Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
This human is a talented dot joiner. “Something like that,” I nod.
“I see. So she’s happy to keep fucking with you, and I was the one who got the collar that fucks you up?”
“Well. Yes.”
Lyssa shakes her head. “I am not going to be a whipping girl for that bitch,” she says.
“You’re not. You are a very different kind of trouble.” I speak with affection. It is safe to say that Lyssa is my favorite kind of trouble. “Enchante and I were never in love. Our marriage was arranged in order to seal the kingdom. Her father, now passed, battled my father, also now passed, for years, sending millions to their deaths. Our marriage was supposed to bring peace, but Enchante is not the kind to settle for anything like peace. She wanted to change Maniae. And when I refused to make the decisions she wanted me to make, she started a coup with her ladies-in-waiting and was very successful at it.”
“So she was kind of a boss bitch babe who didn’t need no man,” she says, puzzlingly. The translation device often converts her thoughts into coherent words, but not ones that necessarily mean anything when strung in a sentence.
“You should learn about my realm, Maniae, before we reach it, the politics. The history, the…”
“Nah. Not going to be necessary.”
The arrogance is astounding, but unsurprising.
“Do you think you’re just going to walk right in and take the throne?”
She turns her head to look at me from her pilot’s chair. “Just wait and see.”
There’s a very real chance she’s going to get us both killed, but at this point there’s a very real chance we’re both going to be killed anyway. At least this is a step in what might be the right direction.
10
Manik
It is not a long journey from the exploded ice planet to Maniae. A matter of days at most. I am not entirely sure because I find myself unable to sleep. There is a sense of impending doom that dogs me at every turn. Lyssa’s plan is reckless, and likely to end in bloodshed. But it is a plan, and a plan is better than no plan.
“We have arrived,” the ship announces, drawing me from my doze in the captain’s chair.
Lyssa comes running from the back to see the wonders of my world. She looks at the screen displaying the place, and her face falls. “This is your planet?”
“It is.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Starting landing procedures. Please secure yourselves into thermally-shielded seating positions.”
Lyssa can tell from orbit that things have gone deeply and terribly wrong on my home world, that is how intense the destruction has been in my absence. Thick plumes of smoke rise from several factory installations and as we emerge from blazing hot reentry, we are caught in dark charcoal plumes of one of these factory cities. These did not exist when I was forced into exile. They are the dreams of the merchant class made nightmare.
I do not answer her immediately. I am too busy dealing with the realization that things are even worse than I imagined. I chose exile in some way. Yes, Enchante wanted her shot at power, but I could have tried harder to stop her. Instead, I allowed myself to be lured into a series of wars and battles that established my character as vicious and dangerous and as Lyssa calls me, psycho. The media who had once hailed me made me a monster. All suffering on Maniae was deemed to be because of me personally. I was a king without the favor or loyalty of his people, and perhaps worst of all, I was tired of myself.
“Poor governance will destroy the finest of worlds. The fields are ash and the waters are bitter and the people are starving.”
“Palace looks good, though.”
We are now close to the capital city, Pace. At the very center of the city is a spire, and the spire is attached to the palace which has grown since my departure, constructed tendrils reaching out to grasp at and choke the life out of the city. I look at this overdeveloped, overbuilt, overpopulated world and I yearn for the simplicity and solitude of ice and blood. There are too many problems here. There is too much suffering. And there is no way one soul, no matter how dedicated, can save everyone.
And yet the plan has been set in motion and there is no turning back. I am coming for my throne, and all the crushing responsibilities that accompany it, including the ever-present threat of assassination.
We land in the royal docks. Just as Lyssa surmised, using a ship aligned with the traitors allows us to gain entry without so much as a security screening. Enchante has turned this world into a bustling port full of comings and goings and absolutely full of security issues.