An Imperfect Princess (26 page)

Eneria blinked. 
She had never heard her mother referred to so plainly before. 
Auntie Emmy. 
She had the disconcerting feeling that Vaz was now closer to her mother
than she was.

The two young
women trekked back to the house, both lost in thought.  Eneria had a vague
premonition that Vaz and Emerita would not be able to stay on Montares for much
longer, no matter what they believed.

The remaining
two weeks until the wedding were interminable.  She was still forbidden from
seeing James and had once again been exiled out to the dower house, but having
Vaz around made everything quite fun. 

Vaz and Clarissa
also hit it off quite well.

“So when you
were only fifteen, you sneaked out of your palace?” They were all in the dower
house, drinking tea in the small parlor there. 

“Yes,” Vaz said,
appearing a little embarrassed.

She also worked
with Seth to requisition supplies for the house.  Morthes Heshina had been an
architectural engineer, and it was unfortunate that Seth had had his schooling
interrupted by the war, or else he too would have gone to school to design
buildings.  The trading corporation would make a run out to this world at some
point in the future to bring them to her.  It cost her some of the remaining
gems, but it would be worth it.  She couldn’t expect James to ride the velocipede
generator every time she wanted to use her laptop.

Then there was
the matter of Aijo.

“I’m going to
Montares with Vaz,” the little fairy had announced one morning, after waking up
Eneria. 

“I figured you
would,” Eneria said sadly.  It had been unavoidable; Brigid the sea goddess had
requested it.  “At least there are other Pharinae there.”

“Yeah,” Aijo
said, wrinkling her tiny golden nose.  “The Fae on this planet are too
different.  They’re old and boring.  Brigid is over two thousand years old, and
I got the sense that many of them are much, much older.  They’re a tired,
sleepy race now, too powerful for their own good.”  She rippled her wings; the
Fae had wings like birds, in keeping with their larger size, whereas the
Pharinae’s wings were thin membranes of light, more like insects.  “My own
people are
much
more active and fun to be around.”

But there was a
nervousness to Aijo, and Eneria sensed that her reasoning was a delusion to
keep herself from admitting how much the Fae frightened her.

The wedding
proceeded without a hitch.  They were married in the official Church of
England, in the chapel at St Ives, with Eneria’s fake papers proving enough to
satisfy the Crown and the Church.  Now that she knew what the Fae were, she saw
their representations in the art everywhere–they were the angels of Christian
lore, the gods of the Greeks and Roman pantheons, the fairies and spirits of
nearly every major religion on this planet. 

But their
interference had caused nothing but sorrow, Brigid had said.  And so they slept
and watched over the world silently instead.  She wondered where they went. 
Probably to another dimension, she decided.  The quantum and superstring
composition of the Pharinae allowed them to shift forms by changing their
wavelength of energy anytime they wished.

The ceremony was
simple, it turned out.

“Dearly
beloved,” the preacher began, and Eneria had a moment of nervousness.  She
looked around the alien church, but there were no red and blue honor guards
there.  Only guests from the countryside for miles around, come to see their
lord take a bride.

He slipped a
ring on her finger as he repeated his vows to her, and she found herself
distracted by the workmanship.  It was a black opal ring flanked with diamonds,
but it appeared to be set in gold.  She decided she’d avoid running her
spectrometer over it.

“I now pronounce
you man and wife.”

James was only
permitted to give her a chaste kiss for now, but he murmured in her ear all the
wicked things he planned to do as they walked back down the aisle toward the
waiting carriages outside.  They hadn’t been able to touch each other for over
a month, and it was quite maddening for both of them.

Afterward, the
entire town of St Ives joined them in celebration.  The local custom was to have
a wedding breakfast.  At Eneria’s recommendation, no raspberry jam was served.

That afternoon,
Eneria said goodbye to the small group of Lathlians. 

Seth gave her a
surprisingly fierce hug, and she sensed something odd about him, a deeper
melancholy than would be expected from someone who was only a family friend. 
She got the feeling that he felt he was standing in for her brother.

“If that
Earthling ever hurts you,” he said in Lathlian, “I will personally come to this
planet again and kick his ass for you.”

“And if you ever
hurt Vaz again, I’ll go back into outer space, break my word to the Fae and
kick
your
ass,” she warned with a laugh.  Seth had been her only friend
in Perihelion, and she had missed him more than she had realized.

Saying goodbye
to Emerita was surprisingly difficult.  She had a feeling she would probably
not see her mother again for a long time.

“Remember your
lineage,” the deposed queen told her.  “As long as Lathlor still exists,
however occupied, your firstborn son or daughter will be the heir to the House
of d’Munt.”

That surprised
her.  “But I
died,
Mother.  And I’m no longer a Lathlian.  How can I
continue the line?”

Emerita patted
her head.  “The Houses of Lathlor always relied on pedigrees, not actual
genes.  Your blood matters not, so long as you remember.  And if your children
ever wish to return to the stars, there will be a home on Montares for them.”

Saying goodbye
to Vaz was the hardest of all.

“No more
broadcasted communications,” Vaz said firmly.  “At least, not through your
laptop.”  She handed Eneria a pretty bauble that looked strangely like a pearl
on an earring.  A tiny wire extended to reveal a microphone, and the top was
designed to fit into an ear canal.

“This is a
superstring cluster modulator.  Inside it are thousands of halves of pairs of
matched entangled electrons.”  Vaz held up an identical one.  “They cost me a
year’s worth of Heliol’s chores on Montares, but they are completely
un-hackable.  You can give me a call any time you like.”

Eneria held the
incredibly complicated, expensive technology up and looked at it.  Only the
Pharinae could have finagled the quantum level physics needed to create such an
improbable thing. “This is so illegal that Xyling might want to kill you
instead of marry you after all.  How in the heavens did you find these?”

Vaz winked. 
“Montares is officially neutral in the Konkastian Conquest, but there are
plenty of sympathizers.  The Ulugool Ullallian Order managed to get a hold of
this for me, with Huliol’s help.”  A fire flashed in Vaz’s eyes.  “The
Konkastians are going to go down.  Your part in this mess may be over, but for
Montares and Ulugool, the party’s just starting.”  She stomped one dainty
booted foot.  “I’m going to stop them myself if I have to.”

Eneria looked
thoughtfully at her cousin. “On this planet, there is a game of strategy called
chess that does battles with imaginary armies.  I believe you are the queen of
one side, Vaz.  And the queen is the most mobile piece of them all.”

Vaz grinned. “I
like that analogy. I’m going back to Montares for now, but don’t be surprised
if we stop back into this planet sometime in the future.  It’s nice and quiet
here, and the Konkastians shouldn’t have any further interest in it.  It should
make a nice secret base of operations.”

Laughing, they
embraced one last time.  Seth had programmed the stealth shield of the space
barge to give off the image of more mundane horses and carriages, and the
Lathlians slipped aboard without anyone from the estate staff the wiser.

The hardest part
for Aijo, it seemed, was saying goodbye to Marilyn.

“Why do you have
to go?” the girl asked, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

“Because Vazeria
needs me,” Aijo said gently, flying around Marilyn’s head, leaving a trail of
light behind her for the child’s benefit.  “You have Mrs. Thomas to take care
of you. She loves you dearly, so you should behave yourself for her.”  Aijo
shot a dirty look to Vazeria.  “That one over there has been an incorrigible
child since she was your age.  Don’t grow up to be a humiliation to me like she
is.”

“I heard that,”
Vaz shouted, but she didn’t deny the accusations.  Eneria smiled.  Vaz
had
been the bad child of their family.  Some things never changed.

“Goodbye, Aijo,”
Eneria said finally to the fairy who had been her companion for most of her
life.

The fairy’s
expression was blank.  Finally, she stuck her nose in the air and fluttered
over to Vaz’s hair, where she rested like an ornament.  The gesture was
painfully familiar. 

“Vaz is right. 
We’ll be back sooner than you think.  Go off and enjoy your stupid hormonal
organic matter activities.”  She was back to her prissy self.  Eneria smiled.

“Then, instead
of goodbye, I’ll say, until I see you again.”

They watched the
ship take off from the garden of the estate.   Aijo had pinpointed the exact
coordinates of the wormhole, and they were able to aim the telescope at it to
see the ship until it faded into the daylight.

“Daytime
landings seem a lot safer,” James commented, hugging her from behind. 

“Well, the
visible light we use to see is only one way of viewing the world.  Aijo sees in
visible light, but also ultraviolet and infrared.  I understand that while the
Pharinae appear almost insubstantial to us, they’re quite solid appearing in
the far ultra violet spectrum.”

“And now, you’re
going to have to explain all that to me as well,” he said, kissing her neck. 
“Shall we head downstairs to the laboratory?”  A husky note in his voice told
her that science was probably the last thing on his mind.

“All right,” she
agreed with a happy grin.  “But first, we’re going to finally get you a paper
in the Royal Society and fulfill our promise to Brigid at the same time.”

On the recent
Fireball Sightings in Cornwall

Notes from
Lord James Holding, 6
^th
Earl of Courtland, to the Royal Society of
London

August, 1842

In the early
weeks of March, a bolide was visible in Cornwall to much of the peninsula. 
After collecting testimonies from the citizens near St Ives, it was determined
that the fireball’s bolide discharged into the ocean, possibly striking a
vessel which washed ashore the next morning.  The small craft that washed
ashore had a large hole in it and at some point, the lone crewman inside it
died. 

Several
additional shooting stars were seen more recently, but those can be attributed
to the well-known Meteor Shower, the Perseids, identified a little over a
decade ago by Adolphe Quételet, and they appear unrelated to the bolide from
last March.  No debris landed upon the surface of the Earth.