The Breeding Prize - Aya Morningstar Page 0,13

leg that I can’t see through them. After just over three minutes, the swarm starts thinning out, and I see Raiska’s wounds are entirely gone. The swarm melts back into the robotic sphere, and it chirps.

“Welcome to Lakria, Aparan. Be well, human!”

It nods it head by rotating forward a few degrees, and then it floats off as Raiska groans and stands back up.

I move to help him, but he holds up a hand. “I can stand on my own, little human.”

I cross my arms and watch him stand up, panting and scrunching his face as he stands to his full and towering height.

“You look exhausted, Raiska.”

“The nanobots healed me, but they used a lot of my own energy to do it. If I had healed on my own, it wouldn’t have taken as much out of me.”

“Do we want to get a hotel or something? To avoid your half-brother?”

He presses his lips together and puts a hand on his chin. He looks out over the water, and his eyes run along the planet’s ring and up toward the stars. He takes a long time to consider my suggestion, but eventually shakes his head.

“My half-brother Kula is a powerful warrior. It hurts my pride to admit this, but with my scythe and his axe, you will be safer than with me alone.”

“You guys all have a different glowy weapon?”

“They are six-dimensional weapons. They are not glowy.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Six.”

“Do you get along with the rest of them?”

He gives me a strained look, but doesn’t answer my question. “I get along with Kula least of all. It’s unfortunate that he happens to live on the safest planet. We will go to him now though, come, little human.”

When we leave the beach and enter the city itself, culture shock is a word that barely even begins to describe what I feel. I expected to see a new kind of alien—whatever the natives of this planet were—but instead I see hundreds of different alien species. I can’t even tell if one of them is native to this planet, because everywhere I look I see new types. Occasionally I will see multiples of one species, but it’s relatively rare. Raiska said this planet was a trading hub, and it must have served this role for long enough that the planet—or at least this city—has become completely cosmopolitan. Or whatever the word is for “galactically cosmopolitan.”

The city is nothing like anything on Earth. There are no cars, and thus no roads. Instead, there are grassy paths with plenty of trees running between buildings. The buildings are not laid out in a grid, but are more like points of interest within a garden or a park. The whole thing just feels pleasant and inviting. “Utopia” is the word that keeps sticking out to me.

I expected to be stared at as some kind of weird alien invader, but none of the hundreds of species occupying this city even seem to give me a second glance. A few smile at me, or wriggle their strange mouth parts at me in a way that is probably friendly, but most just ignore Raiska and me entirely.

We eventually reach a building with glowing alien letters on it. I can’t read them, of course, but the building seems popular. There are dozens of people waiting outside, some standing in small groups and drinking colorful drinks out of strangely shaped glasses, while others sit on lounge chairs outside the building. There is a nice little garden with alien flowers of incredibly bright and vibrant colors all around us, and there’s several trees with deep purple and teal leaves.

Raiska walks up to the door, opens it, and holds it open for me.

I nervously walk ahead of him, completely unsure of where we are even going.

We get inside, and I see dozens of dining tables in an open and luxurious space. The space is mostly black and white, with purple or teal accents on various pieces of cutlery or napkins.

“An alien restaurant,” I whisper.

“You shouldn’t call things ‘alien,’ little human, it’s seen as offensive.”

I glare at him. “What if I told you that calling me ‘little human’ is offensive to me?”

He smirks at me, puts a possessive hand on the small of my back, and guides me forward.

An alien with pale blue skin and one big eye steps in front of us. “If you’d like a table, I can put you on the list…”

He trails off as he really looks at Raiska.

“Are you...here to