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  “Our people need to move forward. Am I the only one who has noticed that this planet, like our old one, is dying? We should be focused on trying to find a way to move again instead of building palaces and playing politics with the humans.”

  “You are a fool,” Elrek hissed. Shannen bristled at the tone. “You’ll cause the death of our people long before this filth-covered excuse for a planet kills us.”

  “I think the boy is right,” Daarik’s grandmother said quietly, and Shannen saw Elrek’s eyes widen with surprise. “And if you care at all for your people, son, you will step down gracefully and let him take over,” she added in a gentler tone.

  Shannen heard Elrek say the Maarlai word for “mother,” looking at Faerlah with surprise, the darkness of utter betrayal in his eyes.

  “I love you, my son. I have always been by your side,” she told Elrek, and the rest of those in attendance stood still, silent. “But I agree with Daarik. We need to be focusing on bigger things. Our people are dying here, along with everything else. We haven’t had a child born in the last three years, while our elders continue to die off. We are dying,” she repeated. “And if we’re going to save ourselves, we need to be unified.”

  “So you’ll accept more deaths, to save us?” Jarvik growled at Faerlah. Shannen felt Daarik tense beside her and she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

  “If Elrek steps down and hands over leadership to Daarik, there will not be any deaths,” Faerlah responded.

  “What of this contingent that doesn’t want any of Elrek’s get on the throne? Maybe they would push Baerne a little harder, if we were in the throes of civil war. Maybe he’d be swayed—”

  Before Jarvik could finish the sentence, Baerne had hefted the huge axe he always wore slung over his back and brought it crashing down onto the table in front of Jarvik, sending dark wood splinters everywhere. The loud yelp Jarvik had made would have been comical at any other time.

  “Listen well, you old snake,” Baerne said. “I don’t want it. Nothing will make me betray my family. Daarik and I have never been close, exactly, but I will back him in this. He speaks truth, and we have talked about this before.”

  “And your father? Have you no loyalty for your father?” Elrek asked.

  “Not much, to be honest,” Baerne said with a shrug. “For all that you loved my mother, you’ve kept yourself apart from me. I’ve had Jarvik sneering at me for years, telling me how much more Elrek likes his other son, how he’s grooming Daarik for the throne, as if that even mattered to me. But despite his vileness and your own cluelessness, I’ve learned for myself that Daarik is someone I’d fight for.”

  Elrek sat, studying first Baerne, then Daarik in silence.

  “This is where you expect me to give in, to say that not only are my sons against me, but so is my own mother,” Elrek said, standing. Jarvik stood beside him. “I am trying to build a life here for our people. You’re talking about finding another planet, how exactly do you expect to do that? Those with the ability to travel, to create portals to other worlds, perished getting us here. There are none left. The magic our people once had died back on our homeworld. So tell me, geniuses that you are, how you expect to find us another world and actually get us there?”

  Shannen glanced sideways at Daarik. She was actually more than a little annoyed that he’d never mentioned this whole “we need to find a new world” plan to her.

  “Those powers can be taught, with practice and diligence,” Daarik said. “Or do you not read any of the old texts, father?”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried that? Jarvik worked for years trying to foster those powers in himself—”

  “Yes, I’m sure Jarvik was very interested in gaining power,” Daarik said mildly.

  “Unlike you, obviously,” Elrek said sharply.

  “I never wanted power. All I want is for our people to move forward, and you are clearly incapable of leading them, with Jarvik hissing at you all the time. I am disappointed that you’ve let him do so.”

  “Better than being influenced by a human whore,” Jarvik sneered.

  Shannen held Daarik’s hand tighter, trying to stop him from jumping at the disgusting Maarlai. Much as she’d like to see Jarvik in pain, it wasn’t the first time she’d been called that and it surely wouldn’t be the last. More so, however, if civil war was coming, the Maarlai who decided to side with Daarik would want to see a strong, confident leader, someone who maintained control and a cool head even in the worst of times. She knew he could be that, from what she’d heard of his prowess on the battlefield.

  He seemed to take her hint, stood still and strong beside her. “I don’t think we have anything else to say here,” Daarik said.

  “Clearly not,” Elrek said coldly.

  “Do you not remember that you have spent my entire life grooming me to become our next ruler? Why fight it now?”

  “Because you are not ready. And you are compromised by your loyalties,” Elrek said, his gaze flicking toward Shannen. “You are not who I thought you were.”

  Faerlah stood and walked toward Daarik. Shannen watched as her husband and his grandmother exchanged a look, and then Daarik turned, hand still clasped with Shannen’s, and they left the King’s chambers, Faerlah and Baerne following close behind them.

  “Let’s go to Janara’s,” Daarik said. “We have much to discuss and it’s less likely that we’ll have eavesdroppers there.”

  Shannen nodded, and the four of them walked out of the palace, making their way through the village. She tried not to think about what the place might look like in a few days, a few weeks, if it really did come to war. She’d spent her childhood living in a war zone, all those years before her uncle took her and her mother in. It was no way to live, at all.

  The windows of Janara’s hut were still bright. Shannen knew that her new friend (how odd, to think that Janara had become a friend…) often read late into the night. And, sure enough, when Janara opened the door and peeked out at them, she had a thick book in her hand.

  “Oh, this likely is not a good sign, the four of you ending up here,” she muttered as she waved them into her hut.

  They sat for several hours, Daarik filling Janara in on everything that had transpired, including learning that Shannen was the daughter of the former human King. Janara had looked at Shannen with surprise at that, then nodded slowly, and the conversation had moved on. Janara listened, and asked questions, and then, finally sighed when Daarik had finished speaking.

  “I don’t want to assume anything,” Daarik said to Janara. “But I need to know—”

  “Of course I support you, you big oaf,” Janara said.

  “Thank you.”

  Janara waved it off, then glanced around her hut. Every wall, every surface, held books and parchments. “Just try to keep the carnage away from the libraries. We have so little of our original texts left as it is,” she said wistfully.

  “I can help you put the most valuable ones into safekeeping, just in case,” Shannen said, being taken back to her days among the humans, those few of them who still cared about things like books stowing them away, saving them, protecting them for a day when, eventually, they could be brought out and enjoyed once again.

  “Thank you,” Janara said with a nod. “I really thought he would step down once it got to this point,” she said quietly.

  “I never imagined this happening. I figured I’d take the throne after he died. I never pictured challenging him for it,” Daarik said.

  “You were a bit naive in that, my boy,” Faerlah said kindly. “And I should have prepared you for this. Jarvik has had his ear for too long. Honestly, I’ve just been hoping Jarvik would die off.”

  Shannen opened her mouth to say something, then clamped it shut. This was not her concern.

  “You were going to say something, Shannen?” Faerlah asked.

  Shannen shook her head. “It was nothing.”

  “It was something,” Daarik said.

  “This is not m
y business.”

  “It is very much your business. You were raised in a royal household and you’re married to me. I value your input. Clearly, you see things that I do not,” Daarik added.

  “It is a very human suggestion I’m about to make,” Shannen said.

  Daarik gave her a small smile. “Let’s hear it, then.”

  “If we believe that Jarvik is the main problem here, that he is the one encouraging your father on this course…”

  Daarik nodded. “Yes.”

  “Maybe we should try to get rid of Jarvik before this goes too far. Remove the agitator and see where that leaves us.”

  “You’re talking about killing Jarvik?” Daarik asked, brow furrowed.

  “Political assassination was not uncommon, even among my uncle’s own friends and family,” she said with a shrug. “It is an efficient way to handle things, especially when you know exactly where the problem lies.” She watched Daarik’s face. He was good at keeping his feelings to himself. A career soldier. And she was somewhat frustrated that he was doing that now. “If you don’t want to kill him, perhaps we can consider capturing and imprisoning him,” she added.

  “My first act as leader of my people would be killing or imprisoning one of us,” he said, shaking his head. “There will be enough anger without that.”

  “And there are so few of us left. Even a miserable male like Jarvik has some value,” Faerlah added.

  “Can we really afford to be sentimental right now?” Baerne asked. Shannen watched as the normally silent warrior sat forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the table in Janara’s small kitchen. “What matters more now? Preserving every Maarlai life, or giving our people a chance to exist? Because if we wait much longer, this planet will die, and we will die along with it. What is one old snake’s life against that?”

  “We must find a way to do both,” Daarik said, shaking his head. “We need to be unified if we are to move forward. I certainly have no love for Jarvik, but many among our people respect him and his family. It would cause an immediate rift where we need unity.”

  “Maybe if someone other than you were to take care of it,” Baerne said, rubbing his chin tiredly.

  “Who? You?” Daarik asked his half-brother.

  Baerne shrugged. “Me. Somebody else. I don’t care.”

  Daarik shook his head. “No. It is a good idea, and one that I understand the value of. It’s efficient. It’s just not me.”

  Shannen nodded. They sat in silence for a while, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

  “This world is dying, you keep saying,” Shannen said, and Daarik nodded.

  “The air is getting fouler by the day, the temperatures hotter. The plants are dying or scraggly, and without them, there is nothing for the animals we hunt to eat. We are all right here in our little corner of the world; my ancestor chose well when he picked this place,” Daarik said. “But your people will die out soon enough. And even without the stress the humans place on the environment, we will follow.”

  “Unless we find another planet?” Shannen asked, and he nodded.

  “Is this what happened to your old world?”

  “No,” Faerlah said, shaking her head. “Our home world was destroyed by what we called a ‘fire star,’ what you here call a meteor, I suppose,” she said. “It was enormous. Deadly. We went through a portal to a nearby world. Uninhabitable, but close enough that we could watch our planet. We all hoped, I believe, that our predictions had been wrong. That the damage would not be as bad as we’d thought. It was so much worse,” she said sadly. “We watched it happen through powerful telescopes one of our otherworld allies had gifted to us. And once we saw it happen, it was clear that there was no returning. Our next portal was to Earth, but getting us here cost our port-keepers their lives,” she finished softly.

  “Daarik thinks new port-keepers can learn enough to get us out of here before we all die off,” Shannen said.

  “And I agree with him. A few have that ability, though they are untrained.” Her gaze went to Janara. “And one is more powerful than the rest.”

  “I am trying,” Janara said to Faerlah, adding the maarlai word for “grandmother.”

  Shannen looked between the Maarlai. She had not felt as out of place since the first few days after her marriage to Daarik. A glance at her husband, though, indicated that he was just as confused as she was.

  “Janara?” he asked, and Janara shrugged.

  “I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” she said. Then her gaze went back to Shannen. “So you’re King George’s only child?”

  Shannen nodded, waiting for some kind of tirade. Instead, Janara continued to study her closely.

  “Interesting.”

  “Not really,” Shannen said.

  “Why is your uncle ruling, if George had a child?”

  Shannen rolled her eyes. “Because George had a girl child. We are ineligible for the throne.”

  “According to who?”

  “Laws. Men rule among the humans.”

  Janara furrowed her brow, a deep line forming at the center of her forehead. It was the expression Shannen recognized as the one her friend wore when she was thinking.

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Well. My people don’t care about fairness,” Shannen said, waving it off. “That’s something I’ve never even considered. I am the daughter of a prostitute who got pregnant by a king. Nothing more.”

  Daarik was about to say something, but Shannen shook her head. “When I say that, I don’t say it in an ‘oh, poor Shannen’ kind of way. I am lucky. What I remember of my mother, she was a much better, warmer, more genuine person than any of the royals are. Of my two parents, my mother is the one I’m thankful for. I’m just illustrating the fact that my birth was an accident, and who my parents are matters little other than when someone decides to make an alliance or something,” she said, smiling at her husband. “Though I cannot entirely complain about that.”

  He gave her a small smile back, and, despite the chaos of the evening, despite the stress she knew they were all feeling, she found herself wishing she was back in her chambers with her husband. She watched him, and suppressed a sigh. It was unlikely now that they would find much time to be alone together, unless the question of Maarlai leadership was settled soon.

  As stubborn as Jarvik and Elrek were, she did not see that working out the way she hoped, at all.

  She understood what Daarik had said about the need to keep the peace when his people were on the verge of civil war. But… she was not Maarlai. And to her eyes, the situation needed a little maneuvering, a little push. And one does not grow up in a royal household without learning the subtle art of engineering a situation to her own advantage.

  It was nearly daybreak when they left Janara’s hut and made their way back to the palace. Shannen and Daarik parted ways with his brother and grandmother and fell into bed, still clothed. Daarik lay beside her, huge hands resting on his stomach, staring at the ceiling. They had mostly avoided any sort of touching in bed. There had certainly been no snuggling during the time they’d been married.

  Shannen hesitated for a moment, then moved closer to Daarik, resting her hand on top of his. He glanced at her in surprise, then covered her hand with his as his other arm went around her, drawing her closer. The feel of her husband’s large, muscled frame pressed up against her body, the scent of him, had Shannen’s heart pounding. She rested her head on his shoulder. How he managed to make her react like this was still a mystery. She was far from virginal, far from innocent, but the way she felt when he touched her, it was as if her body had been waiting, all this time, just for him.

  “This was not the night we had planned,” Daarik said quietly. Something about the deep rumble of his voice, their chambers bathed in pre-dawn light, felt more intimate than anything she had ever experienced.

  “I am wedded to a soldier and future king. There will be many nights when my plans do not work out as they should. We hav
e time. I am not going anywhere.”

  He turned his head, meeting her eyes. How terrifying those dark eyes had once been, along with the rest of him. “I am a lucky male, that the fates or the gods or whatever is out there, pushed us together as they did. I hated the idea of marrying you. And now, I can’t imagine a day without you in my life.”

  Shannen raised her hand to Daarik’s face, gently tracing her fingertips along his strong jawline, down his muscled neck, and then back up the other side. She watched his face. His eyes closed and his breath seemed to hitch, just a bit, at her touch. She could see just a hint of his white fangs peeking from beneath his lips. It brought to mind the heated, desperate kisses they had finally shared earlier that evening, before their world had been turned upside down.

  “When you look at me like that, wife, I suddenly feel a lot less tired,” Daarik said, startling her. She had been so focused on the sight of his lips, the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips, that she hadn’t even noticed that he had opened his eyes again. There was that delicious warmth again, spreading from her lower belly, a sensation that she’d only ever felt around him. A word, a glance. That was all it took. The memory of their wedding night, and all of the things she’d felt with him.

  “Is it distracting?” she asked softly, feeling a bit of a smile pull at her lips.

  “Very. Though to be honest, you have been distracting since the first time I laid eyes on you. All of those curves, hidden so demurely under the long dresses you wear. This,” he said, twining his hand into her hair and tugging, just a bit. She gasped at the sensation, as her body reacted to it.

  “My hair?” she asked.

  “All those shining curls flowing down your body when we’re here alone together. It’s all I can do, not to imagine the way you would look with all of that hair in disarray after I’ve stripped every last bit of control from you.”

  Shannen’s breath came shallowly, and she pressed her thighs together. His hand was still fisted in her hair, a tiny bit of pressure that somehow had her body in utter desperation.