10. Asterion

Ihave bared my soul to the little one.

She has seen my deepest failures and my greatest insecurities, and rather than pull away, she is still by my side. She holds my hand, her dainty human hand in my big paw, and tells me it's alright.

She is a strong woman, and she will make a great queen.

"There's something I have to tell you," she says.

She fidgets with her hair.

"I'm… not exactly an archeologist."

"Oh?" I say. "But I've read your research. It's quite thorough."

"I'm an amateur enthusiast at best. I did attend college, briefly, until… until I had to drop out."

I wait in silence for her to continue as she struggles to find the right words.

"Both of my parents died in a car accident. I told you I had a little sister, right? Her name's Eden, and she's fourteen. Smartest kid I know. Way smarter than me. She deserves a good life, a better one than I had. So I sent her to the best boarding school I could afford… which costs a fortune."

She bites her bottom lip. "Emma"s been my best friend since we were little kids. I told her about my money problems, and she had a solution."

"And what was that?"

"Steal," Isabella says. "Steal from the rich. Scam, swindle, steal. I don't know what it was like in Minos, but on Celestia Prime, where we're from, there's a big divide. On one hand, there's countless people without a single credit to their name… and then there are the ultra-rich, who don't even notice when a couple thousand credits go missing.

"That's what I told myself, anyway. That we weren't doing anything wrong. That we were actually a force of good in the world."

"Were you?"

"Maybe? I'm still not really sure. But when I saw how happy Eden was, I decided it was all worth it. Her school, the Vonnegut Center for Gifted Kids, was a great place. She really blossomed there. Until everything blew up in my face."

She wipes her hands on her dress. My little human is nervous. I reach out to squeeze her knee. This new information is troubling to me, but I will let her finish her story before I render my judgment. After a quiet moment, she continues.

"I got careless. That's what happened. We had just scammed an Old Earth businessman out of 50.000 credits, our biggest score to date. He thought he was meeting with some local investors, but it was actually me and Emma, pretending like we were in the titanium mining business. We celebrated. A little too much. We ended up in some dingy bar on the south side of the city… and then I blacked out."

A look of anger crosses her pretty face.

"I'm not sure if I was drugged, or I just hit the bottle too hard, but when I woke up my credit stack was empty. Completely and totally empty. All the money I had, plus all that I had saved to pay for Eden's tuition, gone. Couldn't exactly go to the cops either, seeing as it was all stolen. We were screwed. And then I got a message from Eden's school, that tuition prices were being hiked up due to inflation… and then I knew I was really in trouble."

"You were trying to do what's best for your sister. I understand," I say.

"Yeah, well, it's going to get worse, big guy. Save your sympathies for when you know the real story."

"Then tell me."

"Can we do so over dinner? I'd like to have one last meal before you kick me out of this paradise."

"I could never do that, little one."

"You don't know that."

"Very well," I say.

We walk back to the palace, hand-in-hand, both of us silent. It seems both of us carry ghosts in our past, but I've heard nothing that has changed my mind about Isabella.

She is my queen, now and forever.

I gesture at one of the drones to bring us a feast. Within moments, the large, oval-shaped dining room table is set with all types of delicacies.

"Please continue," I ask my mate.

Isabella loads up her plate and digs in before continuing her story.

"So, as I was saying, I was in big trouble. Eden's school was great as long as you paid on time. One missed payment and they would kick her out instantly. That's how things work on Celestia Prime. No second chances. I needed a bunch of credits, fast."

She takes another bite of her food and a sip of wine.

"And that's when the Shadow Guild reached out to me."

"Shadow Guild? Sounds nefarious."

"Yeah. They are. They control every facet of crime across the settled worlds, and Emma and I have always stayed clear of them. They weren't exactly happy with us working on their turf, but our operation was so small, I thought we flew under their radar. I was wrong."

Isabella sighs deeply. "They said they had a job for me. A simple delivery of some smuggled Anatolian Eels. Ten thousand credits for a simple delivery. I knew the job sounded fishy, but it would keep Eden in school for another semester. I was desperate. And so I took the job."

"Then what happened?"

"I made the delivery. Picked up the box in the harbor, delivered it to a dodgy address up-town… it all went smoothly. A little too smoothly. I should have known it was a set-up from the start."

"Set-up?"

"Yeah. Upon delivery, it turns out the box was empty. The Guild set me up — made me do a phony delivery, then accused me of stealing the merchandise. Darius Blackthorn said I now owed him 10.000 credits, plus interest. Like I was going to nab a bunch of eels! Then I looked it up: turns out Anatolian eels don't even exist! It was all a lie, just so they could extort me."

I wrinkle my snout. "They cannot hurt you here. You are safe."

"Perhaps I'm safe, but…"

Her voice trails off, and she is afraid to look at me.

"What do you mean?" I ask, puffing out a bit of smoke through my nostrils.

Her human world is so different from my own. Minotaur society had no such things as credits or shadow guilds. Everyone got what they needed and what they deserved, and crime was dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.

But I understand. I too have faltered in my duties, due to placing family first. I cannot blame my little human for doing what needed to be done to the care of her little sister.

"I'm not sure my little sister is," Isabella continues. "When the Guild put the squeeze on us, that's when Emma and I turned to treasure hunting to make ends meet. We had to stay off of Celestia Prime, moving out of Shadow Guild territory, while I tried to keep the payments to Eden's school flowing. We went looking for bigger and bigger finds, and that's what brought us…"

"Here."

"Yes. I'm only a wannabe-archeologist, Asterion. Our job goal here was to… rob this place. I'm sorry."

The king inside of me is not pleased. Outsiders come to defile this sacred place? My honor demands punishment, but…

I have the feeling my little human is not done confessing.

"Continue, Isabella."

She swallows the lump in her throat, and all the color has been drained from her face.

"I got a message from Darius. He… he knows about my sister, knows where her school is. In a panic, I told him… everything. I told him where I am, and what they could find here. They're on their way right now, Asterion, to take everything. I'm so, so sorry."