Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Somewhere safe and healthy. Why did that sound like the most boring job ever?

Candi grimaced. They were going to go do their thing and leave her behind to miss all the fun???

"Were you guys going to just leave me to rot on some boring world while you go about the galaxy, doing your fun things?" She frowned.

This was completely unfair!

"No no, Darling. Don't think about it like that." Byron soothed. "You will just be waited on, hand and foot, while you eat beautiful sweets and drink colorful juices on some tropical paradise."

"Yes, and when we are done with our work, we will come home to you." Leonardo gushed.

"But I want to be where the action and the fun is!" She insisted.

"War is not fun, woman." Slate gave her a firm stare. "People get hurt. People die."

His eyes softened.

"Even though you are capable of defending yourself against attackers, you are not able to do anything against an armada of warships. You are not a warrior and have not been trained how to deal with modern warfare."

Candi sighed. If Slate the Prime Warrior put down his foot, there was no changing it. She resigned herself to figuring out a different way to be of use to the war effort.

The attendants were starting to bring out the main courses. Some of the men ordered beef and some ordered chicken.

Candi had ordered the braised cod, thinking it would be a nice light meal, but when it came out, the size of the fish cut was larger than her arm!

Seeing Candi's horrified expression, Dante laughed and reached over.

"I'll help myself to a portion of your fish, if you don't mind. I'm feeling a bit hungrier than usual."

On her other side, Slate laughed and took another portion from her.

"I'll take this section here as well."

Opposite from her, Byron was reaching over to pour some white wine into her glass.

"Have some of this. It's delicious with that fish."

"No. She is not allowed wine." Dante narrowed his eyes.

"Why not?" Byron looked up, his eyes questioning.

"Because she may be with child."

"That's impossible, unless you've done something to her." Byron muttered, staring at Dante.

Leonardo immediately got up and reached Candi's side.

"Please give me your hand."

Candi blinked with confusion. Was there something terribly wrong?

She reached out her hand and Leonardo grasped it with both his hands, one palm touching each side of her hand.

For a moment, his hands glowed as he did a preliminary scan of her physiology.

He slowly shook his head.

"She's not pregnant."

"But I felt an egg. It was alive." Dante furrowed his brows. He couldn't have misread bio signals that badly, could he?

"She's not even ovulating at this moment." Leonardo frowned "I do however feel the presence of a living egg." He looked up at Dante. "But it's not what you think."

"The Avgo!" Slate pounded the table, clinking the silverware on the ceramic dishes.

Leonardo nodded. "The Avgo is just an ancient word for 'egg'. What Dante felt was the Avgo egg that resides within Candace."

He turned to Candi. "Can you call the Avgo out of your body?"

Candi nodded. "Come on out Avgo."

Instantly, the Avgo appeared before her, scattering its brilliant pink light around the room.

"There you go." Leonard nodded. "Touch her other hand, Dante. What do you feel?"

Dante reached out for her hand, enfolding it within his large hands. His eyes veiled.

"I feel her life source alone."

His face did not show his heartbreak, but it was readily apparent in his voice.

The other Princes looked anywhere but at Dante. Even the loss of the possibility of a child was still a tremendous loss if there had been enormous emotional investment.

Candace sighed.

"I have no idea why, even after the Avgo Events has finished, I'm still holding onto this Avgo egg."

Slate shrugged. "All we know is that it hasn't finished what it needs to do yet."

"But I've won. Isn't it supposed to disappear, to come back into existence decades or centuries later when it needs to show itself again?"

Her eyes narrowed with thought.

"I wish I could ask it what to do." She muttered to herself.

Wait a moment!

Candi's eyes lit up. What was she thinking?

She could!

The Avgo actually understood her commands! It had done everything she asked it to do, including halting Lorem Ipsum's cyclone in a glass tube!

It always came when she called it out, and every time she was in danger, it exuded its power to save her. This Avgo stone was rational and intelligent!

Why was she treating it as if it was an inanimate object without any sense of self-awareness?

Rising up from her chair, she stared at the Avgo sapphire as it slowly rotated in front of her.

"Avgo. What is the next step? Show me your purpose!"

As if it had received some high command, the Avgo suddenly stopped rotating. Slowly, it began to pulse, like a heart.

The Princes all held their collective breaths. Something tremendous was about to happen to the Avgo.

The pulses began to speed up, even as the Avgo grew larger.

Hovering over the dinner table, it grew to the size of a grapefruit and then stabilized.

And then, in one final pulse, it fractured into pieces!!!

CRAAACK!!!

The men all gasped with surprise.

Candi's heart nearly exploded as she choked back a sob.

She had damaged the Avgo by asking it a question it could not answer!

Before her eyes, the shards spun in midair until they changed into a multitude of new pink Avgo stones, pulsing and radiating with a multitude of dazzling new light.

The Avgo had divided itself into seven new Avgo gemstones!

It began dancing in front of her, parading itself for her to see. Each detail was perfect. Each radiated its own life force, which she now understood to be sentient and supremely divine.

With unerring accuracy, the new Avgo stones paused their movement for one second.

They all stopped breathing, sensing that something momentous was about to happen.

In a sudden flash of pink light, each Avgo stone shot directly into each Prince sitting around the table hitting each man squarely in the heart.

"Argh!" They all grunted in pain as they felt the impact of the Avgo stone. It had moved so quickly, like glowing pink bullets, that the men did not even have time to react!

Candi gasped.

As the men rubbed their chests in stunned surprise, Candi held her head with both hands trying to make sense of what had just happened.

She had asked it a simple question and it had responded. And in the blink of an eye, the Avgo was gone!

"Haaaaaahhh," she panted. "What just happened?"

She reached out into the space that the Avgo once hovered.

"Avgo, come on out." She called with a wavering voice, hoping it was still there.

Nothing.

"Avgo?"

Nothing.

It was truly gone!

"I—I lost my Avgo." Candi swallowed a huge lump in her throat.

She looked at all the men, her eyes wide with alarm.

"I'm not an Avgo Female any more."

The men all looked at each other.

Sudden understanding bloomed on their faces.

They turned again to look at her stricken eyes.

As a tear rolled down her face, they all began to hoot with laughter.