Win

by Vera Nazarian

  He continues looking up and does not turn around, but I can tell he has grown very still.

  “You remembered that too. Yes . . . That’s the same Ae-Leiterra,” he says at last, turning back to me, and there’s a suddenly blank, closed-off expression in his eyes. “I died there.”

  I stare at him in shock, and my lips part. “Aeson! Oh, God . . . I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to bring this up! What—what happened?”

  He shrugs, looking at me with his opaque, perfectly composed gaze. “I prefer not to talk about it now—I promise, sometime later I will tell you.” And then he takes a deep breath and smiles and his gaze warms up again as he is focused on me.

  But I continue to look at him in worry, and my hand still clutches his upper arm. My fingers squeeze his bicep, then slide up slowly along his sleeve as I unconsciously caress him.

  He glances down at my hand, and I realize, like an idiot, that all this time, my hand has been moving up toward the black armband that he wears. . . . As soon as my fingers come in contact with the black satin, he puts his own hand on top of mine and presses gently, encompassing it in his larger palm. “Gwen . . .” he says in a soft voice. “It’s all right.” And then he removes my hand from his arm and instead lifts it toward himself.

  The moment he turns my hand, wrist-side up, I start to tremble. Then I feel his warm breath and his mouth against the pulse point, and electricity strikes me, and I am undone. . . .

  “Oh!” I let out a sound of surprise and pleasure, because the pulse kiss is devastating.

  He looks up at me after a moment, and his eyes are intense with desire, and his pupils very, very dark.

  “Thank you for your concern,” he says unexpectedly. “It means very much to me.”

  I breathe quickly and bite my lip to stop my heart from racing.

  “Do you know,” he says, distracting me even further, “that now as my Bride, you are officially a Citizen?”

  “What? Oh!” I say. And then it really sinks in. “Oh!”

  He smiles at me with an expression of unguarded joy. “Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you, but was saving it for last. You are now a Citizen, with all the rights and privileges that it entails, and you don’t have to enter the Games of the Atlantis Grail to have your greatest wishes granted. Your entire family is now related through you to the Imperial Kassiopei. And as such, you are all under my protection.”

  And as I stare at him with happy disbelief, he adds, “Your parents and your brother George will be rescued and taken on board the one ark-ship that remains in orbit around Earth.”

  Chapter 3

  The amount of joy and relief I feel, the moment I learn that my family on Earth is going to be saved, is so crazy that the rest of the evening becomes a happy blur.

  The first thing I do is throw myself around Aeson’s neck and hug him so tightly that I actually surprise him.

  “Aeson! Oh my God! Oh, thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you!” I exclaim, then continue to mouth the words silently over and over, with my face pressed against his chest, and my arms encircling him, hands clasping his strong back.

  He brings his own arms around me. His one hand gently strokes my hair, so that I begin to shiver again with electricity. And then I feel his lips against my forehead.

  “Let’s go inside,” he says. “The evening is getting cold and you are shivering.”

  “That’s not why I’m shivering.” My words come muffled against his chest, and then I look up at him with a glorious smile.

  We return indoors, and he tells me that tomorrow he will take care of so many things, but for now, I need to get to bed early and rest well, because in the morning will begin another tough day.

  “Okay,” I say, giggling like a complete dork. “I’m exhausted, but I am also so worked up! I don’t know if I can even sleep I’m so happy!”

  “You need to try,” he says, looking down at me with amusement, as we walk back through the many grand rooms to the smaller quarters—his and mine—adjacent to each other.

  Here, he first carries some supplies from his food storage box to my bedroom, including a bottle of qvaali, a pitcher of water, and some fruit and other light snacks. “That’s in case you get hungry in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh . . .” I say. “I probably won’t, but water is good!”

  He glances at me almost shyly. “The door between our quarters can be locked from both sides. Please feel free to lock it at any time if you need to do so to feel more comfortable. Normally it’s always open—Manala comes and goes in the middle of the night for food in my pantry, so I leave it open out of habit. Tomorrow I will order a similar food storage cabinet to be installed in your quarters, on your own side—”

  “Oh, no need!” I interrupt him. “I can just use yours, same as Manala. And I don’t want to lock the door, that’s silly. As long as I won’t disturb you if I need something from that fridge.”

  “You won’t,” he reassures me. “I sleep soundly, so make all the noise you need. Even if you wake me, I’ll fall back asleep easily.”

  “Okay.” I purse my lips. “Lucky you. . . . I’m a very light sleeper, so tend to over-worry about disturbing others.”

  Aeson smiles and just looks at me.

  I smile back. “What?”

  “It’s just that—it pleases me so much to talk about these things with you,” he says softly. “We’re discovering each other, and there is so much to know.”

  “Oh yes. . . . It’s the little things!” And I blush slightly, because the intense look in his eyes does that to me.

  Then he tells me the general schedule for tomorrow. We are supposed to expect a breakfast summons from the Imperator, so that means we should be up early, ready to be called any minute. By early he means approximately 7:00 AM, because his Father is an early riser and has his first meal no later than 8:00 AM—or I should say, their Atlantean time equivalents, with a slightly different naming convention.

  “You will learn the Palace schedule soon,” he says. “But for now, one thing at a time. Especially since you have to get used to a 27-hour day and four major meals instead of three.”

  “I can’t wait,” I say in a giddy voice, because I’m still floating on a cloud of warm and fuzzy joy, thinking about how Mom and Dad and George will be rescued.

  Then Aeson tells me how the rest of the day is planned. In a nutshell, I am going to meet more of his family, be shown around the Palace, measured for clothing, introduced to all kinds of important people as the Imperial Bride, explained all kinds of things, and yes, I’m to expect the unexpected, and must prepare to be on my guard. At some point, Consul Denu will be there to help me. Also, Gennio Rukkat and Anu Vei will come in, first thing in the morning, in their usual Aide capacity.

  Oh, no! What will those two guys think when they find out about me tomorrow?

  The implications of it are staggering, especially if I try to imagine all the other people in my life and how each one of them will find out, one by one, that I’m now the Bride of the Imperial Crown Prince of Atlantida.

  My lord, what will Gracie and Gordie think? And what about Laronda? And Dawn and Hasmik, Blayne, Chiyoko? And—

  Here I forcibly stop myself, at least for tonight.

  I pay attention as Aeson tells me about what he will be doing tomorrow. After the two of us meet the Imperator informally for breakfast, most of Aeson’s day will consist of taking care of various business.

  “It will be a long day for both of us,” he concludes. “And yes, there’s the extra gravity.”

  Ah, gravity. . . . Now that I’m reminded of its constant oppressive presence, my general buoyant state is slightly deflated, and I wince, then make a silly face. “Ugh, yes. . . . Its effects are embarrassingly awful. Okay, can I ask a possibly stupid question? Why, with all your high tech, wasn’t the gravity on the ark-ships gradually adjusted over all those months of the journey, so that it slowly got heavier as we approached Atlantis, until it matched your planetary grav
ity? That way, when we arrived, we would’ve had none of the physical shock, and needed no time to adjust! I mean, it makes perfect sense to me—”

  “Not a stupid question at all,” he replies, watching me with a barely hidden smile that now seems to be a constant thing, the result of his deep undercurrent of pleasure. “And yes, it makes excellent logical sense on the surface. In fact, during the trip planning stages, we considered it, but decided against it.”

  “But why?”

  His bemusement seems to increase at my persistence. “There’s a good reason it wasn’t done, Gwen. Even a gradual change in gravity would’ve placed additional undue stress on all your bodies, no matter how minor, and interfered with your ability to survive the harmful effects of the Jump. Your health and survival was our first priority.”

  “Okay, I see. . . . But why didn’t you start adjusting the gravity afterwards, when the Jump was safely over?” I persist. “Even half a journey in heavier gravity would’ve helped us avoid this ridiculous slump upon arrival!”

  Aeson shakes his head. “We had to give your bodies the best chance to recover and heal after the Jump with the minimum amount of cellular damage. Thus, the living environment was kept as stable as possible, which included keeping you in Earth gravity conditions. If something were to happen—if people started getting seriously sick due to gravity effects right after, bodies weakened post-trauma while still on the ark-ships with their relatively limited medical resources and months of journey still remaining—we couldn’t take that risk. We had to make sure you arrived as healthy as possible. Once we landed, there would be access to the best medical care, the full medical resources of the planet, for any gravity-related effects.”

  “Okay,” I say with another silly grimace. “Makes sense. But it’s still too bad.”

  “I know,” he says. “If it makes you feel any better, you and I both have to get used to it, because after two years, all of us in the Fleet have grown accustomed to the lighter gravity of Earth. So yes, even I can feel it now, and it makes me more tired than usual. But for you especially it will take somewhat longer before you are completely comfortable. So—get to bed and go to sleep!”

  “What about you?” I say. “You need to get to bed immediately also!”

  “Is that so?” His lips curve into a smile.

  “Yes, it is ‘that so!’” I mock him, then switch to a tone of command. “Off to bed, right now, Imperial Crown Prince of Atlantida, that’s an order!”

  He starts to laugh, but I shove him out of my room and into his workroom through the small connecting door. By the time we’re at the threshold, we are both laughing, and then he pauses and his face grows serious.

  “Good night, Gwen . . .” he says softly. “Call me if you need anything—I mean it, at any hour of the night—”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.” I smile, and then remember. “When should I wake up? Is there an alarm I can set—”

  “I’ll knock on your door at seventh hour. There’s an Atlantean timepiece by your bed, but it is set to a different mode, so for now, simply rest and don’t worry, I will make sure you are up.”

  And then he leans in to kiss me. . . . But I move away quickly so that he barely manages to brush my cheek.

  “What? No good-night kiss?” He appears to be surprised, and watches me curiously.

  “No!” I say with a stern little smile and wag my finger at him. “Enough for today, or neither one of us will sleep at all!”

  He chuckles, and continues to watch me with his lingering gaze, while I close the door between our living quarters.

  For a few moments I stand next to the door, just breathing, resting my forehead and palms against the lacquered wood, while my heart races. . . . I close my eyes and listen, straining to hear him on the other side. . . .

  Then I tear myself away and start to get ready for bed.

  A few minutes later I’m in a soft luxurious bed, wearing Princess Manala’s shirt of some kind, covered with fine blankets, surrounded by exquisite fabrics, and the room is dark and quiet.

  I take a deep, deep breath of exhaustion. And I think, no way will I ever manage to sleep after this most impossible day of my life. . . .

  My first night on Atlantis.

  My first night as his Bride.

  But before I think anything else, I’m asleep like a rock.

  I am awakened in the morning by bright horrible white light. It’s as if a huge blinding searchlight is shining in my face, and I can see the glare through my eyelids. Ugh!

  I squint and barely manage to open my eyes, raising a hand to shield my face. The bedroom is bathed in white morning light of Hel through the four-point star window, and it’s shining directly in my face as I lie on the bed. It didn’t even occur to me to draw the curtains last night!

  Then everything that has happened yesterday slams into me, all at once. I moan and spring out of bed, and rush to the window to pull the long expensive drapery over the blazing nightmare.

  What time is it? Oh my God, I don’t even know! I can’t tell if this is early or late morning! Did I oversleep and miss being woken up? Did Aeson oversleep?

  Panic makes me nearly trip over the two bags—a duffel and a backpack—that are sitting on the floor near the door between our quarters. My luggage! It must have been delivered here while I slept, and I am so happy to see it.

  And then a weird thought comes to me—did Aeson himself come in here to bring my bags—and see me sleeping—or was it the Palace servants?

  For some reason, the thought of it being Aeson makes me feel a little weird . . . but not in a bad way.

  I grab my bags and start going through them. And then I glance at the chair where I draped my Low Court outfit after I took it off last night. Right next to it is my neatly folded grey Fleet uniform, apparently cleaned, pressed, and wrapped in plastic, including all my underclothes. On the floor are my worn sneakers—one of the two pairs I’ve been using all year during our journey on the ark-ships—also cleaned and looking better than they had in months.

  Well, all of this definitely solves my problem of what to wear today.

  I rush to the bathroom, shower in the huge, amazing, stone-tiled shower stall with its multiple jets and sprays of hot water, wash my hair with weird Atlantean shampoo that smells like flowers and fruit, and dry off with luxurious fabric towels.

  Then I run around the room in my undies, grabbing clothes, my hairbrush, and get dressed in a hurry, before anyone comes in and catches me undressed. . . . And by anyone, I mean Aeson.

  Yes, on my first full day as the Imperial Bride, I am wearing my own ordinary Earth clothes, and that’s that.

  I pull on faded jeans, my old purple sweater (after a year of constant wear, it has developed a hole on one arm and a tear near the hem, but oh well—it works as long as I have a shirt underneath), and then start untangling my wavy dark hair. It feels good to have my face all squeaky clean and no make-up. In other words, the usual Gwen Lark look.

  Once I’m dressed, and my wet hair is brushed, I pour some water from the pitcher and gulp down half a glass. Now that I’ve stopped to pause, I can suddenly hear vague sounds of the morning outside, sounds that could be birds chirping, or maybe distant voices, but I’m not sure—I mean, do they even have birds here on Atlantis? At this point the only thing that’s likely is that the Palace has woken up, and servants are moving around everywhere.

  I set the glass down, take a deep breath, and then approach the door that separates me from Aeson’s quarters. Carefully and quietly I open it—it leads directly to the intermediate workroom with the cold food storage cabinet and his desk and computers, and not his actual bedroom.

  No one’s in the room. The work office is quiet and dim, because the curtains are drawn over the windows. I flick on a wall switch and the interior lights bloom forth with soft warm radiance in the candelabras. There’s a sofa along the wall, and several chairs scattered throughout, but I ignore them and mill around nervously, waiting for lord knows what.r />
  I listen for any sound from the next room of his—the actual bedroom. Is Aeson up yet? Where is he? What should I do?

  But there is only silence. He’s either fast asleep or not in there. . . .

  As I stand awkwardly, considering what to do next, a soft creak comes from the side wall, and another door opens—why did I not see this doorway earlier?

  The door opens and in walks Anu Vei, one of the two Aides who work for Aeson Kassiopei.

  Oh no, not Anu! Of all the people to see first thing this morning!

  I feel an immediate pang of nerves in my chest. This is going to be difficult.

  Anu is wiry and medium-height, wearing what looks like casual street clothes, dark and basic pants and over-shirt with his red armband, and it’s the first time I see him out of Fleet uniform. His long, lean, pasty face with its sprinkling of freckles has a sleepy and annoyed expression—typical Anu—and his metallic hair is pulled back into a messy segmented tail. He is carrying something in a bag that could be computer parts.

  Anu sees me and makes a grunt, then raises one eyebrow in irritation. “Oh good, you’re here already, Earth girl,” he says loudly, and heads directly for Aeson’s desk to set up his things. “You can help me with the cataloging, or wait for Gennio. He’s running late as usual.”

  “Hey, Anu,” I say carefully, and bite my lip, unsure how to proceed.

  He hears my tone of hesitation and looks up briefly. “What? Is our normal gravity too much for you? What are you waiting for? An Earth forklift?”

  “Um . . .” I say.

  And then he snorts. “Hey, so . . . with this big day today, you can bet the CP’s going to work us super hard! So, how was the Imperial Court last night? Was it crazy? Were you all scared? Did the Imperator even notice you, considering the huge event happening?”

  “What huge event?”

  Anu rolls his eyes at me and snorts again, rudely. “What, you were there and don’t know? The Bride! The CP! He chose a Bride last night! So is it Lady Tiri? Or were you too stupid to pay attention at Court? Yeah, your Atlanteo sucks, but still, you should’ve been able to figure out what’s going on in the room! I mean, it’s all over the Palace, as soon as I got here!”