Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One (17 page)

Thankfully she didn’t see. She simply turned
and continued down the corridor.

I got the strangest compunction to follow
her.

But as soon as she was out of sight, I
realized with a violent shudder what I’d just learnt.

Arteria
was in danger.

I turned and jolted forward, determined to
bring her safely to this ship.

…

Shar

Who the hell was
Arteria
? And
why was she in danger?

And more to the point, why did he keep
reacting like that around me?

He was almost acting like he…
cared.

Before I could foolishly convince myself of
that fact, I reminded myself who he was. The most arrogant bastard
I’d ever met.

As I continued down the corridors, heading
towards my room, somebody intercepted me.

Mark.

His expression was at odds with his usual
carefree smile. He was wearing that same hard edge I saw when he
was giving the other soldiers orders.

At first I cringed, worrying that I was in
trouble.

Then he reached me.

He clenched his teeth together and let out a
heavy sigh.

I paused and looked at him. “Are you
alright?”

He continued to bare his teeth for a few
seconds before he locked his hand on his eyes. He stared at me from
between his fingers. “Do you really want to know?”

I frowned.

He appeared to stare at me carefully. His
lips partially parted, an odd, directed quality to his
stare.

After a few seconds, I couldn’t take it
anymore.

I ticked my head to the side and let my
gaze slide up until it locked on his eyes. “What is it?”

He suddenly took a quick step next to me,
the movement so fast it could have been an attack.

Just before alarm could plunge through my
gut, he placed a hand carefully on my shoulder. “Can I trust you?”
he said in the quietest voice.

“Trust?
What’s this about?”

He locked that
wa
ry gaze on
me once more. “Can I trust you?” He suddenly brought his face close
to mine. Too close. So close his lips almost pressed up against the
plaits beside one of my ears. “Come to my quarters tonight.” With
that, he removed his hand, turned, and walked away without another
word, and without a goddamn explanation.

I was left standing there, eyes wide with
alarm and curiosity.

And yes, my stomach clenched
with pleasant tingles as his offer rang in
my
ears and the memory of his breath against my cheek tingled
over my skin.

It was not enough, however, to make me
forget what I’d learnt from Xarin.

I walked back to my quarters, confusion
fogging my mind.

Confusion, and a
subtle
,
growing sense of dread.

…

Princess Arteria

She walked back and forth, pacing the room,
stomach clenched in a knot.

A second later, the holographic emitters
blinked into life.

Cortina
appeared.

Arteria
clutched a hand on her stomach
and tried to ignore the pain and fear that flooded through her
gut.

“Have you done it?” The assassin tipped
her head to the side, her cloak partially obscuring her
lips.

They couldn’t obscure the smile,
though.

The cruel, exacting smile.

“I’ve done it,” Arteria managed, hand
still locked on her stomach.

“Good girl,” the assassin said, lips
snarling around each word. “But this is only the beginning, you
understand that, don’t you?”

Princess Arteria
paused.

The hologram of the assassin pressed
forward. She inched her head down until she inclined her neck at
such an angle it looked like she was trying to snap it clean off.
“You understand that, don’t you, princess?”

Arteria
removed her hand from her
stomach and forced her stiff neck to nod.

“I understand,” she managed.

The assassin pressed forward one more
time.

“Good,” she whispered coldly. “I don’t
need to remind you what will happen if you disobey me, do I?” The
assassin’s tone was languid and slow.

Arteria
shook her head.

The assassin smiled, and in another second,
the hologram flicked out.

Arteria turned
away, dropped her
hand from her stomach, and arranged her hair neatly over her
shoulder.

“No,” she said to no one in particular,
“No, you don’t have to remind me what will happen.”

She smiled.

Shar

I never saw Mark that night.
Though I
gathered
the courage to go to his room, he
wasn’t there.

From that day onward, he stayed resolutely
by the prince’s side.

It had to have something to do with what I’d
overheard that day.

The prince was determined to save
somebody, to bring them aboard.

My ordinary missions continued as usual,
and reluctantly I began to bond with some of the other soldiers. We
were all in this together, though it didn’t take me long to realize
I was unique amongst the other crew.

I was the first and only
soldier
Prince Xarin had ever drafted.

If you believed the other men, he preferred
not to Shanghai people.

So why had he gone after me?

Despite the fact I did not see the prince
for several weeks, his effect on me didn’t change.

If anything, it grew more powerful.

I could no longer deny that what was
happening to me wasn’t normal.

It wasn’t some virus, some blow to the
head.

I’d discreetly asked the medical staff to
check me after my run in on that jungle planet.

My physiology was normal.

Normal.

I couldn’t tell anyone about what was
happening to me.

There was n
o one I could confide
in.

Though, in a few of my giddier insane
moments, I briefly thought about telling the prince
himself.

It was a new day, and I woke to continue my
training.

Though, in many ways, I was starting to
train the other soldiers. They’d begun to value my unique
experience. While I wasn’t Arterian, I knew how to survive, and
that was far more important.

As I walked to the armory, I saw several
guards rush past. I caught one. “What’s going on?” I
snapped.

“Royalty is arriving,” the man said before
he rushed away.

My mind
spun
.

I was ordered to take up a general guard
position within the secondary docking bay.

I assumed said royalty would arrive in the
primary docking bay.

I was wrong.

Soon a ship arrived.

Just as impressive as this massive war
cruiser, though on a much smaller scale.

It pushed through the interlocking shields
at the door of the docking bay, then swept in to land.

I was one of only three guards on
patrol.

Just when I thought it would only be the
three of us, the doors opened, and in he walked.

This time he didn’t ignore me.

Despite the fact I was in full armor and he
shouldn’t really be able to discern me from any other soldier, he
locked his gaze on me, even twisting his head around as he stared
at me.

He didn’t even bother to switch his gaze
towards the ship as a hatch appeared in the side and a ramp grew
out of it.

Several seconds later, out walked a
princess.

T
here was no other way to describe
her.

She wore a full-length purple robe,
adorned with so much gold jewelry she sparkled.

Her long vibrant red hair was encrusted with
pearls, and tapered down her neck.

Finally the prince tore his gaze off me
and locked it on the woman. He placed one arm on his stomach,
pushed the other palm against his leg, and bowed regally. “Princess
Arteria, you grace us with your presence.”

I was right. She was a princess.

But there was one thing I hadn’t accounted
for.

The way Xarin looked at her.

You’d have to be a fool not to see the
adoration playing in his gaze.

Fair enough, the princess was the picture
of perfection. But seeing the way he looked at her….

I had to try extremely hard not to clutch a
hand to my stomach and try to rip through my armor.

I settled for clenching my teeth so hard I
felt as if I’d split my head in two.

Arteria
returned the prince’s greeting,
and his loving gaze.

Then she thrust forward, apparently done
with tradition, and wrapped her arms around his middle.

Now I couldn’t control myself.

Now I twitched as if I’d been struck. And
anger, hot white and bright like a pulse from a blaster, slammed
through my gut.

I had never been a jealous person. For I’d
never possessed anything worth being jealous over. But now as I
watched her gaze linger on him as she finally pulled her arms away
from his middle, I felt as though I wanted to ball my hand into a
fist and thrust it into her face.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the
opportunity, the prince led Arteria forward and out of the
room.

Mark had entered the room
with
the
prince, and now he turned sharply on his
foot, the move distinct, almost ceremonial. His helmet was down,
and before he could turn away completely, he locked his gaze on
me.

….

I felt like he was trying to say something
to me.

His gaze was so intense, so direct.

And yet it didn’t last as he followed the
prince and princess out of the room.

Without Mark to distract me, my mind went
back to the fact Xarin had another.

It was a ridiculously foolish way to think
about it, and I clenched my teeth as soon as that stupid thought
flooded into my mind, but I couldn’t push it away.

It felt like Xarin had betrayed me somehow.
Had broken a sacred promise.

I couldn’t calm my churning gut, no matter
what I told it.

So I followed as I was instructed,
shifting from the docking bay and taking up guard somewhere
else.

Once or twice I felt that ethereal hand,
felt it push against my neck, tug at me.

It wanted me to follow Xarin.

This time I fought against it.

There was no goddamn way I
would follow that man
ever
again.

…

Prince Xarin

My
beloved was aboard. Not my betrothed,
but the one I’d chosen.

I had always hated the betrothal
tradition.

Not just for the stress it
bought me, but for the fact it took choice out of love and
companionship
.

So shouldn’t I be thrilled? Thrilled that
my beloved had come to me.

I wouldn’t have been able to see Arteria
until the war was over. Now she was here with me, right by my
side.

There was no longer anything stopping
us….

And yet, it felt like there was something
stopping my heart. It felt as if a rope had wound around it and had
anchored to some other point.

I kept feeling as if my hands were trying to
drag me in the opposite direction.

It was a maddening, truly confusing
sensation.

I couldn’t push it away, no matter how
hard I tried to wipe my hands on my armor.

I f
elt restless, for some reason, as if
I were mere moments from losing something critically
important.

To top it all off, Mark was acting
strangely.

He’d been acting strangely for weeks.

Perhaps it was just the prospect of
keeping Arteria safe.

Perhaps it was something more.

I didn’t have time to consider the myriad
possibilities.

As soon as I made it back to my own
quarters – for Arteria was staying on my deck – I heard a warning
alarm blare from the computer.

I stiffened, knowing what the exact pitch
meant.

A Zorv
attack.

…

Shar

When I reached my
quarters
after my short shift, I hit the wall, literally. As soon as
the door hissed closed behind me, I balled my hand into a fist and
struck it into the metal. A scream split from my lips,
reverberating around the room.

“You bastard,” I screamed, voice pitching
so high it was like I was trying to shatter glass. “You
bastard.”

This anger – it was like an
explosion going off in the center of my heart. I'd never
felt
anything
more violent. Something so
destructive. It felt that if I didn't find some way to calm down, I
would implode.

I kept curling my hand into a fist and
striking it against the wall until my knuckles were nothing more
than bloody pulp. Pain snaked down into my wrist, pushing higher
into my arm and shoulder.