A Prince of the Nobillo
Content Warning: This chapter contains a scene depicting scifi alien drug use by very minor characters that, while negative, some may find upsetting or triggering, particularly if in recovery. Reader discretion is advised.
Chapter 18: Alcatraz
The guards threw Lindsay down in front of the tribunal. She looked up to see the king of the Nobillo glaring imperiously from the central seat, Elihim smirking from his right and Boz grinning on his left. There were two Korsuch men she didn't recognize to complete the quintet.
"Your grace-" she started.
"The prisoner will not speak," the king ordered.
Lucian stepped forward. "Your grace, this woman stole the third prince's identification band and used it to infiltrate the Temple of the Immortal. She was apprehended just before she could destroy Project Jericho."
Lindsay could see Rivuk, half-obscured behind a pillar, cool rage in his eyes. She felt the sick ache of her betrayal. But she didn't feel him at all. He'd closed himself off from her.
"Infiltrating Project Jericho is a crime that demands death. Does anyone speak for the accused?" the king asked. It had the feel of being a formality, not a real question.
Silence. No one was going to speak for her! She was going to die! She looked up at Rivuk who only raised his chin impassively. She'd never seen those copper eyes so cold before. Tears poured from her eyes as she bowed her head to him. She'd screwed up. She deserved this.
"If there is no one to speak for the accused-"
"I'll speak for her." Rivuk stepped forward, his accusing glare never leaving Lindsay. He walked to her side, turning to face his father, but his eyes stayed glued on her. "This woman is my wife and, therefore, cannot be condemned to death without my consent. And I do not give my consent."
A murmur burst from the stands. She saw Elihim lean over to whisper in his father's ear. The king nodded.
The king stood. "Very well, then. By our laws she cannot be killed. But neither will she be spared punishment. Are you willing to take full responsibility for this woman, Prince Rivuk?"
Rivuk returned his father's stare. "Yes, I am."
"Very well. If Princess Lindsay Weaver surrenders the locations of the Bonat camps, we will allow her to leave in your custody, where she will remain under guard in your tower."
"Never!" Lindsay said. Gasps echoed through the room. "I'll never tell you! You'll have to kill me!"
A high, loud cackle split the courtroom. All eyes turned to Boz, his head tilted all the way back, laughing. He brought his head forward; his face held no expression. "Trust me, by the time we're done, you'll wish we had," he said.
________________________________________
Rivuk sat on the sofa staring at the two wristbands lying on the coffee table. The first was hers; her bracelet, that deep blue stone shot through with gold like lightning through a midnight blue sky, left behind, forgotten in whatever haste she'd left in. Would she have been caught if she'd remembered? It sat on a pale blue cloth, a reminder to him not to touch it with his bare flesh again - that terrible thing that showed him the entire world in an instant and left him passed out on the floor, shivering.
The second was his, stolen from around his wrist while he slept. Returned by Elihim after the tribunal. His eldest brother's lips had twitched as if he was trying not to smile as he dropped it into Rivuk's hand.
How could she have done it? Throwing it all away - everything they'd worked for! And why?
Rivuk felt the large man pacing behind him finally turn from his indecisive journey to and from the servant's quarters, past the couch and back again. He had decided. Rivuk's hest approached the back of the couch.
"Speak," Rivuk said before Carak could even ask permission to do so.
"I cannot believe she would act in such a manner without provocation," Carak exclaimed.
"I thought your assessment of her was that she was impulsive and stupid." Rivuk's voice was cold.
"I never said she was stupid," Carak objected.
Rivuk waved his hand dismissively. "Slow to learn, startlingly incurious. At this moment, I'm disinclined to call her anything but stupid. Certainly, you would never categorize her as smart."
"But never stupid," Carak said. "Talk to her, ask her what prompted her actions."
"I know what prompted her actions. I know very well. My brothers made it painfully clear that when she was given the choice, she chose him. She didn't even hesitate."
Carak's defense of her was silenced, as it should be. He didn't need to clarify who the "him" was, Carak knew very well. "He" was the blue man in a tent in the woods. The only man capable of making Rivuk jealous. Not envious, because he didn't possess anything Rivuk would want in his dirt-floored existence, but deeply, deeply jealous, for he knew that man could steal his wife away with a word.
And it hadn't even taken a word from him, just the fear he might be in danger.
Rivuk felt Carak's heavy grip on the couch as his hest leaned in over it. What more could his hest possibly have to say?
"Your grace, let me go to her," Carak said. "They will not tend to her wounds as they should."
"Why should I care for her scars? She earned every stripe they give her," Rivuk spat, bitterly.
"There may come a time when your anger toward her subsides, and then those scars may pain you."
Rivuk didn't know how Carak could stand to see her again. Of all, she had cost him and his people the most. Her thoughtless act had undone months of work! But he was right. Even now Rivuk felt the desire within him to forgive her. Like the scars on her side and her arm, he might come to regret allowing her to be further marked. "You may tend to her," Rivuk said. "But you are forbidden to serve her. She is a prisoner of the Nobillo, spared from her deserved death by our mercy."
"Yes, your grace," Carak said, bowing his head. He walked toward the door and stopped to look his prince over. "You should speak to her," he said.
It was rank insubordination that Rivuk should curb. He should beat him broken and bloody for it. Take out all his anger and disappointment on the Child. Like his father and brothers would do. And Carak would never blame him for it, would never fault him in any way.
It was disgusting he could even have such a thought! Disgusting that he was a prince of such a world that would not only condone it, but that would chastise him for his failure to do so and thereby encourage such behavior. He would choose understanding over rage, Lindsay and his hest had been close, afterall.
Rivuk began, "I know you still care for her-"
"As do you, your grace," Carak interrupted.
Again, his hest forgetting his position. This was becoming irksome. "Perhaps. But you would be wise to remember your place." The threat in his words could not be mistaken.
"Take my life if I have spoken incorrectly," Carak said, bowing his head.
Rivuk stood and faced the larger man. "Do not tempt me," he growled. But as he looked at his hest's scarred, bowed head, his anger relented. He fell back on the couch. "To live in a world where I can't make that threat..." he mumbled. "She has made it so much harder."
All the good will they'd worked so hard to gain, gone in an instant. By now the first news stories would be dropping, there would be no hiding it. It would have been better if he'd just taken her back to the woods after her outburst. He ran his fingers through his black hair in frustration. "Now I have to go back to the Temple to deliver a formal public apology for the actions of my wife." His wristband jangled on the table. He pressed it, still not comfortable with putting it back on. He listened to the familiar voice. "No, Yasolina, I am not doing any interviews." He pressed it again, ending the call.
"Perhaps she has made it more difficult, but not insurmountable," Carak agreed. "I do find myself incredulous at the idea she would go after the power grid. She seemed to care a good deal more about the people in the hospital than such an action would suggest."
Rivuk sighed remembering Boz's grinning face. "She wasn't trying to take down the grid, she believed something else was there that would hurt the Bonat."
