AllFreeNovel
Share Us
KAIO TARGEN, SON OF RAMZEN
They cannot force our people to participate in this barbaric entertainment. My father would never have allowed such an atrocity to occur. I cannot let it happen under my rule. I will be judged for this, long into the days of our planet. Unto the death of the seventh moon.
“What would you have us do, my king?” J’onn Ilkwa stood before me, black hair streaming behind his muscled form. It floated on unseen waves of power. He was the last keeper of the planet’s deeply seated magick. Yet, he could not practice the olde ways. It was forbidden. J’onn could only keep the knowledge alive and recognize the signs of its use in case a threat rose once again.
“Contact the commissioner of the games. I will not force my people to volunteer.”
“The favor owed by our people…” J’onn began but stopped speaking quickly when I flashed him a glare.
“The favor Vanguard did for Orenda, I have not forgotten. They had the means and the manpower to imprison our most heinous war criminals, those who found a way to tap into the lost powers. The dark powers. But how can I force the innocent men of our world to potentially give their lives to pay back a favor that was incurred during my father’s father’s regime?”
Vanguard was the galaxy’s most secure prison. Without the warden’s intervention during my grandfather's reign, our planet would have been destroyed when I was only a hope in my mother’s eye. No one knew how our planet would suffer in the future as thanks for the help given, but we had no choice. The Incendiaries were too strong for those of us who lived without tapping into the olde ways.
“Your majesty, what do you intend to do?” J’onn had that look in his eye, the one that meant he was aware that I had a plan, but he wasn’t sure if the plan was an intelligent one.
Yet, I could see only one way through this situation.
My grandfather incurred the debt, it was only proper that his flesh and blood paid the price.
“Contact the commissioner of the games. Let us make sure that proper tribute will erase the debt owed.”
“How will you make a proper tribute without sacrificing our men to the games?”
“I will volunteer,” I said simply, standing up from the throne and walking across the raised dais. As I moved, I kept a steady gaze on J’onn’s face. He was a master at neutrality in normal circumstances, but today, his expression betrayed his inner feelings. I raised a hand, quieting his protests before they could begin. “I am king, J’onn. This debt is the debt of my own blood. My grandfather. I will play their game. I will win. And I will come home triumphant. Our world will owe nothing in the future. It is the only way to erase the cloud of the past without soaking our soil in death. A king is worth a hundred civilian gladiators as tribute.”
“You are worth all the civilians of this world,” J’onn protested.
“And yet, a true king knows he is worth no more than the smallest of his people. I am no more valuable than the newest baby of our planet. A right of birth put me on this throne, but it is my own actions that earn the honor.”
J’onn fell to the ground, slapping his palms against the glistening stone and bowing his upper body. “You are my king, by birth and honor,” he said in a quiet voice, though his words resonated throughout the domed room.
“Transfer the call if the commissioner is agreeable.”
My right hand nodded and stood up, his hands reddened from slapping against the hard floor.
I watched as J’onn left the throne room. He would contact the commissioner and ensure that if I volunteered for this star cycle’s games, our planet would be released from any future obligation. By my honor, I would see our world free and clear of the ties that bind from my kinsman’s past deeds.
I paced the throne room, waiting for my own audience with the commissioner. J’onn would transfer the call once he got verification that my participation in the games would be enough. It had to be enough. If the viewing orb remained translucent, that would mean the GGG was insisting on their original demand of ten of our finest warriors to act as gladiators, a thousand of our young men to become little more than cannon fodder, and five hundred of our women to serve as entertainment for those dignitaries wealthy enough to reserve a ticket on the viewing ships.
I let out a deep breath, my tri-hearts pounding. As the viewing orb began to glow with ethereal light, my anxiety did not calm. Even when the commissioner’s wide-cheeked face came into view, eyebrows hidden by an atrociously large hat, my hearts did not slow to their normal twenty beats a minute.
“A king for the games!” Magnum T. Bloodworm crooned, tipping back his hat to reveal a glistening, anticipatory gaze. “I’m not exactly sure the panel will think one man is a replacement for over fifteen hundred heads, but now that they’ve given me full creative control, they can’t complain too much. And a king!” Magnum lifted a black goblet off the maroon table in front of him, tipped the vessel back, and slurped noisily. When he stopped drinking like a mannerless Ocea horned pig, he dropped the goblet back down with a clunk.
His chin was stained with a thick amber liquid. Fae honey ale. A decadence. If he kept drinking that stuff, he’d lose his mind inside of a few star years. In fact, Magnum already seemed shy of a full space-deck since the last time we’d spoken.
“Are you in agreement that my participation in the games will clear my planet’s debt?” I stood tall, shoulders back. My hair, my mother’s hue, flowed down my back in a navy-blue curtain of silk. She had always carried the night with her, the moment right before total darkness when the suns fell behind the mountains. When light barely kissed the sky. Yet, if light hit the strands just right, her hair shone cobalt. When she grew older, the silver in her hair became like stars.
She was all starlight when she died.
Yet I carried the night with me still, just as she had.
I cherished the reminder.
“Yes, yes, yes.” Magnum waved a thick gnarled hand at me, as if the answer was obvious.
“I want your word, Magnum. In writing.” I tapped long thick fingers rapidly against the arm of the throne.
“Your majesty,” Magnum managed to purr gently despite his low gravelly voice, “do you not trust me?”
