Page 24 of Into The Rift

“I beg your pardon,” Itaka said suddenly, her voice cold and implacable, and proving that she spoke Tygerian well enough to understand what was being said. “Do not apologize for me, Anton.”

I realized, judging from the way he was being addressed by Prince Mikol, Anton was a king, and no one spoke to him in such a way on a normal basis. Welcome to Itaka’s world. His face turned bright red, but Prince Mikol appeared not to have noticed their little argument and sat calmly waiting for the interpreter, gazing placidly down at the table.

I wondered if perhaps this Prince Mikol had some person like Itaka in his own family, as he seemed to understand that people like my grandmother can never be rushed or hurried along but live their lives at their own pace and have grown to expect others to not only do the same but to pander to their eccentricities and egocentric temper tantrums and fully accommodate them—which they almost always did.

Itaka waited, tapping her foot impatiently until an interpreter arrived. The she finally turned back to me and began telling me how worried she’d been about me. She had learned through her sources, which were admittedly vast and mysterious, that I was in some kind of danger.

“What danger?” I asked.

“Mortal, I’m afraid. It’s why I came to find you.”

“But what’s the source of this danger?”

“Linnius, dear. I’m sure I explained that.”

“Excuse me, but who is this Linnius?” Prince Mikol asked.

“He is the emperor of the Pton people,” Anton replied.

“Yes,” Itaka agreed. “An ugly little toad of a man, eldest son of the emperor’s principal wife, who was also most unfortunate in her looks. It’s why the emperor loved me far better.”

“Are we still speaking of Linnius?” Mikol asked.

“No, of course not,” Itaka said, “do try to keep up. I’m speaking of my emperor, my late husband, Emperor Kitannos. Linnius is his eldest spawn, and he was always jealous of my own beautiful child. After my son’s treacherous murder, Linnius shifted his terrible envy to my beautiful grandson, Lord Dominiko. He tries to keep his feelings hidden, but I know his true nature, and I know how full of treachery and malice he can be. I’ve been keeping watch.” She turned back toward me then and took my hand in hers.

“My sources brought word to me that he was sending you on this mission, expecting you to fail. Sabotaging you in your efforts any way he could. If you somehow managed to pull it off and escape the trap he set for you, he was planning an ‘accident’ to befall you once you returned home.”

“But what kind of trap did he set?”

“He put an assassin onboard as a member of your crew, willing to sacrifice his own life if need be to destroy yours. Plans to kill you had already been laid for you when you entered the wormhole. You would never have come out alive.”

“Who is this assassin?”

“He is a soldier on your ship named Major Aelius.”

“I see. And these sources?” I asked, sharply interrupting her.

“I can’t divulge them here and now, but they’re unimpeachable. It’s why I had to try and intercept you before you went into the rift. Anton said the ruler here on Loros was the grandson of King Davos, and the heir apparent after his father. I had hoped to not get the Tygerians and the other Axis planets involved, but I felt there was no help for it. My only choice was to approach Prince Mikol and enlist his help in catching up to the Tygerian ship you were chasing. We knew you’d attack it. We struck a deal in exchange for my information.”

“A deal? What kind of deal?” I asked, turning to look at Prince Mikol.

“Your life, for one thing,” Mikol said. “I’ll discuss the rest with you as soon as I’ve cleared it with my grandfather, King Davos. He’s on his way to us now, in fact.”

“Davos is coming here?”

“Yes. He wants to speak to you.”

Before I could reply, small sounds began coming from a side door in the back of the room, like small thumps and bangs. The closest guards swarmed over to it, yanking it open—and both Prince Rakkur and Prince Jago literally spilled out into the room, along with an Imperial guard they seemed to have been struggling with. Everyone exclaimed in shock, and the Imperials released their grip on their weapons but still looked a little outraged to find out who it was who had been eavesdropping so shamelessly.

The Imperial who had fallen scrambled back up to his feet, his face bright red. “Your Highness, forgive me for this intrusion,” he said, trying to bow and salute at the same time. “I heard a noise back here and came to investigate and found the princes. But when I tried to get them to move away, they resisted and there was a-a small tussle and unfortunately…”

“Yes, I saw what happened. Thank you, Major Rahlos. I’ll take it from here.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” he said, snapping off a salute.

Personally, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see Prince Jago involved in all of this. I knew from the first that he was nothing but trouble. The most beautiful ones often were.

I still watched carefully to make sure he wasn’t punished.

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