Knight, Heir, Prince. Morgan Rice

Claudius strode to the spot in his rooms where his great chair sat. He sat upon it, cradling the sword he held across his knees.

      “You have an honored place at court,” he said.

      “An honored place at court?” Thanos replied. “I have a place as a spare prince no one wants. Lucious might have tried to have me killed on Haylon, but you were the one who sent me there.”

      “Rebellion must be crushed, wherever it is found,” the king countered. Thanos saw him run his thumb along the edge of the sword he held. “You had to learn that.”

      “Oh, I’ve learned,” Thanos said, moving across to stand in front of his father. “I’ve learned that you would rather be rid of me than acknowledge me. I am your eldest son. By the laws of the kingdom, I ought to be your heir. The eldest son has been the heir since the first days of Delos.”

      “The eldest surviving son,” the king said quietly. “You think you would have lived if people knew?”

      “Don’t pretend you were protecting me,” Thanos replied. “You were protecting yourself.”

      “Better than spending my time fighting on behalf of people who don’t even deserve it,” the king said. “Do you know how it looks when you go around protecting peasants who should know their place?”

      “It looks as though someone cares about them!” Thanos shouted. He couldn’t keep from raising his voice then, because it seemed like the only way to get through to his father. Maybe if he could make him understand, then the Empire might finally change for the better. “It looks as though their rulers aren’t enemies out to kill them, but people to be respected. It looks as though their lives mean something to us, rather than just being something for us to throw aside while we have glittering parties!”

      The king was silent for a long time after that. Thanos could see the fury in his eyes. That was fine. It matched the anger Thanos felt almost perfectly.

      “Kneel,” King Claudius said at last.

      Thanos hesitated, only for a second, but it was apparently enough.

      “Kneel!” the king bellowed. “Or do you wish me to have you made to? I am still the king here!”

      Thanos knelt on the hard stone of the floor before the king’s chair. He saw the king raise the sword he held with difficulty, as though it had been a long time since he’d done it.

      Thanos’s thoughts went to the sword at his own side. He had no doubt that if it came to a battle between him and the king, he would be the winner. He was younger, stronger, and had trained with the best the Stade had to offer. But that would mean killing his father. More than that, it really would be treason.

      “I have learned many things in my life,” the king said, and the sword was still poised there. “When I was your age, I was like you. I was young, I was strong. I fought, and I fought well. I killed men in battle, and in duels in the Stade. I tried to fight for everything I believed to be right.”

      “What happened to you?” Thanos asked.

      The king’s lip curled into a sneer. “I learned better. I learned that if you give them a chance, people do not come together to lift you up. Instead, they try to tear you down. I have tried showing compassion, and the truth is that it is nothing more than foolishness. If a man stands against you, then you destroy him, because if you do not, he will destroy you.”

      “Or you make him your friend,” Thanos said, “and he helps you to make things better.”

      “Friends?” King Claudius raised his sword another inch. “Powerful men have no friends. They have allies, servants, and hangers-on, but do not think for a moment that they will not turn on you. A sensible man keeps them in their place, or he watches them rise up against him.”

      “The people deserve better than that,” Thanos insisted.

      “You think people get what they deserve?” King Claudius bellowed. “They get what they take! You’re talking as if you think the people are our equals. They aren’t. We are raised from birth to rule them. We are more educated, stronger, better in every way. You want to put pig farmers in castles beside you, when I want to show them that they belong in their sty. Lucious understands.”

      “Lucious only understands cruelty,” Thanos said.

      “And cruelty is what it takes to rule!”

      Thanos saw the king swing the sword then. Perhaps he could have ducked. Perhaps he could even have made a move for his own blade. Instead, he knelt there and watched as the sword swept down toward his throat, tracking the arc of the steel in the sunlight.

      It stopped short of cutting his throat, but not by much. Thanos felt the sting as the edge touched his flesh, but he didn’t react, no matter how much he wanted to.

      “You didn’t flinch,” King Claudius said. “You barely even blinked. Lucious would have. Would probably have begged for his life. That is his weakness. But Lucious has the strength to do what is needed to hold our rule in place. That is why he is my heir. Until you can carve this weakness from your heart, I will not acknowledge you. I will not call you mine. And if you attack my acknowledged son again, I will have your head for it. Do you understand?”

      Thanos stood. He’d had enough of kneeling to this man. “I understand, Father. I understand you perfectly.”

      He turned and walked for the doors, not waiting for permission to do it. What could his father do? It would look weak to call him back. Thanos stepped out, and Stephania was waiting for him. She looked as though she’d maintained her image of composure for the benefit of the bodyguards there, but the moment Thanos came out, she hurried forward to him.

      “Are you all right?” Stephania asked, raising a hand to his cheek. It dropped lower, and Thanos saw it come away with blood on it. “Thanos, you’re bleeding!”

      “It’s only a scratch,” Thanos assured her. “I probably have worse from the fight earlier.”

      “What happened in there?” she demanded.

      Thanos forced a smile, but it came out tighter than he intended. “His majesty chose to remind me that prince or not, I am not worth as much to him as Lucious.”

      Stephania put her hands on his shoulders. “I told you, Thanos. It was the wrong thing to do. You can’t put yourself at risk like that. You have to promise me that you will trust me, and never do anything so foolish again. Promise me.”

      He nodded.

      “For you, my love, I promise.”

      He meant it, too. Going and fighting Lucious in the open like that wasn’t the right strategy, because it didn’t achieve enough. Lucious wasn’t the problem. The whole Empire was the problem. He’d briefly thought that he might be able to persuade the king to change things, but the truth was that his father didn’t want things to change.

      No, the only thing to do now was to find ways to help the rebellion. Not just the rebels on Haylon, but all of them. Alone, Thanos couldn’t accomplish much, but together, they might just bring down the Empire.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Everywhere Ceres looked on the Isle Beyond the Mist, she saw things that made her stop and stare at their strange beauty. Hawks with rainbow-colored feathers spun as they hunted things below, but were in turn hunted by a winged serpent that eventually settled on a spire of white marble.

      She walked over the emerald grass of the island, and it seemed as if she knew exactly where she had to go. She’d seen herself in her vision, there atop the hill in the distance, where rainbow-colored towers stuck up like the spines of some great beast.

      Flowers grew from the low rises on the way, and Ceres reached down to touch them. When her fingers brushed them, though, their petals were of paper-thin stone. Had someone carved them that fine, or were they somehow living rock? Just the fact that she could imagine that possibility told her how strange this place was.

      Ceres kept walking, heading for the spot where she knew, where she hoped, her mother would