Page 37 of His King Enslaved

My father wanted to prove he could birth the most beautiful Flower of an age, and he made me unique on purpose. Growing up, I looked quite different from my siblings and parents. It was often difficult and isolating, but in hindsight, the experience prepared me for the solitary life of a Flower. I have mixed feelings about how my descendants should look. Will it be easier if they bear a familial resemblance to their siblings, or will it be best in the long run if they are visually distinct? I don’t know the answer, but fortunately, I have several years to consider it.

Sindar’s chest ached, and he pressed the letter against his chest.

When Ardor said they were strangers, he was right. Whatever intimacies they shared in the marriage bed did not extend to knowing his mate’s soul or mind. But this… this was something he understood well. Familial resemblance had shaped his life and personality. It drove his destiny now. For years, he’d despised sharing his brother’s face and rued not having one of his own. He came to think of it as Xandar’s face. Xandar was born first. Sindar was an imitation. A shoddy copy. A second-rate spare.

Whenever a girl called him handsome, he automatically thought, She considers Xandar handsome. His face felt like a mask and was never truly his own. His face had ruined his life, but it was also the reason he met Ardor. Without it, he wouldn’t be here right now.

The desperate need to hear from Ardor as quickly as possible faded as Sindar acclimated to putting his thoughts into words. Letter-writing forced him to slow down and absorb what Ardor was saying. He held the letter to his chest as he slept, and when he woke, he was ready to reply.

He longed to confide in Ardor about the difficulties of a shared face, but it was too risky to put such things in writing. Instead, he wrote:

I want all our children to feel as though they are part of the same family, but I hope they all have some claim to uniqueness. I want them to be comfortable in their identities.

Was his phrasing too vague? He couldn’t risk being more specific. A letter could easily be intercepted and read, and a lot was on the line.

Sindar shouldn’t have wondered if a man as intelligent and empathetic as Ardor would understand. His Flower’s response was prompt, delivered before lunch.

Each will likely feature a distinct part of you while having their own claim to Kysanian beauty. Your warm eyes for one, your fine nose for another. I hope they will one day unite Kysan, so that the past does not repeat.

As usual, Ardor understood perfectly.

RAVEN HARA

THE SUPPOSED CHAMPION of Flowers arrived several days early, as a “gesture of goodwill” from the Archon. Raven Hara’s placid, empty smile chilled Ardor’s heart, but he greeted her warmly, as if she really was his champion.

The Archon’s eyes would be installed in the apartment adjoining his own. Ardor had been watched and guarded his entire life, but always by a friendly or neutral party. Raven Hara was an unknown quantity.

Upon arrival, she searched both their apartments top to bottom for surveillance devices.

“Do they have that type of technology?” Ardor asked doubtfully. In Pavar, personal surveillance was guaranteed, but after a few cursory checks of his own room, he concluded the Kysanians did not have equivalent means.

“Just because they decline to show off their technology doesn’t mean they lack the capacity,” Raven Hara said. “You’d be surprised.”

Ardor grew restless as she searched. He was accustomed to being watched and having no real privacy, but the thought Sindar might have ordered surveillance deeply unsettled him. He’d assumed the Kysanians didn’t have the means, but what if they did?

The tight ball in his chest loosened when Raven Hara returned to his apartment and said, “There was a device installed here, but it has been removed.” Her tone was hard to read. “He evidently trusts you now.”

Of course, she believed she was dealing with Xandar of Kysan, not a lost half-brother scrubbed from the history books. Likely Xandar had ordered surveillance, and Sindar had rescinded that order. Ardor turned a page in his book and said nothing, but Leya fidgeted beside him.

His loyal acolyte accepted Raven Hara was his champion, but she sensed her Flower’s unease. Ardor tried to relax, but that proved impossible. The Archon might as well be sleeping in the room next to his.

“Now that’s settled, I have something for you,” Hara said, offering a small trinket box.

Inside was his father’s favorite ornamental hairpin, which bore Everna’s golden lillies. Pavarians were cremated upon death, and all their belongings burned or destroyed with them, but the Archon kept this memento. It struck Ardor as odd. She wasn’t a sentimental person, and while his parents had a strong working relationship, they were not fond of each other. Eminence Glory was not the Archon’s preferred bedmate, but he was considered a shrewd diplomat, and she found uses for him outside the breeding bed. By the time his father died, Ardor was old enough to understand Glory’s politicking had prolonged his life. Otherwise, the Archon would have bred him like clockwork as soon as the marriage contract allowed.

Eminence Glory had not given him much in the way of fatherly advice, but he had implored him to make himself useful. Or rather, indispensable. That was the word he’d used.

Ardor turned the pin over, examining it. “Why did she want me to have this?” he asked, looking up.

“I don’t know,” Raven Hara said. “What does it mean to you?”

Ardor had no sentimental attachment to his father’s pin. Glory had never been satisfied with the “perfect” Flower he’d tried—and failed—to create. Those golden lilies were always accompanied by lectures and chastisement, and in later years, his father’s look of disappointment.

When Ardor did not answer, the spy settled comfortably into a chair nearby. “How will you build the heir?”

Leya frowned, not understanding. As a matter of safety and prudence, few people understood the level of control Flowers could exercise over the zygote. The Archon was one of them. She’d collaborated with his father on their human children’s designs, and his father had increasingly delivered at the cost of his own body.

Ardor had no desire to be the architect of his children, but he wasn’t blind to the possibilities. Already, he’d begun studying the blueprint left by Eminence Heavenly, and deciphering the messages transmitted by her son’s genetic code. Until now, such things had been theoretical applications locked away behind coded language in sacred texts. Now, he was discovering his teachings were a mere sliver of what was possible.