Emana’s smile didn’t alter.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, all sweetness and light. She could be charming when she wanted—which wasn’t very often. “I’m Kal’s sister, Emana.”
They shook hands but it seemed a little awkward.
“Aunzika,” I said, motioning to the head of the household. “This is Sirena. She’s going to be staying with us for a few days. Please take her up to a room and bring her anything she wishes.”
Aunzika bowed and, as usual, didn’t utter a single word. He took Sirena’s bag and led the way up the stairs.
Sirena looked at me uncertainly before following.
I watched her shapely behind as it worked its way up the stairs and out of sight. I sighed and turned to leave.
Emana folded her arms and shook her head at me.
“What?” I said.
“I’ve seen that look before,” she said. “Never on you though. Except maybe once.”
“What look?” I said innocently.
“You can’t fool me, big brother,” Emana said. “Never forget that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said innocently, and shuffled off to my office, wishing Emana wasn’t my sister.
Except for the dining hall and ballroom, my office was the largest room in the castle. It needed to be. I often took meetings and there could be up to a dozen or more people arguing while we hammered out a solution to the problem.
Problems.
That was what my job was. Solving one problem after another. Sometimes they were small disagreements between local farmers about a purchase or land dispute. Other times, a brawl broke out and I had to administer justice before the courts got involved.
My entire life, I’d seen my father sitting behind that desk, amiably discussing issues and overcoming problems with the townspeople. He liked to lean back in his chair and toss a ball from one hand to the other. It helped him concentrate, he said.
I picked the ball up from the tabletop and squeezed it. I never thought I would be the one to sit behind this desk. That was my elder brother’s job. I was the younger brother. I was meant to support him when necessary. It was what I was good at.
We both benefited from the same level of education but that didn’t mean I had the same strengths he did. He was bred for war, a natural fighter and leader, a keen shooter, hunter, and swordsman. I was born to negotiate, better with the bow and subtle subterfuge. Most of all, I had a better temperament than him.
It was his temper that made him leave for the battlefront, his impatience that made him climb in that shuttlecraft.
It was his temper that defeated him.
It made him predictable. Press the right button and you were sure of the kind of response you would get. That’s how they knew he would take that shuttlecraft and head for the front lines.
They knew where the army’s general would be, and the Changelings didn’t hesitate to take advantage.
That was the problem with Titans. We were too honorable. We followed our code of ethics and it never dawned on us until it was too late that our enemy wouldn’t do the same.
If they did, they would lose. So, what was their incentive?
I scratched Niik behind the ears as he got comfortable at the foot of the study. He always liked to lay there. It wasn’t that he thought he was protecting me or the office, it was that he was in the way and wouldn’t move without a little scratch.
I sat in the chair and Niik whined.
“I know, boy,” I said. “I miss them too.”
Father and my elder brother.
They killed Qale, the rightful Lord of Taw, and still I refused the call to war. What did that make me? In Titan circles, it made me a coward.
It was the worst insult there was.
Just hours after my brother fell, I was forced to decide whether or not to attack the Changeling army headed our way. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those innocent lives I might be hurling onto the fire. Was victory worth the cost of so many?
I buckled.
I backed down and refused to light the beacon.
And I’d been living in two minds about that decision ever since.
I moved to the window and peered out at Ot’ah, the tallest mountain in the valley. Up there was the beacon. Light it and Muhtix, the next town, would see it. They would light their beacon and it would spread across the entire moon… and then beyond, to the very stars in the night sky.
We were the greatest of all the houses. The other lords turned to us to lead them to victory.
And I had stood them down.
Beacons were a part of our history, our brave Titan tradition. These days we could have sent electronic messages… except the Changelings intercepted all our communications. We had to rely on the old ways.
And once the armies stood down and the warriors returned to their homes, terrified of what might happen next, I sat at this desk, unable even to toss my father’s thinking ball.
I was so ashamed.
My eyes moved to the pile of letters and news printed from our electronic communications systems. I had no interest in any of it…
Except for the aged yellow parchment paper close to the middle of the pile.
About a week after I decided to stand down, I received two pieces of mail. The first was the invitation to the emperor’s palace. The other was a handmade note, the letter folded in on itself so the letter paper itself was the envelope—identical to the one I held now in my hand. It bore no postmark and must have been hand-delivered. I opened it and discovered a message written in an unfamiliar scratchy hand.
It was written not with traditional Titan letters but those me, my brother, the prince when he was young, and the maid’s son had devised one day while we were playing. It would be fun, we thought,
