Jacinda's Challenge (Imperial 3)

by M. K. Eidem

  “I’ll hold you to that, Captain. And Captain,” Jacinda waited until he looked at her. "Please call me Jacinda.”

  Stephanie watched as the King’s Captain blushed. “Of course. I apologize… Jacinda, but only if you call me Nicholas.” Deffand gave her a boyish half smile.

  “I would be honored, Nicholas, and I will hold you to that coffee.”

  “Lieutenant Michelakakis,” Deffand bowed again then left.

  Jacinda let her gaze run over her daughter as Pittaluga himself sat them at her favorite table. It was in a sunny but private corner of the restaurant which still allowed her to people watch.

  “It is wonderful to have you with us again, Madame Michelakakis. You also, Miss Stephanie. Will you be wanting a piece of my Dobos Torte?”

  Stephanie found herself laughing at how Mister Pittaluga addressed her and was unwilling to correct the man who had been serving her Dobos Torte since her fifth birthday.

  “I will be, Mister Pittaluga. It’s been too long.”

  “I agree, Miss Stephanie. Would you like me to place your bags behind the counter so they’re not in your way, Madame Michelakakis?”

  “Thank you, Mister Pittaluga.” Jacinda smiled at the man as she handed him her bags. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Anything for you, Madame Michelakakis. I will be right back with your coffee.”

  Jacinda settled herself into her chair and looked at her daughter. “So? Are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what, Mother?”

  Jacinda smiled slightly at her words, knowing her daughter’s defense mechanism that had her call her ‘Mother’ instead of Mom.

  “Why you were so cool to Captain Deffand?” She watched Stephanie look away, another tell.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mother.”

  “Don’t you ‘mother’ me, Stephanie Anne. I know you. I remember every word of what you told me your ‘dream’ man was.”

  “MOM!” Stephanie quickly lowered her voice when she realized the attention they were drawing. “I was only a ten-cycle when I told you that!” she hissed.

  “Well has it changed?”

  “No, but I have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve grown up and come to realize I can’t always have what I want. Not if it interferes with what I really want.”

  “What?” Jacinda frowned at her daughter.

  “Mom… you don’t understand.” Stephanie leaned back and forced herself to smile at Mister Pittaluga as he brought their coffee and inhaled deeply. “Thank you, Mister Pittaluga, this smells wonderful. No one makes coffee like you.”

  “You are most welcome, Miss Stephanie. Your Dobos Torte will be out shortly. When I informed Luis who it was for, he stated he would make sure it was perfect.”

  Jacinda took a sip of her amazing coffee and waited until Pittaluga was out of hearing range before she turned her gaze back to her daughter. “Tell me what I don’t understand, Stephanie.”

  Stephanie sat back in her chair and assessed her mother. She knew that look, had received it too many times in her life to not know that in this her mother would not let her fib her way out.

  “Captain Deffand is the head of the King’s guard,” she began.

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “Did you know that he was the youngest ever to assume that position?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Also in the entire history of the House of Protection, a woman has never been allowed to guard the King.”

  “What?” Jacinda looked at her daughter in shock.

  “Never has a woman been allowed to be a member of the Royal Guard. King or Queen’s, even though over a third of the Coalition’s Security forces are women.”

  “I… I didn’t know that either.”

  “Well I want to change that and I can’t if I’m anything but professional with the Captain of the King’s Guard.”

  “Stephanie…” Jacinda put her hand over Stephanie’s.

  “I can’t be like you, Mom! I can’t give up all my dreams, let myself become the one thing I never wanted to be, all because of a man.”

  Jacinda jerked her hand away at her daughter’s criticism of her life. She forced a smile on her lips as Pittaluga approached with two pieces of the cake Stephanie so loved.

  “Thank you, Mister Pittaluga.”

  “You are most welcome, Madame Michelakakis. Enjoy.”

  “Mom, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Stephanie waited until Pittaluga was out of earshot before speaking.

  Jacinda took a small tasteless bite of her Torte, giving her mind time to process what her daughter had just accused her of. Did she truly think she had ‘given up her dreams’ to be with her father? That she had become the one thing she never wanted to be? She was right… to a point… but only to a point. It was true she had never wanted a life in politics, had wanted a life out of the public eye. If given a choice, she would never have chosen it, but it was Stephan’s dream to serve and it was no hardship, no sacrifice to help him achieve his dream. She silently and vocally thanked her mother for preparing her for the world where she seemed to know she was destined to live.

  “I think you did.” Jacinda turned hard eyes to her daughter. “I believe you owe me an explanation. Just what makes you think I ‘gave up all my dreams’ to be with your father?”

  “Mom. Aunt Palma and I would talk when I’d go to visit. She told me how all you ever wanted was to serve in the Coalition, to never be involved in politics again.”

  “And because of that, you believe I resented my life with your father?”

  “I wouldn’t say resent, but it couldn’t have been what you really wanted!”

  “No. It wasn’t.” Jacinda agreed, her eyes pinning Stephanie. “It was more! More than I could ever imagine! Your father and I were a team. We worked together, raised a family, and in the end he gave me a dream I didn’t even know I wanted. How dare you think you have the right to judge my life!”

  “Mom! That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “I’m just saying I want to fulfill my dreams, not support someone else’s.”

  “Then what?” Jacinda demanded. “When you achieve this goal of yours to be the first woman in the King’s Guard, what then?”

  “What?”

  “There’s more to life than work, Stephanie. It’s something your father never truly understood because he loved what he did. In that, you and your father are alike.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jacinda eyed her daughter. She was a full-grown woman, no longer her daddy’s little girl who thought the suns rose and set in him, that he was perfect.

  “You're right to a point, that I would have preferred to not be involved in politics. If I hadn’t loved your father, I wouldn’t have been, but I don’t regret it. My only regret is that I allowed your father to serve so long.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There is so much about your father’s and my life that you don’t know, Stephanie. You’ve always viewed us through the eyes of a child or as your parents. You just assumed we were here to serve you and your brothers. Its only now, that you are older that you realize we were more than that. You see me as a woman who gave up her dreams for a man, but what you don’t understand is… he was my dream. Was it a perfect dream? No, but that’s what made it special and ours. Your father fully understood what he was asking of me when he asked me to be his wife. It’s why he promised me he would not serve past his sixty-fifth cycle if he were still serving then.”

  “But…” Stephanie looked at her in shock, knowing her father was still serving at seventy.

  “It’s the only promise he didn’t keep to me.” Jacinda gave her a sad smile, “and it was my fault. I should have pressed harder. I knew he was tiring easier, but he was so happy to serve, to be involved in shaping the world his children and grandchildren would live in. Maybe if I had…”
>
  “Mom,” Stephanie reached out and gripped her hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, but I should have taken better care of him. Should have made him see that it was time to slow down.”

  “Dad never slowed down.”

  “No. He didn’t. He always insisted that life was for living.”

  “He did say that. It was some of his last words to me before I left on the tour before he died. He said, Stephanie, life is a wonderful thing. Live it. Don’t be afraid to risk yourself, to risk others judging you. Take the path it sometimes makes no sense to take and when you do, you will find you are where you were always meant to be. That’s living, Stephie, not just existing.”

  Jacinda let her tears run unashamedly down her cheeks as she listened to her life mate’s last words to the only other woman to have captured his heart. His daughter.

  “Good words.” Jacinda gave her a watery smile. “I hope you follow them, Stephanie, because he gave you the secret to how he lived his life, even when it was hard. And he had an amazing one.”

  “He did, thanks to you and your support.”

  “He gave as much to me. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but the truth is, he was the one who allowed me to travel that path I was sure I didn’t want to take and by doing so I got him, my children, and an amazing life. I got to become the person I was always supposed to be. Not the one I thought I was.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have realized…”

  “It’s fine, Stephie.” Jacinda used Stephan’s pet name for her letting her know she was forgiven. “I said the same things to my mother, only I was much younger than you when I said them and was much more adamant I was right.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, before I left for the Academy. She wanted me to stay and go to a school within the House of Healing where I would be accessible to those she considered ‘worthy’ of her daughter.”

  “Really? Did she have someone in mind?” Stephanie found herself asking.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Jacinda grimaced remembering.

  “Who?” Stephanie’s eyes sparkled with curiosity after her mother’s reaction.

  “It was ridiculous. I mean he was a child and a whiny one at that. How she could imagine, I might one day be interested in him…”

  “Who mother!”

  “Prince Yusuf,” Jacinda whispered.

  “Prince Yusuf!” Stephanie nearly shouted drawing the attention of nearby tables.

  “Stephanie!” Jacinda hissed. “Lower your voice.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” She immediately lowered her voice. “But Prince Yusuf? Who is now King Yusuf?”

  “Yes.” Jacinda rested her forehead in her hand at the memory. “What could my mother have possibly been thinking? He’s nine cycles younger than me!”

  “Dad was twenty cycles older than you,” Stephanie reminded her.

  “Yes, but that was different.” Jacinda bit out.

  “Really?” Stephanie smiled at her mother’s reaction. It was a rare thing for her to see her flustered. “How?”

  “Your father and I were both adults when we met. Yusuf was five when my mother started her plotting. I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t even out of school when I met Stephan. How would you like me trying to get you interested in Athol Allerd when you were fourteen.”

  “Ewww, Mother! Athol Allerd! He was the neighborhood terror!” She leaned across the table and whispered. “He was always picking his nose!”

  “So you understand.”

  “Are you saying….” Stephanie’s eyes widened.

  “I would never say such a thing, Stephanie Anne! Yusuf is the King of the House of Healing and deserves my respect.”

  “Oh, Mother,” Stephanie eyed her mother with new respect. “You are soooo bad.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Jacinda smiled benignly at her daughter. “Now let’s enjoy this amazing Torte then finish buying out Pechora.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Majesty! Majesty!”

  Jotham absently waved at those that were calling out his name as he entered the Assembly Hall for the first session of the new Assembly. Assembly Guards were holding back the yelling crowds. While he wore his crown, he had foregone the Royal robe. It was something he now only wore for the most formal of occasions that included meeting the Kings and Queens of the other Houses.

  Moving through the Hall, he paused before the closed doors that separated him from the Assembly that waited for him to officially open the new cycle. This was the fortieth time he had done this and he wondered when it had become routine for him.

  He could still remember how anxious he had been that first time he addressed this Assembly after his father’s death. He’d been twenty, just returning from his second tour with the Fleet, and newly wed. He stood before that Assembly and saw the doubt in so many eyes. Doubt that he would be able to step into the role he had suddenly been thrust. Doubt that he could take command of this Assembly and live up to those that came before him.

  He, himself, had doubted it. Lata hadn’t. She had proudly walked beside him as they entered that Assembly. He remembered how it had filled him with such pride to see her sitting there, so regally. She let no one intimidate her. She was his Queen and she had only been eighteen cycles.

  He still remembered the first time he had to address the Assembly after her death. He couldn’t look to where she should have been. If he had, he never would have made it through that speech.

  “Majesty?”

  Deffand’s question pulled Jotham from his memories. “Open the doors, Captain.”

  “Yes, Majesty.” Deffand nodded to the guards at the doors.

  As they opened them, the Assembly’s Sergeant at Arms announced his arrival.

  “All rise for the King of the House of Protection,” he shouted and everyone rose.

  Jotham slowly walked down the aisle, nodding to an Assemblyman here and there, as he approached the podium. Why did he feel no excitement, no anticipation for the coming cycle? Turning, he looked to the empty Royal area and felt his heart lurch. Lata should be there. She should be sitting there, smiling up at him as she always had and for just a moment he swore she was. Her smile was as bright and her eyes as full of love as they had always been, then she slowly faded away. Yet she left behind a joy and sense that he was exactly where he was supposed to be that he hadn’t felt in cycles.

  The sound of the Assembly moving restlessly as he stood silently at the podium finally broke through to him and he forced his gaze away from Lata’s empty seat.

  “Today marks my fortieth address to this esteemed Assembly and I am honored to be able to deliver it to you. Forty cycles… where has the time gone?” Jotham let his gaze travel over the Assemblymen gathered on the floor before moving to the people in the balconies.

  “It seems like only yesterday that I addressed you for the first time. Many of you weren’t even born then, yet here you sit, where others once sat. Where others once stood.”

  “They were dedicated men and women who wanted to make their House and their world a better place for their children. Some were Assemblymen. Some served in the Coalition. Some were those who performed the necessary, yet unglamorous day-to-day tasks that it takes for our society to function properly.”

  “Those of you before me have the daunting task of living up to the standards they set and they set them high. As Assemblymen, you must always remember that you serve the people of this great House. You must make sure that the laws you enact, that the decisions you make are always in their best interest, even when they may not be in your own."

  "You owe it to those who made it possible for you to be where you are today. Assemblymen like Pedahel Watson, Roxbert Botterill, and Stephan Michelakakis. They all dedicated their lives to the advancement of their people."

  "You owe it to those that are to come, your children and your children’s children to do this. But most of all you owe it to those that are here now. Look around you,” he ordered and waited until the
y did. “See the people you serve. See their hopes and dreams and know that what you do in this room directly affects those dreams.”

  “Yet even with all of that responsibility and power, you are not more important than those that serve in the Coalition. They willingly protect us all, risking their very lives to do so.”

  “And you are not more important than those that serve quietly in the background. The ones that do the necessary day-to-day activities that make our society work. They and the families that support them are as important as any Assemblyman or member of the Coalition.”

  “Queen Lata came from such a strong and proud people.” He heard the gasp that echoed through the hall at the mention of Lata. “Many considered them commoners, but I say to you there is no such thing, not in this House. I look at you, my people, and I don’t see one ‘common’ person anywhere. Each of you is extraordinary in your own way and you do extraordinary things every day. Never think that it goes unnoticed by your King.”

  Applause thundered through the hall, the majority coming from the balconies where people were shouting their approval and Jotham acknowledged them with a small nod.

  “In a few weeks, the Guardian, the new flagship for the House of Protection, will be leaving to join the Fleet to protect us from our enemies. And while it’s Captain, Lucas Zafar, is from the House of Protection, there are members from every House serving on her. It is a true representation of the best of Carina.” Jotham thought about what William had told him before and decided to see what he could stir up.

  “We are a great people. We have a great future. The only thing that can stop us is us.” He heard the confused whispers. “A people cannot have a great future if they don’t learn from the mistakes of their past. Ten cycles ago one of ours was responsible for the death of billions.”

  He heard the rumbles of disagreement begin to filter through the hall. He knew what they were thinking, Audric had been from the House of Knowledge, not the House of Protection.

  “It matters not which House Audric claimed! He was Carinian! One of us and that makes all of us responsible for his actions!” Jotham’s claim echoed in the hall. “Actions caused by greed and the belief of his self-importance. We must remain vigilant so that it never happens again. So that when we become history," Jotham touched his chest, “future generations can look back at this time and celebrate our accomplishments, not be disgusted by our short comings. The choice rests with you.”