Page 19 of Crown Prince's Mate

I press the button that makes the doors hiss open, wishing it was a wooden door that I could throw open and slam and storm in. The humidity hits me in a wave, cool and wet as she sits at her small desk. She waves her hand, and I see the translucent webbing between her fingers. The holographic display she was looking at disappears.

Even filled with anger, I take note of that fact—she could have turned off the holographic projection before I walked into her room. She wanted me to see just a glimpse of it.

The door hisses shut behind me, and I glower down at her through the fine mist in her quarters.

“You saw this coming. You saw this coming and you didn’t warn me. Vote against the wedding,” I snarl.

“I will vote for the best interests of my planet,” she says, her voice flat, her bright blue eyes blinking with that reptilian second set of eyelids as she looks straight forward.

“You’d throw me to the wolves?” I pull out the chair, sitting in front of her so she has to look at the woman she is damning.

“I would throw myself to the wolves to save Pentaris. To save consciousness. As the crown prince’s wife, you will have a rare influence on him. Convince him not to use the Planet-Killers.”

“Is that all you care about? You said it yourself. Your visions aren’t clear. You have no idea what causes the… threads to go flat,” I say, unfamiliar with the terminology. “If that was even a real vision. You could lie and say anything for your own designs. You’re capable of it.”

If she’s offended, she says nothing, her face a mask.

Her head cocks sideways as she looks at me, in the same way the two Administrators did. Not as her Prime Minister, not even as a human. As a piece of a puzzle.

“It is a great shame you are not his Fated Mate. For she alone will truly have his ear. Be strong, Adriana. That will be your comfort. They have felt her out there, somewhere in the universe, and she is their only obsession. This union between the triad and you will be in name only. Three years, and you will secure not only the future for Pentaris, but your guidance may save all life itself.”

“I am not. Going. To marry. Thosethree.” My voice is ice. “I will resign as Prime Minister. Vote against the proposal, or else I will be stripped of my position and another will take my place. You know I am the only one capable of leading Pentaris out through this war intact.”

She raises a single eyebrow, and there is a gentleness to her. “Adriana, if you are the one meant to lead us, then you will marry them. Look at the deal.” She presses her smart-watch, and the holographic projection she was looking at appears between us.

It is the terms of the deal.

“That can’t be right,” I say, scanning through it. In return for a marriage lasting a minimum of three years, and for Aurelian Empire troops to have free access to Pentaris, they have given us the universe.

I flick my fingers, and the deal continues. In addition to everything the triad promised in the throne room, there are seventy med-bays, one of the technologies kept closest to the Aurelian Empire’s chest, licensed out to great profits. Sick men and women of Pentaris will be able to go into the bays, terminal illnesses eradicated from their bodies, scars erased, arteries cleared, cancers obliterated.

My eyes widen as I scroll. Genetically modified grains that could grow even on the deserts of Terosa.

Thirty Reavers, the predatory attack ships of the Aurelian Empire, never before granted to humanity, given freely, and in perpetuity, to bolster the Frosthold fleets.

An end to the heavy royalty payments on the current alien technology we have licensed from them, which will free every facet of our economy.

My mind reels, and while my hope for Pentaris blooms, my own hopes die. This is twice as much as would have convinced the hardest nationalist on Frosthold, the most canny merchant on Terosa.

I wave my hand, violent, shutting the holographic feed off. “Tell me, Aeris. Tell me every vision you have had that concerns me and them.” My voice is a tense rasp as my mind races for a way to get out of this.

She shakes her head, slowly. “I’m sorry, Adriana. I cannot tell the future for an individual. We are shown glimpses, yes, but on a grand scale.”

“You’re lying to me.” I stare straight through her, my jaw clenched. “You owe me the truth. On that, at least.”

Her eyes flash in affront—and it confirms my suspicion. Before, when I accused her of lying about her vision, it did not affect her. Now, she’s wounded, because of guilt. She’s hiding something from me, and I will get it out of her.

“Knowing the future can change it, Adriana.”

“I have free will, do I not? Would you rob that from me?”

“Very well. I saw a glimpse, only for a moment, of a woman who may have been you. You had a crown on your head. I did not think for a moment it was the crown of the Aurelian Empire. When I shared my vision with the seers of my planet, they feared that you may turn Pentaris into a monarchy. They counseled me to vote against you for Prime Minister.”

“But you voted for me. I had your vote, why?”

“Because the threads that spread out from that vision…” She bites her lip, nervous, and for all the little differences between us, her huge lungs and barrel chest, the fine webs between her fingers that go up to her knuckles, the second set of eyelids, she is still human. “Not all the threads spreading out from that vision led to flat, blank death. That is why I voted for you, Adriana.”

“You are playing as a God, Aeris.”

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