The Fiercest Craving

by Max Jager

  5:08 p.m.

  "In Global news, the capital of Aezar is in a state of utter disarray. We now go to Sophie Tanner stationed live at Royale in the midst of this catastrophe. What does it look like over there Sophie?"

  Erand watched impassively as a screen within the cruiser showed a scene of complete chaos: tens of thousands of people storming the streets, bearing torches, brandishing signs, and collectively forming a massive protest.

  "Thank you, Donna. I'm standing in the middle of Capitol Square, located at the very epicenter of Royale, arguably not a very safe place to be at this time. The huge protest that is ensuing around me comes as a response to a standoff earlier between IFG officials and a mysterious organization we now know as the 'Council.' Just a couple hours earlier, this organization thwarted the execution of death row inmate Brent Knox and unmasked him, if you will, revealing his identity to be that of District Attorney Winston Serann. Serann was left unharmed at the scene. Meanwhile, the man whom we have believed to be Mr. Serann all along was actually the inmate, Mr. Knox, in disguise. We have yet to learn how the Council was capable of switching these two identities right under the noses of the IFG, but I suspect that that obliviousness on the Fed's part is the cause of the riots occurring at this moment. Back to you, Donna."

  Erand flicked a button on his chair and powered off the display. He turned his attention to Lem, who had begun to address the crew.

  "We will be touching down at the regular landing point in fifteen minutes. Erand, you are to continue working at the Prosecutor's office, but we will now be contacting you by sending messages to your phone that will automatically delete themselves upon being read. Until then, sit tight and do as the real Serann orders you to. This will likely involve building a case against the Council, and we will need continual updates on how much the Feds know about us. Understand?"

  "Loud and clear," Erand affirmed.

  I'm sorry, Serann, but I'm afraid I have no choice but to betray you. Hopefully you can forgive me later on.

  B3 Chapter 6

  Six years later...

  VI – Nano Era, Year 4 – Serann Dynasty

  3:05 p.m.

  Yes, that's right. Ever since that fateful day, my loyalties have been with the Council. Thanks to me, the IFG is no closer to catching them than they were six years ago. One might guess that my cooperation in the Cerina case is feigned, that I'm just doing this to keep up appearances with Serann, who's now the most powerful man in the known universe. I have to say that notion is at least partially correct. To recap, I told my colleagues that I'm visiting the hospital to collect forensic evidence related to the moment of Cerina's death. Truth be told, my main intention is to learn the whereabouts of the child in question. Cerina christened him Jaren, a fairly ordinary name if you ask me.

  "Now approaching the Royale Medical Complex. Please remain seated until the train comes to a complete stop."

  That's my cue.

  3:22 p.m.

  Hathren adjusted his spectacles, examining a sheet of paper.

  "You'll find everything you need in that box: amniotic fluid stained sheets, IV needles, blood samples, you name it."

  Erand nodded and kept eye contact. His force of will seemed to bore into Hathren every second Hathren kept his silence.

  "I take it you had further motives for coming to see me?"

  Erand nodded again, slowly.

  "I can't tell you what you want to know this instant. Not while I play the part of Serann's Director of Medical Affairs. When I lose that designation, I'll be sure to tell you everything if I'm still alive. Now go."

  That last command had a sort of finality to it, and Erand knew better than to disobey his former guardian. He took the evidence box and exited wordlessly from the room.

  3:39 p.m.

  "Erand? It's Stacy. I thought you might like to know we've learned a lot interviewing Cerina's classmates."

  Erand's grip tightened on his smartphone. "Go on."

  "Well as you might have guessed, she was just about the most popular girl in school prior to her hospitalization," Stacy proclaimed.

  "But of course. Doesn't hurt your social life to belong to the most powerful family in the Sovereignty," Erand added sarcastically.

  "Anyways, naturally, every boy in her grade level asked her out at some point but she never got into a serious relationship with anyone in the school."

  "And so?"

  "I think we can rule out anyone in the school as the man who impregnated her."

  "I'm not too sure about that," Erand refuted. "If you were a young teenage boy attending high school alongside the daughter of an Emperor, would you not vie for her affection with all your will?"

  "Well, power isn't everything to a man. Besides, in order to attend Royale, either your family needs to have deep pockets or you're admitted with a special grant given out by the government. Hathren's the only person we know of to have benefited from this."

  "And your point is?" Erand pressed.

  "Damn it, Erand. Don't you get it? Every boy and girl in attendance at Royale is a scion of the rich and powerful inhabitants of Aezar. There should be no reason for anyone to be overly resentful for not winning Cerina's affections when there are other rich and beautiful girls to choose from. And since she rejected everyone who made advances, no one boy could really be jealous enough to be driven to the point of raping her. Furthermore, I'd hope that anyone brought up in such a refined environ-"

  "This argument is going nowhere," Erand interrupted, detecting a losing battle. "In any case, I have a blood sample from the child. A DNA separation test will tell us with near certain accuracy whether the father is anyone registered to Royale, Aezar or even the Serann Sovereignty."

  "How long would it take to make such a determination?"

  "It'll take a day to retrieve the genetic information by removing the intersection of the child's DNA with Cerina's and then another month to compare the partial profile to every known man in the Sovereignty."

  "What about just Aezar, or better still, Royale?"

  "I'd fathom a week for Aezar and a day for Royale. I'm no expert in this, though. It's up to our forensic team to deliver test results to us as soon as possible. Anything else?"

  "A close friend of hers told us that she kept a diary. If found, it could shed light on the events leading to her pregnancy."

  "Right then, I'll alert Lex and Kor to the presence of such an item. Be sure to have a report ready with all the testimony you collected at Royale," Erand reminded her.

  "Of course, sir." And she hung up.

  Erand immediately proceeded to call Kor, who picked up on the first ring.

  "Hey, Erand, I was just about to call you actually."

  "Oh?" Erand sounded amused.

  "Yeah, wanted to let you know Lex and I found a set of diaries she's kept throughout her life. One in particular keeps a record up to a year before her death. So why'd you call?"

  "Well I was going to alert you to the diaries, but it looks like you were a step ahead there," Erand said abashedly.

  Kor chuckled. "They were hard to miss. Neatly stowed on a bookshelf beside her hospital bed. I'll leave them on your desk along with an inventory report of everything I took."

  "Sounds good. See if you can find anything else of use and append it to the report if you do."

  "Will do. About to wrap up for today, though. Delivering the goods to you is the last thing on my agenda."

  "Alright, I'll talk to you later then."

  Erand hung up and made his way back to the prosecutor's office, eager to examine the new piece of evidence.

  4:06 p.m.

  They looked like a typical set of girl's diaries: pink covers and leather binding with dates engraved on them in pink pretty print. Erand picked up the one labeled "Nano 3 Summer 20 –," sat down in his chair and began to read.

  Nano Era, Year 3

  Summer 20

  My penultimate year at Royale has finally drawn to a close, and university entrance exa
ms are right around the corner. Papa will absolutely kill me if I don't get into Ventare, his Alma Mater, or one of the other Imperial schools. In order to increase quality of students selected to attend universities, he decreed that admittance would be solely based on performance in entrance exams and course grades at school. Schools can no longer auction off a few of their much-sought-after slots or slacken their requirements for even a tenth generation prospective student. This puts me in quite a pickle I guess. As the daughter of the most powerful man in the known universe, I'd naturally be under public scrutiny to attend a prestigious university, but even the most powerful man cannot guarantee me a spot at a university thanks to his own decree. Well, diary, I guess I'll have a lot less time for you among my academic and social lives. Better get studying for those exams.

  Summer 25

  I just got back from our high school class annual summer trip, and I have to say it was a blast, all things considered. This year, we went to Azure Bay Resort, one of the first places to be rated five and a half stars by Aezar's Tourism Department. Everything about the locale was perfect: clean private beaches with warm sand and cool, pristine surf; the best service I have ever seen outside of Papa's palace; and not a single copper credit spared on any detail, be it the materials used to build the bathrooms or the grand fountain of a dolphin rising from the ocean in the lobby. Everything was simply perfect.

  I had the indecency - don't ask me why - to only wear my two-piece swimsuits during the time at the beach or in one of the indoor pools. I feel kind of sorry for those boys with their still uncontrollable hormones. If I could, I'd trade places with them for just a moment to feel the damage inflicted by feminine wiles, and then sadistically cause it over and over again. I'm kidding about that last part, but really that was a fun trip. Back to studies!

  Erand flipped through more of the entries and skimmed their contents. None of them seemed to have anything to do with even meeting a male individual let alone having intercourse with one.

  "Guess we'll have to wait for those blood test results," he muttered to himself. He slipped the current diary in his briefcase and placed the others in his personal evidence cabinet.

  9:49 a.m.

  "The test results are back," came the familiar voice of Royale's Chief of Forensics.

  "And?" Erand prompted, impatiently drumming his fingers on his desk.

  "From a sample of the child's hair left with the stained bed sheets and other evidence, we were quickly able to determine that the half of the DNA unaccounted for belongs to an Orc."

  Erand raised an eyebrow.

  "A pure Orc?"

  "We believe so. The general patterns match with other samples in our database."

  "Any matches?" Erand asked dubiously.

  "Besides the obvious pattern recognition, none. We of course checked every record of every male Orc ever tagged and sampled within the Serann Sovereignty. Needless to say, this is not an extensive list thanks to the Raid of 1021. Furthermore, Serann would have the Chief of Law En forcement's head if a single renegade Orc were to be found here, in Greenshire Province, or in Azure Bay."

  "And these are the locations she is known to have visited within the past couple years? All ring a bell to me with the exception of Greenshire."

  "She chose Ventare as her Pre-College Orientation site and Higher Education Aptitude Test proctor, so naturally she would have had to visit the province."

  "Ventare…" Erand bit his lip in thought. "If I recall correctly, they do have the vastest collection of DNA samples from every living organism known to exist on Aezar. I have gone to them time and again to validate incriminating evidence for my cases. Did your search include their collection of Orc samples?"

  "Naturally, the database of every research institution would be included in my search," the Head of Forensics asserted.

  "This nonetheless reveals a new lead," Erand pondered. "Surely if Cerina's visit to Ventare has anything to do with this case, my better judgment informs me that they would not simply leave incriminating evidence out in the open."

  "I wish you luck in your search, then," came a curt reply followed by a beeping sound.

  1:41 p.m.

  Erand had chartered a private car to the Ventare campus and now stood before the entrance to the Genetics Research Lab. He made his way into the lobby, greeted the same receptionist he had known for years, and entered an elevator. He pressed the button labeled B2 and stood there stolidly as the elevator whirred into action and finally reached its destination.

  "Basement Level 2 – Research Lab B. Please watch your step as you exit the elevator."

  Erand briskly strode out of the elevator and scanned his prosecutor's badge at the screening gate. The red LED above the turnstile changed to green, allowing him passage into the facility. He approached a brown-haired, hazel-eyed male student currently analyzing a 3D model of a substance on a large 30 inch monitor.

  "Good to see you again, Brek," Erand greeted.

  "Likewise, Prosecutor Drel," Brek smiled back.

  "Please just call me Erand," Erand insisted jovially. "Hard at work on your Master's thesis I see?"

  "Indeed," Brek affirmed. "So what brings you here today?"

  "The Cerina Serann case," said Erand assuming a grimmer tone of voice.

  "I see," Brek replied damply. "Terrible tragedy indeed."

  "So in any case," continued Erand, "I am here to see if the lab has anything that can shed light on this case."

  "Right," said Brek dismissively. "If you're referring to the Orc samples we have, the Head of Forensics would have already cross-checked the DNA sample with everything, yes?"

  A grim expression overtook Erand's face. "Brek, I never mentioned anything about an Orc regarding this case. In fact, I only realized the connection hours earlier."

  The blood drained from Brek's face as he realized his slip of tongue. "I-," he stuttered, "I just happen to be knowledgeable in these things. It is my field after all."

  Clearly, this did not fool Erand who among prosecutors was considered to be a master of lie detection. He maintained the stern look on his face, telling Brek that he was getting absolutely nowhere.

  After ten long seconds, Brek regained his composure and spoke. "Fine, it's true. I can tell you what you need to know. Follow me."

  Brek led Erand past the rows of computers and into a long corridor that formed a T-junction at the end. Here they went right, then left, then right again before arriving at a polished steel door situated at the end of a hallway. Brek scanned his fingerprint and retina and entered an eight-digit passcode before the door finally opened to yield the secrets contained inside. They entered, and the door closed behind them. Erand heard its locking mechanism click into place.

  "You see, Erand," Brek began in an almost sinister tone, "my Master's research on the inhabitants of Aezar in pre-historic times was simply a cover-up for my true project."

  The hair on Erand's arms began to stand on end. "Your… true project?"

  Brek had now assumed a menacing grin. "I owe you one for your glowing recommendation that allowed me to quickly ascend the rungs of this cutthroat institution in only three years of study. That is why I feel you at least deserve to hear the truth before you die."

  Book 3: Epilogue

  Epilogue – Nano Era, Year 25 – Arden Dynasty

  2:01 a.m.

  Jaren gripped his knees, listening intently to every word of Erand's story until he paused to give Jaren some time to soak in the information.

  "I can't believe it," Jaren sputtered, "Cerina Serann was my mother?"

  "Aye, she was," said Erand. "And that makes Serann your grandfather and Arden your uncle… and Arden's daughter, the crown princess Sheara, your first cousin," he added for good measure.

  Jaren's mind seemed to be in a trancelike state. The thought of a common blue-collar worker like him having any amount of royal blood, let alone one-half, seemed impossible, unthinkable. Even more unthinkable was the fact he simultaneously possessed the bloodl
ine of the most powerful man in the known universe and that of the lowliest class of humanoids. A truly ironic existence, if he could say so himself.

  "And the other side of my family?" he inquired.

  "As far as the Council knows, every last one of them died in the Raid of 1021, well before your mother's time," Hathren answered.

  "Including my father?" Jaren asked incredulously.

  "Including your father," Hathren affirmed.

  "Then how—," Jaren began only to be intercepted by Erand.