature, those children would be returned to the Earth in order to repopulate it with those that could withstand the virus.
Danielle commiserated with her people in a way that was impossible for the prince. She understood more than he could about humanity, and he could see in their eyes that as they watched her, they began to believe. They began to settle…and they began to comprehend. Kael felt the tension in his muscles ease as he realized that his wife had truly made an impression on those who listened to her. And the moment he began to relax, other fiercer emotions began to creep in.
Pride, amazement, and a tinge of regret. Danielle was altruistic not because she’d lost any less than her fellow humans, but because, somehow, she found the will to keep on living when other options seemed much easier. Kael knew that if he lost everything dear to him – his sister, his brothers, and his nephew, he would be able to go on; but not because he did not feel their loss. He would continue because it was his duty – because he had no other option.
In some ways, Danielle was stronger, even, than himself.
The thought made him frown as he remembered the promise he had made to himself. His marriage was supposed to be for political reasons. He had resented the idea from the start, and he had sworn that marriage would not make him soft and emotionally pliable like the rest of his family. Unlike his brothers and sister, he was a warrior – the only one among them who could make important decisions when it came to life and death.
Undue affection for a family he’d never wanted would change that.
However, try as he might, he could not quell the pride that rose in his throat at his wife’s triumph – nor could he deny that when the humans rais
ed their hands in applause, her smile was more radiant than he had ever seen. With careful grace, she turned from her fellow humans, striding towards him and Kaia as her face glowed with triumph.
And that’s when it happened.
There was a sudden explosion that rocked the foundations of the amphitheater, sending stone and dust into the air. Shrill screams came in the wake of the awful din, and as Kael’s heart leapt into his throat, he called for the guards stationed around the perimeter of the podium.
He could hardly see – and his ears rang from the cacophony that had erupted. Next to him he felt Kaia clutching his arm – heard her frantic cries. In that moment, he thanked the Gods that he had persuaded her to leave Hadric behind at the palace. He glanced over to her, his eyes scanning the dust that covered her gown and her pale skin in a search for blood and broken bones. However, after a quick perusal, he found that Kaia had sustained no injury.
Kael leapt into action. Bellowing directions, he commanded four guards to stand watch over his sister as others dispersed into the crowd to help the humans. Kael quickly realized that their mounting cries were not only of shock, but panic and pain.
Some of them had been injured. Within minutes, the air was thick with the scent of blood and medics had been sent for. There was an immense hole in the Northern wall of the amphitheater, where it was all too clear that someone had planted an explosive – just to the east of the podium. The raised platform itself had been torn apart on one side, the stone in crumbled ruin, dust particles thick in the air.
Kael couldn’t breathe.
With the aid of ten guards, he stepped onto what remained of the platform to search for his wife, calling out her name. She hadn’t been far from the initial site of the explosion, the implications of which he hardly wanted to consider.
Her smile.
She’d been smiling so beautifully – so radiantly. He couldn’t bear the thought of finding that face in tatters.
He would find who had done this – and they would pay.
But for right now, his first priority was finding Danielle.
Gradually, the dust began to settle, and when it did, he and the guards began clearing huge pieces of stone that had collapsed in the explosion. They were looking for their princess among the rubble; and as Kael’s muscles strained to move the debris, he only hoped that he wouldn’t find her under any of it. There was no way her fragile body would have survived the impact.
After several minutes that seemed like an eternity, there came a shout from just behind what used to be the rear barrier of the podium. There, in a niche that had been created by the pressure of two immense stone edges, lie Danielle’s unconscious form. Kael rushed to her, his heart pounding as he immediately lifted her limp form into his arms. There was a thin scratch across her forehead from where a fragment of stone must have cut her, and at the back of her head, a knot rapidly swelled.
Apart from those two injuries, he could see nothing life threatening. His wife was covered in dust and her gown was ruined, but medics quickly confirmed that she’d only been knocked out, and might have a possible concussion. Kael quickly gave them leave to take her to the nearest medical facility, accompanied by his sister and twenty armed guards.
He himself had to stay behind. There was damage control to be done, and he needed to show the humans that their new leader would not abandon them in their time of need. As his wife had so poignantly pointed out during the time they’d taken to compose her speech – he needed them to like him. Not only as their prince, but as someone they trusted.
Despite the fact that he hadn’t wanted to give them the year Danielle suggested – that they were a race he did not know, and who had resented his decree since they’d arrived on Garinia, now they depended on he and his people for help.
Kael called in more guards and medical staff, directing them to the people that needed the most attention. Within the hour, they had begun to empty the amphitheater of those who hadn’t already fled when the explosion had occurred. Roughly two hundred humans had been injured, five of them killed. The discovery made the prince bristle, anger simmering a slow burn in his gut.
The chaos lasted the entire day, and with it came scientists and analysts vowing to discover exactly who it was who had perpetrated the crime. However, as the hours passed – as more fragments of the explosives were found and no answers unearthed, the prince grew more and more irate. He kept remembering his wife’s beaming face, seeing her brief look of surprise at the moment of the incident, and then the sickness that had welled in his gut when he realized he couldn’t find her in the dust.
He would find who had done this. Find them, and make them pay.
However, when the first sun began to sink below the horizon, they were no closer to finding the criminals who had attempted to kill the princess – who had killed five of Garinia’s newest human citizens; and Kael’s ire rested on the edge of a knife. When a scientist voiced to him an asinine question – one he didn’t know the answer to – the man found himself the sudden victim of the prince’s wrath.
He went flying through the air to land several meters away in a battered heap. Kael immediately regretted his actions, forcing himself to swallow the helplessness that threatened to envelop him. He had allowed this to happen. It was he who had advocated Danielle’s speaking to the humans in such a place – he who had wanted Kaia to be there if she needed her. He had placed his family in danger – and he had failed the humans, who were already dissatisfied with him.
When the guards attending him looked from the dazed scientist to their prince, however, there was no judgement in their gaze. They, too, were soldiers – charged with keeping the people of the Garinian Empire safe. They, too, felt guilt at allowing this incident to occur; they were that caliber of men and women; if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in the militia.
Quickly, the prince apologized for his behavior. Even as the scientist was being helped to his feet – apologizing profusely – Kael turned on his heel to stride from the stadium. A profusion of guards followed him, flanking him on every side as he made his way through the city streets to the medical facility to which he’d sent his wife and sister.
There had already been a public order to close the streets. Every citizen had been cleared from public areas in order to keep the population safe for the time being; so they met very little resistance as they made their way across the capital. They reached the medical center within a half hour, breezing toward the soldiers he’d posted at the front entrance.
The place was pandemonium. In addition to housing two members of the royal family, there had been a number of injured sent there, and so the doctors were swamped with a never ending array of duties. However, when their prince arrived, the bowing and scraping began the moment he walked through the door - and only paused while he talked to the additional guard stationed outside Danielle’s private room.
It took little for him to be admitted within, to where no less than three doctors were monitoring his wife on a bevy of machines. She was conscious, sitting up on an examination table with Kaia seated by her side, stroking her hand gently. When he entered, both women immediately looked up, Kaia rising to her feet immediately. When Danielle made to follow suit, Kael swept into the room with a frown. “Sit.”
Kaia sank back into her chair, helping Danielle back into her position on the examination pad. Without any pretense, the Prince made his way over to his wife to take her face gently between his hands, turning it this way and that to search for any further injuries. The cut on her forehead had already been tended to, covered with a minute bandage, and the bump at the back of her head had disappeared. She winced slightly as he tilted her head ever so slightly and he muttered a low apology. The young woman’s skin was pale, her eyes large and apprehensive as he checked her over.
“She is alright?” The prince directed the question to no doctor in particular, even though he already knew the answer to the question. He had informed the medical facility to tell him of anything t
hat might threaten her life the moment they encountered it.
“Perfectly fine, my prince.” A female doctor with forest green locks and large purple eyes bowed deeply. “She has incurred a slight concussion that we’re already correcting. She should be fully recovered by the dawn of the new day.” The woman hesitated slightly before clearing her throat. “There is, however…one other matter…”
Kael stared at her, waiting for her to continue. The doctor seemed hesitant to speak, raising his ire – and he was on the cusp of ordering her to speak when Danielle interjected.
“I’m pregnant, Kael.”
The Prince froze, words fleeing him entirely. It took a long moment for the information to sink in.
Pregnant. Danielle was carrying his heir.
He had no idea why it had come as such a surprise. As much as he liked to indulge in his wife’s form, the prospect of a child had been an inevitability. Even so, a few mere moons ago, the prince hadn’t been able to fathom the idea of marrying at his age. He’d thought that marriage would come to him when he was older, and then, it would be an arrangement of convenience. He would have an heir and a family as was expected of him, and he would know his duty to the continuation of his family line had been fulfilled.
But this…this was different. While his marriage to Danielle had been an arranged one, he had been so wrapped up in the notion of his inevitable duty that he had not paused to consider the child itself.
His own flesh and blood.
Kael had promised himself that he would not let the idea of a family soften him. From his own family, he was the only soldier. The only one able to make the life and death decisions required to keep the empire from falling apart. Giving his wife and child undue affection…letting them control his heart…the notion promised to steel away his cold clear-headedness.
But even now, when he considered that he could have lost not only his new bride, but the unborn child inside her, rage filled him. As angry as he thought he had been, the emotion increased threefold.