The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 55

Part 11

“What are you laughing about?” Helemia teased. “You’ve been legally adopted by Kragorram and Povon, so you’re a prince of Serminaki Draconia through your father, and a prince regent of Serminak through your mother. But you can’t call me Your Highness because our positions aren’t hereditary, and you can’t say I’m the princess of anything because I’m not the ruling monarch, the way Alilia is The Princess of The People of Life. I’m just a princess of Hilia. Our titles are just a courtesy, and we only get to use them as long as our parents still rule.”

“Wouldn’t you inherit the rule of Hilia?” Karzog asked.

“We’d inherit all the land, and all the buildings and stuff in Hilia, and our house here, because our parents bought it outright with their own money and with contributions, none of which came from taxes. But we wouldn’t inherit their political rule unless they explicitly say so, and designate one of us as their heir. I doubt they’ll do that, they’ll probably do the elven thing and let the people decide who’ll rule after they’re gone. I think they’d even step down if the citizens demanded it, but that’s about as probable as the sky turning pink.”

“Still, it’s a fine thing, I think.” Karzog grinned. “I’ve never thought of myself as a prince before.”

“We’ve gotten distracted.” Reggie pointed out. “As I was going to say, now that they’ve built all the shelters and emplacements, I’d bet that the next time they have war games they’ll have a full community drill, and everyone will take their kids to the shelters like it was a real attack. I bet Quewanak will do it by surprise too, probably in the middle of the night, instead of at their regular training time. He might even do it tonight just to surprise the four of us, since he already knows that we’re planning on joining the exercises. The grownups will probably put us in as reserves and observers, so if we pick the right moment, we can give everyone a good surprise.

“First we have to familiarize ourselves with all the exercises they’ve had before. In order to keep the training advancing, Quewanak and Ria always have their demons come up with a way to counter whatever the grownups do. Usually a spell or a tactic only works one to three times before ‘the demons’ figure out how to counter it, so we need to know everything they’ve learned to counter already, and plan some stuff they haven’t seen before. And we only have an hour till suppertime.

“Here’s the Reading I got from Father about it last night.”

Their verbal conversation ended as the four of them were Linked by the twins.

Surprisingly, the demons that Quewanak simulated for the community exercises were distinct from the ones that Ria simulated for their family training every evening, and they used different methods, even though Ria assisted Quewanak with the larger exercises.

In the early stages of the war games, the demons had attacked by flight, giving the community plenty of warning when they were detected approaching over the horizon. Later they came up out of the sea at the perimeter of the archipelago, then from the channels in the heart of the islands. Then they’d appeared through Gates that appeared at the periphery of the community, and lately they'd been Translocating into the heart of the community in packs.