Alien Prince
PROLOGUE—PART ONE: CALDER FEV’ROSK

The clouds hung low in a cornflower sky the day the last of the Qeteshi matriarchs died. I remember how they grew round-bellied with the wanton rain, and I prayed to the Goddess Ur'Tesh to keep the coming night as warm as possible for our struggling mother. But Ur'Tesh turned a deaf ear to my pleading, and the clouds broke open wide to rain sleet upon our mourning village even as the day star sunk low on the horizon and the tall grass of the plains was sucked back into the dirt.

I held her hand, our matriarch, as she succumbed to the sickness that had claimed all Qeteshi women, one at a time, picking them off like a great beast might prey on weaker ones. The passing of each of them had been a tragedy, but this was different. This was our leader.

Her name was Ramari Ro'quare, and she was a beauty. Even in an illness that had turned her pale skin almost blue, she remained lovely. She was old in years when the sickness befell her, but she had forever maintained her regal air. She was a Queen, and we, her people. Her horns were a fine silver, and they glinted in the waning light like she was wearing a crown. Her mouth was a stern line, but there were lines around it born of years of proffering her warm, ebullient smile. She wore her black hair in thick braids, now flecked with grey and white, and the tribal tattoo across her forehead bespoke her high status. She was a rare bloom, though she had wilted.

I wish she had had a few more cogent moments, wish that as I took her hand, she would have opened her eyes and smiled to see me there beside her. I wish she could have imparted some wisdom to me that I could have taken with me beyond her passing, any scrap of insight into what I should do in the wake of our great loss. But there was nothing like that. I merely crept quietly into her chamber in the spire at the center of our village, took a seat in the chair beside her bed, and held her hand.

It was thinner than I remembered; she was thinner. But then, that was to be expected after nearly two years of fighting for her life against a disease we did not understand. She did not know she was the last of our women: she had lost consciousness when there was still a handful of others, sick but living. But because we focused the full force of what medical care we had available to take care of Ramari, the other women died off before she did. We were a community of beleaguered men, constantly shrouded in sadness. We did not know how to purport ourselves in the grieving of our women.

As the light went out and the rain grew heavy, Ramari Ro'quare drew her last breath. The air in her bedchamber was so still, even the candlelight did not flicker. I sat there beside her in silence for the length of several heartbeats before rising to my feet to speak to the crowd that had gathered outside her door.

"Friends," I began, my tone low and tremulous, "it is my sad duty to inform you that Ramari Ro'quare, leader of this great tribe, has entered immortality."

"Is it really over, Calder?" Someone asked. I did not see who, I simply nodded my head. There was an anxious stirring in the crowd as they began to murmur and shake their heads, unsure of what to do next. I had witnessed what I thought was the death of our kind, the end of our species.

"You will lead us in her absence, Calder," someone else said, "will you not?" But I shook my head and pushed through them all. I needed air, I needed space. I needed to demand answers from the Gods I had served for so long.

"You cannot leave us now," a third voice protested. Someone grabbed me by the shoulder, and I wheeled around, full of venom for anyone who would obstruct my path. They must have seen the fire in my eyes, because the lot of them fell silent under the weight of my gaze.

"Hear me," I said, my tone a low rumble in my throat, "and hear me well, for I shall say these words but once: I am not your leader. Your leader is dead. And I hereby relinquish my role as Qulari Priest, and spiritual advisor to the Qeteshi people of my clan. Put whomever you please in power-it does not matter to me now."

"But Calder" I pushed past my people, into the great hall to which Ramari's room was connected, where she so often held audience, and I heard my footsteps echo against the walls as I tromped through. No one followed me; or, if they did, I did not notice them.

I do not recall much after that. I do not recall stopping by my dwelling to collect what few belongings mattered to me, though I must have, for I have them still. I do not remember that first Winternight on my own in the frozen plains outside my village. I have no memory of building a new dwelling for myself on the outskirts of town, far enough away that I could no longer see the glowing orange lights in the windows of the village.

I remember so very little of those early days on my own. Except this: the sharpening of my horns. When the Qet join the Qulari order, their horns are blunted. This is so that someone can see at a glance that they are of the cloth, that they are one with the Gods and Goddesses of the spirit world. In essence, it is how we signal to the rest of society to leave us be. We are not challenged to battle; we are not called upon to fight. We are ourselves blunted. I joined the order when I was very young, and I do not remember what it felt like to have my horns blunted, but I do remember what it felt like to sharpen them again.

Agony, searing agony, from the first moment to the last. It was my final bit of business before I would leave my village, and I remember it with startling clarity. The village was a ghost town that night, with everyone having traveled to the spire to await news of Ramari's condition. Because she passed as night fell, and because the temperature was quickly dropping to freezing, many of the men decided to spend the night in the spire. That left me free to wander the village at my leisure. So, I let myself into the smithy.

There was a whetstone we used to sharpen everything from knives to swords to arrowheads to sewing needles, and I took a seat at a crude wooden stool next to it. I looked around the quiet room, dim with candlelight, and abandoned by its master, and I waited. I waited for the Goddess Ur'Tesh to tell me why she had not answered my prayers, or for Qi'Toraq, the God of Death, to tell me why he had taken our Ramari. I waited for Khal' Tari, the mother Goddess, to tell me why she had forsaken her only remaining daughter, or for Te'Ovid the All Father, to explain why he had forsaken me, here, now. As is the case so often with these fleet and fickle Gods, no answers came.

Pumping the whetstone with my foot, I got the stone going in a circular motion of increasing speed. Then I bent forward, pressing the blunted nub of my left horn to stone wheel. It rubbed me raw, and I could feel all of it. I gritted my teeth, moving my head back and forth, and saw the sparks fly from the friction. I cried out, a bellowing sound that filled the empty air around me.

I reforged myself in fire that night, and when I lifted my head again, I could feel the pulse of my nerves in the tip of my sharpened horns. And when I peered at my reflection in the rounded belly of a silver shield, I could see that I had cast off the livery of my former life, and I had become someone else entirely. No longer a Qulari priest, but something else: a man who was looking for a fight.