Marked Prince - Michelle M. Pillow Page 0,34

though, there is something about you.” Olena narrowed her eyes. “You’re not like Salena. What are you like?”

“I get premonitions, and I can’t lie,” Fiora answered. “When people ask me what the future holds, I have to answer, even if I don’t want to, or I know they won’t want to hear it.”

“Interesting,” Olena said more to herself, before adding louder, “the two of you make quite the set, don’t you? No wonder General Sten is hot to have you both. A natural interrogator, and a predictor who can’t lie about what she knows. It’s fortunate that fate has brought you to us. I can’t imagine what would happen if that power was in the wrong hands.”

“We’d be forced to advance the agenda of evil men,” Fiora answered. Her hands shook a little, and she clasped them together.

“There is evil in the universe. I’ve seen it firsthand,” Olena touched Fiora’s cheek, “but you’re safe here. It might not feel like it, but I promise you are.”

“Aunt Olena was a space pirate before she landed here,” Grace said with a grin. “Sailed the high skies looking for trouble.”

“Speaking of sailing the high skies looking for trouble, what is this about you firebombing your cousin off the watchtower?” Olena asked.

Grace made a small noise of dismissal. “He deserved it.”

“Oh, hey,” Salena exclaimed, hopping out of the unit’s way as the cleaning droid came close to her feet. “You said you thought they were looking for food, but do you know who did this? Do you think it was someone from the village?”

“I doubt this is the work of shifters unless some of the marsh farmers drank too much of their product and became lost in the forest looking for their stills,” Yusef said. “Normally, you can smell them coming. Or lingering, for that matter.”

“It has to be Cysgodians,” Olena answered with a pointed look at her husband.

“How can you be sure shifters didn’t break in?” Fiora asked. It didn’t feel right to assume automatically that the Cysgodians did it without proof. “If they were hungry enough…?”

Her words trailed off.

“Why don’t you all answer her questions?” Salena asked to force them to explain. “We’re asking my sister to go to the city to read futures to help all of us. She should at least know what she’s stepping into.”

“We’re sure because it is not our way to let our neighbors go hungry,” Yusef said.

“We take care of our own,” Grier added. “It’s a matter of honor. If someone is hungry, we make sure they are fed. If their home is destroyed, we build them a new one. If a child is left without a parent, they are taken in by a family. In this way, we all thrive.”

“That is why you let the aliens come here in the first place, isn’t it? The Cysgodians needed help, and as a matter of honor, you helped them because it was the right thing to do.” Fiora nodded in understanding. “And that is why the general was always frustrated with the limits you set for the city. He’s trying to find a way to expand his territory.”

“My uncle King Ualan, and King Kirill of the Var cat-shifters, could not deny so many people in need,” Jaxx said.

“Any more than they could have killed the aliens themselves,” Grier added. “But I don’t think they realized the invisible strings that were attached to the deal they signed.”

“It is not just the fault of the kings. All of the royals from my generation agreed to it, knowing that the Federation could not be trusted. There was no other decision we could make. Letting an entire population die over our dislike of the Federation was not something any of us could live with. An alien plague besieged them,” Yusef said. “The radiation from our blue sun has healing properties and aids in our long lives. It worked. It healed them. For that, we are grateful.”

“We agreed to help them recover, not this,” Olena said. She spoke with more force than her husband, but Fiora got the impression Yusef could hold his own despite his laid-back temperament. “The Federation was not supposed to be here for decades.”

“So the Federation was not here before, at all? That’s unusual,” Fiora said.

“Until then, we had kept ourselves free of the Federation Alliance,” Grace put forth. “Do we need to go over this history lesson? What’s done is done.”

“Yes, we do,” Salena said. “Keep talking.”

“The Federation claimed squatters’ rights because they had dominion over the