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I liked that vision better.
So, I turned to Father, held out my hand with a smile, and said, “Welcome aboard.”
9
Jasmine
The officer in shiny fatigues appeared soundlessly at my side and refilled my wine glass. I looked at it dourly, swirling the refreshed blue-hued liquid.I probably shouldn’t drink another.After all, I wasn’t really certain of the alcohol content of the liquor.
I also wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up the eager bride It was the first introduction of the lucky couple to some of the visiting dignitaries, and I was playing my part. A lovely feast had been served to us. Foods I had never seen, even in my brief forays off of Earth for Resistance training, stretched out on carved wooden platters on the wine-red tablecloths. The smell was intoxicating, and everything I had tasted so far was quite pleasing.
The company, on the other hand, was anything but.
Seven of the elite Prexis commanders lanced barbed, racist remarks at me and ribbed Braxl about his good fortune with tongue-in-cheek condescension. Braxl’s father hadn’t even deigned to speak to me. Any time I tried to talk, I was immediately drowned out. Barking laughter, biting criticisms toward my betrothed, or loud toasts reverberated around the banquet room.
They were a set of the older Commanders, all high marks for my mission. I was pleased to see them present for the wedding ceremony but couldn’t quite make out the conditions of Braxl’s alliances with them. His frustration and bitterness were easily read, but he was still his father’s son. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Braxl’s cheeks were flushed, and I didn’t even think he was mentally present in the room anymore, with the dinner only halfway through. His father had just gotten done berating him for some particular strategy Braxl had employed in a recent battle. Something too high risk with too little reward. Though, from all I could tell, Braxl had still won and shown deference to the planet that he besieged, not just left it to burn.
The level of friction between Braxl and his father was surprising. I had been hoping there was something of this caliber I could use… It would be interesting to see if what Braxl really needed was someone to see things from his perspective. It might give me an even easier source of access than I had hoped for. There were still places on the ship I wasn’t allowed to go that contained pieces for my plan.
I idly cut at the steak on my plate and tried to work up an appetite. I was just window-dressing here, and smiling was getting old.
“It’s too bad your father didn’t tell you to buy a wife of Fartheal, Braxl,” the pompous one with glossy eyes said as he stuffed another purple sausage in his mouth. “I hear their six hands compensate for their lack of wit.”
Braxl looked up from the haze of anger his father had left him in and glanced at me. I smiled at him, nodded toward Pompous, then flipped the steak knife around. I flung it across the table into the wall past the face of the man who had been blathering.
The rambling at the table stopped as chairs screeched back and glasses shattered. All eyes stared at me. I slowly traced my tongue around my lips, exaggerating the movement and shimmying my shoulders back into the chair, claiming the attention and the silence as my own with a simple, seductive motion.
“My hands may be small, but you only need two when you have a talented tongue…”
I held the gazes of the Commanders steady, looking to see who had shock and awe, who had indignation, and who didn’t care one way or the other.
Pompous leaned back and pulled the knife out, sliding it back across the table toward me, laughing with his belly as he did so. The warlords relaxed and laughed with him.
Braxl grinned and held up his wine in a small salute to me. I tipped my glass and clinked it against his across the table.
That was enough of a statement. Maybe a little too far outside the scope of my alias. I’m not sure it would make sense to say I knew how to throw knives, but Braxl had seen me in the ring. He would know I might have been around weapons, too.
I flipped through possible rote explanations that I might need to express for why I was capable of that solid throw of a dinner knife into the wall of a battleship and said them in my mind enough times that they would sound easy and natural if the need for explanation came up.
Relax back into the guise of a beaming bride.
At least Braxl seemed more at ease, and the target had been removed from his back. It would make things more simple for me if he wasn’t in an angry state.
I was here on a mission. Braxl was just living his life. Though he might be the son and a high-level Commander of a fleet of Prexis Empire spaceships, he was forced to take quite a beating from the older Commanders. This forced marriage was just a minute part of their bullying.
From all that I had read in the Resistance files, Braxl was a skilled strategist and triumphant warrior. I didn’t quite understand the contempt.
Then I glanced toward his father, who, for the first time, was actually looking straight at me.
At once, I understood.
The Highest Supreme Entity, Kressel Sar, looked at me as if appraising a tool. As if seeking to understand if I would be worth keeping. If I could be useful or break if he exerted enough force in counter leverage.
And there was no doubt in those cool, sharp eyes that he would cast me in the fires if I dared to bloody his knuckles or resist him in any way.
That was the reason for the contempt for Braxl.
