Page 72 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
Mareliux bows shallowly, and I do the same, wishing someone had prepared me for this. There’s only one thing we’ve prepared, and I hope I get it right.
The Emperor is a Khavgren male. He’s wearing all white, except for a purple sash that goes across his chest. His tentacles areshort and pale, his face lined and heavy-looking, the skin sagging off his chin. He’s skinny and almost emaciated.
The Empress marches straight past us and climbs two steps to the Emperor’s side. There’s only a seat for one, so she stands behind him, looking haughty with her sharp chin lifted.
“Greetings, stepson Mareliux,” the Emperor creaks. His voice is being amplified, but even so, it sounds airy and weak. “I didn’t expect to see you here for a long time, if ever.”
“I married Umbra as soon as I could,” Mareliux says calmly. “Then I rushed to get here and show her to Your Magnificence.”
“You rushed to get here,” the Emperor echoes thoughtfully. “Not your strongest characteristic, as I recall. You do prefer to stay at the very edges of the Empire, hoping I will forget you until I no longer exist in this realm. But I suppose someone has to keep us safe from the alien intruders. And here is one now, in the very heart of the Empire. Come here.” He looks at me with crusty eyes.
I look up at Mareliux.
“Go,” he says and gives me a little push.
I stumble a step, then walk up to the throne. I have to crane my neck to look up at the Emperor — the seat part of the throne is mounted about three feet up from the podium. A tentacle from the Throne descends above me, and for a moment I fear that its gong to curl around me. But it stops just short of touching my head. I can sense the Syntric probe it sends, searching and judging.
The Emperor looks down on me with eyes that have no color that I can see, apart from a watery gray.
“I hear you have use of the Syntrix, but it is out of control,” he says. “We expect nothing else of a barbarian from an undiscovered planet. Where did you marry Prince Mareliux?”
“We were married on Grefve, Your Magnificence,” I state, keeping my voice steady. The whole place is meant to make everyone feel small and exposed, and it works. If the Emperor weren’t so obviously weak and sick, I would feel even less confident. “At the military camp there. Your Twenty-Ninth Legion.”
Bellatriz times her simultaneous translation well, so that the final echo in the hall is from my voice, not hers.
“How accurate is this translation?” Quaestor Preniat asks from behind me. “It’s a travesty to hear a barbarian language spoken in this Imperial sacred hall, right next to the Tentacle Throne, the very heart of the Empire! And we can’t know what’s really being said. What if she is uttering the most horrible heresies or curses or spells?”
“Is it accurate, Bellatriz?” the Emperor asks. “Or do you still find me unworthy of your service?”
“It is accurate, Your Magnificence,”Bellatriz chirps loudly from Mareliux’s belt. “I am making the best translation I know how. And I never found you unworthy of me, sire. But I had a different owner when you took the Throne, and I couldn’t abandon her, despite your request that I find a home by your side instead of hers.”
“Fair enough,” the Emperor says. “Baroness Verenit fought well for the Empire with you in her hand. And I don’t mind hearing Umbra’s real language in these halls. Soon she will speak anylanguage she wants in this whole palace. Well,perhapsshe will. How did you meet my stepson, Umbra?”
This is the one thing Mareliux and I have agreed on. We want to stick close to the truth.
“Magnificence,” I begin, “Prince Mareliux was patrolling close to my planet. I was sent to investigate and if possible to make contact with his ship. It was an alien ship to us, Magnificence. We had never seen a spaceship like that before. I was sent as an ambassador, and Prince Mareliux received me most courteously. I admit I fell for him before I knew he was a prince.”
“A story as old as the Empire itself,” the Emperor says with infinite dryness. “Is it true, Bellatriz?”
“I can confirm that Prince Mareliux did refer to Umbra as an ambassador, several times,”the sword responds. “I can’t confirm at which point Umbra fell for him. I am an AI, and organic emotions are incomprehensible to me. Especially the emotions of aliens.”
“If I may, Magnificence,” the Empress breaks in, her voice shrill. “Before we risk wasting your time with nonsense, surely there must be limits to who can become an empress of the Khavgren Empire? Surely no alien can ever become empress? Quaestor Preniat, what does the law state?”
“Regrettably, Your Magnificences,” Preniat begins, “the law does not mention aliens marrying into the Imperial family, one way or the other. It has simply not crossed anyone’s mind before that a prince of the Empire would ever so much asconsidermarrying a barbarian, much less analienbarbarian who is new to the Empire and doesn’t even speak the language. So there is no law against it. Perhaps the lawmakers of old thought common senseshould prevail in any completely unprecedented case such as this. Common sense, of course, being that the Khavgren Empire must remain Khavgren, and not with the risk of some future emperor being half alien, half barbarian.”
“Does the law state what happens when the emperor loses the use of the Syntrix?” Prince Nerox asks. “I’m just curious.”
Everyone ignores him.
“That is obviously common sense,” the Empress says. “But Prince Mareliuxhasnow married an alien, and thus made himself an impossible candidate for emperor.”
“Quaestor Preniat,” Mareliux says, “you who are such a scholar of the law. In a case where no law exists, and no precedence, who decides what is to be done?”
“Well, the Emperor, of course,” the quaestor says. “Though he may delegate it to the Confidential Council, or the Committee of Ducal Nobles, or the Quaestor Guild, for example.”
“Can he delegate it to a prince?” Mareliux asks.
“The Emperor can delegate it to whomever he decides,” the quaestor says tightly. “Delegating it to a prince who is a party to the issue in question would seem ill-advised.” He must have suspected what Mareliux had in mind.
