Win

  Okay, now what? How long must we sit up here like fancy alien dolls? This is a nightmare.

  I desperately try to maintain my posture, sit upright and not move a muscle.

  The Imperator must be doing this on purpose, torturing his own son and me in punishment, in front of his entire Imperial Court.

  Just as the wait becomes unbearable, Romhutat Kassiopei, Archaeon Imperator, speaks once more, turning to his son—and including me, seated just beyond, in his sphere of attention.

  “Tell me, Prince Aeson, My Son, what gift should I bestow upon you and your Bride? I had in mind to give you one of the Eastern Provinces along the Great Nacarat Plateau, when I expected you to align yourself with the Fuorai Family. But now that you have chosen elsewhere, I don’t anticipate that your Earth Bride will properly appreciate it. Therefore, you will be given some other thing. So, what will it be?”

  I listen, barely breathing, trying very hard to focus on the meaning of the Atlantean words the Imperator is using. At least, it’s the gist of what he is saying. But the undertone is rich with mockery.

  But Aeson replies without a pause, inclining his head minimally. His voice is steady and clear. “I am honored, My Father, on behalf of myself and my Bride. There is no need for such a grand gift, at least not until Gwen Lark, my Bride, has had time to better know her new home—”

  “And yet you shall have it. I give you three days to consider what it is you want.” The Imperator cuts him off in an inviolate tone.

  Aeson inclines his head once more. “Then I must thank you, My Father.” And after a slightest pause, adds, “There is one thing I want right now—to be alone with my Bride. Therefore, I invoke my Bridegroom Privilege. Do I have Your permission to depart this Assembly together with my Bride, so that we can retire to my private Quarters?”

  Aeson’s words trail off and surprisingly are met with soft waves of laughter around the Court. Even the Imperator makes a sound similar to a snort—but I can’t be too sure, since I haven’t heard him laugh or act anywhere close to human. . . .

  My pulse starts racing wildly at the meaning of what was just said. If I understand Aeson correctly, he just told everyone here that he wants to take me to his room and be with me?

  Is that why everyone is suddenly laughing?

  Oh, God. . . .

  My cheeks, my neck, all of my face—everything is flooded with an instant horrible blush.

  “It is in your right, yes,” the Imperator says. “Well then, you may go. I excuse you from the rest of tonight’s Assembly. Go and be with your Bride. But I expect to see both of you tomorrow. Be ready for my summons.”

  “My Father, I understand and thank you.”

  The next moment I feel a firm tug on my hand, and Aeson rises from his Seat, pulling me after him so that I stand also.

  We descend the five steps from the dais onto the red path. Here, Aeson Kassiopei turns around once more, and I move with him, like a puppet on shaky legs, so that we both face the Imperator. We bow before him nearly in unison—by now I know the meaning of the hand squeeze and can anticipate it.

  The Imperator merely watches us like a dragon.

  And then we turn our back to the Imperator of Atlantida once again. We walk at a steady pace along the red path down the length of the Pharikoneon, the great ancient chamber that is the Imperial Throne Hall.

  The Court stares at us, and whispers accompany us on both sides as we pass. I look straight ahead, avoiding everyone’s eyes, while my hand burns in Aeson’s steady grasp. Oh no, there, just to my right, is Lady Tiri. Don’t look at her, I tell myself. Don’t look. . . .

  However, as we pass the Low Court section, I briefly glance to the side to see Consul Denu standing there, smiling at me, acknowledging me with a gracious nod as soon as our gazes meet. His familiar face is such a relief that a lump begins forming in the back of my throat, and I blink in order to hold back the tears. . . .

  We reach the back of the chamber, and pass the Pharikoneon Gates, emerging into the ante-chamber, where immediately a security detail surrounds us. I recognize the same six guards who had come with us on the shuttle this morning. Two of them walk before us, two flank us, and two more bring up the rear.

  We walk out of the ante-chamber into a network of Palace corridors, picking up the pace now. Aeson remains silent, while I find that I have to almost run in order to keep up with him. Trembling with the emotional overload, I continuously glance up at him with anxiety, but he continues to look straight ahead. This way I only see his profile, and from what I can tell, his expression is serious and grim. Meanwhile, his possessive grip on my hand is once more a painful iron vise.

  “Where . . . are we . . .” I start to say, finding myself breathless.

  But he throws me a fevered look that slips away just as quickly, as though he is afraid to maintain eye contact, and says in a low voice, “Keep going.”

  Moments later we enter an elevator that swiftly takes us to an upper floor. We exit into a particularly elegant long corridor decorated with mosaic inlay and marble, and then come to the end of it, to a grand set of massive double doors carved with elaborate relief designs and jewel stones.

  At the doors Aeson Kassiopei stops and turns to the guards, speaking in a cold commanding tone, “I am not to be disturbed by anyone until morning. No one may enter my Quarters until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Understood, My Imperial Lord,” the head guard says, and they all salute sharply.

  But Aeson is no longer looking at them. Instead he presses a gold handle, opens the doors and steps past the guards, pulling me inside after him.

  He does not let go of my hand until we are safely within, and the doors have been closed from the inside.

  The moment the door clicks shut, and my hand is free, I step backward, away from him. I stand, panting with desperate emotion and the exertion of walking too fast in an environment of heavier gravity—my hands, arms, knees, all of me, is trembling uncontrollably, while my extremities are cold.

  With my peripheral vision I take in the grandeur of the suite around me, the lofty ceiling cast in distant shadow, the rich earth tone furnishings, the gold and marble and luxury out of a fabled storybook. . . . But my immediate attention is on him—Aeson Kassiopei.

  My former commanding officer, the Imperial Crown Prince, and now my Bridegroom, stands before me, looking at me with an impossible mix of raw emotions in his lapis lazuli blue eyes. His expression is full of contradictory things—vulnerability, soft wonder, overbearing intensity. He’s only a step away, close enough that he can just reach out for me—and I for him—in order to close the distance between us.

  I can hear his quickened breathing the same way I hear my own . . . and the pounding pulse in my temples threatens to deafen me, while the pressure in the back of my throat is overwhelming.

  I am shaking. . . . Now that we’re alone, I am going into full-body shock, and I can barely inhale each breath because of the choking sensation, the horrible pressure of impending tears.

  “What . . . what did you . . . what is happening . . . what did you do—” I start mumbling, because I must say something at that point, but I find I cannot form coherent sentences.

  “Gwen . . .” he says gently, looking at me with vulnerable expressive eyes.

  And then I scream.

  “What did you do?”

  I rush at him and pound him impotently with my fists, while an explosion of tears comes gushing out of me, so that my vision is a blur, and all I can do is feel the expensive fabric of his dark blue jacket against my hands, and underneath it, the muscular hardness of his chest as I strike at him—and he lets me. “What . . . what . . . did . . . you . . . do!” I repeat, over and over.

  At the same time his arms come around me and he holds me very lightly with a strange tenderness, as though he doesn’t dare embrace me with his full strength—and even so, his arms are powerful around me, and I am oddly comforted even as I rave.

  “Gwen,” he says, “I am??
?I—”

  “You what? What?” I scream, choking on my sobs. “What happened, what did you do to me? You chose me as your goddamn Bride? You—you—didn’t even ask me! You just assumed it was okay, and so you—what? What does it mean? What happened? Why did you do this to me—”

  “I am so sorry,” he says, his voice gentle as I’ve never heard it to be. “So sorry that I didn’t ask you properly. But—it had to be done this way, for your own safety. I had to keep you safe. . . .”

  He reaches up with one hand and runs his fingers against my wet cheek, sending a warm current throughout me at the touch, a potent electric charge. . . .

  “No! Don’t touch me!” I slap his hand away and disengage myself from his embrace, striking his chest again for good measure. Then I take a step back again, finding myself backed against the door through which we just entered. There is no place to run. . . .

  He sighs deeply and puts his hands up in a calming gesture. “It’s all right, I will not—will not touch you. . . . Please, Gwen, don’t be afraid. . . . I had to do this, I had to—”

  I wipe the tears and the mess of my face roughly with the back of my hand and sniffle with my nose. “What do you mean you had to? I don’t understand! How could you just do this immense, terrible, life-changing decision thing without first asking me?”

  His eyes are wounded and full of intensity. “Is it really so terrible to be married to me? To be chosen as the Bride of a future Imperator?” he says softly, in the same voice that rips into my heart.

  “It is, if you didn’t ask and I didn’t give my consent!” I raise my voice again, and this time my anger dominates my tears and lends me strength and resonance. “First, you dragged me down to the planet under some stupid excuse that your Father wanted to see me—”

  Aeson shakes his head. “It was not an excuse, it was a command. He ordered me to bring you down to the surface—”

  “Okay, so—even if he did,” I interrupt him. “But then you were so awful to me in that shuttle! You cut me down like I was a nothing, told me I was never to speak to you again, ever, not under any circumstances, and you were no longer my commanding officer but the Imperial Crown Prince! I realize I’m a nobody compared to your divine Kassiopei blood, but I thought at least you cared on some level—”

  “I do care!” he exclaims, drawing closer to me again, but remembering and not touching me. His face with its inflamed gaze hovers above mine, and I feel the heat of his breath against my cheek, my lips. . . . “Listen to me, Gwen . . . it broke me to say the things that I said to you in the shuttle. But I had to make you believe—believe that we were done. He—my Father—has spies everywhere. I could not risk having you act as though we had any kind of relationship. I had to hurt you—hatefully, unforgivably. I—” he pauses briefly, as his own words falter, and the agony in his eyes makes my own agony that much more acute, and I am once again shaking. “I will never forgive myself for what I had to do—”

  “It was horrible! You made me feel like dirt! And you broke my heart!” I exclaim, looking up into his eyes. My voice cracks and fades away, as anger again gives way to the choking onslaught of tears.

  He blinks, moves back a little, giving me some breathing space.

  For a few seconds I sob with deep convulsive shudders, then catch my breath violently and stop. Again I wipe the back of my hand against my face with all its fine courtly makeup that’s now a disgusting mess, then glare at him through my tear-blurred eyes. “You—you really hurt me! And then you—what you did was—”

  “I know,” he says in a dead voice. “And the only thing I can do now is explain to you why.”

  “All right—go ahead. Explain!” I breathe raggedly, watching him.

  And with a grave expression he does.

  “My Father told me to bring you here urgently, because he found out—how, I don’t know yet, but I have my suspicions—he found out that you keyed the Quantum Stream to yourself during the Cadet Pilot Race. With such abilities, you were no longer a simple curiosity but a threat. He told me that his plans for you have changed. You were now to be studied and experimented on—basically, dissected by the dark scientists, those arcane priests and lab experts who work in secret, doing unspeakable things on behalf of the Imperial Throne.”

  He pauses, gathering breath, while I stare at him in stunned shock.

  “I was—I was supposed to bring you in and deliver you to him—and to them,” he continues, and his eyes are filled with pain. “There wasn’t going to be a normal life for you in Atlantis, not ever. The moment you set foot here, you would have been escorted directly from the Imperial Court reception to one of my Father’s secret research facilities.”

  “Oh my God . . .” I whisper, while a wave of debilitating cold rises inside me. Suddenly I am numb.

  Aeson watches me with his solemn intense expression. He remains silent, giving me seconds to process.

  I stand frozen and stare into space, then look into his eyes. . . . “I—I didn’t know.” As I say this, the realization sinks in.

  They were going to lock me up in a lab and experiment on me.

  They were going to—

  I find that I am perfectly motionless, steeping in the sudden cold reality, grappling with this new perspective. I look away in abstraction, and my gaze wanders, while my mind races in anxiety as I try to come to terms with the horror of what I just learned. . . .

  And then it occurs to me.

  He saved me. . . . He saved my life.

  And probably sacrificed his own future to do it.

  I take in a shuddering breath. “You—what you did—I had no idea. They were going to study me?—Oh my God! So then, what you did for me, that means—I owe you—I—”

  I put my hands over my mouth, rub my face again, then look up at him with a wild expression. The moment I see his eyes watching me with such gentleness, the pressure of tears comes back again. Just like that, the stupid water is pooling, and my vision is blurred, until deep sobs once more wrench my body.

  “You . . . you risked . . . your Father’s anger . . . and your own position to . . . save me,” I barely manage to say in-between sobs. “Which means . . . I can’t even begin to . . . thank you. But—did it have to be this way? You didn’t warn me . . . didn’t ask—”

  “Gwen,” he says. “This was the only way to keep you out of his clutches. The Imperial Consort and Bride has legal rights, and is protected by the ancient laws of the land. Not even the Imperator may touch you now, and only the Imperial Crown Prince may command you. You are under my direct protection now, formally, for as long as you are alive.”

  “Wait. . . . Command me?” I echo him. “What—what does that mean? That you are the one who can order me around?”

  “Oh, in the name of sanity . . . I’ve been ‘ordering you around’ for months now!” He exhales in frustration, and shakes his head. “Gwen! You are missing the point!”

  “Well, no, I am still trying to wrap my head around the point!” I am no longer crying, and now I frown, rub my cheeks and forehead with my hands.

  I must admit, at this point my feelings are an absolute conflicted mess—gratitude and warmth, residual anger at him, despair at the realization of what fate I narrowly escaped—and I don’t even know what else! I’m a ridiculous emotional wreck, and it needs to stop.

  “The point is,” he says passionately, “is that you are now safe. Do you understand? Safe! And you are free to live your life—”

  “To live my life with you,” I interrupt.

  “With me, yes.”

  Suddenly he moves in, and both his hands grasp my upper arms, pulling me toward him. I think he’s forgotten that he is not supposed to touch me, and momentarily so have I.

  He holds me, looking at me fiercely, desperately, and our faces almost touch, breath mingling. The places where the bare skin of my arms makes contact with his hands are wildly alive, burning . . . waves of strange molten power course up my arms and down my back, making me weak and pliant,
so that I begin to sink toward him, overcome with his proximity.

  I am a moth and he is a flame. . . .

  No!

  I straighten and move back again, and my frown deepens. “Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me any of this up front?” I say evenly, keeping my voice from trembling. “Okay, I get it that you were trying to protect me, and I am very grateful, but—but—why didn’t you trust me? If you had told me about the danger I was in, if you had explained this in advance, and given me the choice, I mean, I’m not an idiot—”

  “No.” Aeson Kassiopei looks desperately into my eyes. “You’re not. But you are stubborn and impossible. And I could not risk you saying ‘no’ to me—not in this, and not this time.”

  My mouth falls open and I glare at him. “What? Do you mean to tell me that if I’d told you ‘no, I don’t want to marry you,’ you would still have gone through with it?”

  He pauses, tightens his mouth into a line, as though considering his answer. And then he says, “To be honest? Yes. I would’ve chosen you as my Bride regardless, in front of my Father and the Imperial Court. Because I couldn’t let anything happen to you. It’s the only way, and I’m not going to ask forgiveness for my actions.”

  He ends, breathing heavily, watching me with intensity.

  I’m reeling with a mixture of anger and strange inexplicable satisfaction. But I am not done. “Do you realize how absolutely insane this sounds?” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “You basically kidnapped me! I don’t know how you do things here on Atlantis, but on Earth we don’t do this kind of caveman barbarian crap! We ask each other out first! And then we ask again, before mutually deciding on making a committed relationship! This is nuts!”

  “Is that so?” Now he is beginning to frown at me. “From what I’ve studied of Earth customs, even as recent as the 21st Century, you have quite a few cultures where women are still considered the property of men, and where no one asks for consent when it comes to most aspects of their lives! So don’t give me your Earth as the paragon of human rights!”