Original Elements: A Space Opera Adventure (Planet Origins Book 2)

by Lucia Ashta

  All I had to do was choose which path I would take into the labyrinth that was the King’s memories, knowing that I might not be able to find my way back out. I could live with those odds. Actually, it wasn’t that I could live with them, it was that I had no other choice. There was no way out of here except through the labyrinth. And I had to enter it to emerge at its end.

  I spotted a vague image of Ilara, hazy and dreamlike as if I were seeing a diffuse version of her, a watered-down phantasm. She wore one of her sexiest dresses, although most of them pulled me away from any other thought than wanting to get her out of whatever gauzy, curve-hugging outfit she currently wore. This one was a deep, emerald green that turned a purplish-black whenever the light hit it just right, exposing the fabric’s hidden iridescence. It was cut high in front, concealing all of her breasts, though pert nipples poked through the thin fabric, trying to burst through it and find their way to my mouth. It was cut low in the back, so that all of her back, down past her waist, was revealed. An expanse of skin so creamy, so unblemished, so beautiful, that it mesmerized like the most intoxicating of fragrances. In the front, the flowing fabric of the dress was cut in a slit straight up nearly all the way to the crease where thigh met the most sensual of her parts. The slit in the green-black-purple fabric was like an arrow pointing the way to bliss. I wanted to reach it. I yearned for that bliss, for that passion this love of mine shared with me, for the hot wetness between her legs that she dangled, scintillating, in front of me with every mischievous glint of those cosmic eyes.

  If I had a choice, I wasn’t aware of it. I chose the only path I thought I could.

  With my mind, I reached for Ilara, feeling that I could already hear her laughter, powerful enough to melt and inundate this desert all at once, dripping—drop, drop, drop. Her laughter was more potent than that dress in how it could pull me toward her.

  I would give anything to hear that seductive laughter ringing in my ears once more. Her teeth nibbling on my earlobe. Her head flung back in that one single image that represented all of my desire in one container. Black hair, silky and shiny as nothing else could be, hanging long to her waist, where it undulated suggestively. That creamy skin.

  I would give anything to be one with her again. Yet it seemed that what was required of me wasn’t anything. It was everything. And I had no real choice but to give it.

  Before I could even pretend to think it through, I’d agreed to every clause in the invisible contract, without reading it.

  I gave absolutely everything of myself as I reached out with the grip of my mind and took hold of Ilara’s skirts, turning her to face me, head on.

  Twenty-Two

  Scenes whipped across my awareness so quickly that I could barely process them. I caught glimpses. More than anything, what I registered were my responses to what I saw. Drained from my earlier emotional outpouring, I didn’t want to feel anymore. I didn’t want to react. I didn’t want to experience the chasm that had appeared down the middle of my body and that each time widened more. I didn’t know what had caused it; all I knew was that I ached in a way so profound that I wanted never to feel again.

  Yet this was impossible. And the scenes that would arrive next made sure of it.

  The snippets were so vivid that they convinced me of their truth. Very much like a dream where it didn’t matter how awful the situation was, I still couldn’t escape it. I experienced every movement and each burst of fear as it squeezed the breath from my heart.

  The scenes swished by me in a non-stop stream of motion, expressed in colors as vivid as any I’d ever seen. I was grateful I’d remained seated. The images nearly made me dizzy, they flew by so quickly. I had a vague memory of myself as a boy, when my parents were still together, giving credence to the illusion that we were a happy family. My father held me by both hands and swung me while he twirled in a circle as fast as he could. My mother laughed at first, but soon grew concerned, telling my father it was enough, that he’d make me sick. I remember the images of my mother, beautiful as she was, flicking by as if in still frames. She was frozen for a moment, in color and emotion. Until the next turn. Then she was frozen again, slightly different this time. And on it went.

  That’s how it felt now. I would have vomited if I thought it would help. But there was no help for me. I had to make it to the other side of this nonsense or mystical experience—I couldn’t decide which of the two it was.

  So I didn’t allow myself to do what I wanted. I didn’t let myself shy away. Instead, I drew strength from places unknown and steeled myself to face whatever I would need to. I was Ilara’s champion, even if I was a self-appointed one, and a champion never gave up, not even when he faced fire-breathing dragons several times his size.

  The dragon I would need to confront was both a man and a king that had lived for more than a millennium. I searched for the glowing eyes of the dragon, knowing they would be there. Once I found them, immediately I fell through them, a portal into another world. After all, it wasn’t the king dragon that I was really here to fight, it was those memories of his that linked to my life, through his daughter.

  If the scenes had been so vivid before as to make me feel dizzy, it was worse now. I’d entered the room within a father’s mind where he housed all the memories of his daughter. Here, there was order. Something a bit like affection floated in the room, scenting it, sticking to every surface—to the elegant arm chair, upholstered in a monochromatic floral print, to the walls, wallpapered in a matching floral pattern, to a light gram of Ilara as a young girl, perhaps seven or eight, that captured the moment of an emerging smile. Over and again, the smile came to life, and then the process began anew.

  I rose from the floor and walked to the armchair. I sank into the chair and kicked up my feet. Stay awhile, the furniture suggested; I thought it an agreeable idea. To my right, I discovered a small table I hadn’t noticed before. Yet there it was, with a small lamp atop it that gave off a comforting yellow glow. I looked away from it, wondering what it was that I was supposed to do in this room. When I returned my gaze to the table, a pile of files were on its surface, as if they’d always been there.

  There, I thought. I appreciated clarity in this dreamlike memory world in which the parameters that defined normalcy kept shifting. I liked it simple. Show me what I’m to do, I thought, and I’ll do it.

  I leaned into the armchair and picked up the file on top. I placed it in my lap and opened it. It was filled with what must have been nearly a hundred round, shiny metal disks. I knew precisely what they were, and I reached out to caress the one on top with apprehension. I touched it lightly, knowing that anything more might reveal the memory it held.

  These disks captured moments in time. There could be no denying the veracity of the events they contained. They couldn’t be edited. They were like a mini-prison for a succession of moments that would have otherwise been lost to the passing of time.

  I picked up the disk on top, the shiniest one. This one stood out, reflecting the yellow from the lamp, its star-like pattern bursting across the metal, suggesting that I was staring into an endless night sky instead of a disk that could give my hopes flight or crush indifferently. Memories dealt in truths, not compassion.

  I replaced the disk on top of the others and rummaged for one I might like better, one that called to me more. It was clear I was meant to view the one I first went for, but I was afraid to know its content. I didn’t understand what I was afraid of, I just kept thinking, insensibly, that it’s much easier to deny something when you haven’t yet seen it.

  But in the end, I knew which disk signaled to me.

  I picked it up again. I rubbed it just once between thumb and forefinger. I admired its smooth surface in the lamplight, finding not a single imperfection in its surface.

  I breathed in deeply, wondering if I would ever find peace. Then I placed the single disk in the palm of my hand. The energy from my body would activate the information on the disk and power it sufficiently to rele
ase. As if it were my own memory instead of a great king’s, Ilara sprang to life in front of me.

  She was so close and so real-looking that it was difficult not to reach out to her. Once the scene began to unfold, I was glued to my seat, eyes riveted, unable to look away, no matter what they took in.

  Ilara was in the palace with her father. They were in a room I’d never been in before, one that wasn’t open to the public. From the extravagant decorations and their manly theme, it was probably the King’s private chambers. Ilara, with her usual catlike elegance, was pacing the room. Her back was to me at first, but then she turned. Her face was animated, alive with displeasure, her hands in front of her, moving in a series of rapid punctuations.

  “No,” she was saying, “I don’t want to do it. Haven’t I done enough for you already?”

  “You are the princess of a planet, Ilara. You will do as is necessary for the well-being of the kingdom.”

  “For the well-being of the kingdom? Or is it for your well-being, father?” She dragged out that final word, making it as dangerous as barbed wire.

  The King glared at her. She glared back. I’d never seen Ilara back down from a confrontation. Apparently she was like that even with the king of all of Origins. Her cheeks were pink with fight.

  “Do you really think that prostituting your own daughter is for the best of the kingdom? Have I not allowed enough courtiers between my legs already to satisfy you, father?”

  “How dare you,” the King seethed. He was a beast, a lion, dangerous no matter what he did or didn’t do.

  “Oh,” Ilara went on, with an ebullient show of innocence. “Have I not fucked enough men, and the occasional woman, to suit your political ambitions?” Ilara batted her eyes, and I feared for a moment that the King would strike her.

  He didn’t, however, and Ilara retreated from striking distance before continuing. “I’ve done everything you’ve ever ordered me to do. But now it has to stop. I can’t be the person you’ve made me any longer. I have to be allowed to choose my own path.”

  “If I’ve used your… sexuality,” the King countered, “to advance the needs of the Andaron blood line, then you should be grateful that you’ve been able to be of service to me, your father, and—do I need to remind you?—your King. Do you think you were blessed with every physical grace that springs lust forth in the loins of men for no reason? Do you think it’s an accident that you look the way you do?”

  She didn’t speak, merely stared at him. I couldn’t look away from the private scene between father and daughter, from what I saw as a violation of the sacredness of the woman I loved.

  The King advanced on her and gripped her upper arm, hard. I flinched. “Or do you think it more probable that Something Greater gave you the endowments it chose to so that you could do these things for the good of others?” He gave her a little shake and stared her down. When he released her, I began to breathe again.

  Ilara stepped away from him, with a resignation I’d never witnessed in her before. She turned her back to her father, the one man in all of O that she wasn’t allowed to show her back to. No subject of King Oderon could turn their back to him; it was law, and it was clear that he considered his own daughter his subject. Yet, he didn’t object. He knew he’d already won the argument.

  Ilara spoke to the glass wall that overlooked a panoramic view of the royal city below. Her voice was as sultry as ever though laden with the low warning tones of danger. The King ignored this as well. “What is it that you will have me do now, my Liege?” My chest constricted at the threat barely concealed in her voice.

  The King approached his daughter, wound her long, dark hair in one hand, and gave it a gentle tug. My whole body grew rigid. I stared at the scene in front of me, an unblinking voyeur.

  “You’re to befriend the son of Lord Brachius, Tanus. Get to know him and his friend, Dolpheus. Apparently, they’re never apart from each other for long.”

  Her body had grown as rigid as mine was. “To what purpose?”

  “You’re to extract whatever information you can about the splicing process.”

  A moment passed where I couldn’t read Ilara’s expression. She still had her back toward me, and her body blocked the reflection of her face in the glass. It seemed as if she were trying to hide her face—perhaps her eyes, which revealed everything—from the King. “Why Lord Brachius’ son and not Lord Brachius himself? Is it not better to go to the source for the information?”

  “Ordinarily. But in this case, Brachius won’t reveal a thing. He’s too smart to be taken in by your wiles. But his son, and his son’s friend, they’re young. They like women. They’ll love you. It will be easy for you.”

  “Easy in which sense exactly? Because, certainly, you can’t be referring to how it will feel to me.”

  “There is no place for feelings in a monarch nor in his kin. You are royalty. You will act like it.”

  “And I will do what you say, no matter what it might be…”

  “Precisely.”

  The King walked around the room while she remained near the glass wall, her back still to me, every curve of those elongated muscles clear. I knew her body so well. She was tense and unhappy. And it was the thought of seducing me—and Dolpheus, I gulped—that was making her feel this way.

  King Oderon was now content and circled the room before seeming to remember that his daughter was there with him. He stilled, impatient. “Come on. That’s enough show, Ilara. It won’t be bad. The two lads are quite handsome and charismatic from what I’ve gathered. Who knows? You might even enjoy yourself.”

  When she finally did turn, it was as if her vision were piercing my own. I was grateful that she was no more than a mirage just then and that the person in her sights was the King and not me. Her look could kill. Those cosmic eyes blazed. The gaseous masses and stars of the cosmos swirled in a fury. It’s what I imagined a storm must look like when it hit deep space. “A show?” she said. “A show, father?”

  “Yes. That’s quite enough of it, daughter. Go seduce these two men. Give me the information I’ve asked you for, and then you can be finished with them.”

  “When I finish with them, I will still not be finished with you,” she said and stalked from the room. Every one of her muscles was coiled in a calm, latent fury. She looked as dangerous as any predator I’d ever encountered.

  The great King Oderon, however, seemed nonplussed. He didn’t even watch her exit his chambers without securing his dismissal.

  I, nevertheless, watched every one of her steps as her slippered feet trod the floor with the grace of a big cat, my heart beating in my throat.

  Twenty-Three

  I didn’t want to continue. Nevertheless, I had to make myself do it. It was how it had been since I allowed Lila to press the crystalline strand against my forehead after agreeing to this insanity. Momentum continued to pull me forward, even if I disliked where it led me.

  I sorted through the remaining disks in the folder by touch. I ran my hands across them, picking only those that called to me. It was similar to playing cards… not this card, not that one either, but this card, this one feels right. This was how I picked the disks that would reveal another fragment of Ilara’s life. Unfortunately for me, they were all fragments that I wished I didn’t have to see.

  In life, there were things we were glad to have done and those we wished we hadn’t. Either way, we were stuck with all of our life experiences, both the good and the bad. Ilara turned out to be a particularly even mixture of good and bad. I’d focused so much on all the good in her that I’d allowed myself to be blind to the bad. Or maybe it was just that she was so skilled in her deceptions that I couldn’t have seen the reality for what it was regardless of my bias.

  Why and however, it stung. It all stung. I thought I wouldn’t be made to feel any more or any worse. Then these things were shown to me, and I had to find a way to deal with scenes no man should have to watch of his lover.

  The next disk I placed in
the palm of my hand opened immediately. The King must have surveilled his daughter to make sure she did as he ordered. The scenes contained within revealed Ilara—my Ilara, my love—fucking my best friend. She was on top, riding him, her smooth hips with their perfect curves, rocking. Her breasts were full and bare, my friend’s hands closed around them.

  I could mostly see the curve of Ilara’s back, the way her waist dipped into her buttocks. The side of her face was illuminated; there I found the look of ecstasy she had when she was riding me, in precisely the same way.

  My vantage point directed my focus to Dolpheus’ face. His eyes were closed in pleasure. I searched desperately for any sign that he felt bad for what he was doing, that he hadn’t wanted to betray me. Certainly, he must feel bad, making a cuckold of his best friend in the entire world. But even after scouring every single feature of his face, his every expression that formed in response to pleasure, I found none of what I sought. I found nothing more than ecstasy, both in him and in her.

  When Ilara began to quicken the rocking of her hips and to guide Dolpheus’ hands to flick her perfect, erect nipples, a wave of nausea swelled deep in my groin. When she began to moan and threw her head back, her long, black hair tickling his bare thighs, I flung the disk across the room. It crashed against the opposite wall with the silence appropriate for the dead.

  I thought that I would like to kill them both. My best friend. My beloved. To hell with them.

  There was only so much one good man—or one mostly good man—could take. I scooted to the edge of the seat and tried to get up. My spirits were down by my feet. I would need a second try. However, before I could get myself standing, I remembered: I was here to discover to which planet the King had sent Ilara. Simultaneously, one of the disks from the folder called to me loudly. I imagined the answer I needed to discover must be on this disk that was urging me not to give up yet. I had one more important thing to learn, even if I refused to examine the rest of Ilara’s life.