Circe’s psionic aura no doubt played a heavy part in it, but Arthur couldn’t lay the adoration of the masses solely at the feet of the esoteric power Circe had been born with. Psions only enhanced what already existed, and Circe—despite her elite breeding, high station, wealth, and exclusive upbringing—was a princess of the people through and through.

Throughout it all, he found himself surprised to be having a genuinely enjoyable time. It was something he hadn’t expected, and even with the memories of his time as Zacaris contrasting the ‘backwater’ technologies of Pallikári to places like Camelot or the immense Ecumenopolis City-World of Mars, he found that he enjoyed his time with Circe, Perseus, and Endymion more than he ever had visiting the ‘stellar age wonders’ of the Core.

Circe, especially, captivated his attention as the hours raced by.

Be it their psionic densities, their resonance, or simple chemistry—he couldn’t deny that there was an ease to being around Circe. Even his memories of Zacaris failed to bring up a similar instance of such overt and immediate familiarity with another person, resonance or not.

It wasn’t a romantic kind of ease either, though the back of his mind certainly felt a certain tension with the untitled princess. There was just something easy about spending time with the woman that Arthur could not fully pinpoint.

It was a mix of many things, in truth.

It was her general love for life, and the way she would stop to fawn over children, or go out of her way to make room for the elderly, or even pause in the middle of the street to soothe the tempers of aggrieved pedestrians engaged in disagreements.

All of these things and more comprised the image of a woman who was as sincere as she was headstrong, as kind as she was passionate, and as warm as she was ferocious. Circe Leos was the warrior princess trope he’d read about so often as a boy brought to life. What was more, she embodied it effortlessly. It was impossible not to like her.

It was impossible not to find himself caught up in her aura, aware of it or not.

The chemistry between them hardly helped matters, either.

It was manifested in the subtle palpitations that took hold when she touched his arm, or the faint warmth in his body when she laughed, or the way he could drink in her eyes and smile with no sense of limit to the enjoyment.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He worked hard to suppress the reactions, knowing they could go nowhere good.

Basic attraction, however, was one of the few things the geneticists had not managed to develop a reliable means of controlling. Their legacy allowed mankind to shape itself to appeal to those attractions from culture to culture, be it the willowy and tall preferences of Eurasian peoples, or the more robust and stoic preferences of ethnic polynesians.

The examples of varied preferences were as numerous as there were ethnicities and cultures of mankind, and in all cases attraction was a culturally and societally subjective measurement.

Still basic attraction remained, and all Arthur could do was try to suppress it.

After the stores, entertainment venues—including a particularly amusing karaoke stop-over—and spending enough drachma that even Perseus commented in amazement at the sheer amount of stuff Circe had insisted on buying; they organized transport for her purchases back to the estate, and finally piled back into the air car.

The farewell they received, or rather that Circe received, was riotous.

It was an emotionally charged mix of joy at seeing her ,and heartbreak at seeing her depart, and Arthur was reminded once again of the sheer power of psions when interacting with people with little to no notable density of their own.

When at last the final farewells were given and Circe and Arthur were driving away from the metropolitan heart of Pallikári, he turned to the heiress and quietly observed her while she stared out of the window.

Her smile was somber while the car moved through the town.

“You seem melancholy,” he said carefully. “Did you not wish to leave?”

“No, it’s not that.” Circe said without looking at him. “Pallikári is thriving, and we are providing for our people’s growth exactly as we should, but with what’s looming…”

“You’re worried about what will happen if you’re unable to keep ruling them.”

“Not ruling them,” Circe said immediately and with a frown while turning to him, though her tone wasn’t recriminating—only firmly corrective. “It may be that way on paper, but we don’t rule them. We protect them. We guide their development.”

She turned back to look out the window, and continued more quietly. “We aren’t their masters, we’re the highest level of public servants there are—and unlike the elected ones that run the day to day affairs of the town, of which there are many; our duty is inherited through the blood. We have a sacred responsibility to Pallikári, and all of Graecia.”

His memories as Arthur Zacaris almost made him scoff at the sentiment.

If nothing else, that reaction alone was justification for what Nataliya had done.

Arthur did not want to be the kind of man that scoffed at noble convictions.