Zorren looked through the scope of his R36 riffle at his target as it moved through the green vegetation of its surroundings. He didn’t pull the trigger right away. He wasn’t in a hurry or afraid he would miss his shot. He had been stalking his prey for several miles now, and knew its movements well. Even if Zorren chose to not shoot in this moment, there was nowhere else for his target to go. Zorren had been subtly backing his quarry right where he wanted it.

He aimed at the large thick scaly chest, picked a spot in the dead center, and pulled the trigger. A red bolt as fast as lightening ripped through the space between him and this prey, scorching a perfectly circular bolt of heated plasma right through one of the creature’s two pulsing hearts.

An ear splitting shriek cut the air. Zorren let his riffle fall to his side and the strap firmly hooked around his shoulder to kept it from falling into the debris of decaying leaves of the forest floor. The weapon bounced off his left as the man picked his way through the dense foliage to his downed target, but he wasn’t the first to reach it.

“Good shot, Highness. As always,” Roterick said with his own riffle thrown over his shoulder, standing over the splayed form of a rather ugly looking animal.

Zorren moved to stand beside his Protector, eyeing the downed creature. It wasn’t quite dead yet. The thing was twitching in its last throes of life. He could have used his corvot knife sheathed at the back of his right calf to finish it, but he didn’t. The Prince just stood there watching until the last muscle shuttered. Then he kicked it once with his heavy boot just to be sure it was really done.

The creature was a dark scaly thing with a massive triangular mouth that could have swallowed a grown man’s head. The body thick and muscular with oily black scales covering from head to toe. The legs the thickest part to support the rather large body as it walked about on two legs, or used to walk that is. Now the animal lay without a glimmer of intelligent life in its dull blacks eyes.

Zorren threw the other man a cutting glare. “I thought you said this was one was going to be a challenge? It took less than two hours. This wasn’t even worth getting out of bed for.”

“Scorrons are not easy prey, Highness, I assure you. They are much faster than the average Ethian, and can even outrun a person with the Agility or Endurance Dome-ni if pressed. That makes them a lot harder to trap. Out of all the Fazha races, this one is considered a challenge to hunt since they too are hunters.” Roterick replied in a confident tone, but Zorren spied the sweat beading on the other man’s forehead, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the rising heat of the jungle around them.

“Perhaps, this is simply a show of how good you have gotten.” The Protector continued when Zorren had remained quiet. “You have certainly bypassed my own teachings some time ago. You are a natural at this.”

Zorren scoffed. “I’d prefer a challenge, Roterick, and this wasn’t it. Find me another, and do it quickly.”

The other man gave a deep bow, but Zorren ignored it and stalked toward the nearest exit of the patch of jungle he had been hunting the Fazha. Yes, technically, it really wasn’t Roderick’s job to find Zorren things to kill. The man was his Protector after all, and was supposed to keep any sort of danger far away from his charge, but Zorren had discovered a taste for the thrill of the hunt early on in life, and did not welcome anyone’s attempt to shut his hunts down or shield him in anyway.

The most Zorren would allow was for his Protector to shadow the hunting area from a distance with direct orders not to get involved or else. And Zorren’s last Protector had learned the hard way what the or else meant. Roterick had been much more amenable, and had even gone so far as to give Zorren lessons in using the more dangerous and high powered weapons as well as actively seeking out prey for Zorren to hunt, which suited the Prince just fine. Zorren had come a long way in his hunting over the years.

At first his expeditions had been contained to the political arena. Zorren had learned well the role of the predator by stalking the halls of the upper class looking for those who disagreed with, or flat out worked against the Imperial Family.

Sometimes the prey was disgraced to the point of being harried into a life of quiet exile. Or a series of events was set into place to discredit, demote, or directly confront those Zorren had deemed an enemy of the Imperial Seat. But by far his most favorite way to bring about the end of his foes was the old fashioned one that ended in blood and a contemplative look into the lifeless eyes of those he’d pursued to the bitter end.

But his preferred way of taking down political problems had gotten back to his father, and that, along with how he had dealt with the sudden and very unwelcomed appearance of a certain younger brother, had been the main cause of the rift between Zorren and the Emperor. Since then, Zorren had to take strides to curb his enthusiasm for taking down political targets, at least the old fashioned way. And instead, went in search for targets that were significantly less high profile, but could still satisfy his need for an exhilarating hunt and a vigorous kill.

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It was a concession that Zorren had discovered to be a difficult one, he had enjoyed his bloody hunts of the upper class more than he had realized. But Zorren had suffered the loss of them to show his father that he could change and be cooperative. He had waited twenty long years for his father to notice Zorren’s sacrifice and reinstate him as Ascendant, but all that bastard had done was play Zorren against his other brothers.

And then three months ago without a warning, father had invited him, Hazeth, and Xavier to a rare family dinner and dropped the most unpleasant news that their youngest brother had finally been found after twenty years of disappearance and that he would be returning to Dyinss in short order. And if that wasn’t enough of a shock, their father had ended the meal with an edict of banishment from the White Palace to be carried out by the very next morning and a dire warning that they would suffer the highest displeasure of the Imperial Seat if they made any sort of aggressive move against their younger brother upon his return.

Zorren had been too shocked to even respond. Xavier had stewed quietly in his seat as he normally did to any adverse news. It had been Hazeth who had demanded the reason for such sudden and unexpected actions toward the three of them.

Father’s response had been cool and unemotional as he sipped at his after dinner wine like he was talking about something completely mundane and uninteresting.

“As I recall, it was all of your stupid, barbaric, and completely uncivilized actions toward your much younger brother that has put you where you are right now. Why would I be courteous to give you fair warning? After all, you did not give a five year old any warning at all before you attacked him like a pack of rabid animals. If you do not like the way you are being treated, then perhaps you should consider the way you treat others.”

His last words seemed to be directed in totality at Zorren as the Emperor made eye contact with him before taking an extra long swallow of the bittersweet wine. Zorren had not liked the way his spine had shivered in that exact moment. So he had grabbed his own wine and took a sip to match his father’s.

“But Sire, we have spent the last twenty years trying to make amends for what we did.” Hazeth whined like he usually did, trying to fix something he was never going to be able to, at least not with words.

When father made up his mind, that was it, not a soul had ever been able to talk him out of a decision, no matter how ill conceived it might be. Though once upon a time, Zorren had thought his father an invincible pillar of strength and could do no wrong. But Zorren had been cured of that misperception long ago.

The Emperor raised an eyebrow at Hazeth’s words. “Really? Then where is your apology?”

Hazeth’s face scrunched up with question. “Excuse me?”

Their father slammed down the goblet of his wine, and the contents splashed over, but it was his blazing eyes across the table that caught the direct attention of all three of them. It wasn’t often that their father showed such open and explosive emotion.

“In the last twenty years, I have been waiting for an apology from all of you for what you did to your brother and the mess you caused right after. Two apologies actually. One toward your brother and one to me. He nearly died at the three of your hands because you couldn’t keep your jealousy in check.

“And one towards me for the hardship I had to go through when his mother was so afraid you three might finish what you started that she ran off with him to only the universe knows where. I have spent a fortune and a great deal of time looking for him from one corner of our Empire to the other. And I recently had to send my most senior Zahian officer into a great unknown to finally find and retrieve your brother, at which none of that would have had happen if you all would have left that boy alone.

“I thought surely, at least one of you would grow a conscious and express your remorse for your actions in the time since then, but I have heard from none of you about any admission of guilt at what you had done, or an apology to me or for your brother. That was the sort of amends I had wished to see, not the three of you sucking up and trying to out do each other in order to be the victor in securing yourself as my successor.”

The Emperor finally sat back, his anger spent, and he looked old in that moment, every bit of his two hundred and ninety-six years. The man let out a long exhale as he shook his head. “I had thought I had given a better example to you three. Obviously, I was wrong. It is a shame. Truly. And a waste.”

He then looked up like he just realized that he had let his guard down. His face changed immediately to the usual stoic and expressionless familiarity that they and the entire Empire was used to. “I had long hoped for your brother’s return, and now that it’s imminent, the three of you can go live your lives elsewhere. I am done with the lot of you, and I will not have you mucking up my last chance at giving this Empire a successor. I do not care where you go or what you do as long as you stay away from your brother and do not make trouble in the Empire.

“If you stay out of trouble, you can retain your titles of Princes of the Empire and your normal stipend from the Imperial treasury to live on, but if I hear so much as a word that any of you are operating to work against your brother or impede the Empire or my will in any way, I will take those things from you as well. Do I make myself clear?”

Hazeth and Xavier answered right away with a duo of, “yes, father,” like the true sycophants they were. It took Zorren almost a whole minute to finally spit those words out and only because the Emperor sat across from him glowering at Zorren, daring him not to say anything at all.

After that, the man nodded as if confirming it all with that one motion, though Zorren knew the old man would have already had it all written up in legal contracts beforehand, and then have an underling send it to their unity rings even as the conversation played out. Just to make sure there was no misunderstandings, of course.

It was the last time Zorren had seen that smug bastard, and he had been in rage almost every day since. Hence the need for these little hunting trips. They helped to keep the rage in check. Mostly.

Roterick had been procuring Zorren several targets a weeks now, but the kills had done little to quell the seething rage inside in the last month, not when Zorren’s true target was nowhere near the scope of his blaster riffle. It felt like these pathetic offerings by Roterick were just a tease, while the real prey got away.