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“Vishin. Nice to see you. Thank you for attending the wedding celebration.”
Vishin snorted. “That’s exactly what I wanted to speak with you about, comrade.”
“If you have seating or dietary concerns, I am sure one of the staff can help you.” I pushed onward, picking up my pace, hoping my mumbled brush-off would be enough. He sped up and grabbed my sleeve, pulling me to a halt. I forced my fists to unclench and kept my face blank, though I knew my nostrils were flaring as I turned to face him, looking down at him as he recoiled, holding his hand up and shifting slightly to the side.
“I apologize for stopping you, but Braxl, you must listen to me.”
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms. “Fine. What?”
“The human.”
I flitted my hand to tell him to continue, looking down the hallway. I really didn’t want to keep Father waiting.
Vishin’s shiftiness stopped as he darted in front of my vision. “You can’t marry her.”
My grip on my arms and the muscles in my mid-section tightened, which was instinctively what happened when someone told me exactly what I “couldn’t” do. I had proven hundreds of people, including my father, wrong, over and over, just what a young warlord was capable of—and I would keep doing so. Some sniveling idiot like Vishin certainly wasn’t going to make a determinant over my actions.
Still, I sighed and let Vishin have at least a bit more of my gaze. I could spare some time for him. Maybe he had some well-founded reasons. “And just why is that?”
Vishin shook his head, looking at me seriously, a light shining bright in his eyes as he realized he had caught my attention. His steps bounced back and forth.
“You can’t trust her. I know she may be beautiful. She may even be charming. I haven’t had much contact with the females of their species. But, I can guarantee you, she is not to be trusted. There are too many risks, and too many rabble-rousers on that wretched planet. I am hearing things…” Vishin leaned in closely as if he would share a secret with me. I pulled back, and he looked slapped.
“What kind of things, Vishin? Do you have actual intelligence gathered about my future wife? Or about any human rebellion? You know, as Supreme Entity, I have access to even more intelligence reports than you do.” I looked back down the hallway again. Vishin was just wasting my time. “Why do you think she can’t be trusted?”
Vishin nearly jumped as he shouted. “She’s a human, Braxl! A weakling! At best, cannon fodder for our empire to spread their blood across the lands that we seize from other weak nations! They are not to be trusted. They are meant to stoke the fires of our ships and nothing more!”
I groaned and pushed Vishin to the side, shoving him into the wall. He slipped roughly to the floor with a squeal, and I rapidly moved away. “Your concern has been noted, Commander.”
Just racist bullshit. I had heard it too many times before. I had to shut it down pretty harshly on my own ship as we made our way to Earth, and the mission was broadcast that I would be taking a human wife. Many of my Captains had helped to shut it down. I had quite a few soldiers who had fought alongside humans, and knew them to be, at the very least, brave.
Can’t argue with the weak part, though. Their bodies are frail.
I rubbed my shoulder as I remembered one of the strikes while sparring with Jasmine. I smiled slightly. It might not leave a bruise, but it would leave a memory. She had spirit, at least. Strength and bravery and, maybe even intelligence? She was more than I had expected.
Vishin’s words were prejudices found too often in the Prexis Empire. Father had done too little to ensure such idiotic pride didn’t flourish as we championed system after system.
I would have done things differently.
There was more value in governing through love and loyalty than fear and a false sense of freedom.
I breezed through the entryway as it slid open to the docking bay. Father was pacing beside his shuttle. He turned toward me, a bearish man bigger in the shoulder and taller than me by a whole head. He was a brute, and he had had no trouble with that brutishness being the flag that Prexis waved over the galaxy.
I took a deep breath and walked toward him.
This wedding was his idea, his little power play, and now, I had to kiss the ring. I was sure that was the only reason he had even boarded. There were no ceremony plans or dinners for him to attend until the next day.
He was just here to taunt me.
The Highest Supreme Entity, Kressel Sar, held his hands out wide, a welcome sign for an embrace, and spoke loud from his diaphragm. “Well, son, here I am to celebrate you on this hard-won achievement of purchasing a wife.” He dropped his arms before I approached. It might look like he wanted to hug, but we had never done that. Kressel raised his eyes and scanned the ship’s sleek curves and high ceilings, the way the beams darted and dived like the nimble muscles of a predator feline ready to pounce.
I followed his look, unable to keep the smile from my face: how I adored theGloryDaze.
Father wrinkled his nose in disgust and clapped his hands together. “Well, at least you won’t mind having shoddy alien trash around you all the time, right? You already live in this.”
I swallowed the words at the tip of my tongue. I looked through the docking port out at the giant battle cruiser that had escorted him to a position over Prexis Prime near where my lovelyGloryDazeorbited. For a moment, just the briefest moment, I imagined what the cruiser would look like, bursting into an array of fireworks and flame from strategically deployed railguns and missiles.
Then, instead, I imagined all the sailors on his ship chanting my name instead of his as they pledged loyalty to my way of leading the Prexis Prime Empire.
