Page 1 of The Alien Noble's Little Human

1

TAUREK

“He’s the best doctor in the Mountain Kingdom,” Serge assures me.

Serge, the servant who handles the royal family’s affairs, tries to calm me down after the latest examination, to no avail.

“Then I fear for Kiphia, because he’s a fool. Like all the rest.”

The so-called doctor looks at me from the door with a sneer of disgust. I sneer back.The feeling’s mutual,I think to myself.

I walk slowly up to Hanai’s room. She’s been slipping in and out of consciousness, so I don’t know how much of the argument she heard between me and this butcher. He wanted to cut her open to take pieces of her brain and heart.

This nightmare has become our lives. It began with weakness in the knees, an uncommon complaint for an eight-year-old. She and her friends were climbing the replica of our sacred peaks at Taro’s Point, something she’s done so often she could draw a map from memory of the handholds and footholds of several routes. That day, though, she didn’t have the strength to reach the first step.

“My knees feel like they’re buzzing, Papa,” I remember her saying. “Like how prism moths move, but inside me.”

If only the arthritic knees were all of it. Within the week, things went from alarming to grave.

“Papa. It’s the same buzzing,” she said as I tucked her in. “But my head. Why are there spirits dancing in my room? What do they want?”

The day after that, she was perfectly normal. Then an aching in her side came. The flare-ups are completely unpredictable, like a stalker in the night. You have no clue when or where the next attack might be.

Dozens of doctors have seen her in person, and hundreds have written to us with their opinions. None of them have a clue.

I sent commpad messages to the royal families in four of the other Kingdoms of Kiphia, Ocean, Lakes and Rivers, Treetop, and Desert, searching for help. I eventually even sent word to Cloud Kingdom, a realm I despise with a passion almost as great as my love for my daughter.

With no promising leads, I’ve started to resort to more desperate measures. Every day, my scribes and messengers send word to the furthest reaches of Kiphia seeking any advice, regardless of the source. I haven’t yet resorted to other planets, but I’m about to.

The other morning, Hanai couldn’t hear. Today, her sight has ripples in it, as if the visible world is gradually receding from her. With her gradually pulling away from me, my life may as well be ebbing away with hers.

I stroke her hair, looking at her lovely face, hoping her dreams are more peaceful than the chaos around her. Since the calamity, Hanai has been the center of my world. Without her, there’s nothing.

A knock on the enormous palace doors jars me. It must be another doctor here to test his mettle. Some treat a trip to the palace like a competition of strength more than they do a sick child’s bedside.

These days, the doctors are just about the only ones who visit. Even before Hanai got sick, denizens of Cygoth were inclined to think of the palace as a haunted house, permanently cursed by the devastating events that occurred here. They’re suspicious that if they get too close, the misery might find them, too.

“Prince Taurek, it’s Master Talan. He’s come from Tlisan, the human settlement.”

“Are you positive? He hasn’t been to Cygoth in years. I heard he swore to never return.”

I try to make out the face, but all I see is a dark silhouette against the enormous stone entrance, mined from the tallest peaks of the Mountain Kingdom.

“He did swear that,” a familiar voice calls out. “But he’s breaking his self-imposed exile for an old friend.” Although his simple clothing belies his aristocratic lineage, Talan’s smile is unmistakable.

“It’s really you, Talan. I don’t believe it.”

He opens his arms to hold me in a tight embrace. When he looks at me as if no time has passed, I’m struck by an emotion I can’t place at first. I realize it’s the peace of being in the presence of someone who regards me without any scintilla of pity.

“Come in, come in. Frin and Lurz, please prepare food and drink for our guest. The infused wine from Taro’s Point and a slab of nasarer hare. We have fermented bernairoots from the cellar. Do you like those, Talan?”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long, Prince Taurek.”

I try to conceal my disappointment. “We’ve known each other since we were children sneaking off into caverns. Stay a while. You must be exhausted from the journey.”

Apart from Hanai, there’s practically no one I can truly talk to these days. Since she’s taken ill, I’ve lived in my head. As much as I love my father, Thane Odar has never been known as a glittering conversationalist. My brothers are all scattered in other parts of the Kingdom, and some in other parts of Kiphia.

“I took a chordata,” Talan answers. “So the journey wasn’t too strenuous.”

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