Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
“Nobody knows.”
Sean sighed. “And that’s the problem. If she gave up six star systems to eliminate her brother, would she give up exile in the inn to eliminate her nephew?”
The Dushegubs planted the drill against the wall and turned it on. Sparks flew.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said.
“True. It’s not like we have a choice.”
The only choice would be to exclude Caldenia completely by confining her to her quarters, and neither of us would do that.
Sean looked at the world a little differently than I did. I kept track of various possibilities, but I was decent at predicting what would happen. Sean concentrated on what could happen, and there was a vast difference between the two. It made us a good team.
The Dushegub closest to the hole got hit with a spray of sparks and slithered away, hissing up a storm.
“There’s one thing that puzzles me,” Sean said. “You’re Kosandion. Your aunt killed your father and started an interstellar war. You see her, finally, after all this time, and you are civil to her. You are completely unbothered by her presence. Your heart rate doesn’t rise, your pupils don’t dilate, your breathing stays even. He wasn’t pretending. He was cool as a cucumber. Why?”
I spread my arms.
The Dushegubs withdrew the drill and inspected the quarter inch deep hole they’d managed to make. Branches shook, roots slithered, and they put the drill back in.
“Far enough?” I wondered.
“Yeah,” Sean agreed.
The leading Dushegub turned the drill on. An electric arc splayed out of the hole, hitting the drill dead center. The drill exploded. The miner Dushegub flew back, smoking, and landed on mud island. The rest of the killer trees chased it and tried to roll it into the water.
Sean smiled.
“People are complicated,” I said.
He leaned over and kissed me. “At least these idiots are easy. Come to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.”
I smiled at him, and we left for our bedroom.
13
What an eventful first day for the spouse competition! Long lost family, first impressions of the spouse candidates, and a flurry of guests keeping the innkeepers on their toes.
Let’s take a closer look at the man in the center of it all.
I stood on the balcony in Kosandion’s private quarters and watched Resven struggle to contain his irritation at my presence. Being included in a very private discussion of the Dominion’s state secrets wasn’t in my plans, but Kosandion requested my attendance during the breakfast, and here we were.
I had built the Dominion suite to remind Kosandion of the Palace. The trick wasn’t to replicate his home but to nod at it subtly with the right shades and familiar contours. New experiences were an essential part of travelling. I tinted the colors slightly warmer, relaxed the geometric harshness, and threw a few unexpected shapes, like the asymmetric arches. The asymmetry showed in their haircuts and clothes, but a lot of the Dominion architecture was old and incorporating the new trend would give the suite some freshness.
My original design didn’t incorporate a balcony, but after watching Kosandion contemplate the orange ocean during dinner, I moved his suite to Kolinda’s door.
Once an inn’s branch reached a new planet and the inn opened a door leading there, it would begin to root through that space, claiming a section of the world. Some rootings were tiny, barely enough for the human-sized door. Others were vast. Kolinda’s rooting covered over one square mile. Gertrude Hunt’s door opened onto a small island, a chunk of jagged rock that thrust from the depths of the ocean, and the entire island belonged to us.
I had oriented the Ocean Dining Room to the south-west, to take advantage of the sunsets. Kosandion’s suite now faced directly south, giving him a beautiful view. I provided him with long balcony rising high above the water and equipped it with an array of patio furniture. He was only a hundred yards from the Ocean Dining Room, but an outcropping of rock hid it from his view, assuring his privacy.
I had installed a carefully calibrated barrier that put an impenetrable invisible wall along the balcony’s perimeter. It shifted into a slightly less protective mode when anyone entered the balcony, so Kosandion got the sea breeze and sounds but not the monsters that hunted within the cool orange depths. Gertrude Hunt was swimming in alien beings’ energy, like a glutton at a cake contest, and maintaining the barrier resulted in minimal drain.
Kosandion was on the balcony now, sitting in a comfortable chair with a breakfast spread on a patio table before him. The sun had risen above the jagged dark peaks on the horizon. The Sovereign watched the ocean, tracking a massive sea serpent as it slid under the surface, its spines the only warning to its potential prey.
His inner circle arranged themselves around him. Resven rested in a large, padded chair in front of me and to my right. Miralitt sat on my left, one leg over the other, as close to the transparent rail as she could get. Between them, in an identical chair, perched Orata, Kosandion’s head of PR, although that was likely an inadequate title considering her duties and their importance. She had come through the portal this morning to deliver the voting results and would go back before the day officially started. Orata was curvy, young, and fashionable, with a purple tint to her medium-toned skin and silver-blue hair, and every time I looked at her, I thought of Prince Lotor from the Voltron anime.