As our battered aircraft taxied toward the makeshift airfield, the cabin was loaded with our speechlessness. I glimpsed Yana's tall slender frame striding across the 'tarmac' that used to be mainstreet flanked by crimson royal guards. Her usual hallow stare was replaced with determination as her long ebony hair sashayed with her gate, I hadn't before seen shadow her mixed Svetlo-Buri attributes.

Before the plane fully even cruised to a termination, Aiko had already pried open the suffocating cockpit door. she flashed her perfect teeth in a half-second sneer as she moved to storm away. My hand burst out to catch her brown athletic wrist--I felt remorse immediately as expressions fled my jaws before thought bordered my psyche.

"Do not create a scene--" she spitefully jolted free of my grip, luckily the regiment accompanying Yana had not noticed this....altercation. "Treacherous serpent" she spat back, shoving roughly past me onto the make-shift street airfield. I lurched out after her, temper ascending to new heights.

How dare she question MY frankness when it was her damned secrets before that-- "King Vasca! Thank Doutros, you're lungs exude sand!" Yana moved swiftly toward me, relief washing over her face mixed with annoyance. My newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commerce, once sidelined daughter of Vadim now worked her decorum magic.

Her contrite smile faltered as she glanced between Aiko's curled lip and my own burning unchanging stare. "I must speak with you both urgently..." Yana attempted to speak before Aiko's strong voice stabbed at her light sentence. "Speak then, Yana..." Aiko growled, not even pivoting fully to acknowledge Yana as she was passed a rifle and then saluted by an ever-present regal sentry.

I shook my fist violently before a shooting pang provoked me to see stars while yapping like a mad sand wolf. "You will exhibit respect when addressed by another of your status...Minister of internal affairs" Aiko whirled on me, eyes blazing, as Yana tried to interject. "Please listen, events of grave importance--" Aiko's face retracted as she squinted her eyes, nearly frothing with seething rage at the new political chain she found herself.

Yana waved the royal guards back with a flicker of irritation, they stepped a few paces away as we began making the short walk to the bunker. "That is quite enough! As per I actually am doing my DUTY, I must inform you--" Aiko turned her eyes towards her. "...try my patience half-kin, Inform yourself straight to gehenna!" She turned her blistering glare back on me. "Unlike his highness, I do not have the time to dance around subjects spit it out or speak nothing."

With immense restraint, I avoided backhanding her brash mouth--a common courtesy among the Vascan high court I wished to phase out my blood yet it called to me like the nerve endings in my shoulder wound. "Walk with me, NOW..." I waited for no reaction, trekking furiously toward the masked bunker opening. I discerned rather than saw Aiko storm after me, the air simmering between us evermore...I could still smell the wafting of ash stinging my nose as the midday winds began to pick up.

Yana clicked after us in her customary Svetlo wooden heels, nonetheless attempting to insert. "There is sensitive news regarding--" My brain pulsed from my lack of real respite and days expended baking in the sun. I moved my dreadlocks from my face as sweat dripped from them to the cracked city avenue.

"Not now!" I spat without diverting. Whatever drivel Aygu and her had contrived while I was missing was no concern to me. I stretched angrily to grasp the steel rung embedded in the dusty metal floor inlet before me. With a harsh twist, a meter-wide section pivoted inward with a grinding of gears. Without hesitating I plunged into the dim passage now yawning before us, each climb hold bringing me closer to actual safety...I needed this more than anything.

I skated one hand along the frigid concrete as I half-slid down the angled inclined ladder. The scintillating emerald glow of the Buritian mold colonies guided my descent before the glare of LED lights welcomed me to the first checkpoint. I stood waiting for the soldier on the other side to unlock the large chrome blast doors. Aiko disembarked lightly behind me, still silently bristling from our tense airplane oral altercation.

Yana's wooden heels clicked down moments later. "Huck, I must relay..." Yana pushed again, slightly out of breath. I ignored her, shouldering through the opening blast doors before striding down the fluorescent halls plated with shiny cold steel. I waited after a sharp left turn for the secondary blast door to begin its long journey to becoming an entrance.

I could scarcely maintain myself vertical from ache and exhaustion as Aiko followed just paces behind now, her fury tempered to a cold disgusted glare that I could feel boring into my back. The moment reminded me of the last gala we had attended...when--"Excuse me! Am I invisible?" Yana's now irate voice sliced through my darkening thoughts as she wedged herself back into perspective. "Huck, Kyler is alive! And here!"

Are you fucking kidding me! How did solely my side of the family die as both Dennis and Kyler escaped the bomber barrage...There were games at play that I needed the proper time to actually grasp, why had he not been at his OWN coronation and was able to find me so quickly amid the capital's decimation!?

The large blast doors had finally made their way fully open as I strode furiously into the more diminutive executive war room reserved for the cabinet's top counselors. " Well, where the hell is this Durik-fucking sandy--" I would have vomited my organs if it were possible as my ears nearly exploded from their tired state.

"Now cousin, is that any manner to welcome beloved kin?" A resonant crackling voice compelled me to whip my head toward the arrogantly comfy spinning figure now sprawled across my seat at the head of the table, feet up.

"What is the meaning--" I began, shock momentarily displacing my anger at the impossible sight of my cousin Kyler's grinning face staring back at me. His near-full head of burgundy-red dreadlocks sat too comfortably among his green lizard-scale robes. His foisting 6'7 frame had yielded none of its brawny dimension in the months since I'd seen him previously.

As Kyler toyed with a bejeweled prayer bead, I sensed Aiko tense behind me in the sealed chamber. Across the glossy chrome table, Minister Yana slipped calmly along the far wall to scrutinize quietly, shaking her head. His company in my stead appeared to send her back to a state of compliance like when I appointed her...and mangled her father.

"Did you think a minor civil dispute could finish me off that effortlessly?" Kyler mused, rolling the prayer bead between his muscular brown fingers. His ravenous crimson-eyed gaze floated to Aiko. "Ah, If it isnt the sweetly lethal Ms. Aiko, keeping my immature cousin...satisfied in my scarcity?"

My jaw clenched so tightly that I nearly broke my wisdom tooth, crossing the smooth floor in three long strides. But before I could seize my insolent cousin chaplain, blinding pain lanced through my injured shoulder, dropping me to my knees like a feeble idiot.

The fortified doors latched automatically as Kyler's bellowing laugh reverberated around us. "Be prudent cousin! We wouldn't want this reunion concluding sourily." Through the throbbing stupor, I heard the whip-like slap before I registered Aiko's palm striking Kyler's smug face. The sharp crack echoed as she stormed wordlessly taking a seat at the far end of the warroom table.

I stared up at my cousin from the floor as he gingerly touched his reddening cheek. Behind a facade of neutrality, Yana looked on worriedly as her green eyes seemed to race between the three of us. "Cousin....I desire this cheeky battle-harlot jailed for assaulting the High Deacon of Doutros!" Kyler rumbled, almost braggingly as I froze in dismay. When had he been elevated to High Deacon?!

Not since our grandfather has there been another Grand Popa...Aiko answered the unspoken question, voicing the same contempt etched across her beautiful brown features. "You seem confused as to Buriti's power structure, reverend." she emitted coldly letting her finger tap the table loudly. "As the appointed Minister of Internal Affairs, I outrank all religious heads except the King." Yana peered at the conversation from behind careful gaze, cataloging this exchange with scrutinizing green eyes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Kyler straightened unhurriedly, his expression morphing to one of stupefaction. "Surely you don't mean this war-hound of a girl and the half-foreign courtesan have truly been named ministers? What you are conveying is blasphemous flensing of our sacred dogma!" He stood furiously, staring straight at me.

The fallacy, hundreds of years baked into our people's blood, that our women lack the mental acumen to have any true power. I held up a hand as I pulled myself to my full height, still a few bitter inches below Kyler's tall-built figure. "Much has transformed since your... 'fortunate' pilgrimage, cousin. The realm will need to rely on more than simple strengths of men alone if we are to rebuild from ash as a PEOPLE."

I met Aiko's gaze firmly, Her miniature freckles wracked my mind and heart for an instant before I continued. "All archaic laws forbidding women will be stricken, along with anything else tying up the states hand with your temple's holdings. You will also discover both Aiko and Yana integral constituents of my cabinet...something you've yet to demonstrate in your new status as Popa." I owned Kyler's wavering Glare.

"Popa or not, you are in MY country now!" The tense standoff lingered before Kyler inclined his head slowly. "Then like our forefathers we acclimate..." he intoned cryptically. I kept my gaze locked with Kyler's, refusing to let this challenge to my authority stand. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Aiko's look of grudging approval at my defense of her station.

The corner of her full lips quirked upward slightly to my liking in my peripheral as I pressed the advantage. "If you require time to...adjust to our unexplored reality, there are private quarters that can accommodate extended invocation and meditation." I loaded the words with thinly veiled contempt. Kyler's mouth tightened, sensing the verbal trap I had ensnared him in.

As grand Popa, rejecting an offer of private spiritual reflection would reveal weakness. Yet sequestering himself away from the court so soon...would leave me to my own machinations. I smiled inwardly, twisting the rhetorical blade deeper. "naturally, I would be only too delighted to supervise ecclesiastical matters personally so you may devote yourself fully to the spiritual direction of our people in sequestration..."

Yana raised one meticulous brow at this from her observation corner of the room, no doubt catching my layered purpose as her raven modest robe clung to her slender frame. Kyler's eyes flashed with impotent frustration as he began fiddling with the dead lizard hanging from his prayer beads.

To publicly counter the King's religious authority was pure heresy as well...Popa or no fucking Popa. I could see the vein in his temple throbbing as he grasped for some cunning parry to my verbal thrusts. But finding no ready foil, he simply bowed his head in acquiescence. "Your grace oversees all things, both temporal and divine..." The words seemed to choke forth.

I smiled toothily as I stuck my fist forward signalling his dismissal. "We shall speak again once you have...spiritually recalibrated." With tremendous pleasure, I observed his huge skeleton retreat in concealed rage to the chamber's cabin quarter. My gaze found Aiko's once more, hoping that this would at least make up for my lies. She slowly forfeited a nod, hellfire blazed in her brown eyes before gliding silently from the room herself.

I turned to a thoughtful Yana still watching me, her slim body supported some of the straightest postures I'd ever seen...If she wasn't a half-kin you'd have no idea she wasn't born here in the Vascan palace itself. "Well played..." she murmured favorably. "Devotions, Yana." I chuckled in agreement- at least Yana actually appreciated my choices...

Motioning to her an open hand, mentality already leaping ahead. "Now, bring me up to speed on all matters requiring my kingly attention." She eyed me with a look of relief as we took seats at the conference table. The humming lights made me feel unnerved at the base's "high-tech" layout...Man and machine were not meant to be so close.

"Unfortunately subtle shifts have popped up since your absence, Your Majesty. Without you to meet the Svetlan convoy in Aesirhellen, their leadership instead flew ahead to Aequora Solitudo..."

I quickly frowned, running my fingers along the cold chrome surface of the war-room table. These foreign dialects would not be able to pass my thick Buri-Vasco accent. "Ae'qu...what?" My seat....was...DAMNIT! The fucking chair was disgustingly pre-heated--my cousin's filthy ashy ass cheeks had made MY seat a sweaty lukewarm metal slab. "A matter of perfect timing," Yana replied sarcastically in her normal tone now, pulling out a dossier from a small pile of files on the far end of the table.

"Tomorrow marks the opening of the annual G.S.C.S--" I felt my eyebrows furrow as I only sat there staring at her blankly, Her angular features contorted into a sigh of frustration. "Global Security and Cooperation Summit." She rolled her eyes like I was meant to know all the stupid happenings of other nations. "I know what those words suggest, yet they mean nothing strung together like that." I grunted, my left eye began twitching as the stresses of the day had finally caught up to me.

Yana's expression grew patient but firm as a frown now dawned on her face. "It is possibly the most noteworthy diplomatic gathering, Huck. Every government's key heads converge to negotiate science, trades, unions - the identical shape of the coming world order."

I waved a hand irritably but she pressed on. My hand found my dreadlocks as a means to rest itself while ridding my dry scalp of its itchy sandy incursion. " As Buriti's ruler, your presence is obligatory-- lest you'd like to stay an unincorporated territory in the eyes of the world another year."

I chortled loudly, and the ringing of my gravelly voice fell nearly in the same tune as my outburst. "And if I decline? Who are these other countries to tell me what our fatherland is?" Yana raised one astute brow, her green eyes concentrated on mine with unbreaking heat. "Then you vandalize our national sovereignty on the international stage. Signaling the Vascan nobility...no Buriti's itself's waning relevance for all to see."

"Signal? I have only been king a meager five days! We will show the whole world that Buriti--without the ties of slavery and placation, is just as powerful as its past oppressors." My heart thumped loudly with each word I said, and my fist slammed hard against the metal table causing a slight hum in the room as Yana nodded. "I will chaperone your council, of course, to steer the multi-layers of cultural protocol." She smiled smugly for a few moments before releasing the obvious key detail.

"Aiko as head of security, and possibly bringing Aygu as a show that we are fully millitant and united again. " How I wished to be alone for even a moment, my ears became hot as I imagined their overuse over the coming trip. "Aygu and Aiko?" I interjected harshly. "Who would be left to run the affairs?!" I was not sure what game this woman was playing with me...or maybe she was just doing her job.

"The days of our homeland needing a toddler-like handhold from its government are over. Like it or not, you two must present a unified front abroad--I have already delegated all the necessary duties for our departure I grimaced, at the idea of being trapped with that ugly bald man and Aiko's gehenna-like anger.

Yana seemed to have a knack for leveling my counter-arguments with irritating logic...if this were Aiko she would have leaped across the table to snap my spine. "Well, it apears it is an offer I cannot refuse--Prepare me the bare minimum custums to not cause bedlam...I've no patience for these dull diplomatic banquets and dont plan on making it a habit."

Yana smiled wryly, her long black hair swayed as she turned her head slightly. "Then you'd best acquire some. Opportunities arise from patience...and observation." She had a single thin brown finger raised as she was mocking counselors we'd grown up noticing annoy my father.

I repressed a groan, already dreading the prospect of actually having the weight of my country on my back on such a grand stage...But Yana was right - opportunities did emerge for those cunning enough to spot them among shifting hot sand...I would endure this "cooperation summit" with begrudging compliance.

"Though I will not tolerate any disrespect to our fatherland while abroad...If the other polities plan to ignore us, I will see to it they cannot" I stood holding my fist to the metal ceiling. "I am done for today, Yana you have done a remarkable job in your brief stint as Minister...I am elated we fed your father to the beasts of carrion." This was the most I'd ever heard her speak and communicated with her, I had never known for 5 years what a brilliant luminary she was.

Her green eyes flashed for a moment with surprise, I hadn't thought about possibly Yana was never appreciated for more than just her innate loveliness. "Thank you, Huck...I was worried you'd be like your father. I am sick and tired of seeing our people suffer for riches and power--Please do not fail us." She turned to take her leave as I sat alone in the small war room.

I finally had time to myself in this chrome bomb shelter. I glanced at my dry cracked hand for any manifestation of the goddess' influence. Encountering nothing barring my melanated skin, I just sat there for a few minutes. The aroma of the searing ash of the capital and shifting dunes did not find its way down here. Only cold metal and small hints of my own sweat now muddling my sinuses.

I am not, my father. I will liberate all people who discover themselves in my care, this world may be used to the vapid and self-indulgent ways of my Vascan Kin in the past...

But I plan to echo the mage-king's memorialized ocean deunification deep in my tangible delusion--I will split the world's sea of nations with nothing but my own will!