“Good. Then let us simply continue in that way,” the Steward huffed. He was panting and out of breath from his outburst, but his face was beginning to go back to a more normal color. “Now come, we will go to the ball and tomorrow I shall announce some new suitors for the Princess to choose from. Won’t that be nice?” He smiled up at Ka’rissa who bobbed him a grateful little curtsy.
“Very nice. Thank you, Uncle,” she said, speaking less formally than she had a moment before.
“That’s a good girl.” The Steward nodded and looked up at James. “And you—see that you keep her safe! We nearly lost her just the other week and we cannot have that. I am too old to sit this throne forever and Ka’rissa is the last of the Very First Family’s bloodline. She must live to marry and produce an heir—for the good of all of Regalia Five.”
“I will protect her with my life,” James said simply.
“Good—that’s what Commander Sylvan promised me.” The Steward wiped at his sweating forehead with a gold silk handkerchief “Now then, you may escort the Princess to the ball,” he told James. “I will arrive shortly. Ka’rissa, tell them to start without me,” he said to the Princess. “Can’t have people all milling about, waiting on an old man to dance.” He smiled at the Princess. “Come give me a peck, child. And then run and have some fun—enjoy dancing while you’re young.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” Ka’rissa stepped over and dropped a kiss on the old male’s cheek. Then she turned back to James expectantly, and a little shyly, he thought. “Well, Sir James? Will you escort me as my uncle, the Steward, commands?”
James wasn’t sure what was expected of him at first, but then he remembered seeing the noblemen holding out their arms to the noblewomen as they were leaving the Reception Hall.
“I am ready,” he said, holding out his arm.
“Thank you.” Ka’rissa took his offered arm with a touch as light and tentative as a bird’s. “Come,” she said. “You are new to the palace, so I will show you the way.”
James didn’t tell her that he had studied a schematic of the palace blueprints and committed it to memory on his journey over to Regalia Five. He had learned that when feelers wanted to tell or show you something, they preferred if you pretended you didn’t already know whatever it was they were telling. So he simply nodded.
“Lead on, Your Highness,” he said formally.
“This way,” she said.
And she led James down the dais and out of the Reception Hall.
6
Rissa took the long way through the Solarium to the ball, because she was burning with questions—questions she needed privacy to ask. The first one, of course, was how the man she had been dreaming of for the past month had suddenly showed up in person in her life.
But she didn’t feel able to ask that because it would sound so strange—almost deranged! How could she tell him that she had dreamed of him—of his blue, metallic eyes and dark hair and his deep, rumbling voice? It would make her sound like a lunatic, so she kept that particular question to herself. However, she was unable to hold back some others.
“Were you really grown in a tank?” she asked, looking up and up at the tall Kindred. The huge warrior was so big that the top of her head barely came to his bicep and Rissa nearly had to scamper to keep up with his long strides.
“I was.” He nodded impassively, not looking at her as he spoke. In fact, what he seemed to be looking at was the hallway around them. His metallic blue eyes were constantly scanning back and forth. What was he looking for, she wondered?
“So you were not…born like other people are? I mean you said you were not conceived in the, uh, the usual way?” Rissa cleared her throat nervously, her cheeks heating. Imagine a whole planet filled with only men with no women to kiss in order to get them with child!
“I was not,” he agreed as they entered the vast, glass room of the Solarium. He was still scanning the way ahead of them alertly. “We should not have taken this route,” he said, frowning around the Solarium. “It is too deserted—too easy for an assassin to set a trap or ambush a target.”
“Oh, do you really think so?” Rissa looked around the high glass walls, which let in the pinkish sunlight of Regalia Five’s red giant sun during the day, but which were now black and blank since it was night outside. Unconsciously, she tightened her grip on the big Kindred’s arm, as she remembered the awful attack in the library and the feel of the sharp silver knife against her throat.