Page 92 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
“Perhaps,” she says with a little smile. “You shall never know.” She wipes the knife on a leaf, then drops both to the path. “Hopefully the gardener will know not to touch that with his bare hands.”
Well, there’s only the two of us here. And this is clearly on both of our minds. “Mother, are you still trying to kill me?”
She pulls another small knife out of her sleeve. “If I were, you’d know it. I assure you. Someone clearly is, though. And your little alien keeps rescuing you. It must be annoying for them.” She quickly cuts a twig off a silver bush and holds it up. “For some time I wondered what this plant does for defense. It looks so innocent. I tried many experiments to find out. Then I realized, it doesn’t defend itself until you eat a leaf.” She picks a thumbnail-sized leaf off the twig and drops it into her half-full water jug. The leaf starts to grow long tendrils and unfold itself into an irregular mass of silver with jagged edges that fills the whole jug. A thin, transparent mass shoots out of the spout in a cascade that grows until the tip of it touches the ground and it all keeps gathering in a heap full of jagged edges.
“It’s very serious about killing any animal that grazes off it. And that would do it. It would completely fill up its mouth and throat and stomach. Not a good way to go, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen it kill anything big. But I want to. And I will. One day.” She sends me a little glance full of death.
I make a mental note to make sure that neither Umbra or I eat any salad from now on.
I glance over at a plant that seems to move its slender branches exactly in sync with my movements. It’s quite unsettling.“Mother, do you think of the old days sometimes? Before my father died?”
“I have no time for such sentimentality,” she scoffs. “I’m too busy with the here and now. That is where we live, you see.”
“I sometimes think of that time we went to Perapok. You and I and father and Nerox. It was such a fine trip. One of the few we went on as a family. I was happy there, climbing the cliffs and seeing the view. Do you remember the view from the top there? Looking out at the bay with all the islands?”
“Of course I remember,” the Empress says as she waters another plant.
“And you climbed up after me, because you were worried I’d get stuck on a shelf.”
“Yes, yes,” she sighs. “Ancient history.”
“And then I slipped and fell on you? And you caught me and we fell together? Do you still remember that?”
“It’s hard to forget such an experience, Mareliux. Are you going somewhere with this?”
“Not really,” I admit. “I’m just reminiscing. We fell into a nest ofgraduns, remember? Or were theyknusps? Which was it?”
“It was unpleasant, certainly.” She walks a few paces more and stops at another plant. “Now can we stop this strange topic and focus on more immediate matters?”
“Unpleasant, yes.” If only she knew how painful this is for me, when one of my worst fears is being proved to be true. “How many days did you spend in the infirmary at Perapok after they all bit you? Was it ten?”
“I really don’t recall. Now?—”
“I think it was ten days,” I finish, all hope gone. I clench my eyes together for a moment, then pull myself together. “Sorry, mother. I shouldn’t have reminded you of it.”
“Well, you did. See this, Mareliux. This is thejakanbush. It’s extremely picky about its nutrition. Water is not good enough for it. It will simply wither and die if you only water it. If it does die, it slowly turns into a green dust that’s a deadly poison, easily blown by the wind. It’s its revenge on an environment that doesn’t care properly for it. But I know what it needs.”
Her hands go back into her sleeves, and one of them comes out with a metal vial. She unscrews it and drips its contents onto the jakan bush.
“Very picky indeed,” I comment when I see what comes out and pools on the leaves.
The Empress smiles. “It’s the only plant I know of which requires blood to live. It’s better if I don’t tell you what kind of blood this is, Mareliux. It might disturb you. But I will assure you that it is of the highest quality.”
My skin creeps.
“An interesting lecture, I’m sure,” I say, gazing towards the exit where Caret’ax is waiting. “Now if you will excuse me, Your Highness. I must be on my way.”
“Must you? Yes, I suppose top secret receptions won’t arrange themselves. I hope to see you again soon, my dear son. I understand they haven’t yet found the culprit who dropped the gas grenade. Or the one who fired the missile. Such bad luck that it happened during the fireworks I arranged! But my dear son,that plot of yours. I recommend you end it. Much better for all involved. Muchsafer.”
I sigh. “You see plots everywhere, mother. Even where there is none.”
She looks at me with big, sincere eyes that belong to a complete stranger. “Oh, but there really is one here. If there were no plot, your marriage with Umbra would look different.”
I chuckle. “All right, I’ll bite. How do you think it would look if, as you say, there were no plot?”
She lightly grabs my upper arm, the short blades in her glove sharp against my skin. It’s the closest thing to a caress she’s given me in many years.
For the first time since I came to Khav, my mother gives me a warm smile. “It wouldn’t exist, Mareliux. Goodbye.”
