Holographic Princess (Planet Origins Book 3)

by Lucia Ashta

  I was a princess risen from the dead. Fear me, I broadcast to the father guard with my swirling, cosmic eyes. I suddenly realized I hadn’t answered him when he asked me, so tentatively, if I was the princess. So now I made it a part of my act. I glared at him, defying him to defy me.

  When the father guard finally bowed to me, I thought it might have been as much to avoid my penetrating gaze as anything else. I was trying to bore a hole into him with my eyes, wondering what they reflected now that I was upon another planet. Did they reflect the purple of the Plune Moon? I’d have to ask Tanus once this was all over.

  With the father guard’s head bowed, his neck exposed and vulnerable, I walked over to him. I thought Tanus would follow, but he only took a couple of steps toward me before stopping. He too seemed aware of appearances.

  I loomed over the father guard. He tilted his eyes up nervously before training them to the red ground beneath him. I breathed in deeply, hoping it came off as a sound of disappointment instead of what it really was, a steeling of strength and attitude and a fierce hope I wouldn’t say anything that might betray me to all these people.

  “I am the princess of Planet Origins, daughter to the mighty King Oderon. I carry the blood of the Andaron Dynasty within my veins.” I’d been paying attention. But I resisted the urge to turn to Tanus to confirm that I’d gotten everything right. Since no one looked at me askew, I was encouraged to continue with my charade. “Under whose authority are you here?”

  “Lord Drakos ordered us here, Your Majesty.”

  “And who ordered you to abuse, intimidate, and frighten these gentle people?”

  At this, the father guard flicked his gaze up at me before swiftly hiding it again. I wondered if any word I’d chosen didn’t exist here or if I was out of character. But it was too late to retreat now. I had to plow ahead.

  “No one, Your Majesty. However, under your father’s banner, I’m given the authority to act as I see fit in the situation to ensure peace and order.”

  “And you were ensuring neither here. You were being a bully.”

  “A bully, your Majesty?”

  “An aggressor. A tyrant. Someone who uses his strength and authority to take advantage of others, to their detriment.” Even as I said this, realizing these were words the father guard did recognize, I understood there was a chance I was entering the dangerous zone of hypocrisy. I still didn’t know what kind of man my father was on this planet, but I’d heard enough to realize these adjectives might also apply to him.

  I forced myself to focus on the misdeeds of one man at a time. “You had no right to treat these people like this.”

  “But they were withholding information, Your Majesty!”

  “They were frightened of you, as you gave them every reason to fear you. You weren’t behaving as a… member of the Royal Guard should.” I’d wanted to say captain, but his men had called him father. I couldn’t use his rank without betraying that I had no idea what I was saying or doing.

  “But Your Majesty, this is how we get answers. The people aren’t always forthcoming with us unless we shake them up a bit.”

  “Is that so?” I tried to keep the veins on both sides of my forehead from bulging in my anger that gentle people like this tribe’s were apparently being mistreated all over O.

  The father guard registered my barely contained ire. His response came so softly that I might not have heard him if I weren’t towering above him. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  I worked my jaw back and forth. I counted to ten, and when that didn’t work, I counted to fifty. Meanwhile, the silence became tense. Finally I decided this method of calming myself was bullshit. I was angry for these people and I didn’t care. Apparently they’d never had a champion of their rights before. Well, they had one now.

  “Who’s second in command here?” I asked the guards behind their father.

  Peculiarly, the one who was either Chauncy or Torle looked to both Tanus and Dolpheus first. I couldn’t understand why until Dolpheus said, “We’ve retired from the service. You may discount our seniority.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Dolpheus. He shrugged and smiled.

  “Your Majesty, then I would be second in command,” Chauncy or Torle said. “And Torle here is the next after me.”

  “In that case, Guard Chauncy, you’re to take charge of these men. I’m relieving your… father guard—” I paused. I was getting close to tripping on erroneous terminology. “Of his duty. He isn’t a prisoner at this time, but he’ll have to answer for his misuse of the authority granted to him under my father’s banner.” I was mixing Medieval terms and making up new ones. I had to bring my regal appearance to a quick close before I tripped on the knot in my tongue and landed flat on my face.

  “But Your Majesty—”

  I silenced the father guard’s further attempt to defend himself. There was no excuse for bullying. “This isn’t the time for you to present your defense.” I hoped they were allowed to present a case for themselves, even if I didn’t think this man would be able to convince me that he shouldn’t be censured for his actions. Still, did due process exist on Planet Origins? I hoped so. It was far from an impeccable system of justice, but it was better than nothing.

  Considering I’d arrived on this planet reluctant to assume the role of princess, I was beginning to think that the people of this planet might need me to. This Lord Drakos, whoever he was, sounded perhaps even more like a tyrant than I was beginning to suspect the King might be. I assumed that if I were here to claim my position, Lord Drakos would no longer be giving the orders while the King recovered.

  One more look at the dozens of tribespeople bowed to me gave me reason to do what I ordinarily wouldn’t have wanted to. I didn’t want power. Never had. Life was complicated enough without it, thanks very much. But if no one else was going to defend these people, someone had to.

  Afterward, when I’d have the chance to ask Tanus, Dolpheus, Kai, and Lila more about the state of rule of Planet O and the living conditions of its people, I’d be forced to make a decision. Either way, I was a princess for now.

  “You can take your former father guard now, Chauncy,” I said. “And Torle, you’re to back him up if he needs your support, do you understand me?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Torle said with a deferential bow of the head.

  I’d half expected the father guard to resist. He didn’t. Instead, when Chauncy brought him up to standing, he asked me a question. “How is that you live, Princess? We believed you dead.”

  “How I survived isn’t your concern. What is your concern is that your princess does live, and you owe her your undying allegiance.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” the father guard allowed.

  “Things are about to change. You can tell everyone that I survived and that I’m not afraid of anyone. I’ll take power until my father is recovered. And my priority will be the needs of my subjects. All of my subjects. Every man, woman, and child will have my protection. You can tell that to everyone too.”

  Once I shut my mouth, I realized what I’d said. I hadn’t meant to announce myself ruler of a planet, one that I remained so wholly unfamiliar with. I really hadn’t. My mouth had been getting me into trouble since I was a young girl and my parents would discipline me for attitude. Little had changed over the decades, except that my attitude had gotten more pronounced, and my words the cause of more trouble than they were worth.

  Apparently, some things would never change.

  “To a healthy and long rule for her Majesty, Princess Ilara of the Andaron Dynasty!” Tanus called out behind me.

  “To a healthy and long rule for her Majesty, Princess Ilara of the Andaron Dynasty!” The response roared. Even the father guard’s lips moved in response to Tanus’ prompt.

  Oh, good god. What have I done?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ONCE I FIGURED I was finished with my grand pronouncements, I expected everyone to disperse. It didn’t happen that way. Nothing, it wou
ld seem, happened as I anticipated after Tanus pulled me through a lake and into another world.

  After all my fanfare, the last thing I wanted to do was undermine my recently established authority. But I really had no clue what to do. Everyone, except for Chauncy and the father guard, continued to bow. Even Tanus, my supposed lover.

  Tanus was a fugitive from the law, but it appeared that the real crime he was accused of committing was some kind of imaginary offense conceived within Lord Drakos’ conniving mind.

  “Lord Tanus,” I said loud enough for all to hear, “I require your assistance.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said as he rose.

  Hastily, I pulled him off to the side. “What am I supposed to do now?” I whispered desperately.

  His smile was full of mischief and satisfaction. “You seem to be doing a fine job of figuring out what to do without my help.”

  I chuckled without mirth. “Yeah. Right. I’m sure I said several things that didn’t make sense for this place.” When he didn’t offer anything, I asked with sudden alarm, “Did I?”

  He shrugged. “A few, perhaps. But that’s not the important thing. You said nothing that would reveal that you just came from another planet. Perhaps some of the ways you chose to express yourself were… unusual. But you always were a bit different than everyone else. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you.”

  I hesitated, unsure what to say or do, worried about my mistakes. I needed the father guard to believe me or our haphazard little plan was doomed to failure already.

  Tanus moved in closer. He took my elbow. To me the gesture was intimate, but the others might interpret it simply as the actions of an adviser. “Look, you’re doing fine. Don’t worry about it. What do you want to do know?”

  “That’s what I called you over here to ask!” I whispered agitatedly. “Please tell me you know what to do now that I put us in this position.”

  He smiled again, and I was torn between finding him cute and thinking him annoying. He said, “You did announce your position pretty clearly.”

  I huffed. “I know. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

  “You weren’t. But again, that’s one of the things I like about you. You do things when they need to be done, without worrying about what will happen later. As you said, right is right.”

  “I know. We couldn’t let that father guard keep tormenting these people like he was. By the way, why in the hell do the guards under his command call him father?”

  Another shrug. “I guess it’s because the Royal Guard replaces their parents. Their superior is the one to give them orders instead of their fathers. Before they did what their fathers told them to do, now they do what their father guard tells them to do.”

  “And do you do what your father tells you?”

  “Which father?” he said with anger and frustration in equal measure.

  “Either.”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever?”

  “No, not really.”

  “That’s probably one of the things I liked about you,” I said.

  “You still don’t remember?”

  “I’m sorry, but no,” I said, watching his face fall. I brought a discrete hand to his back. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t.”

  Tanus ran a hand through his bouncy brown hair, leaving it wilder than it was before. Finally, he said, “We can’t just leave these people in obeisance like this.”

  “Yeah. I know,” I said, not even bothering to keep the sarcasm from my voice. “That’s what I called you over here for, remember? What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  “Well, we can’t let the father guard and his men go before we’re ready to get you out of here. Surely the Royal Guard will share the news of your survival the second they’re out of sight.”

  “How? How’ll they do that? Do they have cell phones or something here?”

  “Cell phones?”

  “A way to communicate, whatever.”

  “They have comm devices.”

  “Do they have them now?”

  “Yes. Most likely. Most people of means have them attached to their heads during all their waking hours. They believe they can’t talk to each other in their minds, so they use these amplification devices. I swear, I don’t think most of them even try before they start using the comms.”

  “I see. So what’s keeping them from announcing my presence now?”

  “Nothing, I guess. Just that we’re watching them.”

  “Well, we can’t have them tell anyone about me until we’re ready for them to.”

  “True. Although, at least you can always transport if we need to get out of here fast.”

  “About that, Tanus, I’m not sure I can transport.”

  He chuckled. “Of course you can.”

  “I’m serious. I don’t think I can. I don’t remember anything. I don’t know how to do all the things you think I can.”

  He studied me for a few beats, arms akimbo. “You’re serious.”

  “Regrettably.”

  “Fuuuck.”

  “That’s been my thought on most things since arriving on this… lovely planet.”

  He ran another hand through his hair. “Shit, Ilara, this really complicates things. That means we can’t chance news of your survival leaking even a second before we’re ready.” He turned accusing eyes on me. Even in the purple light I could see his vexation. “You should have told me you couldn’t transport before I agreed to allow you to do this.”

  “Allowed me? Are you suggesting that I needed your permission?” I might not know shit from roses on this big rock, but I didn’t care. I had no intention to ask for his permission ever again if I could help it.

  He said nothing, just stared at me. I took this as a yes.

  “Besides,” I went on, a bit angry now, accusing him without knowing all the reasons why, “I warned you that I didn’t know how to do all these things you thought me capable of. I told you I couldn’t transport earlier.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Hadn’t I? I wasn’t sure anymore. Things were too crazy and convoluted. I was struggling to keep all my facts—the few that I knew—straight. So I let it go.

  One more look at all the people unwilling to stand, without my permission I guessed, refreshed my focus for the urgency of the present. “Tanus, I can’t just leave these people like this. What do we do? Have I really messed things up badly?” My emotions were all over the place. One second I was mad, the next frustrated, and after that despondent.

  His hands back to his waist, he turned toward the clearing.

  “What—?”

  He put up a hand to stop me. “Just give me a moment.”

  I waited, chewing the inside of my lip, hoping I hadn’t fucked up my first ten minutes of being a princess already.

  “Okay. I know what to do. It’s not perfect, but it’ll work.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Announce to everyone that I’m your adviser, let’s say, and that they’re to do as I direct them.”

  “Okay…”

  “And then I’ll organize everyone so you don’t have to and so we don’t have to worry about you saying things like ‘bully.’”

  He had a point. It would be a relief not to have to worry about my every word. But now that I was princess, I had to place my confidence wisely. Did I trust him? This man I was supposed to know, yet didn’t. That I was supposed to love…

  “Well?” he asked, and I tried not to read the flickering shift of emotions in his green eyes. I had to make this decision for my people, ridiculous as the idea was.

  “Okay.” I nodded. “And how do I tell them they don’t have to keep bowing to me?”

  “You tell them you thank them for their allegiance and that they’re free to stand, in whatever colorful terms you might choose.”

  “All right,” I said and stepped back into the clearing.

  One step at a time. I can do this, whatever th
is might be.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT WAS clear Tanus was comfortable with being in charge. I imagined an ease at giving orders such as the one he was displaying could only come from abundant experience. The tribespeople responded well to him, and all but the so-called father among the Royal Guard seemed to respect him, regardless of the fact that they’d been dispatched to collect him for execution. Were the orders from the royal court usually as fickle as this that their enforcers should so readily turn traitorous? Sure, they had no good choice in the matter. Tanus hadn’t outwardly threatened them, but the sword at his waist said what his words didn’t. Still, the guards didn’t so much as complain at the turning of tides. I wondered, was it because they admired Tanus, or was it because they were that apathetic about their government? And if they were apathetic about their government, they must have good reason.

  I understood so little about the operation of daily life upon Planet O, but I’d seen enough already, in the short time I’d been here, to realize things weren’t quite right. Certainly, life on Earth gave me enough experience to know that corruption and greed were one of the great common themes of society, especially within the ruling segment, the one that should be immune to these ills. I suspected that these two planets were more alike than I wished them to be. The nagging feeling in my gut wouldn’t let me forget my apprehension at realizations to come.

  Once I thanked the people bowed before me for their gestures of allegiance, the father guard, one of only two standing, tried to leave the clearing immediately. Tanus stopped him in his tracks.

  “Former Father Guard, what’s your name?”

  He turned to face Tanus, and I recoiled at the look of disgust upon his features. It wasn’t clear where his disgust was directed—at the fugitive of justice, at the princess who survived, or at the situation in general—but it was evident that’s what it was. “My name is Lord Billius.”

  “Well, Lord Billius, I’m going to need your comm.”

  While Billius seethed, and Tanus did a remarkable job of ignoring the attitude I would have already risen to match, Tanus stared in the direction where Dolpheus stood. A full minute passed in which it became clear that Tanus wasn’t just staring in Dolpheus’ direction, but he was, indeed, staring intently at Dolpheus. And he and Dolpheus were communicating. Silently.