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VORIAN
The tournament was precisely what I had expected.
A bunch of bright jungle birds, flexing their scales and trying to look like the shiniest and most impressive, without bothering to earn the distinction.
I’d never tell him, but the only challenge of the bunch was Kaelum, who managed, thinking quickly and moving even faster, to break my leg.
Unfortunate for him that I had a mark to heal broken bones.
I was grateful for the oversized sausage brain that took out Kaelum’s protector, Jax, in the third round, using his single advantage—size. As the bearer of the only known tactician’s mark in the current generation of warriors, Jax might have managed to outmaneuver me in the final match.
The others? They couldn’t see past their belief in my inferiority until it was too late.
So I returned to the lab, triumphant.
Odd that I didn’t feel triumphant. I’d defeated my precious little brother, so that should be good. And I’d proven myself one of the best warriors on Thorzan. A few hybrid warriors had congratulated me on my way out of the throne room, pleased that I had proven the value of our abilities, but as ever, most avoided me, ignored me, or occasionally, sneered in my direction.
Vorian the Bastard, whose mother had disclaimed him. Whose father had never bothered publicly acknowledging him as a warrior. Whom the king despised for the mere happening of his birth.
No one wanted to be caught sympathizing with him.
But it didn’t matter, because I had won.
I marched into the lab, which was oddly empty of Crux’s lackeys. Perhaps he’d had a meeting with one of his secret contacts. He had cut off communication with the Zathki after stealing what he wanted from them, but he still had at least Vipha of the council under his thumb, and he didn’t like his little lab lackeys to know about it.
Lyr forbid they have something to use against him.
Disinterested, he glanced up from his work to look me over, his nose turning up in distaste. “Are you limping? Are you a child, so injured in some pathetic match that you’re unable to walk like a warrior?”
I wanted to sneer and scowl and tell him to leave me be, but... Iwaslimping. Kaelum had broken my leg, and while I could heal the bone in an instant, the surrounding damage remained. The leg would be stiff and sore for days.
Instead of responding to the taunt, as I knew he wanted me to, I drew myself up. “I return victorious.”
Genuine surprise flickered across his face—perhaps the first true emotion I’d seen on him in years. It disappeared quickly, though, replaced by a predatory smile. “Do you?”
“I won the tournament.” I didn’t have to ask myself whether he would try to ruin the victory, snatch it away and sully it—onlyhowhe would do it.
Not for the first time, or the tenth, or the fiftieth, I imagined putting a plasma spike through his throat. I had practically threatened Kaelum with it in the tournament, but there was only one creature on all Thorzan, or indeed, the universe, I wanted to end that way.
The one I was trapped with. The one who had carved away every attempt I had ever made at a relationship with anyone other than himself. The one who told me I was the best warrior on Thorzan, and said I was the very refuse beneath his feet, sometimes in the same breath.
And pitiful child that I was, some ridiculous part of me still thrilled to hear it when he said that I was good, or in any way worthwhile. How was it even possible to love and hate the same person so much?
He was paying me no mind anymore, so it didn’t matter.
Instead, he drew himself up, smile growing wider and wider till I thought it would crack his face open and the monster beneath would be revealed. “Then you should have your choice of all the humans I retrieved from Earth. I shall go demand the missing one.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I had no interest in the human Kaelum had claimed, but he was already brushing past me, as though I were little more than an afterthought. Certainly, he wasn’t making any demands on my behalf.
What would I have told him? That I would not take from my half-brother? That I already knew which human I wanted to share my gametes with? He would sneer at the emotion behind either statement, and go back to calling me a weakling and a child, so what was the point?
I sighed and leaned against the counter, scowling off into space.
The strongest warrior on Thorzan, and one scientist wouldn’t even listen to me for more than half a sentence.
“Are you what you seem, or what Beau thinks you are?” came a soft voice from the door to the lab, and I spun to face the speaker. It was the human with the shining deep brown skin and nearly black eyes. Kenosi, I thought they called him. Of all of the humans, he was perhaps the most beautiful.
Well, after Beau. No one could hope to outshine him.
