Star of Blood

4 | Throwing Hands With the Tyrant Prince

Jude sat against one of the trees in the grove line, looking at the shapes of the clouds in the midday sky. One looked like fire. Another looked like a powerful sorcerer. And a few of them combined into something that looked a bit like the Mendaxian castle, minus a few parts.

Cloud-watching—another one of Jude's hobbies. He did it so much that he probably could've won a kingdom-wide competition on it.

He'd arrived at the meadow with the grove again, albeit a little earlier than yesterday, to meet up with Prema. Yes, his parents told him not to. Yes, he ignored them. Even after contemplating everything at night and during his slumber, he really couldn't find any reason not to meet up with a genuinely nice Hantri member.

Jude's eyes eventually landed on a cloud that took a very weird shape. He squinted, and it began to look like a . . . certain male body part. "Huh—"

"Judas!" called a familiar voice from behind, in the trees.

Jude looked in the direction of said voice with a faint smile of greeting. He stood up and said, "It's Jude."

"Yeah, sorry. My bad, Jude," Prema corrected herself, stopping right next to him.

Then, she raised her right hand. In an instant, Jude remembered the greeting, and he placed his left hand against hers. He once again took note of the warm roughness in her palm and fingers.

"You remembered, "she cooed when that was done.

Jude nodded, letting his hand fall to his side. "I wouldn't forget a greeting that's basically a really gentle high five."

"So, how's life in the epic, fun, and wonderful Kingdom of Mendax so far?"

He shrugged. "Same old. I'm telling you, it's not anything special."

"Trade places with me and let me see for myself," she joked.

"If only," Jude scoffed. He turned his gaze to the empty meadow. "Uh, by the way, when my parents found out about you, they didn't really take it so well. I couldn't even tell them that I was going out to meet you again."

She hissed a wad of air through her teeth. "Eep. Probably should've kept it secret like I did."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry," he sighed. "I thought I could convince them that at least one of you people was actually alright. Boy, I was so, so wrong."

"I mean, I appreciate it. All we have to do is not tell them, right?"

Jude nodded. Strangely, even though he almost never lied to his parents, he was very confident in this. As long as they didn't find out, he saw no harm coming out of doing it.

Prema turned and gestured for him to follow her. "We can deal with our parents when the time comes. For now, I want to show you something."

"Sure, what is it?"

She walked back into the trees, using her spear like a staff. "It's a surprise . . . but don't worry—I'm not exposing you to my tribe or anything. Hehe."

Before following Prema, Jude took one last glance at the clouds above. There were a lot more of them now, and soon enough, the sun would have no way to shine its light onto the land.

He pursed his lips while strolling along, He hoped it wouldn't rain.

***

"We're going pretty far," Jude commented after several minutes of walking through the woods.

"Relax, Jules," Prema said, meeting his gaze right over her shoulder. "We're almost there. Give it a few more minutes . . . or seconds, even."