The Far Bank of the Rubicon (The Pax Imperium Wars: Volume 1) (12 page)

Something important had just happened—something important enough for the King to willingly empower his biggest rival within his kingdom. Jonas remembered enough of his history lessons to know that dynasties had fallen by such moves.

A few hours after speaking to the king, Anna sat beside Jack’s bed. The anesthetics had been removed earlier in the evening. Jack was now sleeping on his own. Anna sat uncomfortably in a chair along the wall of the palace infirmary, trying to doze.

“Anna?” Jack’s voice sounded gravelly and harsh. He coughed.

Anna sat up, relieved to hear his voice. “There you are, Jack.” She smiled. “Here, let me get you some water.” She reached across the small space between the wall where she sat and the tray beside his bed. By the dim light of monitors and medical equipment, she took the cup of water off the tray and gave Jack a sip.

The energy barrier, which stood in for a door, dropped, and a tired-looking doctor walked in the room. Anna had met Jack’s new doctor earlier in the day when he had come with the security detail to retrieve Jack from
Beta
. “I see our patient is awake.”

Anna removed the straw from Jack’s mouth.

“How’re you feeling? Any pain?”

Jack shook his head no.

“Good.” The doctor sounded relieved.

Jack turned and looked at Anna through eyes filled with emotion. Anna wasn’t sure she could pin it on anything, but he seemed suddenly childlike. “Why?”

Anna looked confused. “Why what, Jack?”

“Why won’t you marry me?”

Anna blushed, and her heart sank. She glanced nervously at the doctor. “I can’t.”

The doctor cleared his throat.

Anna looked sideways at him.

“Well, everything seems to be just fine with your vitals, Mr. Halloway. You’re going to still have a bit of rehab. We have to make sure your brain understands how to use all the lab-grown muscle tissue and nerve endings, but we can go over that later.” The doctor gracefully exited the room.

“Why can’t you marry me?”

“Jack, I don’t want to talk about this right now…”

Jack’s eyes pleaded for an answer.

“It’s because I need to be my own person. I need a new start, Jack. Apollos was miserable for me. I wasn’t happy.”

“Miserable? How could it be miserable? You have everything you need.”

“No, Jack, I didn’t have everything I needed. I didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t have a purpose there. I worked a job, came home…” Anna struggled to find the words to describe her misery. “I sat watching holis while the kids studied. Most of all, I didn’t have you, not really, and I realized that I was no longer my own person.”

“The kids…. Where are the kids?”

“They’re here. In another room.” There was a moment of silence. Anna felt a little guilty for getting into this right now. She hadn’t intended to talk about this with Jack right away.

“Where am I?” Jack looked around the room.

“You’re on Athena, in the palace of King Nicholas…”

Jack’s eyes widened.

Anna went on. “…courtesy of Ohlson.”

“How long was I out?”

“Six or seven days, depending on how you count the time.”

Jack fell silent again for a while. Then he looked at her. “What about me, Anna?”

“What about you, Jack?”

“Do you still love me?”

“Madly.”

“Then why?”

Anna felt a lump building in her throat. She was hurting him, and it felt like hurting herself. “I can’t depend on you, Jack. It isn’t good for me to depend on you like that. It made me miserable. I have to be my own person.”

Jack furrowed his brow and lifted himself up on his elbow. “What do you mean, you can’t depend on me? I risked my life to get you back.”

Anna felt strangely embarrassed by that statement. It made her feel ashamed that she didn’t have more gratitude, but she knew no other way forward than to continue on her present course. “I know you did, Jack, and for that I will be forever in your debt.” She took a slow breath, trying to find the words she wanted—needed. “But I can’t sit in the past. I can’t be stuck there forever. Like I said before, Apollos was hell for me. I was a mess, and I was lonely. I’m not going to let that happen again here on Athena. It’s time I take charge of my own well-being. I’ve found my own quarters here at the palace.”

Jack tried to speak, but his voice caught. He didn’t cry aloud, but his body shook from unwanted sobs. Anna watched as his heart rate and blood pressure rose on the monitors. She wondered if the doctor would come back in.

After a few minutes of silent agony, Jack spoke first. “I still don’t understand why you thought Apollos was so bad. I took care of you.”

“Jack, I was lonely. You were never around. I was alone. I won’t do that again. I need to have a life of my own.”

Jack’s voice sounded desperate. “What about the kids?”

Despite the situation, Anna felt the heat of her anger bubble. “They’re not my responsibility, and they never were! Jack, it’s like you just thought that because you rescued me, you were entitled to have me become a wife and mother. Like I didn’t have any say in the matter. You just expected me to go along. On Apollos, I didn’t really have a choice and that made it all the more bitter. Here, I have a choice, and I am making one. Marrying you means getting stuffed into a cage and giving you the key. I won’t do that.”

Jack didn’t answer Anna for several minutes. He just cried silently. Anna shifted in her chair. She was trying to figure out what to say next when Jack spoke, again. “I had no idea that you were so miserable.”

“That’s because you were never around, Jack. Some part of you knew, and you did what you always do when things get hard. You ran away.”

“Maybe. Look, I’m sorry that you were lonely. Let me make it up to you. We’ll do things differently here.”

For a moment, Anna’s will weakened, and she thought about trying to make it work. She still loved him. Then it hardened again. Jack had been saying things would be different for years. It was time both of them realized that she was the only one who could make them different for herself. She answered with a calm finality. “No, Jack. I can’t.”

Jack fell silent again, staring at the floor next to his bed. “Where does that leave us, Anna? I want to make this up to you. I want you to give me another chance.”

“I don’t know, Jack.” Anna didn’t yet want to think about a future with Jack. She found herself annoyed at him for bringing it up right as she was trying to untangle herself from him. “Maybe. I couldn’t say. I know I love you. I really do. I just have to make sure to take care of myself right now. Where that will lead, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll be together. I know I need to be alone for a while without all the pressure. I’m not sure I can ever be the person you need.”

Anna leaned in and gave Jack a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry, Jack, but it has to be this way.”

Jonas woke early on the first day of the week. Nothing in his world had seemed right since the banquet two days ago. It had been a long weekend, even by palace standards. Then yesterday, he got word that his schedule had been changed, by order of the King. Instead of sleeping until 0800, he was to appear before his father promptly at 0700 local time, on Monday. At 0600, Jonas threw on a dressing gown and walked down the hall to the family dining room. He found it empty.

Shortly after Jonas sat down at the table, Stephen entered the room, still tying his gown and in full yawn. Much like Jonas, his face was puffy with sleep. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he wandered to an overstuffed chair in the corner and slumped into it. Jonas gratefully kept the silence. His mind raced over the events of the weekend, again and again. Five minutes later, breakfast appeared, and Stephen joined him to eat.

A few bites in, Jonas broke the silence. “What just happened?”

Stephen paused to swallow and didn’t look up from his plate. His fork twirled lazily in his fingers while he answered. “I’m not sure. An audience with Dad the day after worries me. It means that we’re implicated in it all somehow. Then there was yesterday itself. That whole day was completely upside down.” He shook his head. “Nothing has made sense since the banquet two evenings ago. Something happened in Dad's meeting.”

Jonas paused between bites. “Absolutely. What do you make of Malek’s behavior yesterday? He concludes a treaty in record time, gets everything he wants from Dad, and instead of beaming like he did at dinner, he looked totally subdued and perplexed.”

Stephen began to laugh. “I think that somewhere between Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, it must have dawned on Malek that events larger than his ego were in control of the negotiations. I bet he puzzles on that for days.”

Jonas laughed as well. Then he continued. “I think someone came to the palace off book.”

“You mean the person in the third vehicle? I noticed as well. I will have to check with the kitchens. They would be able to tell me if someone was ordering extra meals.” Stephen thought about it for a second while he took a bite. “You might be right. If they came off book, they must have come from the Empress herself. That could explain all the upheaval, but what in the world would they have said? I can’t figure anything out that would add up to this kind of change.”

Stephen paused for a moment and then continued in an unusually serious tone. “I have a question for you, little brother. What are your plans with Sophia? The two of you spent some serious q-time walking in the gardens last night.”

Jonas blushed despite himself. He looked down at his plate and considered lying to his brother. The ache of loneliness which Sophia soothed was so precious that he almost didn’t dare reveal it, even to Stephen. By experience, Jonas knew that anything precious to him would be consumed and destroyed by the institution of the House of Athena. It had destroyed his mother and taken away his childhood. He had no desire to expose his budding friendship to the destructive forces of the court.

Then the thought hit him that he had never lied to Stephen, and he decided to be honest. “To tell the truth, Stephen, we decided to make sure we keep in touch. We are supposed to connect in intraspace tonight if I can find time. She will be on her father’s ship headed to the gate, so her schedule should give us time to talk. Her studies won’t restart until she’s home.”

“So are you her boyfriend? Did you kiss her?”

“No, Stephen!” Jonas responded in an irritated tone. “It’s not like that. We’re just friends. She just gets it. She lives in the same loneliness that we do, and she and I hit it off, nothing more than that.” Even as he said it, Jonas could hear the defensiveness in his tone and wondered if what he said was strictly true or if there was something more to it than that.

Stephen smiled ever so slightly and nodded his understanding. The serious tone lifted. “Well, keep it quiet, Jonas. You don’t want the court to start gossiping about all of this. Or worse yet, Duke Malek to start trying to use her in some way. That would be a disaster.”

“I have been thinking about that. I hope we can keep it quiet, but either way, we are going to keep in touch. What about you and Mark?”

“Well, our relationship was a little more formal than yours, but I really enjoyed him. He seems a great contrast to his father, almost humble in comparison. He’s quieter, like you, but strong. He would make a great ally some day. I intend to correspond with him.“

“What about a good friend, Stephen?”

“I’m not sure I get that luxury, little brother. Remember, I have to be king someday. You may be the only friend I will ever have, Jonas.”

Once again, Jonas was brought up short by the reality of his brother's life. He thought for a second before he said, “Well, you can count on me, Stephen.”

A half-hour later, Jonas entered Stephen’s room, showered and dressed. “What’s this?” he said gesturing to the clothes he wore. “I thought today was a day off and a study day.” When they had arrived back from breakfast, they found the staff had laid out military uniforms for both of them.

“I have no idea.” Stephen just shook his head as he tied his laces. “Have you checked your schedule yet on your heads-up?”

“No.”

Stephen took his off and threw it across the room to Jonas, who caught it and put it on. With only a thought, he commanded the device to look up his schedule. The whole morning had been blocked out, for an “Address to the Kingdom.”

Jonas’ feet went cold. “What’s happened, Stephen?”

Unsure of what was to come, they walked in silence together to the door of their father’s offices. As they walked across the palace, Jonas noticed that it seemed unusually alive for the day after a state visit. The working wing of the palace hummed. On their short walk, Jonas counted at least three generals and an admiral, plus a couple of ambassadors. Their father’s working office sat near the far end of the hall, on the left. The double doors at the end of the hall led to the more formal audience room.

At their approach, the on-duty security officer saluted briefly and opened the door without saying a word. Jonas and Stephen entered the anteroom. The room was actually small by palace standards. Along one wall sat a few chairs. Across from the chairs stood a simple desk for the security person who handled the visitors. This morning, one of the officers of the bodyguard looked up from behind the desk. Jonas tried to remember his name, and if he had a family. He thought it was Mark, but it took a quick glance at the name on his uniform to be sure.

“How was your weekend, Mark?” Stephen dropped into his reserve of polite conversation.

“Lots of work.” Mark smiled back.

“Did you get to see Joyce and the kids?”

“No, sir. I did not. But we have some time scheduled together at the end of the week.”

Stephen smiled gently. “Just remember to take it. Your daughter needs to know her daddy.”

Mark smiled back sheepishly. “Yes, sir. I will announce you now. Your identity has been confirmed.”

Mark rose from the desk and knocked on the door to their father’s office. He paused for about five seconds to let the King organize himself and then stepped into the room, “His royal highness, the Prince of Athena, and his brother, the Prince of Corinth.”