Malcolm (Book 1, The Redemption Series) (2 page)

“Nothing I take it?” Auggie asks, already knowing what it is I’m hoping to feel because we’ve tried this little experiment at least a hundred times now.

“Nothing,” I confirm. “How about you?”

“Nothing I’m afraid.” Auggie sighs his own regret. “Who would believe the two most attractive people in Cirrus feel absolutely no passion for one another?”

“Well, if people knew where your true predilections lie, they would understand,” I tease. “How is Gladson by the way?”

“He’s fine,” Auggie answers with a hint of a blush at the mention of the man who holds his heart in secret. “I wish we didn’t have to hide behind closed doors though. It just seems ridiculous to be emperor yet have to hide the fact that I love someone of the same sex from the rest of the world.”

“I’m sorry, Auggie. Maybe one day you won’t have to hide your love for one another.”

“Well, it won’t be while my mother still lives. That much I know for sure. I don't suppose you have a message for me from him?”

The look of hope on Auggie's face makes my answer even harder to give.

“No, he hasn't sent a message for you to me. I'm sorry.”

With the mention of the dowager empress, the knot in my stomach tightens even further.

“I have my lesson with your mother this morning after breakfast,” I tell Auggie, sounding about as enthusiastic as I feel. “Not exactly the highlight of my day.”

Auggie chuckles.

“She likes you,” he reassures me. “Or, she can at least stand you, which is a lot more than I can say for anyone else in Cirrus besides myself. If she didn’t like you just a little, she wouldn’t be spending so much time to prepare you to take her place after we’re married.”

“I can’t believe the wedding is only a few days away. It seems like it’s too soon. I don’t feel ready.”

Auggie places his hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eyes.

“You are ready,” he tells me, filled with more confidence than I feel. “You will be the greatest empress Cirrus has ever known. We were both born to rule, Anna. And maybe together we can change things for the better.”

“Is Gladson filling your head with propaganda again?” I whisper, never quite trusting that the dowager empress doesn’t have us under constant surveillance.

“Do you disagree with his propaganda?” Auggie whispers back, telling me that he’s not quite sure if our conversation is being listened to either.

“You know I don’t,” I say. “I see no reason for us to keep the down-worlders in the dark anymore. It’s not right that we should have free reign over so much technology while we keep them living in a world only run by steam powered engines. It’s barbaric.”

“Yet, it’s the law,” Auggie reminds me. “It’s been the law for over two-hundred years. And Cirrus isn’t the only monarchy who does it. Every cloud city in the world does it.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” I point out. “It’s the 31
st
century, Auggie. We should be more civilized than this. Yet, we’ve basically enslaved the down-worlders to make them grow our crops, raise our livestock, and harvest what few natural resources we have left on this planet. It’s no wonder so many of them enter their names into the lottery to go off-world to work. At least on the other planets, they have access to our advancements. I still don’t understand how we got to this point.”

“You know the history as well as I,” Auggie says. “After the great war, those who could afford it built the cloud cities and brought up only those who were the best and brightest of the down-worlders. Then, when the down-worlders almost annihilated each other and destroyed every city on the surface with their class wars, we helped them pick up the pieces. In a way, by keeping their access to technology to a minimum, we’re protecting them from themselves.”

“Do you really believe that?” I ask. “Do you think they would go to war again if they had our technology?”

Auggie shrugs. “I’m not sure. I would hope not, but I can’t see into the future either. No one can.”

“Gladson believes we shouldn’t be separated from them anymore.”

Auggie smiles. “He thinks we’re becoming too inbred up here with our self-enforced isolation. I can’t say I disagree with him. It’s one of the reasons you were chosen to be my wife. You had one of the purest genetic codes our physicians had ever seen in an up-worlder or a down-worlder. In essence, you were genetically perfect in every way. Plus, your father offered such a large dowry for the privilege that my father couldn’t refuse.”

“Anna! Anna!”

I look back over to the pillars leading to my chambers and see my little dog, Vala, come at a run towards us. I pull back from Auggie as Vala launches herself into my arms.

“They’re coming!” Vala tells me, turning her little head from me to look at Auggie and then back up at me again.

“I guess that’s my cue to leave,” Auggie says, leaning down to kiss me lightly on the lips. “I’ll see you later this evening at the Tribute Ball.”

“Yes, I’ll see you there.”

Auggie looks down at his left palm where a holographic display lights up. He presses one of the options and teleports, setting off a quick flash of light with his departure.

I look down at Vala, my ever loyal robotic Pomeranian, and wonder what it would feel like to hold a real dog instead of one made out of synthetic parts. She looks and feels like a dog, or so I have been told, but she has no heartbeat. Blood doesn’t course through her veins just some sort of fluid to mimic the warmth of a living creature. Her orange fur is silky soft to the touch, but I have no idea how it compares to actual fur. Real animals aren’t allowed in the cloud cities due to population control and cleanliness issues.

Vala's more advanced than most of the pets in Cirrus though. She’s one of the rare sentient robots who has an organic computer for a brain which learns from her life experiences. Honestly, she’s more real to me than most of the people I know.

With Vala in my arms, I walk across the veranda, past the gossamer white curtains hanging to act as a visual barrier between the outside world and my chambers. Since the temperature inside the dome protecting Cirrus remains a constant seventy degrees, it’s nice to have free access to the breeze outside even if it is an artificial one.

Someone knocks on the other side of the door to my sitting room from the hallway.

“Come in,” I say, already knowing who will be walking in at this time of day.

My lady servants, Vivian and Eliza, walk into the room with the woman who helped raise me coming in last and closing the door behind her. I see that Eliza is holding a silver tray covered with a white silk napkin and cringe inwardly because I know what it means.

“Now, Vivian, you go lay out something appropriate for Lady Anna to wear for her lesson with the dowager empress. Eliza and I will handle her treatment,” Millie says with her natural bossiness in full effect as she places fisted hands against the girth of her waist.

Vivian, a tall red-head with ivory skin and a complexion so clear you would have thought her face was carved out of stone, crosses her arms in front of her and rolls her eyes at Millie.

“We’ve been Anna’s ladies for five years now, Millie,” she says irritably. “Why do you keep thinking you need to tell us what needs to be done?”

“Because that’s what I do,” Millie says matter-of-factly, nodding her head and causing a stray strand of her gray hair to escape from underneath her white dust cap. “I make sure Lady Anna and Lord Andre get what they need when they need it. Now shoo,” Millie says, waving her hands at Vivian, “go do your job while we do ours.”

“Surely it can't be treatment time again so soon,” I complain. “I could have sworn we just did this a few days ago.”

“We did, my lady,” Millie says, sympathetic to my plight. “Seven days ago to be precise. You know the empress insists you have them once a week.”

On the day of my thirteenth birthday, the empress sent over the first batch of my 'treatments'. Every seven days since then, I've been required to have the strange green liquid injected into my body. My father tried to find out what the liquid was, but all the empress would say is that it was totally harmless and meant to protect me. If I didn't have the injections, she threatened to have my marriage contract to Auggie terminated on the grounds of non-compliance.

The strange substance couldn't be administered like most drugs with a normal trans-dermal patch either. For some reason, it had to be injected into my body by using old fashioned needles.

I sit down on the white couch in my room and hold out both my arms to the two women.

“Do it,” I say, looking away as they each take a syringe from the silver tray Eliza brought into the room.

“I'm so sorry, Lady Anna,” Eliza says as I feel the needle of both the shots pierce the skin in the crook of my arms.

“There,” Millie says, being the first to take her needle out, “all done.”

Eliza soon follows and I hear the clatter as they both lay their respective syringes back on the silver tray. Vala whines and comes to sit on my lap in way of comfort. I pick her up and hold her close to my chest as I stand to walk into my bedroom. I find Vivian laying out a mint green chiffon dress for me to wear to breakfast and ultimately to my lesson with the dowager empress.

The fashion in Cirrus was simple and elegant. Those in the other cloud cities adopted their own sense of style and the Cirruns chose one which resembled that of ancient Greece, at least for the women. The men generally wore suits of a simple collarless design, much like the one Auggie wore when he came to see me that morning.

After I'm dressed and Millie fixes my waist length, brown hair into a thick ponytail braid, they escort me up to the roof where I have eaten breakfast with my father every morning of my life, as far as I am aware.

If ever there is a man who looks the part of a Lord, it’s my papa. Every unmarried woman in Cirrus has made a play for him from what Millie has told me. But, my father told me I was the only person his heart would ever truly belong to. His love for me was absolute, and I never doubted that for one second. It wasn't because he told me he loved me every day of my life either. It was because I could see his love for me in the little things he did for me. As a child growing up, he took me almost everywhere he went and spent endless hours making sure I was as well educated as anyone in Cirrus, more so than most. He seemed to know something about everything, and I thrived in the knowledge that he thought I was someone worth spending his time with.

I know any man I eventually give my heart to will have a high standard to meet if they want to even come close to being the man my papa is to me. Not even Auggie can compare to Lord Andre Greco.

My father is dressed in a white suit similar to the one Auggie wore. He's facing away from the crystal elevator when I step off, seeming lost in his own thoughts. The click of my glass slippers against the marble tile on the roof alerts him to my presence, and he turns to face me. A smile of pure joy lights his features as he watches my approach, rivaling the brightness of the morning sun still rising in the background behind him. Even without the sun at his back, my papa would glow to my eyes. He always has. When I asked him why he looked like he had an ever present light shining down on him when no one else did, he told me it was because I could see his complete devotion to me. As a child, I simply found the notion mystical. As an adult, I had to wonder what the true reason was.

“Good morning, cherub,” he says to me as I walk up to him.

I shake my head but can't help the smile which stretches my lips.

“Every time you call me that, I feel like I'm three-years-old again, Papa.”

I kiss my father on both cheeks as he continues to beam with pride as he gazes at me.

“And every time I look at you, I see that little three-year-old smiling back at me.”

“Stop it, Papa. You're going to make me cry.”

My father holds out a crooked arm to me and escorts me to the granite table which is permanently situated underneath an ever growing arbor of purple wisteria.

“I hope to never be someone who makes you cry,” my papa says as he pulls out my chair at the table for me to sit in. “I live to only make you happy.”

“And spoiled,” I laugh, as he sits down at the head of the table beside me.

“Well,” he says, smiling guiltily, “there's that too. But, not so spoiled that you aren't grateful for the things you have or the people in your life.”

Millie and Vivian bring us our plates laden with breakfast while Eliza fills the crystal goblets in front of us with water.

“Papa,” I say hesitantly, because I've broached the subject I'm about to bring up before but received negative results, “are you sure you won't come live with me and Auggie after we marry? I don't like thinking of you staying here all alone.”

“I'll be fine,” he says to me with a reassuring smile. “You don't need your father so close when you're just starting your married life.”

“You know as well as I that married life with Auggie won't exactly be normal,” I say, knowing my father already understands the chaste marriage Auggie and I will end up having. “Plus, I might need your help dealing with the dowager empress.”

My papa laughs out loud, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes becoming more pronounced.