"It's not that bad."
He shook his head. "Horrible that your father, your family unit, treats you like a commodity rather than a living being."
"It is my lot in life."
"What if it did not have to be?"
"Have a plan, do you?"
"You could stay here," he said. "Do not return to the Terran Empire. Stay here. I would keep you safe."
She wrapped her arms around him. "You're sweet. But the galaxy doesn't flow like that."
"It could."
"No, not really."
He ran his hand over her hair. His fingers got wrapped up in a few pieces. "What if your father died? What does that do to your power?"
"It doesn't matter. He will never die."
"Is he not mortal?"
"He is. I just don't think he will ever let go of his position or his power without a fight."
"That much is obvious," Jedriek said.
"Yes, it is. Why do you want to know what happens to me when he dies?"
"Would you be the new Empress?"
"My sister would be. I would still be a princess."
"So you would no longer be bound to the Terran Empire?"
"I would always be connected to the Terran Empire. It is my home. And if anything happened to my sister, I would be expected to be the Empress."
"Do you want to?"
"What, be the Empress? Never."
"If you could do anything, what would it be?"
"Besides stop the war?"
"Besides stop the war between our people, yes."
It was a question she'd been asked many times over the years. And she'd always had her stock responses she'd been coached and practiced to answer when those kinds of questions happened.
But she'd never really thought about it beyond those answers.
"I don't know," she replied. "I know what the Empire would want me to do. I have standard answers for such questions when they come up. I can feel them on the tip of my tongue, ready to come out. Grandiose and noble answers, like feed the hungry or help those who need it. Start a foundation for whatever is fashionably disastrous at the time."
"Fashionably disastrous?"
"That's what they would call it. Meaning that certain charities and other kinds of service to my people would come in and out of focus. I was always to answer according to what the people wanted me to say."
"I do not want to hear what the people want you to say. I am asking you."
