My head pounded as I opened my eyes. I was sitting upright in a chair with my head tilted forward to my chest and my arms pulled behind me. A stabbing pain radiated in my head and I found I could not move my arms or hands. I tried to lift my head, but it felt terribly heavy.

  I racked my brain as to where I might be or what was happening. The last thing I remembered was being in the tunnel between the chalet and administration building. We had reached the end and Markus had bounded up the short staircase to secure our exit and to get me a hover chair. I was secretly grateful for the last and had eagerly sat down on the bottom step. The jog through the tunnel had been difficult, especially after my almost healed lung had started to burn. Now the burn wouldn’t go away and it was difficult to draw a full breath.

  I’d barely been seated on the step before I saw a flash of white light and an excruciating noise. After that, there wasn’t much except as I felt my body lock up in a strange paralysis, I could see my rear guards run past me. Whatever I’d been hit with, they must have been too far away to be affected. That was the last memory I had, and now I looked around to where I might be.

  The room was dark with thin yellow light strips running around the low rocky ceiling. It was much like the room I’d woken up before when Markus abducted me, though this one might be a little bigger. It was difficult to get a good look in the dim light and the sheer emptiness of the room. Except for the chair I was tied to, there was no other furniture. Just shelves that lined the walls. A closer look showed that much of the shelf space held dark jars and glass vials. And near a far corner sat two large casks huddled against the wall.

  “Is he awake?” The words sounded sharp and seemed to slice through the air, sending a shiver down my spine. They came from an open doorway across the room from me. All I could see through the archway was more dark rock wall and a short section of the yellow light strips.

  “I gave him something to wake him up. He should be coming around any moment. You two head out. I’ve got this.” The second male voice wasn’t as rough and had a slightly higher pitch.

  I then heard boots slap on the floor that I now noticed was more rock than dirt. And I also saw that my feet were bare and my ankles were tightly lashed together. I lifted my head as a man entered the room. He stopped directly in front of me. I blinked as I tried to place the man before me, but he was a total stranger to me. And then he reached beneath the collar of his shirt. It stayed there a moment and looked like he was flexing a finger to press something. He then withdrew his hand, and immediately, the person before me transformed.

  The short cropped hair shimmered away to be replaced with a lighter shade of brown that was far longer, tightly bound at the base of his skull, and plaited down his back. The forehead was much wider, and nose far sharper. The eyes were a royal shade of blue. Even his body changed as the chest became a little smaller, but his height grew by several inches. It was the most fascinating and disturbing thing to see, especially when the cold blue eyes glaring down at me were remarkably like the Emperor’s

  “Hello, little brother. It seems we meet again,” the hard voice said as the tall man before me smirked.

  I had not seen pictures of him or my other brothers since my return to Ethia, but I knew this man right away. A distinct familiarity that went beyond the fact that he appeared to have our father’s eyes down to the exactly coloring and a calculated hardness that lay deep in the depths. It also helped that I had already suspected his involvement behind my latest attacks thanks to Markus. But even still, it was strange to finally meet one of my brothers in person and I couldn’t help but notice his appearance.

  My eldest brother’s hair was a much darker brown than mine, and his face held sharper angles that caused his chin to end in a rounded point. But the similarities between us were still there around the eyes and nose. And there was that odd tingling sense that I knew him much like I had when I met Markus and my father.

  “Zorren,” was about all I could get out around the pain still racing through my head.

  The man seemed pleased with himself for some reason and grinned even wider. “In the flesh, little brother. I bet you thought you wouldn’t be having a face to face with me so soon, or maybe not ever. I’m sure our father made it seem like our other brothers and I were a thing of the past. That we weren’t anything to worry about.”

  What did I have to say to that? The fact was no one wanted to talk about my brothers despite my questions about them. Though my father had mentioned them like they were objects he’d discarded, so in that respect, I supposed Zorren’s statement was true. But already I could feel myself rebel at the thought of agreeing with anything the man before me had to say. So I went with a simple, “no.”

  Zorren moved so fast I gasped in surprise when he suddenly stood right above me, leaned down, and roughly grabbed my chin. He then proceeded to turn my head from side to side like I was a specimen to be studied. After a few long moments, he finally let me go with a jerk and stood there shaking his head in disgust.

  “How is it that you look so much like him? First you get his Dome-ni, and then his looks. It really isn’t fair. Though, I hear you’re almost completely useless when it comes to actually knowing anything important. The gossip is that you will be taking lessons from Dur-rele for the next ten years just to catch up, because apparently whatever rock Remeer stashed you on was cut off from the rest of the Empire. And father still wants you over the rest of us. He’s such a yavit fool.”

  I fumbled for something to say. It unnerved me that people already seemed to be talking about my distinct disadvantage of not being familiar with Ethian way of life. It also terrified me that this man seemed determined to be my enemy, and I wasn’t sure what I could say to dissuade him. So I just stuck with the truth.

  “Do you think I want to be his chosen heir?” My voice thick with anger. It washed through me like a boiling hot wave. I was angry at this brother who didn’t even know me and didn’t seem to want to. He just saw me as enemy number one and that was it. And I was, most especially, angry at my father for putting me in this situation in the first place. This was his fault almost as much as it was Zorren’s. “As far as I am concerned, you or the other two of our brothers can succeed him. I don’t want to. I never did.”

  Zorren stared at me for a long moment before he finally spoke. “You’d say anything to keep me from killing you.”

  Those blunt words struck me like a blade. Part me of me wanted to shrink away, but a far larger part allowed the anger to blaze through me like a flaming torch, and it kept my head clear enough to say what I needed to say. If Zorren knew the truth of it, would he back off? Would he realize I wasn’t the enemy?

  “Believe it or not, but I only came back because he forced me to, and he’s forcing me to take up lessons and learn to be his successor. I already told him I didn’t want it, but he doesn’t seem to care what I want, and he’s gone to great lengths to make sure I do what he says. Believe me, if I could, I’d walk away from it all right now and leave it to the three of you to hash out.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  The other man snorted. “It figures. The son that wants it can’t have it, and the son who has it doesn’t want it.” He leaned down until our identical noses were almost touching. “I bet you think that makes us have something in common and that maybe we can work something out so I won’t kill you, don’t you?”

  A shiver raced down my spine at his words as it I dawned on me that it really didn’t matter what I said, as far as Zorren was concerned, my fate was sealed. My heart raced as I tried to figure a way out of this, but I was bound up tight and no clue where I might be. Was I even still at the College? Did anyone know where to find me? What had happened to Markus and Nathias’s men?

  “Zorren, I have nothing against you. Please, it doesn’t have to be like that. Can’t we work this out? We are family after all.”

  My brother let out a low chuckle as he slowly stood back up and towered over me once more. “You really are pathetic. How can he expect such a weakling to rule the Empire? You might have the Perception Dome-ni and look like a younger version of him, but that’s only going to take you so far. I bet the Kings will eat you up.” That made him chuckle more. “It might almost be worth letting you live long enough to see that happen. Almost.”

  “Our father will know what you did to me,” I threw at him at one last desperate attempt to save myself. “Do you really think he will give you back your title once I’m dead? I think he’d be far more likely to give it to one of the others.”

  Zorren waved a hand like they weren’t even a consideration. “Oh, I know. That’s why as I’m standing here with you, I have two teams taking Hazeth and Xavier out as well. My assassins have been on standby for quite sometime now, but I’ve let my brothers live because they were useful to me to a point. But that time is over.”

  My brother leaned down close to me once more. “And yes, I know how much killing all my brothers will upset our father. I’m counting on it. People are off their guard when they are upset, even our seemingly impassive father. You should have seen the mess he became when Remeer abducted you from the White Place all those years ago. I hadn’t been ready to strike then, but I am now.

  “I knew my chance would come again as soon as I heard you were coming back. Our father will never see me coming for him, and now he has no Protector to stand in my way. That was rather nice of you, little brother, to clear the way for me like that. Really, I appreciate it. So for that, I’m willing to give you a fighting chance.”

  Zorren leaned forward further with his knife and to my utter surprise he quickly cut the cord binding each of my arms, he then squatted down and cut away the bindings around my ankles. My brother abruptly stood up and backed away so not to give me a chance to strike out at him.

  “Just so you know,” Zorren said, “we are deep underneath the desert in a network of caves that only the most elite at the College know about. I very much doubt anyone will even think to look for you here, so you can forget about a rescue party coming to help you.

  “It’s just you and me, little brother. So I thought we’d play one last game together. One of my favorite pastimes is extreme hunting, though I think you will be quite a bit less of a challenge, especially in your current condition. That’s why I’m giving you ten minutes to get your bearings, and then the hunt is on.”

  Zorren stepped back further so that he was flush with the still open doorway. He leaned down, set the knife on the floor, and then stood back up. “There. You have all that fancy training Aragon gave you and a knife. Maybe you will be able to hold your own after all.”

  The next moment, Zorren disappeared from the door. I stood up on shaking legs. Whatever he had used to knock me out left me feeling weak and dizzy, but the ache in my head was completely gone, and there was only a slight burning sensation in my chest from my injured lung. But my breath was still ragged.

  I took a step to test my legs. They held up, so I continued toward the doorway. Once there, I stuck my head out and looked around. It was a large room that had a sitting area in the middle with what looked like large heaters to warm the place up, but they appeared to be off at the moment. There was a definite chill in the air, and I shivered with my bare feet extra cold against the cool rocky floor.

  There was no sign of Zorren, or anyone else. It was only then that I stooped down to pick up the knife. It felt cold and deadly in my hand. I grasped it tightly. It would apparently be the only weapon I would get, so I was determined to keep it close.

  I slowly moved forward to investigate where I might be. To my immediate left appeared to be another open door. I slowly moved over to it. I carefully stuck my head through to see a staircase of stone steps leading up into darkness. I pondered going up. If Zorren was correct about me being in an underground cavern that this might be the best way to get back to the surface. But it also seemed like an obvious trap. I hesitated, and then had an idea.

  I turned around and went back into the room I’d been held. I went to the shelves, picked up one of the small glass vials, and then made my way back over to the staircase. I tossed the vial up the stairs. It disappeared in the darkness, but before I could hear it drop, a red light pierced my vision and shattered the vial. I heard tiny pieces skitter onto stone and my heart sank. I wasn’t exactly sure what Zorren had bobby trapped the stairs with, but I obviously wasn’t getting out that way.

  So I continued my investigation. I noticed there were two other doorways in the room. One on the opposite side from where I stood, and the other to my right. The one across from me looked exactly the same width and height as the room I just left and the staircase door. The one to the right was a tiny slit of an opening. It was barely large enough for one person to pass through. I opted for the larger doorway.

  I made my way across the room and cautiously stuck my head in, wondering if Zorren might be waiting for me there, but I still had at least eight minutes if he was holding true to his promise to give me ten minutes before striking against me. Though, I wasn’t sure I could trust anything that man said.

  The room was about half the size of the room I was standing in, and the only thing in this one was a large stone slab in the dead center and which looked rather lonely in the dim yellow of the light. There was no one in this room either. So I backed away and went for the smaller doorway. Either Zorren went this way, or up the stairs after setting the trap. Though something told me, he had gone this way.

  I was extra cautious as I slipped through the entry. I turned my body sideways, so to move through the opening without my clothing getting caught on some of the rough edges of the cavern wall and to make a smaller target. The entry was, in fact, the opening to a narrow corridor that snaked its way through several feet of rock. Thankfully, the yellow lighting strips continued through this part of the cave.

  And then the right opened up into a shallow alcove. I blink and it took me a moment to realize I was looking at a transporter, though much smaller than the ones I was used to. This one looked like it could barely hold a single person. I blinked at the metal circular platform of the transporter and the holo projection on the right wall that showed only three pulsing green buttons. It seemed so out of place in this dark and forbidden place.

  I quickly stepped into the alcove. My heart leapt as I dared to hope that it would whisk me away from this nightmare. I pressed the top most button, but nothing happened. I did the same to the other buttons, and again nothing happened. My disappointment tasted bitter, but I wasn’t surprised. Zorren must have deactivated the transporter somehow.

  So I took a deep breath to steady myself. I then did a very careful search of the entire alcove to make sure the transporter was indeed dead and unusable, but I found nothing that looked like an access port or a way to turn it back on. Though even if I found an access port, I wasn’t sure I would be able to do anything to help my plight. I was learning more about Ethian technology everyday, but of a great many things, I was still mostly clueless.

  Eventually, I stepped out of the transported with a heavy heart. The narrow corridor continued on past the transporter. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left, but I knew my ten minutes would be up far sooner than I liked. I steeled myself as I turned to the side and began a slow and cautious shuffle through the narrow passage in hopes that I would find something, anything that would help me against a brother who I was quite certain had gone mad.