Prince Larus stood near the center of the hall, surrounded by a cluster of admirers—mostly ladies of the court, though a few ministers had been drawn into his orbit by sheer charisma. He was dressed in full Marus regalia tonight: golden threads woven through deep bronze fabrics, more jewelry than usual, his hair loose and gleaming like burnished gold. He looked like a king already.
But when his blue eyes t hers across the room, the polite smile he’d been wearing faltered.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then it returned, brighter, warr, but Heena could see the truth beneath it.
He wasn’t ready to leave either.
She walked toward him, the crowd parting automatically. Nobles bowed as she passed, murmuring "Your Majesty" in hushed tones.
Larus extricated himself from his admirers with effortless grace and t her halfway.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing low, one hand pressed to his chest in the Marus style. "You look radiant tonight."
"As do you, Prince," Heena replied, her own smile genuine. "Though I confess, I preferred your simpler attire. This feels like you’re about to conquer sothing rather than attend a party."
Hearing that, Larus gave a bright smile and said, "Today I wore this to impress Your Majesty."
Heena looked at him—really looked at him. He was dressed in vibrant silks, gold jewelry glinting at his throat and wrists, his hair arranged with delicate pins that caught the light. He looked stunning.
"Oh my," Heena said, matching his smile. "Is that so?"
He nodded, still smiling. "Of course. I should leave a lasting impression."
Then, just like that, his smile vanished.
A slight sadness fell across his face, settling into the corners of his eyes and the set of his mouth.
Heena had t thousands—no, ’millions’—of people across the worlds she’d traveled. She’d learned to read faces like maps, identifying malice, greed, ambition, kindness, fear, all of it within seconds of looking at soone. It was survival. It was necessity.
And she had to say: Prince Larus was the most genuinely innocent person she’d t in this entire world.
Don’t be fooled by his elaborate clothing or his smooth way of speaking or his political savvy. Strip all of that away, look past the performance, and you’d find soone who would cry if a horse died. Soone who ant what he said. Soone who didn’t have layers of deception built into his foundation.
It was refreshing.
It was also dangerous, in a world like this.
Heena’s smile softened. "What happened? Why the long face?"
He shook his head quickly, forcing the smile back into place. "Nothing, Your Majesty."
He wiped at his eyes—there was the faintest trace of moisture there, just barely visible.
"You should enjoy yourself, Your Majesty," he said, voice steady despite the slight tightness in it. "I’ll just—I’ll be back in a mont."
Heena nodded slowly. "Alright. I should go talk to those old ministers anyway. They’ve been glaring at for the past ten minutes."
Larus smiled—smaller this ti, but genuine—and stepped back slightly.
Heena turned and moved toward a cluster of elderly nobles who looked like they had Opinions, capital O, and were just waiting for an opportunity to share them.
Behind her, Larus stood alone for a mont, biting his lip, watching her go.
---
And then, like sharks slling blood in the water, her five consorts—who had been conspicuously absent from nearly every social event for ’months’—suddenly materialized around him.
Larus blinked and found himself surrounded.
Kieran stood directly in front of him, arms crossed, expression carved from stone. Adrian was to his left, adjusting his glasses with deliberate slowness. Damien leaned casually to his right, but there was nothing casual about the way his eyes tracked Larus’s every movent. Raphael stood behind him, serene and terrifying. Lucian—shockingly—had reappeared and was blocking the only clear exit.
Larus looked around at them and offered a polite, if slightly wary, smile.
"I greet the consorts," he said, inclining his head.
They said nothing.
Just stared at him.
The silence stretched.
Then Kieran spoke, voice low and cold. "Prince. You should not look at things that don’t belong to you."
Larus blinked, genuinely confused. "I don’t understand, Your Highness. What should I not look at?"
Kieran stepped forward and clapped a hand on Larus’s shoulder—not friendly, not light, but with just enough pressure to make a point.
"Prince," he said, leaning in slightly, "you know exactly what I’m talking about. And you should also rember—she’s ’married’. To us."
For a mont, Larus just stood there.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he reached up and removed Kieran’s hand from his shoulder.
He looked at each of them in turn—Kieran, Adrian, Damien, Raphael, Lucian—his expression shifting from polite confusion to sothing colder. Sharper.
"Maybe you’ve forgotten, Your Highnesses," he said quietly, "but you are ’consorts’. Not the Empress. She is not soone’s property. She is the ruler of this empire."
He paused, letting that sit.
"Also," he continued, voice still calm but edged now, "if I’m not mistaken, your so-called ’Highnesses’ have also visited the Marus Kingdom before. On diplomatic missions. Alone."
Adrian’s expression flickered.
"So please," Larus said, smile returning but sharper now, more dangerous, "lecturing ’’ about minding boundaries and staying away from soone—when you couldn’t even tell the difference between coal and a diamond when she was standing right in front of you—feels a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?"
The temperature in the imdiate area seed to drop.
Kieran’s jaw tightened. "Prince. It seems your tongue works rather sharply."
Larus’s smile widened. "What can I do, Your Highness? People from my kingdom—we’re not very good at lying." He looked at them one by one, letting his gaze linger. "But sotis I really do wonder about Her Majesty’s taste. After all—" his eyes swept across all five of them, "—she chose you."
Damien’s fist clenched at his side. "Prince Larus. It seems you’ve forgotten where you’re standing. This is not your empire."
"I know, Your Highness," Larus said, voice perfectly even. "This is ’Empress Celeste’s’ empire." He gestured toward where Heena stood, laughing at sothing one of the ministers had said, radiant in the candlelight. "That woman standing there, shining, talking to her people—’this is her empire’. Not yours."
He took a breath.
"And forgive if I’ve crossed any boundaries," he added, "but I don’t think I said anything untrue. Whether sothing sounds an depends entirely on what the listener wants to hear."
---
Across the room, Heena stood with a small cluster of nobles, wine glass in hand, smiling and nodding at the appropriate monts.
But her attention was not on them.
Her ears were focused entirely on the conversation happening behind her.
And she was grinning.
’Oh, my kitty knows how to scratch.’
System 427 floated beside Larus—the little traitor had abandoned Heena entirely to watch the drama unfold. He was eating ’caral popcorn’ out of a tiny striped box, wearing what appeared to be a miniature cinema usher’s blazer, complete with gold buttons.
Heena made a ntal note to ask him later where he kept getting these snacks. He was a ’lion’. Shouldn’t he be eating at?
The system crunched happily, eyes glued to the scene, completely unbothered.
Damien took another step toward Larus, voice dropping into sothing genuinely threatening. "It seems you’ve forgotten who you’re speaking to, ’Prince’."
"What’s going on here?"
Every head turned.
User Comments
0 comments from readers