The Primogenitor

"The Snake Prince"

Tonight's the night. Just half a minute, girl, thought Apollo of Clan Abzor. Tonight, he was going to do it. He lifted the glass pane to Loke's terrarium. She didn't bite, not very often, but a mindflayer never got bit. Apollo groped for one of the frozen, pink mouse embryos, and placed it in his lap. "Here Loke. Dinner."

You wouldn't have known there was a snake in the tank if someone didn't tell you. Loke's five feet of brown splotches were lazily spread through the dirt, grass, and wood he'd laid out for her. Loke lifted her head and smelled the air with her tongue. Apollo gingerly pushed the pink morsel forward on his leg. Familiar with this game, the snake protruded its head past the tank's frame, and descended into Apollo's lap.

I will not eat the mouse. Apollo imagined the thing's savory, creamy smell, the infrared radiation seeping from the person's body, grass and bark rolling undertread. He smelled the mouse, yes, but he would not eat it.

Apollo's eyes focused back into reality. It was halfway through Loke's jaws. Apollo sighed. Mindflayers were dying. This was a fact, a fact they'd known since the Change. Only two hundred some were confirmed living in the Gold State, yet somehow Apollo kept hoping one day he'd buck tradition and smell the world through Loke's scaly snout. He'd been hoping for a long, long time.

"If you won't cooperate, I guess I'll have to be good for something," grumbled Apollo. He dexterously wrapped his arms around Loke and heaved her back into the terrarium. Apollo of Clan Abzor, locking his pet snake in a cage. My ancestors must be proud. She coiled herself into a ball and glared at him. "What happened? We used to be friends."

He wolfed down some leftover pasta in the fridge he'd been working on for the last few days. He didn't actually expect to mindflay Loke at this point, but it sure would be nice to be able to do something useful. His father always claimed Apollo won Ephalt's War as a baby thanks to his betrothal. Apollo knew it was supposed to make him feel better, and somehow that made it much worse.

All that can change tonight. John, the Half-Breed of Lepid, was bringing the last of the Primogenitors in from Callorado. Apollo knew what was at stake— a little success here could turn him from a footnote to a headline. The insanely weighted final at the end of a dismal term, that could render all your past mistakes moot. And Apollo had no shortage of mistakes.

He liked the dormitories this time of night. His quarters were cramped, but seemed roomier when his neighbors were off-campus enjoying themselves.

Apollo spared the Academy's sprawling complex one last glance. He would rather open the windows and drift off to sleep with a bowl of ice cream in hand. But some obligations couldn't be balked on. Unlike with school and marriage, his father simply wouldn't permit him to blow off sister's return.

Too deep in thought to remember how, Apollo stepped off the train at his commute in the Snake's Hills. Chief Ancus shunned his detractors and admirers alike in old age, and had destroyed all but one dirt road to the Serpent's Cave. "I am rotting alive," he had reasoned, "so if I ever leave the Cave again, it must be an important enough occasion for me to endure a bumpy road."

It's just for a few minutes, Apollo reminded himself. I'll ask about Maris's time abroad, tell my father I'm taking my betrothal seriously, and then say I need to rush.

The path coiled as it rose through the hills, and Apollo caught a glimpse of light ahead, emanating from the huge, hollowed-out rock that was the Serpent's Cave. While the grass around was tall and swayed in the night winds, the trees were no taller than Apollo. The Cave had been shelled twice during Ephialt's War, first by Ephialt the Usurper, then retaken by Chief Ancus. Apollo's father refused for it to be taken a third time, and lodged behind the Cave lurked the most sophisticated private defense system in the Gold State. Like every treaty he brokered and every battle he fought, it worked. The country has been at peace since I was born. Any missile stupid enough to head for the Serpent's Cave wouldn't be more than an unusually close firework show. Any hostile invader would find himself cooked, poisoned, and eviscerated a hundred different ways at once.