Dragon: A Histories of Purga Novel

Chapter Two

Rone stood on the massive terrace of his apartment overlooking the Kingdom of Roanoke. He sighed miserably and placed his head in his hands. In little more than an hour there was going to be yet another function at the Citadel, a towering structure that rose several hundred feet into the air. The giant building was his home but it was also the heart of his kingdom. He groaned loudly at the prospect of another boring, drawn out royal function featuring more tedious fools from the Upper Tier. His mind's eye showed him the endless train of people parading in front of his father's throne. It usually took two or more hours for the whole process to finish, and that was just the parade. It didn't include the conference, the dinner, or the party that concluded the whole thing.

He went back inside his suite and glanced at the holographic vid-screen covering the entire right wall of the living room.

"Come on down to Blue City for all the latest, and greatest, blueprints!" a man with outrageously blue hair shouted from the screen. His eyes popped out of his head and he had a big, overly-cheery smile plastered to his face.

Rone glanced at the display on his living room wall. It was broken up into several sections. The commercial with the blue-haired man (a very minor Duke named Astor Fonnan, he remembered) finished and an archaic Terraquois PSA took its place. He ignored the ludicrous commercial that showed the tribes people brutalizing Rooks and ended with instructions on what to do if one or more is seen. He turned instead to the weather section of the display. It showed a simple yellow ball with the current temperature at seventy-nine degrees. He stepped closer to the screen and placed a finger on an arrow in the bottom right corner of that section. The display expanded and showed an hour by hour weather prediction. He read over it carefully, noting that it said the skies were clear for the rest of the day.

"Perfect," he murmured to himself. Then he raised his voice slightly and called out, "Bastion."

"Your Highness," a male voice answered. There was a low humming sound and the vents on the mechpaks embedded into both of Rone's forearms opened, spewing a cloud of microscopic nanobots into the air. They eventually coalesced into the head of a young man that closely resembled Rone's own face. There were subtle differences, however. Bastion had blonde hair so light, it was nearly white while Rone's was a dark brown with a coppery tint. Bastion's eyebrows were almost invisible and his eyes were so dark, it made them look like two black marbles. The avatar's cheekbones were a bit higher than Rone's own and it had also taken on a long, slightly hooked nose. Rone's was shorter and rounded at the end.

"Open a direct channel to my father, King Rowan."

"As you wish, Your Highness," Bastion said before dissolving and flowing back into the mechpaks.

The screen in front of him suddenly went dark, the Terraquois PSA blinking off. When it came back on, his father was peering at him. His one remaining eye (a light blue nearly the same shade as Rone's own eyes) glittered inquisitively at him. A circular patch made of dark metal covered the ruined hole where his other one used to be.

Rone stared intently at the thick scars that twisted from his father's scalp and slid diagonally over his face and neck, ending a couple of inches beneath the King's collar bone. There were four sets of scars, made from a vicious slash Tarvo, the Terraquois warrior chieftain, had delivered in his bear form. The fight between the two was the stuff of legend.

"Son," his father nodded, a small smile on his face. "And what reason do you have today for trying, again, to renege on your duties as Prince in tonight's gala?"

"I only wish to take a small flight. To clear my head."

"A small flight?" his father asked, incredulously.