Chapter 49: Chapter 49

MIKHLAS

~“Now, King Mikhlas,”~ the liquid voice of Aquaria finally released him.

He concentrated on the water in the room. He could feel it in the bodies of all those around him.

From the men that lined the wall and the doctor next to Silian, he ~pulled~, and opened his eyes to see the nearest buckle at the knees and fall to the floor.

The restraints on his arms fell away, the pin in his neck dropped out, and he stood, feeling the burn in his eyes as his anger seized him. He rose to his feet, his face locked into a mask of righteous anger.

He heard Izzy gasp, and he looked at her as she stared at him with stunned eyes.

Kasana spun around to look at him, and he held out a hand toward her. She froze, and he stepped forth, rolling his dislocated shoulder back into place to release Isabelle from the chair.

Izzy blinked a few times as he approached, and he heard Silian’s bonds break open, and his First climb off the table.

He could feel Kasana trying to speak and released some of the bindings on her, enough so she could flap her lips.

“How is this possible?” Kasana said.

“Mikhlas…How…?” Izzy asked as he undid the first strap. She spun her head around to look at James, but he still lay motionless on the floor.

“I killed you. You should be dead,” Kasana shouted at Mikhlas.

He shut her up again with a wave of his hand and undid all of Isabelle’s bonds. She immediately left the chair and went to Lucas, undoing his bonds and cradling the boy in her arms.

She turned to James, mere feet away and the two of them, still wrapped in each other’s arms, slid on their knees to cradle his head and rock back and forth.

He turned his attention to Kasana and unfroze her mouth again.

“Yes, you did. But you have sorely underestimated the Sentinels,” he said, stepping close and looking down on her.

“You are forbidden to touch me, Captain. By law of the King, I am your superior and you cannot do anything to me,” she said.

He raised a finger and poked her in the eye. “The old King is dead. And now there is a new Queen. And right now, I could kill you with my bare hands, and there’s not a thing you could do to stop me.”

Kasana blinked, unable to back away from him. “Not yet. She is not the Queen until she undergoes the ascension.”

“She just did. You helped her,” he said.

“No. The Sentinels are not all here. She has not had all five of them in her,” Kasana said, desperate eyes looking toward the motionless men on the ground.

“Infernia came to her in darkness. Garia came to her in the forest. Aquaria, she summoned her. Morkai came to her when a part of her mind died, when you killed her son in front of her,” he said, looking at James and Isabelle.

“Yes, but Prime has still not come,” Kasana said.

“She didn’t need to. She has been on my ship from the moment we found Queen Isabelle in her home. I did not travel with an extension of Prime, but with the Sentinel herself.

“Her nanites have been inside Izzy all this time. By forcing the Queen to do what you did, you left them only one choice. To ascend her,” he said. ~In a way that has never been done before.~

“Then how are you alive?” she asked him, her face showing her panic clearly now.

“From the moment you attacked my ship, Prime has been sending pre-programmed nanites onto the planet. There was no way she could communicate, so she programmed each burst with a different command.

“The first group was programmed to disable the shields around this planet. The next group was sent to locate all the ground crew and tag us with trackers.

“The next few groups were sent with one simple command: Crew rejuvenation. From the moment you took us out of the cell, Prime has been healing us,” he said.

“No. This cannot be,” she said.

“But the only way she could save all of us was if she focused all her nanites onto one person at a time. When you cut Prince James’s throat, all her nanites were forced to focus on him.

“Then you cut Amy’s, and the only way the Sentinels could save her was by doing something so rare, that it is only ever heard of in our history. Amy is now bonded to Morkai.

“As for me, they gave me a choice. I could become the Doge, or I could become the King,” he said, glancing at Izzy.

“What…what will you do to me?” Kasana asked.

Mikhlas turned his burning eyes back to Kasana.

“I would kill you. ~I~ would take my hands and choke the life from you here and now for what you’ve done. But you stand in the presence of the ascended Queen of the Realm. The choice is hers.”

Kasana’s eyes flicked to Isabelle, and she flinched at the look she received.

With reverent care, Isabelle placed James’s head on the floor and stood to step closer, Lucas moving with her as if unwilling to ever let her go with the fire of Infernia burning in her eyes.

“You can’t just kill me—”

“Like you killed my ~son?~ Like you killed my best friend and the man I love?” Isabelle screamed.

Lucas turned bloodshot eyes toward the tall figure of Kasana, and before he could bend down far enough to stop the boy, he’d pulled back his fist and punched Kasana right in the crotch.

He managed to get his hands on the boy as Lucas wrenched the long bloody knife in Kasana’s hand away from her and stopped him from stabbing her.

“It’s all right, Lucas. Your mom gets to decide.” He looked at Kasana. “I guess we know the Prince’s choice.”

Kasana took deep hitching breaths from the blow, still unable to move, and then looked at Isabelle. “Do it, then.”

Mikhlas waited to see if Kasana would be consumed by Infernia’s fire. ~Choose, Isabelle.~

Isabelle clenched her jaw and flames rose up around her hand so hot they burned white.

“Do it!”

“No,” Isabelle said, and the flames winked out. “We start as we mean to continue. I think I’d like you alive to face a trial for what you have done. But you need some time to think about what you’ve done first.

“What was it you said to me? You’d leave me in the pit to wither away, to relive these moments over and over again, slowly going insane. The date for your trial is set fifty years from now,” she said.

“You cannot do that! I demand a hearing now!” Kasana said.

Mikhlas shut her up with a wave of his hand. “Your date is set! By order of your new Queen!”

SILIAN

Silian stood on the verge of exploding with anger, his body trembling and fingers twitching at his side as he looked at Amy.

He listened to Mikhlas speak to Kasana, his jaw clenching and unclenching. ~Why hasn’t he ripped her apart yet?~

He still felt the energizing rush from when the Sentinels did something to him, and his own anger fueled him in a way he’d never felt before.

He still didn’t believe it himself. But, just like Mikhlas, they’d presented him with a choice. He could take Mikhlas’s place as Captain of the ship, or he could become the new Doge.

It wasn’t a difficult choice, and one he made without hesitation. It meant that he would, for the rest of his life, be under the command of only Izzy and Mikhlas.

~Amy, my love.~ She still hadn’t woken up. ~Mikhlas said that Morkai bonded with her to keep her alive, but what does that mean?~

The last time the Sentinels did something like this was thousands of years ago. Aquaria bonded with a Homeworlder, resulting in the Hydranite race. The water people. ~Yet Morkai is death.~

He watched as Mikhlas bound Kasana with thick metal chains around her arms and legs. It was unnecessary, but Silian understood why.

~She is going to be an example to everyone else.~ It wouldn’t be fair to blame everyone for simply following the ranking Court member’s commands.

He couldn’t delay it anymore. He had to see. Silian moved to Amy and gently rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were closed, but the skin where Kasana cut her throat looked smooth and unblemished.

~She looks pale,~ he thought. As he straightened her, he noticed that where Kasana had cut a lock of her long, black hair, the hair had returned, but pale white in color in a long streak.

“Amy. I love you. Come back to me,” he whispered.

Mikhlas came past him and gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder.

Silian listened closer, focusing all his attention on Amy’s heart, hoping against hope he’d hear the faintest murmur, but when he didn’t hear a beat, his anger threatened to boil out of control.

“Silian, help me,” Mikhlas said to him. He looked behind him and saw Mikhlas crouched down by Iry. Silian stood and went over to her.

“Prime, how is she?” Mikhlas asked.

“She has damage to her frontal lobe and there is swelling on her brain. I have begun reconstruction, but I will not know the extent of the damage until she wakes up,” Prime said.

“What of the others?” Silian asked, looking over at Amy.

“The Queen has a few cuts and some bruising that will not take long to heal. Prince Lucas is fine, just some minor grazes that I have already healed.

“Prince James should wake soon. The cut in his neck is not as bad as I expected. Kasana did a little damage to his main artery, yet I repaired it in time to avoid hypoxia.

“I am unsure of the condition of Amy. Her biological monitor tells me she is dead. However, her body temperature, brain activity, and the fact that her organs have not begun to die, tell me she is still alive.”

“Perhaps if she wakes, I can run further tests. The wounds on your chest are healing, but they will still take some time.

The Sirmax poison has been neutralized, and any sign of infection has been cleared away. The King is also in fighting form,” Prime said.

In sudden realization, Silian looked at Mikhlas, crossing his arms across his chest and dropping to one knee.

~I’m in the direct presence of the ascended Queen and her chosen King.~ He dipped his head and waited.

“Silian, don’t. You, my brother, will never take a knee in front of me again,” Mikhlas said, extending his hand out to help him up.

“King? You had to be the King?” Silian said, and smiled.

Silian heard Queen Izzy move next to them and turned to look at her. She sat next to James, holding Lucas in her arms.

She must have heard what Prime said to him about the boy, the sadness and fear on her face now replaced with hope and relief.

“Do you think she will ever understand how important she must be to the Sentinels?” Silian asked sub-audibly.

“It’s stranger than you think, Silian, but no. I don’t think she will,” Mikhlas said, smiling to himself.

“What do we do now?”

“Now we return to Homeworld. And we claim our Fleet back, Lord Doge,” Mikhlas said to him. Silian nodded his head. ~That is going to take a lot of getting used to.~

“Prime, what is the condition of the ship and Kasana’s destroyers?” Mikhlas asked.

“The ship is running at 50 percent reserves. As for Kasana’s unusual destroyers, when Kinn and Hemkon arrived, and I disabled the fighter plane Fleet, but they jumped away,” Prime said.

“What’s unusual about Kasana’s vessels?”

“We’ll talk about it at another time.”

“What about Haark and his team? Did he blow the cooling towers?” Silian asked.

“He never got the chance. The same gas bombing run that neutralized your group and the Sirmax neutralized the rebel team. He’s in a cell in a different part of the building,” Prime said.

“Rebels?” Mikhlas asked.

Silian waved away the question. “I think you should have Prime bring them up to the ship as well.”

“All right,” Mikhlas agreed. “Then throw Kasana in the pit as soon as we are back on Homeworld. Let her rot in there until her hearing.

Take Iry, Amy, James, Isabelle, and Lucas to the medical bay. Have the Prince put into the regen tube. He will heal faster. Try to figure out what happened to Amy. Silian and I have one more thing to do.”

Silian frowned at him, but then saw the rage begin to burn in Mikhlas’ eyes, and realized what he meant. With a series of flashes, the others ported out. When they were alone, Mikhlas turned to Silian.

“It is time to put past demons in the ground. Our lives have changed in ways we do not yet know. But I will not let this darkness follow you into your new life, and there is still one traitor to be dealt with,” Mikhlas said.

“Bakron,” Silian looked at Mikhlas. “I know you want to help me, but I feel it best I do this alone. You are the King now. Return to the ship. Go be with your family. To Queen Izzy. She needs you.”

“You are my family as well, Silian. Are you going to kill him?” Mikhlas asked.

“Will you order me not to?”

After a pause, Mikhlas looked at him. “No. I leave his fate up to you as Lord Doge, but I feel like I am abandoning you when you need me most.”

“Lesson one, brother: If you are going to be with someone, ~be~ with them,” he said, thinking of Amy. “Queen Izzy needs you more. Whatever happens, I will survive.”

Mikhlas nodded, “Prime take me back to the ship.”

With a flash, he disappeared, and Silian began walking toward the door. “Prime, what of all the others on the base?” Silian asked.

“All the Justice Guards have been immobilized. The flyers have been issued a stand-down command. They are all in the barracks.

“Commander Bakron is on field 25. He is attempting to get into a fighter to flee the planet. So far, he hasn’t found one that works,” Prime said with the distinct sound of a smile.

“Good. Thank you, Prime,” Silian said. Unconscious guards littered the hallway. He stepped over them and moved in the direction Prime told them.

Once outside, the dawn rose in the distance. He ran over to a large gate, and as he got close, he could see the landing field on the other side.

It didn’t take him long to get to landing bay 25. He could already hear Bakron cursing at the flyers for not wanting to start. As Silian focused on the noise and strode forward, Bakron spun around at the sound of him.

“You!” Bakron shouted with surprise.

“Yes, me,” Silian said, feeling the two small blades he preferred to use in close combat forming in his hands.