Page 52 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

I blink, and I’m back at Academy on Colossus. I’m brawling with another, eager Aurelian, our bodies tall but not yet filled out. I flip him, throwing him on the ground, and raise my arms in victory.

The dreams we had. We spoke late at night to each other, of the feats we would achieve when we joined the army, of the glory and fame to our line, of taking women and building our harem after we had served our hundred years. Of protecting the weak. Of fighting for the honor of the Aurelian Empire.

I blink, and it’s all gone. There’s no such thing as honor. There is only violence, and those that can wield it to protect those who cannot.

“Please,” he whimpers. He looks down at the headless corpses of his older friends, still twitching. Those other men were in their forties. They knew better. They should have protected this boy, instead of using him.

Anger boils up. The only three casualties were the Priests, but that was by luck alone. By my order, I emptied the palace until we could vet everyone, but this boy and his rebel friends didn’t know that. The only beings in the palace were a skeleton crew of Aurelian guards and Rachel’s servants - but it could have been filled with families.

It was only chance that no one else was harmed. The blocks of concrete and molten metal falling would not discriminate. It would crush a man, woman, child or Aurelian just as easily. And if the spire had fallen, it would have crushed apartment buildings. Hundreds would have died.

I clench my fist tight around the hilt. I can picture his terrified eyes looking up, blinking a last time, severed from his head…

And I cannot do it.

“Take him to the cells,” I order, deactivating my blade. The boy sobs in relief. He’s picked up by two of my men, roughly marched away, but before the two triads take him downstairs, they give me quick, strange looks. The act of mercy cannot be justified. It will only make those who would terrorize us more brazen.

Perhaps they think I am growing weak.

If they wish to challenge me for primacy, I’ll cut them down.

I stare out at the ruined city, over the bodies of the headless men. The smoke dulls the sunset. It’s thick in the air, but here, under the shields, I barely taste the soot. There is a cold moon up above, but it is blind to the killing. Good. Let it be in peace, watching down, casting its frigid glow over the city without judgment or thought.

Then I see the faces. They’re pressed in at the windows of the high rises, all staring out at me. They saw my justice. They saw my act of mercy…or weakness. To Aurelians, it is a failure. What will humans think, when they see me spare the boy? Will they view me as unsuited to ruling over them, unable to defend them?

I turn abruptly and march down the stairwell while barking commands into my smartwatch. I allocate Interrogators near at random. They were working at the highest value strategic targets, interviewing workers at fuel depots and critical factories to ensure there were no Empire spies. Interrogators work with ruthless efficiency, using logic and not violence to get to the truth, and only the most highly trained operatives can evade their methods.

I move half of them. One pauses in confusion when I send him to a grain silo that doesn’t even warrant a single triad guarding it.

I need to know the extent of the rot. We’re close to the Aurelian Empire, and I need to know how many spiesshehas, how many termites I have gnawing at my planet from the inside.

My triad is silent as we walk through the rubble of the bridge. There is a red stain on one of the blocks of concrete. It is the only evidence that a triad of Priests were ever here. I run my thumb over the blood, fury boiling in my veins.

“This could have taken her from us. Or us from her. It could happen at any second.” I never had Orr’s senseless bloodlust in battle, charging in for the thrill of it, but I was never a coward. I never thought of a stray las-cannon beam decapitating me, or being reduced to dust by a missile without ever having a chance to defend myself. Useless thoughts. They can only slow the mind in battle.

“We’ve survived this long. And we’ll survive longer. With us by her side, she will be safe,” says Kriz.

“The Priests lived a thousand years. They grew up under the last true Emperor. They saw the false Queen rise. They prayed for Obsidian to return. And when he did, they were crushed under a piece of rock.”

The three of us exchange looks. We spent our entire lives hoping for the chance to find our Mate. We never thought of the after. It is bad luck to speak of your Mate before you find her. Our Fated Mate was a gleaming light at the end of the black swamp, slogging our way through. She was supposed to wash us of our sins. She was the end.

Now I see that she is the beginning.

“Obsidian demands audience,” states Kriz, his smartwatch gleaming red for a moment.

I push out all thoughts of fear and hope. I become a weapon again. “Then let us go.”

We walk through the hallways in silence, until we get to a small room that was once a storage closet. A triad of technicians are setting up the secure video link. They’re younger, not yet two hundred years of age. They deserted during their hundred years. They’ve got matching shaved heads, and one is perspiring as he works, unable to hide his stress of setting up the video-link with his War-God at the last minute.

He’s probably run into Scorp nests with less fear. “Continue,” I say, before they have the chance to snap to attention. The obvious place to have the conference with Obsidian is one of the meeting halls.

A meeting hall that could have a bomb under it.Did Queen Jasmine and the Emperor Raegan know we were coming? Would she have mined the palace? Or did we catch her by surprise with the Orb-Shift?

The weight of leadership always came easy to me. I wanted that burden. If the lives of my men were going to be risked in battle, I wanted the final decision on how. Now, it suffocates me. This is no Scorp nest, where the enemies are monstrous beings that charge you face on. This is spy-craft, and I have more to lose than ever before.

I haven’t eaten in a day. I’ve waded through blood. I cut down Scorp as they surrounded her estate, dreaming that she would be inside, praying that I was not too late.

I push it all away and stand at the ready. The video feed blinks online. The three video technicians rush out, stinking of anxiety.

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