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Chapter One
Prince Rakkur
“Major Venkarr? Oh no. Seriously?” I paced restlessly over to the window in my father’s office and stood there gazing out. “But why him? Father, why can’t you assign someone else to come with me?”
“Why not him?” The king said, turning toward me. “What’s the matter with the Major?”
All I could do was shrug. “He just…bothers me.”
“He bothers you?” my father asked, his tone sharp. “What does that mean? In what way?”
“Not how you’re thinking, Father. I’m sure,” Mikos replied, as he lounged in the chair in front of the desk, already bored with the discussion. “Major Venkarr is a decorated warrior and he’s one of our best royal guards. He takes great pride in his position, and he wouldn’t lay a finger on Rakkur in an improper way. Why would he?”
“Well, what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, rounding on Mikos.
“It means you’re not his type, little brother,” Mikos replied, though he was still addressing his remarks to our father in the same bored tone. “What Rakkur no doubt objects to is the fact that Major Venkarr doesn’t fawn over him or succumb to his flirtations. He doesn’t give in to his every little whim when he bats his eyelashes at him, and I have it on good authority that Rakkur has never been able to wrap him around his little finger and get his own way, like he does with every other guard he’s ever had. That’s the real problem, I suspect.”
“Oh, shut up, Mikos.”
“Boys, stop all this opinions and insults to yourself.”
Mikos simply lifted his eyes to the ceiling, ignoring both me and Omak, as I kept my blazing gaze on him. Like I said, Mikos liked to see how far he could go, but he ought to know better. Omak was half the size of my brother, but I’d still bet on him in a fight. I knew Mikos would pay for his snideness later, and I was already contriving a way to be there to see it. I hadn’t watched omak lay into Mikos in a long time, but I thought it was coming and high time too. Mikos had been working too hard and getting short with Omak lately, and that was not something either of our fathers would stand for. His time was coming.
Omak, who up to that point had been sitting quietly worrying over the entire affair, gave Mikos one more warning glance, and then appealed directly to Father. “I don’t like this whole thing, Davos,” he said. “I have a bad feeling about it. This could be a dangerous journey, with even more adversity after they arrive. Rakkur is going to travel to meet a prospective mate. And I for one would like to meet him. Rakkur may enter into a contract with him. Mikol says this man is ‘nice.’ What’s that even mean? How does Mikol know what kind of man I’d think was ‘nice’ or ever approve of for Rakkur? He met his own husband in a brothel, after all, so I really have to wonder if he knows what’s proper and what isn’t. Why can’t I just go along for the ride to meet this King Edam?”
“Because you’re still recovering from what you called the fly, or whatever, and you’re far from a hundred percent.”
“Oh, good Lord, I said the flu, Davos. Try and keep up.”
“Whatever it’s called, you’re not completely over it. You need another week of bed rest, according to the physicians.”
“Whoever heard of bed rest for the flu?”
“Your doctors have, and they consulted with the human physicians on Earth. They agreed that with your symptoms, you should stay in bed or at least, stay quietly in our rooms and rest for a week. So that’s what you’re going to do.”
“But Loros is close to the Rift where the Pton are supposed to be coming through.”
“Those are simply wild rumors, nobyo. The so-called ‘Rift’ has never even been proven to exist. Its proper name is the Interstice, by the way, indicating a theoretical space between, and not some giant rip in the fabric of time and space. We don’t know what’s at the end of the universe, or if there’s anything at all. All that is pure speculation.”
“So how do you account for the Pton?”
“I don’t, Blake. They must be coming from a galaxy we don’t know about yet. It’s very possible, because that area has never been fully explored.”
“Because Loros is at the very edge of the known galaxies.”
“There’s that word, ‘known’ again. So far as we know, Blake. Loros is fairly primitive by our standards. That’s why we have Mikol in place there, to help them advance. Besides, even if you went along, what would you do about it if the Pton did show up there again?”
Omak answered him with one of his looks. My father said once that if looks could kill, Blake would have perfected that particular weapon a long time ago.
“Nobyo, listen to me.” Father said. “Rakkur will be fine, and should their ship be attacked out of the blue, which is highly unlikely in the first place, the vessel is fully armed. Major Venkarr, one of our best guards, will already be there to protect Rakkur.”
“I. Don’t. Need. Protection,” I said, biting off the words without turning around, and huffing a little. I might as well have saved my breath. “I’m almost twenty-one, and I can take care of myself. When is this all going to stop?”
“Once you’re safely married, and then you’ll be your husband’s problem,” Mikos said, earning himself another blistering glare from both me and my omak. “Who knows? Maybe this king will be ‘the one.’ The gods know none of the nine hundred or so you’ve met up until now have been suitable.”
Father ignored us both but continued to speak to Omak. “Rakkur is old enough to meet this man on his own. Then if he feels strongly about him, we can schedule more meetings when we can both be there to discuss contracts. Plenty of time for all of that. And there’s absolutely no reason to think anything will go wrong, as you say.”
He was “laying down the law” to Blake, as he liked to say. I don’t know why he continued to do this with Omak after so many years together. It had never worked out for him and just annoyed Omak.
