Grace Goodwin - Ascension Saga - 4

No ruler could appease the people without the black gemstones proudly around her neck. The gems had been fashioned into a necklace, designed for female rulers, and I knew, one day, they would rest against Trinity’s warm skin and would sing to her in welcome, as they had to me, part of the citadel’s life force, or energy, or awareness. I never truly understood exactly what lived in the citadel’s walls, or perhaps, the ultimate term would be spirit. The spirit of the gems would sing to her in welcome.

They would not sing for a stranger, nor for anyone deemed unworthy.

They would be categorically useless to anyone who stole them, or wore them if they did not have royal blood.

But as a symbol to the people? I could think of nothing on Earth that was powerful enough to compare. A queen without these gems was like the mighty comic book heroine, Wonder Woman, without her sword and golden lasso. The people would resist accepting anyone as their ruler without one of the spires at the citadel coming to life.

But, even if my enemies could convince the people that they had no choice, that all true royal females were dead, they would never accept the absence of the royal jewels.

Hard to break thousands of years of tradition and crown a king, especially without the iconic symbol of power around his neck. A male? Wearing the jewels?

Never. I had seen to that. And now my daughters would carry the bloodline, defend our planet. The citadel would help them. They would become powerful beyond what these fools could even imagine. The three of them together? Unstoppable. .

I stood tall as the blinding cold agony of transport enveloped my body.

The last thing I saw and heard over the hum of the machines was the scarred man’s laughter.

But I would laugh last, from this life or the next. Of that, I was certain.

Faith, the Jax mansion

I hoped my sisters fared better than I did. A princess, a maid and a nun. What a combination.

Trinity was all over the news on the screens. The dress she had on the day she went public was spectacular. She’d never worn her hair in much other than a braid or ponytail, but as she walked up the stairs of our mother’s palace, she looked like a queen.

She looked so beautiful that I’d cried, and I rarely cried. And if that hadn’t been enough, Zel, the unconscious guard we’d saved that first night turned out to be a really, really bad guy and had kidnapped her at her big welcome-to-the-throne reception. He’d almost gotten away with it, too. Boy, did I cry after that. It was one thing to know there might be some danger, but actual, real threats and bad guys? I freaked. Cried, then cried some more. But I had to stop, to pull up my big girl, princess panties. So now I found it much easier to make a joke and move on.

Move on. That had been my life motto until my sisters and I came to Alera. Now I was a prisoner of my own design. A servant in the Jax household. The place that was under Optimus unit investigation because of Zel. That, too, was all over the news. And it made me a little nervous since I was snooping around where other people were investigating. I was not CIA trained and wasn’t doing all that well at my mission.

“Bring me another drink, would you, dear? I’m about to die of thirst.” Lord Jax, the elder—as I liked to think of him—had his feet up in front of the fireplace in his office, despite the fact that he was fully dressed in riding gear from his late afternoon outing, and he had two creatures that looked like very large cats with zebra stripes lounging in his lap. “And some of those little snacks, too.”

He held his empty cup into the air and I took it from him. “Of course, my lord.” The cat creatures were fascinating and gorgeous, and they didn’t purr—exactly. But the sound reminded me of an idling diesel engine, just not quite as loud, nor smelled as bad.

Carrying the cup to a sideboard, I filled the glass—not with water, which would have actually quenched his thirst—but with wine. The lord did enjoy his wine. And his pets. And bragging about his son, the magnificent, perfect paragon of all male specimens. To hear the older man speak, you’d think his son, Thordis Jax, was on a level with Superman himself.

I’d seen a portrait in the hall. And yes, he was gorgeous. More like the actor who played Captain America in the movies back home than the dark-haired Adonis from Krypton. But I’d never met the prodigal son. And I had no desire to, especially since I’d learned he’d grown up with Zel, been BFFs as kids. He lived in his own home on the other side of the city which was just fine with me. If he was as intelligent and attentive as his father claimed, I’d never get all my tasks done in this house just ogling him. But he could be a traitor. Anyone in this house could be out to finish off my family.

I stuck to the tasks I’d been hired to do. These tasks included staying under the radar and hunting down a traitor.

No biggie, right? For a princess disguised as a serving wench. Actually, it wasn’t all bad, and no one had ever used the word wench . I didn’t have to wear a rough cotton dress and scrub laundry until my fingers cracked and bled. They took great advantage of their advanced technology. The Spontaneous Matter Generators, or S-Gen units, created new clothing from nothing every day. Perfectly sized. Clean, which meant there was no laundry to do. No food to clean up. The S-Gen recycled on an atomic level, breaking down everything into a basic unit of energy, the building blocks for the next item that might be requested.

I was a servant. A maid. I served. God forbid these nobles had to actually walk over to the S-Gen unit and order something for themselves. But the wine? That was special. Imported from a planet called Atlan, or so I’d been told.

The lady of the house had very clearly informed me that no one of any worth drank wine from an S-Gen unit.

Fuck that. I’d done it almost every night since I got here, and it tasted just fine. Took the edge off when it was time to lock myself in my tiny little room and try to sleep. Most nights, it helped, but not enough. I’d wake in a cold sweat with visions of the assassins who’d tried to kill us, of my hands covered in blood…

Shit. I was shaking now. Where was a good joke when I needed one?

I took the glass and the small plate of food the cook left out for him every afternoon—some kind of chopped fish on crackers he enjoyed eating…and sharing with his cats.

“Here you go, sir. Filled to the rim, just the way you like it.” And he did. So full that one misstep would spill large quantities of wine onto both my hand and the plush, ivory carpeting. “And your favorite snacks.”

“Excellent. You’re a good one, Faith. Very good.” He picked up a cracker with the chunky white topping and popped it in his mouth. “Mmm, have you tried the fish yet? Delicious.” He took another from the plate and fed it to the cat.”

“Thank you, my lord, but no. I don’t eat meat.”

“Oh?” He glanced up at me. “Yes, I can see the animals like you too much for you to eat them.”

He grinned and took another cracker and fish, then washed it down with the wine.

He was a likable man. As far as I could tell, he was nearing sixty, and didn’t do much these days. He told me his son had taken over the business side of their empire several years ago, so he was free to ride and drink and—in a more drunken moment—supposedly fuck his gorgeous mate. ‘The old cock still works, I tell you. Fills her right up and makes her scream just like it did when I was a younger man. Oh yes. My cock never fails her. Never!’