Authors Note:
This is a story I've been working on for a little while. This first part introduces the two main characters and part of the conflict. I've written the rest of the story, but I'm sure I'll continue to make changes as it goes, so feel free to make comments and suggestions. I may incorporate them along the way.
Thanks!
Prolog
She stood in a circle of monsters, surrounded by flames. Her face was smudged with soot and blood. One curl of her white hair fell loose in front of her face out of her knit cap. Her eyes were wide as she watched her three remaining attackers. She had dispatched the first four easily, but these three were... smarter... faster.... The beasts each had four long arms ending in jagged talons. Their teeth were long and sharp, their mouths oozed venom. The skin of one a mottled brown, of another a nearly fluorescent green, the third just seemed to fade into its surroundings, only visible due to its movements and the reflection of flames.
They circled her and she cursed herself for allowing them to surround her. She turned and turned, trying to keep her eyes on all three of them. She determined to go after the nearly invisible one as it posed the highest threat. She charged towards it suddenly, her short sword up and in attack position, her dagger on guard. All three enemies screamed in a pitch high enough as to be nearly inaudible to her, but which caused the baying of hounds much closer to her than she expected. She dispatched her target with a strike through its neck.
The green and brown monsters were upon her before she could even turn to them. She screamed herself as she felt talons sink through the soft flesh of her upper arm before she could pull her sword free from the carcass of their companion. Suddenly an arrow shot past her and into the eye of the brown one while a large man in carbon fiber armor seemed to coalesce out of nowhere to crush the skull of the one who had pierced her arm.
"Your Highness," he gave her the briefest of bows.
"Your Grace," she inclined her head the barest fraction.
"We have the Princess and need evac. She is injured," he spoke into the communicator on his wrist. The archer stepped into the clearing and scanned the area for further threats. The Duke strode over to the Princess and applied pressure to the wound on her upper arm.
Part I: The Present
Chapter 1: On the way to Citadel
"I understand, Your Majesty. I have your sister on my medical ship. She lost a lot of blood, but the doctors expect her to heal completely. She should regain use of her arm."
"Thank you, Jacob. As you know, my kid sister means a lot to me. Please do what you have to in order to keep her safe."
"Of course, Edward.
"I am taking her home to Citadel. It's easily my most defensible stronghold in this sector. She will be well taken care of there until we can get her back to you."
"It's a good thing David contacted me and your Seeress was able to predict her location."
"Good thing I was already on D-702 protecting the Beacon."
"Yeah. It seems a little bit too coincidental, doesn't it?
"See if you can find out from her what the hell she was doing on that backwater so close to the front? She had been studying on Academy. She should have been light years away from any danger."
"If she will talk to me, I'll ask her," Edward could hear the smile in Jacob's voice. "She did not seem best pleased to see me, even if she'd be dead if we had gotten there minutes later."
"The Princess is fierce, it is true. You know that our father encouraged it. She is very skilled with that short sword and her daggers."
"Trust me, I remember. She gave me plenty of bruises when we used to spar together back when I was Page and Squire to your father. But I had not seen her since your coronation. She was a beautiful girl and has developed into a stunning woman."
"She has developed into a real pain in my ass. Every one of my unmarried lords and vassals has expressed an interest in taking her hand. Except you. At least I know I can trust her with you.
"I wish our father were still here to deal with it. She refuses to marry for political gain and I don't have the stomach to force her. Our father would have had no qualms about it."
"Are you kidding?" Jacob asked, grinning. "The king was wrapped around her little finger. He'd not force her into marrying.
"Besides, judging from her accounting of herself with the sword, any match not founded in love will result in a beheading," Jacob grinned. "You are wise to allow her to make her own choice."
"You speak the truth. I don't expect she will ever marry, though. She told me that her mother, the Queen Dowager, has made it abundantly clear that she will not be allowed to marry her one true love. But neither of them will tell me who holds my sister's heart."
***
Jacob stood outside the infirmary waiting for the Princess to allow him to enter. The sterile white of all the surfaces and the harsh too-bright lighting made his eyes burn. He tried to focus instead on the vastness of space that he could see out the window and the muddy green planet below him. It always amazed him that no matter how much conflict there was on the ground, no matter how intense the fighting, planets always looked serene from space. D-702 below was no different. Its primary features from space were its endless forests and long winding rivers. Any smoke from the fighting was indistinguishable from the natural clouds and mist that hung above the thick jungles.
He felt responsible for the planet, no matter how minor a territory it was in his sector. It was his to protect with its colonies of forester families who tended it, both those who harvested wood and other flora and those who tended to the new growth they fostered in its wake.
He did not like spending time on the medical ship and was anxious to shuttle back to his command ship. He needed to assure that the defenses left behind would be adequate to protect his people, but he knew even that would have to wait until he secured the safety of the Princess. He had been standing there for quite some time, his anxiety growing by the minute, before a nurse came out and invited him in. He grumbled inwardly about being told where he was allowed to go on his own ship, but put on an outward smile as he entered the room. He had a chance to really look at the Princess for the first time since he'd rescued her. She sat chatting with the ship's doctor, wearing her arm in a sling, her right shoulder covered in bandages.
The beauty promised in the girl he had known had been fulfilled in the woman. Her face, now clean of the blood and soot of battle, was unnaturally pale. Her eyes, larger than any pure human's, a shade of violet that did not occur in Terrans. Her ears, close to her head, swept up to taper, not quite to points. Her nose was narrow, its tip turning up at the end. Her chin was pointed, her mouth was small, though her lips full and dark pink. She was tall, perhaps a hand and a half shorter than he - a trait, like her ears and unusual eyes, that came from her mother. Her hair was cut short, white and shown with an almost metallic lustre.
Her mother's people were known for their delicate bone structure and their gaunt, angular features. Fiona was none of those things. As a girl she had been slightly plump and soft; her woman's body was voluptuous, softly curvy in all the appropriate places.
"Your Royal Highness, may I speak with you?" Jacob asked her, approaching with a bow.
"Of course, Your Grace. But please call me Fiona. You used to call me that, Jacob. Not so long ago." She smiled at him, her eyes sad and he immediately felt his pulse start to race. He could not deny her beauty and when she smiled for him he knew he was in trouble.
"You were a girl then, Princess. You are a woman now and I must not overstep my place," he said for his benefit as much as hers.
"The king has agreed to allow you to stay and recuperate on Citadel. You will be safe there. It is far enough from the fighting that there should be no need for evacuation. Once the doctors pronounce you well enough, you will be transported back to Academy or to Terra if you prefer."
Fiona studied him as he spoke. He looked much the same and yet so different from how he had the last time she saw him. He was tall - very tall, broad of shoulder, and muscular through the arms and chest as befit a skilled fighter. His dark blond hair was cropped short, his clear blue eyes were serious. Constant worry seemed to have etched vertical lines between his brows. She was glad to see that the corners of his mouth still seemed always to be ready to curve up in a boyish grin. The aristocratic nose she had so admired as a child was perfectly proportioned to the rest of his angular face.
She had forgotten how handsome he was... or maybe he had just improved with age. The boy she had known had been smaller, unfinished, tending to lanky rather than muscular. As a child she had adored him if for no other reason than that he had treated her no differently than he treated any of the other younger siblings of his friends at court. She was a half-breed princess but to him she was just Edward's kid sister. She would always treasure that.
"She will need at least four weeks to recover from the wounds she received from the Imperial Dog Soldiers," Fiona was brought out of her reverie by the doctor's voice. "She will need to rest in order to allow her body to heal."
"Seriously? I'll be fine in less than a week."
"I'm sorry, Your Highness," the doctor responded, contrite. "You risk nerve damage if you try to push the healing process."
"Your brother has explicitly told me to keep you on Citadel until you are pronounced healthy by the doctors," Jacob told her. "He said that if you are going to be looking for trouble without informing him, the least he can do is make sure you are healthy when you do it," he smiled in an attempt to soften the blow.
Fiona tried to throw her hands up in exasperation but winced in pain at the movement of her right shoulder.
"I wasn't looking for trouble. I just found it," she sighed softly.
"If you are ready, we will shuttle over to my cruiser. Then you can make yourself comfortable, Princess. We'll be departing for Citadel within the next hour."
***
Fiona watched D-702, muddy brown and green, retreat in the distance. She gazed at the stars through the front viewport of Jacob's cruiser as they started their trip to Citadel. She sighed happily at blackness pinpointed with blue and white and pink stars. Jacob noticed the sound from where he sat in the Captain's seat and turned to look at her. He smiled at the look of wonder on her face. She noticed him looking at her and glanced at him self-consciously before returning her gaze to the void of space.
"You know on Terra there is no place you can go and see the stars at night," she said in explanation. "Academy is nearly as bad."
"I know. When I went to court as a boy to be a Page for your father one of the things I missed most from home was being able to look up and see familiar constellations. The simulation of the night sky in the throne room is a poor substitute."
"Exactly. It lacks... depth. I like seeing actual stars. I like seeing how they aren't all white... the subtle colors just can't be represented.
"It reminds me of that fairy story about the pirate captain who fell in love with the night sky. When I was little I wanted to see the night sky so badly because of that story." Fiona gestured softly with her left hand. Jacob saw her wince as her right hand had twitched at the same moment her left hand came up.
