It was all her fault—hers and her father’s. Every terrible thing that had ever happened to Erik had been caused by a Sapphira. She wondered what he’d do when he finally discovered just how badly she’d betrayed him. All she’d wanted was to give him her love but evidently love was an emotion Cartelites weren’t capable of sharing.
She took another step, coming abreast of him, but he still refused to turn his head in her direction. He was like Kole in that—determined not to see her while he had a choice. The cameras were probably catching this—Jewel’s last attempt at contact with the lover who had caught her heart. She shifted her eyes to view the Armenite pews but none of those individuals sitting there in their uniforms was familiar to her.
She took another step, her father matching her with the easy grace of a dancer performing a waltz.
In the front row, ahead of Ana and Meg, sat Jewel’s mother, craning her neck to see over the line of Armenite officers and beaming with—with what? A normal woman would have been filled with pride, but Alexandra Sapphira had never been maternal enough to experience that emotion, had she? What was it then that Jewel saw there? Surely it was more than simple excitement. As she looked, her mother tried to mouth several words to her, but Jewel couldn’t figure out what she was trying to tell her. Not that it mattered now anyway. In a few minutes she’d be wed and, fortune secured, Alexandra Sapphira would have no more use for her eldest daughter.
Jewel took another step.
Beside Alexandra, Nefer Reneb appeared far more transparent to Jewel. The older woman looked calm, pleased, and confident that her mission had been a success. It made Jewel wonder how long she had been working toward this outcome. Had she been shocked when Jewel ran away? Or was she already planning her contingencies even then? Did it even matter now that Jewel had agreed to go through with the wedding?
Jewel’s father suddenly patted her hand as if he thought she needed encouragement or moral support. Why did it surprise her so much that he would offer it to her? There was a time when she was a little girl when she’d utterly believed in his affection for her. He would hold her in his lap and call her his precious little jewel. Now… now she didn’t know what to think about him. The father of her youth had been a gallant hero. The parent of her school years had been a distant disciplinarian. But this man beside her, he was a strange villain and she didn’t know what to expect of him any longer.
She took another step. Almost there now…one more step and she would reach her destiny.
Captain Krell stood directly to her right now at rigid attention, a completely impassive expression on his face. On her left stood the captain of the Vigilance who’d brought Kole here today. No encouragement from either one of them, but they were military men performing their duty just now. Perhaps they were like the Eternal Guard at the Monument to the Fallen on Thebes. Perhaps they weren’t permitted to show any expression. One thing she knew about these Armenites is that they simply didn’t fail to do what duty demanded of them—to do so would bring suicide-inducing shame. She didn’t resent their passivity.
She stopped between the captains and turned to face her father, who lifted her veil and kissed her on the cheek an inch below her bioware chips. She was ten years old the last time he had done that—just before she’d left home for the Khufu Academy to begin the second phase of her formal education.
A tear threatened to spill from her eye, potentially scarring the careful makeup job that Ife had constructed to hide the dark blemishes forming on her cheeks and arms and legs. She’d thought they were bruises at first, but there was no pain at all associated with them—just a dark discoloration of her creamy brown skin which would have spoiled the effect of Heta’s beautiful dress. It was something she’d have to get checked out after all the ceremonies but there had simply been no time to do it this morning.
Her father stepped away to join his wife.
Ahead of Jewel, the three Empyreals stood patiently waiting. They were every bit as solemn as the officers under their command. Rear Admiral Delling stood in the center, with Justiciar General Farl on his left and Physician General Adel on his right. Their dark swirling tattoos stood in stark contrast to the plain white faces of the other Armenites.
It was time.
Steeling her resolve, Jewel took the final step necessary to bring her abreast of Kole. For the first time in her life, the man who symbolized her destiny was physically beside her and faced with the opportunity, Jewel found she couldn’t force herself to turn and face him. She could picture his image in her mind from the last vid he’d sent before she fled to the Fringe. He was tall with well-developed limbs and shoulders. He had a soldier’s physique beneath his crown of close-cropped black hair, lean and muscular. His skin was pale despite the clear signs of intense physical activity. It hit her suddenly that he might not look like that anymore. Kole hadn’t been in cold sleep for the past eight years. He really would be thirty-four years old.
Rear Admiral Delling stepped forward, dressed in his flag uniform this time—impressive with its breast full of medals, but the only marks of esteem that really mattered were the swirling tattoo lines on his face and hands.
“Welcome,” he said in the straightforward Armenite manner. His voice boomed throughout the small chapel, and Jewel got the impression that he could have filled the flight deck of a carrier, or a hundred-thousand-seat stadium, if he’d wanted to.
“Today we gather from two nations to celebrate the symbolic joining of two mighty Houses—the House of Delling of the Hegemony of Armen and the family of Sapphira, of the Khaba Cartel. For thirty years we have tested this union to discover if it will bring strength to our nations or whittle away our substance without value.” He looked past Jewel and Kole to run his gaze over the rest of the assembled congregations. “Fellow Armenites, honored guests, I have been instructed to inform you that it is the judgment of the Council of Elders that this union has made us very, very, strong.”
In perfect synchronicity, every Armenite standing, except the Empyreals and Kole, lifted their right foot off the floor and stomped it downward so that the note reverberated throughout the chapel. At the same time, every sitting Armenite brought their hands together in one loud clapping gesture, perfectly timed with their peers’ stomp.
Then they returned to perfect, almost eerie, silence.
Knowing that many, if not all, eyes were upon her, Jewel forced herself to resist the impulse to look around.
“But all know that a union which appears outwardly strong in body may be corrupt and rotten in its core.” The rear admiral sounded a tad gleeful here to Jewel. She wished she understood why he objected to this wedding the way he did. “The portents here remain confusingly mixed with hopeful signs dashed and broken in the fires of ascension and damning evidence turned upside down in potential glory.”
“What in the Stars is that fool talking about?” Jewel’s mother muttered in a not too quiet whisper.
Rear Admiral Delling ignored the interruption.
“So in keeping with the traditions of the Armenite people, we submit this union—with all its apparent strengths, and the totality of its many weaknesses—to the Judgment of the Unity through the Trial of Marriage to determine how long the futures of these two proud Houses should be entwined.”
“What?” Alexandra Sapphira asked again. “What is he suggesting?”
Nefer Reneb’s face tightened in concern.
Whether he intended to or not, the Rear Admiral answered their questions.
“Let the spirit of our blood speak clearly. Let the union continue for as long as the marriage or its children endure.”
To Jewel’s knowledge, this was the first time that she had heard it suggested that the union between Delling and Khaba—post marriage—might not be a permanent one. Still it didn’t seem to her to be that big a deal. Both Kole and she were relatively young. Even without children their marriage would secure the fortunes of Khaba for decades to come.
“You may turn and face each
other to profess your vows.”
This was it. This was the moment Jewel had prepared for her entire life. Time seemed to stretch out around her as she pivoted to the side and found…a strange man she had never seen before. He had the deep black hair common to all pure-blooded Armenites and the pale skin of a race that had grown up in a world with a weak sun. But the thing which shocked her most was the face of the man staring back at her. He had high strong cheek bones like Kole and the same piercing gray eyes, but they were subsumed in the swirling black tribal lines of an Empyreal’s tattoos.
“Who are you?” Jewel blurted.
“It’s your fiancé, Luxora,” her mother told her. Pride definitely mixed with excitement in her voice. “It’s Kole, they’ve elevated him to the Empyreal. You see how much they value us?”
The man in front of Jewel flinched. The expression was only visible for an instant, but he had definitely flinched.
She looked at him harder and then her eyes went wide. He was older than her last vid image of him, but it was definitely Kole Delling beneath the Empyreal markings. When had this happened? What was going on?
“Why didn’t anyone mention this?” Jewel asked the Empyreals. What she wanted to say was, What are you people hiding?
When the group of Empyreals didn’t answer, Jewel narrowed her attention to include only Kole’s uncle who stood solemnly waiting for Jewel to be ready to continue the ceremony. “Is this why you opposed the wedding? You think an Empyreal is too good to marry me?”
“I do not oppose the wedding,” the rear admiral told her in what Jewel believed to be a flagrant lie. “The Council of Elders has spoken and all Armenites will act in accordance with their wishes.”
“But you wish they hadn’t,” Jewel pushed. “Why not? Don’t you think I’m good enough to marry him now that he’s been elevated to your ranks?”
Kole’s great uncle did not back away from her challenge. “Quite the opposite, Ms. Sapphira, I am quite certain that he is not good enough for you.”
A very quick intake of breath sounded from among the Armenite civilians—that is to say, those gathered who were no longer in the traditional military.
Jewel, herself, felt stunned by the admiral’s words. She turned her attention to the justiciar general in search of answers. “What does all of this mean? How could you let us get here without preparing me for this?”
Farl stepped forward—one short precise step as if he were being called on the carpet by a superior officer. He barked forth his answer as if responding to a drill sergeant on the parade ground. “It means that the House of Delling is ready to honor their commitment to their alliance with Khaba no matter what Lieutenant Delling’s status. Are you ready to complete the ceremony?”
As if on cue, Kole held out both of his tattooed palms to Jewel, inviting her to place her hands within his. His face remained impassive—refusing to express any emotion.
“Is this why you kept delaying our marriage?” she asked. “You were studying to become an Empyreal?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then glanced not at the rear admiral, but at the justiciar general, who nodded slightly.
“There are many rungs in the ladder to this honor,” Kole explained. It was the first time she had heard his voice in person. His strong baritone rolled over her, surrounded her, and reverberated in her ears in a most unsettling fashion. “We had no way of knowing then how high I would be able to climb, but it was deemed important that I be given the opportunity to see.”
His fingers made a quick come hither gesture, inviting Jewel again to set her dark hands in his white and black ones, but Jewel still had too many questions.
“But you made it? You received your tattoos. You’re Empyreal, right?”
He nodded curtly, showing no evidence of pride or pleasure in his accomplishment.
“Then why does your uncle—”
“I have already told you I do not oppose this union,” the admiral interrupted. “Now let us continue.”
But Jewel wasn’t ready to resume the ceremony. “But why didn’t you just tell me this is what you were doing?”
Physician General Adel answered her question. “There is great honor in being invited to compete for this distinction, but we believed as outsiders that you were unlikely to comprehend that there is no shame in failure to obtain the right to ascend.”
Rear Admiral Delling picked up the thread of the physician’s thoughts. “We did not wish to give the appearance that we were foisting upon you damaged goods if Kole ultimately failed in our ambitions for him.”
Somewhere in the Armenite audience, a man began to cough. Jewel instinctively turned to look along with every other person in the chapel—even the disciplined Armenites. He was tall with the close-cropped black hair that marked all Armenite men and he looked embarrassed to Jewel to have attracted so much attention. There was no denying that all of the Aremenites around him disapproved of his disruptive display.
She turned back to Kole. “But you did make it, right? I mean, you have the markings?” She reached out and touch the black stains on his hands. The contact made her fingertips tingle, as if her traitorous flesh was actually excited to finally be with her intended.
Kole took advantage of her touching him to close his fingers around hers. Other than that he ignored her question.
“Kole was one of the very few who proved fit and capable enough to be offered the chance to ascend,” Adel confirmed.
“And one of an even smaller group to survive the testing,” Justiciar General Farl completed the thought.
The Armenites were a very strange people, Jewel thought. Kole had obtained the greatest honor in the Hegemony—at least the greatest honor of which outsiders were aware—and yet she could detect no sound of pride in any of these voices.
As usual, Jewel’s mother could not handle the center of attention being away from her for so long. “Well that makes this wedding an even greater honor, doesn’t it? What are we waiting for? Let our children speak their vows.”
Dead silence greeted the suggestion, which among the Armenites might well be a good thing. Jewel started to wrap her fingers around Kole’s when on impulse she looked to the side at Erik Gunnarson, the man she still loved. He was still sitting ramrod straight staring directly at her as if he wished to memorize her features while she remained unwed.
Her heart lurched and the surge of emotion she felt right then must have reached her face, because for the first time in thirty years, Kole Delling asked Jewel a question about herself rather than reporting to her on his many accomplishments. “What’s wrong, Luxora?”
The use of her given name startled her. It made no sense that it would—most people thought of her as Luxora Sapphira, but this was the man she was going to marry. For thirty years they’d been engaged, exchanging vids every three standard months like clockwork until she ran away to the Fringe. For the last decade of that correspondence, ever since she was twelve standard years old, she’d signed those vids Jewel. Even though they’d never physically met until today, Kole ought to understand why she’d transformed herself as she had. At the very least, he ought to have embraced the change as you would a preferred nickname. Even her girlfriends had done that. How could he call her Luxora now on their wedding day? She pulled her hands out of his, causing a gasp to rattle through the non-Armenite congregation.
“Let’s get this straight, Kole,” she said, “because if this marriage is going to be successful we have to understand each other. Our parents may have set this union up when we were babies, but we’re both adults now. This is our wedding—our marriage—and if we’re going to go through with it, it’s going to be on our terms.”
Kole continued to stare at her unmoving. The damn tattoos on his face made it impossible for her to read his emotions—assuming the cold bastard felt any to expose.
Jewel carried on anyway. “And the first thing you have to understand is that Luxora was their dream.” She jerked her thumb in the general direction of
her parents. “I’ve been out on my own. I’m not simply their daughter anymore. I’m my own woman making my own decisions. And my name is Jewel!”
Behind her, Alexandra Sapphira groaned.
Kole maintained his apparent passivity, but he did answer her. “I don’t understand what that means—this insistence on being your own person and making your own decisions. Are you suggesting you’ve somehow become independent of your family? We have responsibilities to our Houses.”
Again the jerk in the Armenite pews began coughing.
This time, Kole glanced at him and for the first time, Jewel could see fire in his eyes. There was anger there, maybe even hatred. The first emotion she had witnessed in the man she was about to marry and it wasn’t a good one to see. But the young Empyreal quickly recovered his poise. When he returned his attention to Jewel his striped features were impassive again. “Are you suggesting we shouldn’t marry?”
Jewel could imagine the consternation that suggestion was causing throughout the chapel and she put the thought to rest immediately. “No, I agree we have a duty to see this through, but I believe we must have some say as to how we fulfill our responsibilities.” She extended her hands to Kole, this time inviting him to reach out to her. “Our parents started this decades ago, but they are not the ones up here. We are—you and me, Kole. So if we’re going to swear this oath it’s got to come from us—from the heart—not from the shells our parents tried to force us into. This isn’t going to be a sham or some formal gesture made solely for appearances. I’m not going into this unless we really intend to fulfill our vows and achieve the union our peoples need from us. Two centuries of working together and we understand nothing meaningful about each other’s cultures. This has to end. If you marry me today, you won’t be purely Armenite tomorrow, and I won’t be purely Cartelite either. And our children truly have to be creatures of both worlds as well. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Prisoner Page 16
