25 Before the 11pm Meeting

Various paintings mounted the walls, ferns stood beside the wooden doors, and the tall windows revealed the night sky. With a coffee table, a plush couch, and an armchair, the meeting room resembled nothing of a conference hall.

Aether sat within the armchair, fingers brushing its leather seams, eyes hiding his hurt pride. Why all this for a wooden spoon? No, it was for Gen. He pulled the collar of his shirt, straightening it as he sat upright. There was nothing wrong with spoiling her.

"Don't, or we'll die," said Joule. He crossed his legs, and as his shoe swept dangerously close to Drake, he incited a small grunt from the man.

"Are we smuggling weapons?" Drake asked. He polished his sniper rifle with a cloth; minutes earlier he had said he needed to do so in preparation for an attack from the Starblood Sealers.

Aether saw it as nothing more than an excuse to avoid his eyes. And if there was an attack... Hidden turrets, contraband barriers, and trained personnel would defend the estate. The current security would suffice, although a few days prior armed droids had surveyed the halls. Defense had been better then, before the humans replaced the droids along with all the other servant bots.

For Gen.

Aether's aura warmed; the memory of her arguing with his spaceship's AI and various crewbots still lingered in his mind. Absolutely adorable, but he didn't want to aggravate her into leaving, so he had fired all the droids and sent them to Reya's neighboring estate. To his grief, Reya called it her wing of his estate.

"Wood," Aether said and glanced at the grandfather clock. Not yet eleven o'clock. When would Gen arrive?

"Wha?" Drake's mouth hung open. "I know wood is expensive within the Compass Constellation, but we need to smuggle it? And isn't it...legal?"

Aether took a sip of iced water, which he had retrieved from the tray beside him. His pride halted him from saying what he wanted to smuggle.

Joule shook his head. "If you can't say it, give up."

"No." Aura suffused from Aether's hands, and it enlarged the ice cubes within his glass.

"Would somebody explain?" Drake disassembled his sniper rifle then fiddled with the scope, peering through it as if it had changed from the last time he had checked it.

"Gift for Gen," Joule said.

"Oh!" Drake jolted, nearly dropping the scope. He gave Aether a thumbs up. "Like a necklace made of amberwood or crystallia? Finally being romantic, I see. And going big with something so expensive. You'll need the best crafters and the most loyal of carriers. If only teleporters could transfer wood..."

Aether gazed at the ceiling. A wooden spoon composed of crystallia would be nice, but what type of wood was crystallia? Its name reminded him of a jewel, and he hoped it would rival at least a tenth of Gen's handsome beauty. Anything less would be unworthy of her.

Joule wrinkled his brows, and Drake swiveled his head between the two.

Drake asked, "Why am I getting a weird vibe? Is it not a necklace? Should I go ask Gen what she, err, he wants?"

Because Gen didn't mind pronoun use, Aether chose for her and forced his subordinates to use "him." If they broke Aether's promise with Gen to not reveal her sex, he didn't want to find a new subordinate because of their untimely execution.

Warmth bubbled within Aether; "her" was for his use only.

"Spoon," Joule said. "Aether wants to gift him a wooden spoon."

The sniper fell through Drake's hands as his jaw similarly fell agape. "Please, tell me you're joking."

"We're getting married!" The doors suddenly burst open, swinging and hitting the pedestals upon which the ferns rested. Reya pranced to Aether and placed her hands on his shoulder. She exclaimed, "Did you hear? We're getting married! Let's have a large celebration, preferably on the peak of East Star's Eternal Tower or on a new flying island made just for us. Okay?"

Aether subtly shifted, trying to free himself from her grasp as her presence plagued him. Just ignore her, he said to himself. Speaking to her would quickly drop flying cars from the sky. Head filled with gaping holes, hidden desires, and thoughts that didn't match her words, she was the most difficult person to understand. If brain matter filled a normal person's head, butterflies filled hers; and Aether felt sorry for anyone who thought of her as only a straightforward, haughty woman.

"Not getting married," Joule said, helping Aether diffuse the situation. Aether nodded in thanks.

Reya jutted her chin, "The empress dowager said so, and we're a perfect match."

"Reya," Fenri began, "Let's talk about this later."

"Later? No. Your Highness, I want an explanation." She hooked her arms around Aether's neck, and his aura permeated the room as his hands quivered. His glass shattered, and his subordinates shivered.

"Don't want to marry you," Aether said as he forced his pressure under his control. Once it vanished, Reya pouted.

She said, "We belong together. You're a star prince, and I'm a princess. You need the support of South Star, which I have; and we're both beautiful people and are childhood friends."

"Reya," Fenri growled, and Drake rolled his eyes.

Aether crumbled the rest of his glass cup into crystalline shards before brushing the pieces onto the floor. He expected a small, automatic bot to appear and sweep it up, but then he remembered that he had exiled anything with a semblance of an AI.

"What?" Reya raised a hand to her chest. "It's true in the same way you need to marry a woman and have children."

"I'm gay," he said and plopped beside Joule.

"Stop telling people that. How will you marry a woman if you think that?"

"But I am."

"You still need to marry, so you're not."

Fenri let out a long, exaggerated sigh. "You spend too much time with droids. Your reasoning is off. I will never—"

"No, I don't," Reya snorted. "And if you've never tried it, how would you know you won't be happy?"

"Whatever you say isn't going to change me."

Aether shut his eyes, waiting for the bickering to end. If he said something, Reya would turn her attention to him, and then nothing he said would quiet her unless he blasted his aura.

As the siblings argued like children, Joule stared at the pair with rapt interest. Who knew what he understood and gleaned from their conversation? Similarly, Drake reassembled his sniper, polished it, then disassembled it, cleaned it, then repeated the process. The clicks soothed Aether, taking his mind off Reya and back to the time he sat within Gen's car, of when he loaded her Million Joule sniper rifle...

Crash! Reya pushed over a fern; its clay pot shattered.

"Say that again, Fenri!"

Her brother rose from the couch, face red. "You just want to marry Prince Aether because he's a star prince. Shallow, petty, attention whore."

"Uh!" Reya gasped and covered her mouth. "You don't know me. You've never understood me." Light tears blurred her eyes, and her attention snapped to Joule. She snarled. "Tomorrow evening, my place for your lesson."

Then she stormed away, and her stomping snapped one of her heels. She tore off her shoes and pattered barefoot down the hall, not caring to shut the door.

"Intense," Drake said, tossing the rest of his sniper onto the floor. He must have broken something—a bolt, maybe, or a small electric connector. "Your sister needs to get a grip of the real world."

"Don't you dare say that!" Fenri shouted. He aura broke as he kicked the couch. His leg flew through it as a blue, misty cloud bearing no physical consequence, but the action seemed to calm his nerves. "You don't understood her. You know nothing about her."

"Calm down," Aether said, and Fenri sat.

After a few seconds, the man's breathing returned to normal. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, reverting to his usual sedate self. "Hey, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean that stuff about her wanting to marry you just because you're a star prince...so...don't think about it. She's happy."

"Not wrong," Joule said; he had a way of prolonging problems. Aether raised a brow at him, and the man shirked. "Not right, either."

"So, Joule." Drake smiled. His face flushed red in excitement like the many times he thought there was a juicy rumor to devour. "You and Reya are—"

"No."

"Then—"

"Aether needs super-hacker help," Joule stated.

Aether raised a brow and tapped the armchair. "And for what do I need a super-hacker's help?"

"Gen."

He jolted upright. "What about Gen?

"I, uh, don't think it's a good idea to ask Reya." Fenri shook his head.

Joule nodded. "His best bet is to understand her."

" 'Her' as in my sister or Gen?"

Joule nodded for a second time, and Aether pursed his lips. Yes for Gen or yes for Reya?

Drake scratched his chin. "So let me get this straight. Aether needs help with Gen, so you are continuing your super-hacker lessons with Reya even though there is nothing she can teach you that you will understand? And then you are going to do what with your newly learned skills?"

Joule shook his head.

"You know"—Drake upturned his palms—"we can't understand you if you don't explain everything sequentially with words."

"I couldn't sense Phantom Mind's intent because his aura resisted my break, so I thought I'd go ask Reya about him. She's giving me a lesson about all his habits, likes, and dislikes, and then I might discover why he was spying on Gen."

Aether interweaved his fingers and observed Joule. Faint wisps of aura escaped through his breath. "What does Reya know about Phantom Mind?"

"A lot."

"Fenri?" Aether turned his head. The man in question shrugged.

"Wait, they know each other?" Drake's eyes widened, and his smile grew. "I knew it! Super-hackers are a close-knit community. If we wanted to know about Phantom Mind we should have asked a real super-hacker—no offense Joule."

Joule pursed his lips. "Not true."

Drake spun to face Fenri. "You don't think they've done—"

"Don't say anything incriminating my sister," Fenri said, narrowing his eyes.

Frost covered Aether's armchair. "Joule, why didn't you inform me that they knew each other?"

"She mentions him all the time." Joule wrinkled his brows, and Aether sighed. In other words, Reya commonly thought about Phantom Mind, and Joule had assumed they had known this.

"You don't mean!" Drake squealed, completely destroying his image as one of Aether's personally trained aura knights. Joule elbowed him but failed to snap the grown man into reality. "Are they—"

"Don't even think it," Fenri growled.

"Shh." Aether suffused aura from his body, chilling everyone. He turned and faced the hallway. The medic he had assigned Ascending was approaching, and he held a tablet beneath his arm.

Drake, Fenri, and Joule sat upright and straightened their clothes. Hardened, indifferent expressions masked their faces, and the men released a force of presence bearing tints of killing intent.

Aether nodded. Here were his battle-hardened subordinates—men who had slaughtered enemies and monsters from meal to meal, dawn to dawn, year to year.

The medic knocked on the opened door, to which Aether released a grunt of approval. The man entered, legs shaking as his cold sweat smudged the tablet. Fumbling, he held it before his chest, as if that could protect him from their presence.

"Report," Joule said, properly acting as Aether's head representative. Objectively, Drake and Fenri had far better communication skills, but Joule was best at peering through lies and deceits.

"T-t-the patient, Ascending Rook, he's...uh..."

"Speak properly," Joule ordered; though Aether was aware Joule had already perceived the medic's intentions.

"He's in a coma and might not wake up."

Aura blasted through the room, freezing everything. Eyes filled with hate, Aether glared at the medic. "Get out. Now."

The medic fled, and Aether's aura nipped at his back and gave him a shove. The tablet slipped from his fingers; its screen cracked against the hard floor. In his hurry, the medic abandoned it.

Aether gripped the arms of his chair, nails digging into it as he fidgeted from side to side—not enough for the others to notice—but enough that he grew wary of his own anxiety.

Gen would hate him, he thought; and he felt as if he had fallen into quicksand, sinking and drowning, grasping desperately for a handhold.

"So...when will Gen arrive?" Drake asked. Joule elbowed him in the stomach and glowered.