[SS]: “So… did you two…?”

Korac’s laughing at me now.

Patience, amos. Sometimes a hair brushing is only a hair brushing. We’re getting there.

Back to matters of diplomacy.

Xelan continued working on restoring the Vittle crops to save our race. Meanwhile, Nox and Umbra favored the second option of searching for a new planet to migrate our people.

Privately, I kept my promise to Para. Every few months, I traveled to the continent where Umbra’s forgotten slaves established themselves in thriving colonies under my immodest care. We’re talking cities, Sagan. For of all the planets from which to collect minds—Thailea, Lukemore, and Reipon are the most creative and industrious.

Beautiful towering spires of commerce and technology. Colorful temples paid tribute to art and expression. Mills luxuriated fabrics. Arsenals molded weapons for display only. And the perfume shop became a warehouse of oils, soaps, and salts.

It paid to be the only Icarus aware of this secret. I often returned with exotic presents for my Prince and my future King, ironically from their own planet.

[SS]: “How could they not know?”

If not for the starvation, the Icari would have progressed much further by this point, but as things were, we couldn’t afford to let their intelligence exceed a certain limit of their hunger. Keeping their word to me, the once enslaved population kept their civilization camouflaged in cave formations beneath a plateau. And they were fine with this arrangement until, at such time, they required conduit travel. But that was closer to the time we invaded Earth.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

I often visited the colonies’ leaders in a soaring basilica where they held congress. They marbled the black stone with blue and silver into veins rich enough to match my blood. I admired the lacquered surface at any opportunity.

“It was intentional.”

I turned to find the short woman I always encountered during my visits. Almost reaching my hip, she wore the robes of a Thailean Mystic.

And she was hopelessly in love with me.

[SS]: I’m cackling. Cause, truly… who isn’t?

I’m not being narcissistic! I’m serious! Beneath her perfume, I smelled it on her. Whenever I smiled at her, the sweetness deepened to caramel.

[SS]: “And let me guess. After figuring that out, you smiled at her more often?”

He’s smirking instead of answering me. It’s almost enough to make me roll my eyes, but damn if I don’t find it charming. “You’re cruel.”

All my life, being pretty afforded me an unbalanced scale of torture and advantage. Forgive me for indulging in the latter to compensate for the former.

[SS]: Well, when he puts it like that—Give me one second while I kiss him and let him indulge in that advantage for a minute.

Okay. We’re back. Sneaky bastard tried to press for an advance on his next word-count treat.

You can’t blame me with you dressed like that.

[SS]: Stop reading and keep story-telling, mister.

Fine. My hands are in the air in surrender. I’ll have you in another scene or two and make you regret denying me.

[SS]: “Noted. Now, get your head back in the game. Secret continent. Thailean Mystic. Into you.”

Ementa was her name. Her hair was long and yellow, not blond. I guess now I can see it’s the color of Aegis blood. Big brown eyes with fans of lashes. I remembered that mattered, because she batted them at me so often.

Upon laying eyes on her, I offered the crook of my arm for her to take. Ementa flushed and reached high to touch my elbow. I want to clarify that she was small but proportionate. When she shone me a winning smile, I wondered not for the first time what sex with her would be like. Simply out of curiosity.

[SS]: I mean… fair.

“Welcome back, sir. What would you like to see this time?” Her voice was soft and breathy.

We toured like this every visit. The other council members became conveniently too busy to join us, no matter how random my arrival. It was endearing, and I enjoyed indulging her. “Are there any new exhibits at the Collective museum?”

Again, Ementa beamed. “Yes. We have an excellent cascade display. I think you will appreciate it.”

We wandered there, and she updated me along the way about how affairs thrived. It was so strange to me how wonderfully advanced they were, but how little they desired expansion. Whereas the Icari sought an escape from their inevitable demise with desperate fury.

Gently, Ementa prodded, “How is the state of Cinder? You know, despite how Umbra treated us, we pity the Icari.”

I nodded, almost unwilling to elaborate, but I was compelled to voice my earlier observations in comparison. “Your people flourish here while the planet’s native inhabitants die. We reduce our potential more and more to escape our fate.”

“Can we help?”

We arrived at the museum, and I sat on the edge of a lit fountain to consider her offer. “What do you know of the Vittle blight?”

Ementa sat beside me, putting those bright brown eyes more level to my own. “I know Li’s expansion destroyed so much of the ecosystem, and that the Vittle was a casualty of this, being a delicate crop. I know it is rare now since it cannot thrive on this blackened water and acrid soil. But we could explore other ways. I would like to try for you. For those Princes who never pursued us. But not for Umbra.”

I smirked at her.

Ementa blushed sweetly. “Uhm. Shall we?” She gestured to the museum entrance.

Smiling, I took her hand and pulled her inside with a girlish giggle from her. She was right. I did appreciate the exhibit. In their way of mixing color in art, this sculptor captured waterfalls the size of Earth’s Niagara Falls in rock mixed with blues, purples, pinks, and greens. Like cool smoke, the veining intensified into waves crashing at the bottom.

“Truly breathtaking.” I felt a pang of heartache for the Icari. For Cinder to birth such gorgeous creativity but not from my people. “I accept your help, Ementa. What do you suggest?”

I returned to Umbra’s Spire, eager to share my excitement with Xelan. Vittle supplements. What an inspiring idea. Wean us of our dependency on an endangered crop by replicating the nutrients in an alternative method of nourishment. I just knew my Prince would welcome the notion—

“Are you on your way to Xelan’s lab?” Nox asked at the castle’s entrance.

He looked vexed. Did he want to make the announcement of our discovery to Xelan, now?!

I felt my good mood drain away at the reminder of their declining relationship. Shit was tense after Nox killed Gale in front of his baby brother. I hated it because I honestly believed—I still believe—if Xelan didn’t witness the execution in person, then it wouldn’t fucking matter. The boy had an “out of sight, out of mind clause,” if you get my meaning.

[SS]: The intensity of this… it’s making me wince.

I’m sorry, amos. I mean no disrespect.

[SS]: “You promised to bare your soul. I can take it. But I love Xelan and I did long before I loved you. One day when he writes his Verse and shares this level of detail about you, I’ll wince then, too. So, you say what you need to, how you need to. I’ll maintain my professional detachment.” He just gave me a kiss to thank me. We’re moving onward.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I followed Nox into Xelan’s lab. There, the two discussed acquiring ore from Thailea. I thought it was a great segue to my knowing a Thailean Mystic interested in helping with our Vittle problem when Xelan stopped us from talking.

“Shh… I need to concentrate.” Bright white robes draped over him. He stared into a prism similar to the Valkyrie caskets and carefully lowered a sample into the fog. “All right. The moment of truth.”

Xelan took a deep breath and pressed a switch. His palm bled onto the device. Inside, the fog swirled. Zaps of electricity popped within.

Nox frowned.

I watched my Prince, studying him as he concentrated. I didn’t know at the time that Nox caught me doing it. The Icarus was leagues more observant than I ever gave him credit for.

Xelan cried out ecstatically. A being formed inside. With horns and six pairs of feet. “Many Feet the second!”

No fucking way. A full-grown Hellkite growled and snorted inside. I couldn’t help myself. I reached in and stroked its snout. “Congratulations, your majesty!”

This truly was a remarkable feat, and we shared a special smile over it. One that soured Nox even further by reminding him of his own isolation.

He barked at Xelan to explain the progenitor. We know that he used materials from L. Capra and Monarch 3 to clone Many Feet from an old DNA sample he kept of her. And he accomplished this by accident.

When he explained that including Thailean ore would create a person, Nox chose that moment to announce our discovery of Earth. A planet already inhabited by a sentient species.

I’d never seen Xelan react like that before.

He roughly stripped off his lab gear while Nox was speaking. The thin line of his mouth and the tight set of his eyes let us know he was pissed. Nox tried to reach him. Tried to reason. When Xelan brushed by him, the older brother grabbed the younger one’s arm. Xelan glared at the contact like he considered doing something about it.

I did not want to be there for that. I… I think I disassociated or vacated myself for this. I couldn’t bear to listen to it. Both of them argued valid points, but only Nox’s advanced our race toward salvation. He was even willing to compromise with Xelan.

And for that, my Prince accused Nox of sharing anything in common with Umbra. “Consider me surprised you and father wish not to breed [with the Earthlings] the old-fashioned way.”

Even before reading Nox’s Verse, I knew it bothered the oldest brother. His eyes tightened, and his voice thickened with the strain of his emotions. “Do not lump me in with him. I want to combine our races. He wants to enslave them.”

Xelan’s eyes widened. “Domination?! But—”

“I will not let it come to that, but we will invade. Not long from now, in fact. We need your help for us to survive the radiation from their sun. Can you do that, Xelan?”

I fucking hated this.

It broke my heart to watch Xelan’s lashes flutter with tears.

Swallowing his emotions, he promised, “I will try.”

“Thank you, brother. I ask nothing more from you.”

Nox turned to leave, and Xelan called after him. “Nox?”

“Yes.”

“Does the planet have a name?”

The eldest brother answered with his back to us. “The Tritans call it the Third. The species—the humans—call it Geb or Earth.”

I heard the same emotion in his voice that I felt. There was no end to Xelan’s heart, but no matter how vast it was, it couldn’t solve all of our problems.

My future King left us alone with the state of Cinder on our minds. As my Prince stared after his older brother, the truth dawned on me. The painful reality of it. On matters of Icarean society and the state of Cinder, the brothers would only drift further apart until it utterly divided them.

And one day I would have to choose.

Shaking myself, I accepted another truth. Today was not that day. “My Prince, I have news for you. I think you will prefer it to your current thoughts.”

When Xelan turned, I knew my eyes widened slightly despite my carefully arranged mask. Bags appeared under his eyes that weren’t there before. His mouth was drawn and down-turned. His soul shown battered in his eyes.

Sagan. Rayne. I want you both to understand. I want to be fair. Nox suffered, and so did Xelan. Neither brother let the other see, but they were both crushed under the weight of their ideals and their logic. The very same principles they wielded as weapons against each other.

There I was, stuck in the middle, loving them both. They were my people. My home.

I rounded the table and surprised Xelan when I took him in my arms. Gradually, his rigid body yielded, and he wrapped his arms around my waist. Taller than me, he rested his chin on my shoulder with a sniffle against my neck.

After two seconds of this gentle embrace, a dam broke inside this sensitive Icarus, and his big heart rushed out in a wave of tears. Xelan gripped me hard, as if I were his lifeline. His sobs racked us both. I considered all the times I found comfort from another—Para, Karter, Savis—for what eased me.

I ran my fingers through his long, black hair.

That was enough to make him talk, and what he said crushed me. “My brother… Korac, father is turning my brother into a monster.”

Define a monster.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, Xelan created new life in this very lab. I suppressed an entire civilization’s genius potential in the name of “peace.” And Nox… he thought only of Cinder and his “leash.”

As I stared at the recently cloned Many Feet, I reconciled the implications of such a feat. Of such technology and power in Xelan’s hands. An Icarus who never restrained himself from testing the limits of his inventions. Of his capabilities.

Now was not the time to mention Ementa.

“When did you last rest, my Prince? Join me for bed.”

Xelan went stiff again, so I assured him. “For sleep.”

“Yes.” His voice was hoarse from crying. “You go ahead. I want to finish here. I promise to join you soon.” Releasing Many Feet from the progenitor, he smiled at me reassuringly. “I look forward to it.”

An hour later, I let him into my room. He came in through the secret passages in the walls. I’d already prepared for bed and wore the lightest robes I owned for his modesty.

Wearing only pants, he took in the sight of me. “I dreamt about this once.”

“Sleeping in my bed?” I dreamt about more, but with all this secrecy, I wouldn’t dare tell him the truth or risk his retreat.

Despite the discretion of his actions, Xelan’s words were bold. “Of us. Together. I want to be with you, Korac.” His eyes get bluer when his heart’s wide open.

I let him see how much this affected me. How my heart was racing and how unsure I was. That his words meant more to me than he could know. Yet, I sensed a “but” coming. He was breathing hard for the wrong reasons, and his gaze kept darting away from mine.

Stipulations.

We could have each other, but he wanted stipulations.

Being in love for the first time means you’re willing to compromise yourself for the person you admire. Willing to give anything to be with them. To trust them with your heart while certain they wouldn’t break it.

I could do that. I promised him everything. “Give to me what you want. Take from me what you need.”

A smile blossomed on Xelan’s face. This damp, shirtless model standing in my room grinned at me like it was his first time seeing fireworks. “I knew you would understand. I want us, but Nox can never know.”

That hurt. Twisted and cauterized. Stretched thin between them, this war among brothers threatened to tear me apart.

Let me be clear. For you, amos. For you, sprite. But most importantly for you, Prince Xelan. My loyalty lies with the throne of Cinder. To its rightful inheritor. Once, that was Nox, and now that honor goes to King Rayne.

But damn, does my heart get in the way of my allegiances. Sometimes for the better.

[SS]: We squeeze hands for a second before he continues.

Looking into the earnest desperation in Xelan’s eyes, I convinced myself this wouldn’t matter for another year. Two, tops. The brothers would reunite to serve the Icarean Prerogative, as all Icari must, and then he’d no longer fear Nox.

And frankly, with Xelan half-naked in my room, I didn’t want to think about my future King in that moment. I smirked and sauntered closer to my Prince. “Very well, your highness. I am your secret.”

How much he relaxed in relief twinged, but I let it go and set my sights on more immediate desires. “We should seal our accord.”

Xelan rubbed the back of his neck in that awkward boyishness I enjoyed with his guard down. “What did you have in mind?”

Slightly shorter, I reached for him and paused. I asked for permission. For consent.

I’m not sure how much you want to know about your mentor, girls. But I’ll be candid and let Sagan redact at her discretion.

Xelan comes across as shy and reserved. Until you’re alone with him. I’ve never kissed another Icarus who treated the act so sacrosanct as he did. Tameka, you’re a very lucky woman.

All that inexperienced nervousness drained from him. He gripped my hips and pulled me closer. When his mouth came down on mine, it wasn’t hesitant or unsure. He claimed me in one kiss. Took away all the power I demanded over my partners and reined me in. All the while, it was soft and yielding. Slow and exploring. Nothing hurried. Nothing forceful.

Xelan, you took my breath away.

And I seriously want to kick you in the fucking face for it.

[SS]: I can’t stop laughing. Korac’s eyes are watering at the steamy scene. I’m loving this chapter in his Verse. Sorry, Wingmaster, but I’m not redacting a thing.

When we came up for air, he had the nerve to slap that innocent grin back on his face while expecting me to believe his lies. “That was my first time. How was it for you? Any feedback?”

I gawked at him. Only then did I realize it was my first time actually kissing someone, but I wasn’t about to share that with him after he sent electricity to my toes. Taking his hand, I led him to my bed. “I require a broader sampling of your skills before I can assess your prowess completely. Strip.” I reached for his pants.

Xelan gently gripped my wrists with an attractive chuckle I’d never heard from him before. He has a different laugh in the bedroom, filled with more ego that I expected from him. “Slow down. We have an entire future to know one another. I find myself wanting to take my time.”

I was sitting on the bed with Xelan standing in front of me. From that, I knew enough of his body was willing to hurry. More than enough. But perhaps more than his concerns for Nox kept him from embracing me. “Why do you hesitate?”

Softly, Xelan brushed his fingers through my hair and stared down at me with open admiration. “I can only imagine what your life was like before Cinder. Your beauty invites predators like blood in water.”

I had to swallow what that surfaced in me.

His fingers moved to brushing my cheek. Tender. Kind. “But with me, you are not swimming for your life.”

When Xelan knelt in front of me and the sincerity shone in his eyes, I had to look away. Since Gale, I took hundreds of partners. Not one for more than a single night. I often wondered if the Princes knew of my promiscuity, and if they thought less of me because of it. All those rumors of my appetites spreading through the Spire, the army, and the resident population of Cinder.

Like a knight here for my rescue, Xelan reached for me. “Tonight, let me hold you. We can dispel our nightmares together before we make sweet dreams.”

With my forehead pressed to his firm chest, I nodded, unwilling to speak.

Xelan left me only long enough to climb into the bed and gently pull me against him. Mercifully, he changed the subject. “Tomorrow, we can restore the pen for Many Feet II.”

I liked this. It was comfortable. “Ostrich feather mattresses and mushrooms?”

He tenderly kissed my hair. “Yes. And toys. You remember how she liked to chew…”

That’s how the night went. We laid in bed, purring and discussed the menial until we fell asleep. Like a couple long unioned. It was my first time sleeping with someone since the Caprent girl on Gait. My first kiss, too. My first relationship.

Xelan was my everything, and my duty to Cinder loomed over us like a tsunami teeming with sharks.