8 Did you miss me, sunshine?

Kai Atarian, the young Emperor-to-be, was woken up by the sound of sheets rustling. Annoyed, he opened his eyes and saw the dark-haired boy from yesterday lying next to him with his mouth slightly open. He was one of the newest additions to his harem, gifted by the ambassadors from the northern territories. Recently he had received many such "gifts" from different parts of the country. Kai Atarian was about to come into power after all and everyone was trying to get on his good side.

The boy looked exhausted. No wonder – after the sparring round with General Minn yesterday Kai was restless, and needed to blow off steam.

Not that it helped.

Even after having the boy in several positions, even after thrusting into him endlessly almost for the whole night, he couldn't stop thinking about Adnan Minn. It was like the man had placed a hook inside his brain, since he had rescued him from the fort. And afterwards all he did was just make him angry and confused.

Kai furrowed his brow and closed his eyes again.

As soon as he did, a scene as if from a long forgotten dream appeared in front of him. He was standing under a willow, looking at a clear fast-flowing river. It was warm, the birds were cheerfully chirping, and the grass was rustling in the gentle wind. He felt somebody approach him from the back. He turned around and saw a well-built graceful man with dark serious eyes. The man smiled at Kai affectionately and stretched out his hand to caress his hair.

"Did you miss me, sunshine?" he asked in a deep tender voice.

Before Kai could answer, the illusion disappeared as quickly as it came.

Since the day he had met General Minn in the savage fort, he knew without a trace of doubt that the man in the illusion that had followed him for years was undoubtedly him – same handsome figure, same raven-black hair, same pale complexion. The only difference was the expression in those peach-blossom eyes. General Minn in the illusion was serious but still calm and very warm. The eyes of General Minn yesterday were anything but calm – there was panic, there was fear, there was deep sadness. And no warmth. No matter how much he looked, he only saw indifference.

So this must be just a strange dream concocted by his brain for some unknown reason, right? Yet it felt more like a distant memory. Then again, how could one remember something that never happened?

When Minn offered to call him "sunshine" all of a sudden, Kai felt as if he was struck by lightning. Maybe this scene happened after all? Maybe he had forgotten but Adnan Minn still remembered?

But in the end it wasn't the case. This was just a weird coincidence.

For some reason it made Kai inexplicably angry. Another thing that made him angry was that the real-life Minn appeared to be so nonchalant about trading his life for Kai's freedom. It seemed that he would have done it for anybody and anything! Maybe even for a piece of moldy bread!

In the end he didn't even ask for a reward. Like, saving the next Emperor was just some unimportant chore he had forgotten about as soon as it was done.

To be honest with himself, at the time, lying on the cold floor, tied with the rope that not only physically immobilized him but was also slowly sucking out his life essence, Kai was sure he was going to die. He thought there was no one out there who would be willing to trade their life for his. Except maybe Niki – his most devoted friend and his own personal shaman. However, Niki, being undead, had already traded his life once, and had no more lives left.

Maybe his father could have saved him... If he bothered to be there.

Alas, the bastard left 5 years ago.

One day, completely out of nowhere Roan Atarian – his father and the ruling Emperor at the time - abdicated from the throne, announcing that he is retreating from the secular world to concentrate on his spiritual practices. People mockingly called him "the hermit Emperor" since then. He didn't say where he was going and didn't say when he was going to return – it was clear that he didn't want anybody to find him. He just wanted to disappear from the world.

His father was always a bit absentminded – he would spend most of his time in his messy study, going through stacks of old dusty books. No one was allowed inside, except for Kai and his little sister Miri. One of the first memories he had of his father was him putting Kai on his lap and showing him colorful pictures in the scrolls.

"This is a blossom of Thousand Suns – it looks beautiful, doesn't it?"

Kai nodded, extending his finger to touch the flower in the scroll.

"It also has great properties – it can fulfill one of your wishes," his father smiled sadly. "The problem is that you can't choose which one. So one should stay away from it as far as possible, do you understand?"

Kai nodded again. He didn't actually understand the problem back then. He had a couple very simple wishes – he wanted his mother to be alive again and he wanted his father to spend less time in his dusty study. If any one of those came true, he'd be happy.

However, he never encountered the mysterious blossom. It either didn't exist anymore or was something that only the savages cultivated in their lands.

When Kai was younger he would often brag to his father about every new sword move he learned, and his father would pat him on the head and distractedly say "Very good, very good...". But he would never actually come and see him practice.

Except on the night before his abrupt departure.

He watched Kai for hours and finally called him over and gave him a long sad look:

"I'm rooting for you, son. You can't imagine, how much I'm rooting for you."

Kai didn't understand what he meant but it was often the case with the things his father said, so he just nodded in response.

His father suddenly closed his eyes and with a shaking voice, as if holding back tears, said:

"I will give you a chance, Kai."

And then he turned around and left. These were the last words his father ever said to him.

It was such a lie. If he truly wanted to give Kai a chance, he would have stayed and not left him in the clutches of his horrible uncle.

Ah yes, Reo Atarian – this evil silver fox. He always treated his father like garbage – he would call him a madman in front of the Generals and nobles and would subtly make fun of him any chance he got. His father never understood the snide remarks – he would always just smile, confused at why everyone was suddenly acting so weird.

"Until Kai was born I honestly wondered, if my older brother can get it up," Reo once said during a banquet to a room full of guests. "Maybe my late sister-in-law had to recite ancient texts out loud to get him in the mood, if you know what I mean... But our Empress Lou was so dutiful and such a doting wife – she might have just decided not to bother her busy husband with these trivial things and took the matters into her own hands. Ah, we were so blessed to have such a dutiful Empress!"

Kai remembered how he wanted to tear his uncle apart, how he expected his father to stand up for himself and the late Empress but all his father did was raise his eyes up and look around as if he had just woken up from a very interesting dream.

"Yes?" he said quietly. "Ah, the Empress. She was very good, yes."

He hadn't heard a word of that disgusting speech. Or he hadn't understood any of it. Or he didn't care. Trying to offend his father was like punching cotton. He just lived in his own world and everything else around him didn't matter.

His father's eyes were blue, just like Kai's, just like his uncle's. But if Kai's eyes were cold and guarded like ice and Reo Atarian's eyes were malicious and cunning, Roan Atarian's eyes were distant and clear like the sky.

Even if his father was blind about his brother's evil ways, Kai was not. Already at 15 he knew that this power-hungry man will do anything to get rid of him and keep the throne to himself.

At the time Niki had made several amulets for him – one that detected poison, one that guarded him from attacks while he was sleeping, even one to ward off diseases.

Funnily enough, the expected attack never came.

It was as if after his father's departure Roan Atarian suddenly changed. The snide remarks stopped, he wasn't spreading his favorite rumor about Kai and Miri being illegitimate children anymore. Even the way he looked at Kai changed – there was no trace of hate in his gaze anymore, just pity for some reason. He stopped calling Miri a "worthless female with tiny tits" and even let her participate in court and councils, which caused a lot of commotion among the military and the nobles. And it seemed he honestly wanted to step back when Kai turned 21. He even talked about it very often with enthusiastic impatience.

Nobody knew what had happened - there were rumors among the guards that the two brothers had a long heart-to-heart, before Roan left. Kai had no idea what his silly father could have said to Reo in order to completely change him as a person.

In the end, all of it might have also been an act, a ruse in order to coax Kai into a fake sense of security, so he would let his guard down. But anyone who would think that Kai would ever let his guard down didn't know Kai. He was going to stand tall till the bitter end and defeat anything his uncle would throw at him.

Not because he wanted the throne – that seemed more like a chore than anything else. No, what he wanted was to gain complete access to the savage lands and their magics.

His uncle did stir up a war with the savage kingdom which Kai fully supported but Reo Atarian didn't want to go on the offensive. All he did was stop the slave trade and arrange protection against aggression on the borders. Kai was more ambitious – he wanted to conquer savages and annex their lands to the Empire territories. He wanted to take all those shamans hostage and gather the information about the whereabouts of wish-fulfilling blossoms and many other possibly useful sorcery.

Even if Kai himself didn't have all the right questions, Niki would, no doubt, know exactly what to ask.

He was sure of one thing - once he sits on the throne, there will be a full on war. He knew that some Generals will be happy about it and some would definitely join the nobles in rebellion. Most of the powerful people in the Empire were more interested in profit than the war after all.

Kai knew that if he stopped the war and renewed the slave trade, he would gain a lot of support. The only nobles that were against the slave trade were the ones thoroughly brainwashed by his uncle who said that the resources of the Empire should not fall into the hands of foreigners. This patriotic rhetoric worked on certain nobles which was the only thing that kept them from uniting and rebelling. Also, many were still intimidated by Reo Atarian's former reputation, so they didn't dare to cause too much unrest. But Kai knew that sooner or later the profit motive would overpower patriotic sentiment and fear. And then... who knows what kind of chaos would ensue.

Kai had no idea what his uncle's sudden obsession with stopping slave trade was all about. Before Roan left, he himself was buying and selling slaves left and right. He even took slaves as his concubines and would exchange and discard them as soon as he got tired of playing with them. Reo Atarian's harem was actually legendary – he used to be a collector of beauties. There was even a saying going around among women in the Empire: "I'd rather have a plain appearance and live a long and happy life than be a peerless beauty and die as Reo's wife."

A lot of his wives and concubines indeed met horrible deaths.

However, shortly after Reo Atarian became the Regent, he let all of his wives and concubines go. Just like that. He even gave each one of them as much gold as they could carry.

Back then Kai took it as a sign that his uncle was plotting something truly awful and didn't want any witnesses around.

These were difficult five years, full of suspicion and anxiety – it felt like waiting for the executioners blade to fall on your neck and not knowing when it will finally come. Why would his father do something like that to him?

"Your Highness," Kai was torn out of his painful thoughts by a quiet voice with a northern accent.

He turned around. The dark-haired boy was awake.

"Do you require me to... Do you still need...?" he asked, blushing. He was obviously new to all of this and still quite shy.

"No, go," Kai dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

The boy got up as quickly as he could but before he left he suddenly gasped, as if having remembered something important.

"Your Highness, should I help you get dressed?" he asked, visibly nervous that he had committed some kind of faux pas.

"Does it seem like I need any help?" Kai raised his eyebrow, and the boy finally disappeared behind the door.

While Kai was buttoning up his shirt, a delightful idea came to his head. He smiled to himself and wondered, if Adnan Minn was capable of handling what he had in store for him.