Chapter Thirty One
To Crown or Not to Crown
Jenna sat on the bed in the escape pod Sardius ordered for her at the beginning of her huge adventure. It was docked in Favel’s underwater mansion. She was in the air room.
She was the most important person.
The person of the hour.
She was also alone, underwater, sitting with her legs crossed on pink sheets. She was still wearing her grandfather’s fedora and not a crown. She was without every person she usually depended on. There was no Sardius beside her, no Favel, no Ixy, and no Conrad in her ear. She didn’t have a new earpiece.
She was alone.
Jenna had made up her mind. If she and Sardius ran away, it wouldn’t save them. Nothing could remove them from harm’s way. The only thing to do was for her to accept a new crown and take responsibility for everything she had done since she arrived on Octavia Prime.
She had made a few provisions for her agreement with the Octavians. She was waiting for Favel to return with the results of his meeting with the Octavian Council and the Hipposyphis subgroup.
No gems.
Her crown was to be as naked as a baby Octavian.
She planned to have a crown that was the same as the ones placed on Excelyn, Celestina, Philip, Scion, and Iker.
She also wanted the gifts the Octavians had offered her to be shared with the other diplomats.
The truth was that they received a budget from the Octavians to maintain them as they lived on Octavia Prime, but they received no salary. They were supposed to receive such things from their own Adamis government, but since they didn’t pay people they didn’t hire themselves, none of the crowned diplomats had a paycheck. The Octavians offered her eight gifts and they had done it twice. They had not made a similar gesture for any of the diplomats Jenna had crowned. She felt greedier than the devil taking everything herself. It had to be shared.
Jenna had been in council with them for hours. But it was hard to tell if the negotiations had gone well. If she thought Octavians were hard to read when she had them at the Dahlia Palace, they were much harder to read when they were floating in the water and making gestures with their tentacles.
The meeting was over, Jenna sat on the sheets humming and rocking gently.
After she thought about it, there was no way she could leave the other diplomats who she had recruited. She had to stay with them until the end. In her heart, she planned to retire once the last crown had been given away, but her feelings had changed since the jewel incident. It might mean that she spent her whole life working as a diplomat to the Octavians.
Well, that was what she thought her life would be like before she lost her crown… Did that mean that everything was back to normal? Except for the gem and the vast riches the Octavians offered to make her stay?
She sighed and fell back on her back.
Her grandmother, Letty, had wanted to leave Jenna an escape hatch if she wanted to go. And Jenna did want to go. She wanted to do all the things Sardius mentioned. She wanted to give up fighting with AAMC loser-men and eat a real meal and not worry when she closed her eyes at night that someone would try to abduct her while she slept.
It was a legitimate fear. She had been abducted a lot.
She wished someone was there to tell her that she was making the right choice by diving back into the boxing ring. Sardius, who should have supported the scrappiness she was pressing for kept curiously quiet. He was all fight, except when it didn’t do anyone any good. He really did let Jenna make up her own mind. Once she made it, he was supportive but aloof. He seemed to be waiting for her to get her crown before celebrating. In any case, he wasn’t there. She was waiting alone.
And the moments ticked by, the hours ticked by, and Jenna didn’t sleep as she waited for Favel to return with news. She barely blinked. She felt like throwing up.
That was the heart of what she felt.
The Octavians had mostly had her back since she came to their planet, but would they give her what she wanted? Because they were underwater, most of who and what they were was hidden by billions of pounds of water. Did Jenna even know who she was dealing with?
When Favel finally skidded into the room through the halfway box, Jenna was on her feet immediately.
“What did they decide?” she asked her bare feet on the wet grate beneath her feet.
Favel’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “They decided to give you what you want.”
“All of it?” Jenna gasped.
“Yes. All of it,” Favel returned. “You are their princess. As a matter of fact, the Hipposyphis love your plan. They feel good about the whole thing.”
“If they’re agreeing to everything, why did you take so long?” she wanted to know.
Favel hesitated. “Some of the council members wanted to add some negotiation points to our side.”
“Like what?” Jenna questioned with her mouth open. “What more could I give you?”
“They wanted you to marry someone from a different faction of Octavian politics. The debate and voting went on and on. The argument was that since Octavians are sometimes so short-lived compared to Adamis, you needed another husband besides me because you are likely to outlive me. I hesitated to tell you, Jenna, but I’m seven and a half years old and I’m very old for an Octavian of my species.”
Jenna gasped. “I’m a cradle robber!”
“I’m an adult,” he replied soundly.
“Wait. How old is Temptic?”
“He’s three and three-quarters,” Favel replied evenly. “Humans are just so immature for so long that you always looked up to me like I was older than you, but I’m not. The important part is that I finally won a debate and you don’t have to take a fourth husband. I tried to avoid all this by getting you to promise to marry Temptic in my absence. That was how I won the debate.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Thank you! And they’re not annoyed that I want to share their gifts?” Jenna asked, her words coming in a rush.
“The gifts are yours to do with as you like. You can do with them as you wish. Again, we’re Octavians. We barely understand your idea of property. In the sea, everything belongs to everyone. The Adamis are different. They are the reason we had to claim planets in the first place. They believe in property, so we had to say what we wanted. Otherwise, we would just think that everything belonged to everyone. Even the Adamis diplomats are like that. You all have your own palaces instead of one big one like me that is available for anyone to use if they want… Even you.”
Jenna sighed. “I’m so glad this isn’t as big a deal as I thought it was.”
“May I come with you when you have your meeting with the diplomats to tell them the news?” Favel asked pleasantly.
Jenna agreed cheerfully
“I’ll bring a new crown and a new earpiece for you on that day. It will be a glorious day.” Favel couldn’t smile. He didn’t have lips and Jenna knew his beak did not work that way, but the corners of his eyes lifted and so did something indelible in Jenna’s heart.
***
“Do I have to sit on your lap?” Conrad whined.
“Yes. Yes, you do,” Jenna said firmly, as she held the orange yarn boy in place. “I want you to be here for me in the moment they put the crown on my head.”
“But why me?” he asked, squirming.
“Because I like you.”
“You do?”
“Like crazy!” Jenna replied, cuddling him.
He went limp. “Not to be too weird, Jenna, but you have pets. You have a cat and that thing with too many legs that walks around like it’s broken. Why me?”
“Don’t ask me dumb questions,” she replied, shushing him. “A person does not get everything they want in life. Not even close, but if I could wish for just one tiny thing, it would be that you would sit on my lap and be my buddy when I’m crowned.”
His head fell to the side like a bobblehead that had had its neck stretched. “Don’t most people want moments like this all to themselves?”
“Can I raspberry your cheek?” she asked.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s kind of like a blowy kiss. You look like you have really soft cheeks.”
“Get the hell away from me!” Conrad started fighting, kicking, and pulling, but he didn’t get anywhere with it. He was still too skinny and too sick from the radiation sickness to fight Jenna, especially when all she was doing was refusing to open her arms and let him escape.
“Quiet down,” Sardius said, coming up beside the yarn boy and bonking him on the head. “Jenna mostly leaves you alone and she’ll probably really leave you alone after your wedding. When is it?”
“The day after tomorrow,” Conrad replied lethargically.
“Then you go on your honeymoon, and she won’t be around to bug you through all that. Then when you come back, you’re taking a job as an assistant to her butler. Am I right?”
Conrad gave a lazy blink to indicate his agreement.
“Why did you take a job for her if you didn’t want her to snuggle you occasionally?” Sardius wondered, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“I owe Jenna everything,” Conrad fumed. “I want to serve her. I just don’t want to be treated like a cross between a ragdoll and her long-lost son. Besides, she’s just acting like this because she’s nesting.”
“She’s not nesting,” Sardius refuted.
Conrad rolled his eyes. “When her baby comes, she’ll have the thing she really wants to love and I’ll be off the hook.”
Jenna opened her arms unexpectedly and let Conrad get down off her lap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not pregnant.”
“You’re not? I bet you are. I bet you got pregnant in the Xypher Zone before you even saw me,” he said, brushing himself off.
“That’s not possible,” Jenna chuckled. Then she abruptly stopped. “Everyone has told me over and over that that wouldn’t be possible.”
“Ah, well those people are idiots who don’t know anything about the darker side of biology and mutation caused by extreme, but controlled, radiation. Sardius knocking you up here wouldn’t have been possible. Him knocking you up on his world wouldn’t have been possible. In the Xypher Zone with that force field surrounding you and protecting you from the worst of the radiation sickness, but still allowing for a few abnormalities, I bet you are.”
Jenna looked at him crossly. “I wouldn’t like you to get my hopes up.”
“That’s funny,” Conrad said with a look on his face so serious nothing could ever be funny again. “I wouldn’t like to be wrong.”
They were going to crown Jenna. They weren’t going to film it because they had no plans to share all the crazy things that had happened with Jenna and her crown since the jewel had been added to her crown, but they decided to put the whole ceremony on hold while Excelyn ran a pregnancy test.
Jenna and Sardius stood behind Excelyn in her lab.
“That little guy, Conrad” Excelyn said, staring at something in a petri dish. “What was he in jail for? Something bad?”
“Yeah,” Jenna replied.
“Something biological?” Excelyn persisted.
“Yeah,” Sardius replied as the two of them paced in opposite circles behind the doctor.
“Well,” Excelyn said, with an exalted grin. “That little guy is right. You are pregnant, Jenna.”
The news was so shocking to her that she nearly fell to the floor. Sardius rushed and caught her before her head hit the tile.
She had almost blacked out, but she was with it enough to hear Excelyn say, “We’ll do an ultrasound in a few weeks to check on the baby’s skeleton. Whether your baby is more Boneman or more human, we won’t be able to see it right away. For both of your sakes, I hope it’s more like Jenna’s. Baby Bonemen are extremely difficult to birth.”
***
After the excitement had died down, they went back and put the crown on Jenna’s head.
Due to his request, Sardius was the one to place the crown on her head. When it clicked into place, Jenna felt a sinking feeling of finality. She had finally accepted her fate. For better. For worse.
For all that lay before her, it was done.
That night, she got on the bed in the Crescent Bell Palace and placed her hands on her belly.
Sardius kept looking at her funny… like he couldn’t believe that everything would work out.
“You think this is a bad thing. You think it will die. You think it will die before I carry it to term. You think that even if it is born, it will host a wide collection of problems and disfigurement, or it will die as soon as I give birth to it. Whatever the reason, you don’t think it will work out,” Jenna said, watching him as he did his evening rituals before getting into bed next to her. “For a guy who gambles, you’re sure cynical.”
“You’re right. I feel more cautious than I ever have before in my life and I never feel cautious. I always feel like it’s okay if everything goes up in flames with me in it, but now I feel worried... like I could lose something I can’t get back. Will this be okay? I’m not sure.”
Jenna blinked adorable eyes at him. “Do you get this feeling like our adventure is ending?”
He nodded. “I sure do.”
“But how can it be the end when we’re just starting everything?” Jenna exclaimed. “We just got married. I just took a new job with a new crown. We’re expecting a baby! How can this be the ending?”
“Maybe it’s more like it’s the end of one part of our lives that was really spectacular. I had to come across dimensions and fight to the death more than once to win you and now that you are mine and I am yours, we can’t have any of that heart-pounding drama that drives everyone wild in retrospect. Instead, we get to settle down like reasonable adults, although you are married to a seven-year-old… And that’s weird.”
“Shut up, Sardius,” Jenna grumbled. Surely, it wasn’t the last time she said those words to her man who always said whatever he wanted.
He flicked out the lights and explained to her quietly. “I’ve worked out how we can be alone in here. For the next four hours, we’re on our own. Not even Ixy can hear us.”
Jenna got excited. “What should we do?”
“I have to tell you a secret,” he whispered tantalizingly in the dark.
“Tell me!” Jenna begged.
He teased her and made her bed for ten minutes before he admitted, “I put the metal plate back under your crown before I put it on you.”
“You didn’t!” she exclaimed in horror.
He covered her mouth with his before she could say more.
She was angry, but there was plenty of time to be angry after their kiss, which might never end.
THE END