by Lucia Ashta
I lied and told myself that this latest near death experience might have gifted the King with uncommon patience and understanding. His legendary sharp mind and quick instincts to punish might have dulled since the attack that left him temporarily bedridden. Comforted by these lies, I took one step forward, out of the shadows that clung to the walls of the royal infirmary.
That one gray eye honed in on me as devastatingly as an asteroid on an inevitable trajectory predicted to bring terrible destruction. It undressed me, doing away with all pretense as quickly as a man could undress a woman with his sight. Already, my comforts were revealed for the falsehoods they were.
With my next step toward the King’s prostrate form, I could feel the King’s eye on me as if it were a hand, already attempting to throttle me for a sin worse than any against his empire. I would have turned around right then, no matter what I’d resolved to do, but I couldn’t. Retreat wasn’t an option. Not when this was about her. I couldn’t turn away from her.
I stepped directly into the light that filtered from the glass bed the King lay on. I bowed from a respectable distance. “Good morning, your Majesty.” My voice squeaked at the start.
“You may rise,” a voice said from the corner. I swiveled. The King’s presence was imposing, even in his debilitated condition. I hadn’t noticed the man whose job appeared to be to interpret the King’s subtle gestures and thus to conserve his energy for healing. Ordinarily, I noticed every detail of my surroundings. I tried to shake off the realization that I wasn’t as sharp as I normally was.
At close range, the King pinned me with both cold gray eyes, not just the one. Together, their impact doubled, and it was easy to believe that this man had ruled Planet Origins for nearly a millennium.
Those two eyes narrowed with obvious impatience. I didn’t need anyone to interpret that look. I hurried to speak. I was lucky to have been granted an audience in the first place. If I hadn’t said those two words—Princess Ilara—I would never have made it past the King’s antechambers. I’d invoked her to gain access. After all, this was about her, as it had been for years.
“Your Majesty, I’m here about Princess Ilara,” I said, never taking my eyes from those that held mine. Before a man like this, one could not show weakness—I couldn’t show weakness. My entire plan depended on this man trusting me, and the King didn’t trust anyone.
“So I’ve been told,” the King croaked. I hoped I hid my reaction to the King’s audible frailty in time and averted my eyes for a moment. But when I looked up again, I knew that I hadn’t. Anger flared in the King’s eyes, and I knew that time, once again, was not on my side.
“You are Lord Brachius’ son.” The statement was both factual and accusatory.
I didn’t bother drawing up tall. I took no pride in being a potential tyrant’s son. “I am. And there is nothing I can do to change that, regrettably.”
Curiosity flashed across eyes that had grown still though I didn’t presume to be safe in their stare. Animals of prey watched the target of their kill with deceptive calm before they ripped the throats out of victims that couldn’t run fast enough to escape the inevitable.
In this room with softly glowing yellow lights, a glass bed, and nothing more, I had nowhere to run. “I understand the risk I took in coming to see you. But I had to. You see, I know that Princess Ilara still lives,” I whispered so that only the King could hear.
One of the King’s raspy breaths cut short in his chest, the sudden silence echoing in the sterile room. He flicked a nervous glance at his servant. When the King returned his gaze to me, rage brewed. I took a small step back before noticing what I’d done. I couldn’t give up any progress. My visit today was too important. The King was a wild beast that had been civilized. To rule Planet O the way he had all these years, he had to be a bit like the hairy mowabs of the deserted wildernesses: fierce. Everyone on Planet O knew not to mess with the mowabs.
This king was groomed and polished, his gray beard trimmed into precision despite his convalescence. But the mowab in him still reared forth. “Lord Tanus, do not play with me.”
I nodded without wanting to.
“You will find yourself in a game of cat and mouse, with me the cat.”
Obviously, I thought. There wasn’t a trace of mouse in the King of Planet Origins.
“If you’ve come here thinking you would take advantage of a flailing king, you were mistaken.” The King’s words could cut metal. The servant stepped out of the shadows in concern. He was there to ensure that the King rested when he should. Upon his recovery and his broad shoulders depended the future well-being of a planet.
And upon my shoulders rested the well-being of a princess. I took that responsibility as seriously as the King took his responsibility to rule. The King cut the servant short with one look, and the shadows swallowed the servant once more.
The King would do as he chose during his recovery, and he would do what he wanted with me as well. All it would take was a flick of a finger and I would be taken to the holds beneath the palace, where my screams of protest couldn’t travel high enough to disturb the royal court.
King Oderon ruled with an iron fist. He showed compassion when necessary to appease his people. But it wasn’t often necessary in a rule such as his. I’d heard nearly every rumor about him. I feared that most of them were true.
“Has your father sent you here?”
If I answered yes, I would be guilty of treason. My father had been suspected of betraying the Crown many times before. I presumed that he was trying to betray it once and for all right now.
“He did not. He doesn’t know that I’m here, your Majesty.”
The King’s eyes roved, taking in my tall frame, sweeping all the places one could hide a weapon. Then he nodded. Continue.
“Milord, do not hold the son accountable for the sins of his father. He and I are nothing alike.” I had to tread carefully here. I didn’t care for the man my father had become, but neither did I wish to fill the role of his official accuser. My father still lived despite the attacks against the King because no links survived between the assassination attempts and him. He was cunning and meticulous.
The King waited. Obviously, there was more. With a slight nod of his head, he gave me leave to speak of his daughter, but quietly. No one—not even the servant in the corner—needed to hear what I had to say.
“I know that your daughter lives. And I know that she was sent off planet.” I whispered. The surprise in the King’s face confirmed that he heard.
“And what,” the King hissed back, “makes you think this?”
“I know this because I feel her alive.” I let my statement sink in. “At first, I didn’t understand how she could have lived. Everything that I suspected went contrary to what was being said.” There was no accusation there. No pointing fingers. The King did what he had to do to protect his family. I would have done the same.
“But then I began to look for her, to follow leads and dead ends, until finally, I discovered what I think now must be the truth. I broke into my father’s facility to confirm it.”
Neither astonishment nor alarm flared in King Oderon’s eyes. What I saw was much worse: It was a promise, a promise that the King would use his last strength to fulfill. He would kill anyone that betrayed his daughter.
I had nothing of which to be ashamed. I forced myself to meet the King’s challenge. I needed the King to understand. I couldn’t get to Ilara without his help. And if the King were to die before sharing this secret I sought, I would never find her. She would be lost to me forever, and that was much worse than anything the King could do to me.
“Does Lord Brachius know?” The King waited for my answer, prepared to identify the truth or the lie within it.
I shook my head, brown hair cascading across my forehead. “No. And he’ll never know. I’ll take the secret of Princess Ilara’s survival to my grave with me, if I must.”
The King nodded. He could recognize a duty to protect a
loved one so much like his own. “And why is it that the Princess is so important to you? Is it that you are a loyal subject with interest in protecting the royal family?”
I took a deep breath and made the right choice: Truth, blunt truth. “No. I don’t particularly care who rules as long as he rules fairly. I know that I don’t want my father to rule because he wouldn’t rule fairly.”
The King nodded curtly. There were certain types of men that could respect the truth more than the content of what was said; the King was such a man. “Then, what is your interest in the Princess?”
The King still hadn’t confirmed my theory. My next words were the best chance I had at getting through to a father who happened to be a king. “I love her. I’ve loved her for years.”
I forced myself not to shrink from the King, even though I’d just revealed that the Princess and I had sneaked and hidden our relationship from him, the most powerful man on the entire planet, with a reach that extended much farther than one planet’s orbit.
“And she loves me.”
You can continue the story in Planet Origins. Thanks for reading!