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Nash elbows her subtly, and she steps back into the hallway. “Are you hungry?” asks Nash, changing the subject.

My stomach growls. “A little. I just need a shower first.”

I smooth my skirt and follow them out into the long hallway.

“This place is huge,” pipes up Raneeda as the door closes behind us. “We found all sorts of rooms. There’s a med-bay, with a table that’ll work great for massages. Come by after your shower and I’ll give you a massage, okay? I want to be useful, too.”

I’m guessing that Nash gave her a pep talk while I was napping, because the two of them are focused on being servants. When I put myself in their places, I get it. They also got thrown into an unfamiliar situation, and the three aliens are intimidating.

“Sure,” I say, still groggy from the nap, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

Nash leads the way. “I found a kitchen. It’s industrial sized, and the triad stocked it up with fresh food. All bland, by the way. I looked everywhere, and the only spices are salt and pepper. They think we’re wusses after the…incident,” she says, and Raneeda giggles, nervously, the three of us remembering how we were desperately guzzling down red wine. “I’ll whip something up for you.”

“Thank you,” I say, as we walk to the mess hall. I leave them there, going to the bedroom, with its own black door to what must be another pleasure room.

The triad took me to the other one because it was never used. Whatever Aurelian king who ruled here before Independence must have had it constructed before he was forced off the planet. The Aurelians wanted me in virgin ground, somewhere that would be only ours.

I reach out, touching the auras of the triad. They’re cold. Distant. Focused. If they feel me probing at their minds, they ignore it. I take a shower in a daze, then walk back into the bedroom, looking at the stacks of robes. There’s plenty of fresh, crisp white linen servant’s robes…

And the stack of pleasure dresses.

This is my life now. I need to adapt or I’ll go mad. I leaf through the dresses, until I find a light orange one, soft in my hands, that will pair well with my hair. I pull it on, and it flutters to life, but instead of torturing me with lustful sensations, it’s like soothing hands over my body. It’s like the pleasure dress is alive. I wrack my mind, trying to remember what they’re made of—the strands of some half-sentient tree that gently strokes animals nearby, the pleasing touch leaving sticky seeds on their hide and making them come back, over and over. Whatever it’s made of, I know they are extremely rare and valuable, and the pile of dresses is worth more than Baron Paulus ever had.

As I walk down the hall to the mess room, the scent of buttery, delicious meat emanates from a door that must lead into the kitchen. Raneeda is looking over longingly, but when I come into the room, she snaps to attention. “Ready for a massage?”

I resist the urge to say we can eat first, because I can tell she’s hungry. I want to go in and check on Nash, to see when the food is done, so we can eat at a convenient time for her.

But if I am to be some Queen, I need to learn to not be awkward about people waiting on me. So, instead, I let Raneeda lead me down another hallway to a sterile white medical bay.

“It’s not the best ambience for relaxing, but I’ll make it work. Please, lie down,” she says, motioning to the medical table.

I lie down on it, and her hands work their magic. Every time I’m almost fully relaxed, there’s a flash of cold focus from the triad of auras as they work through some problem unfathomable to me. I can’t imagine ruling an entire planet, especially one where there are hostile agents at work, where citizens you saved the lives of could be secret spies.

No wonder they’re so paranoid about keeping me safe.

I push the three men out of my mind. To my surprise, their auras get smaller and smaller, until they are nothing more than pinpricks.

It makes it so much more bearable.

Raneeda’s hands move down to my feet, then she starts the massage at the top again, not mentioning that she’s done. She’d do the whole massage again without complaint. It’s strange to have servants. It must be stranger yet to serve someone who doesn’t know how to be waited on.

Remembering the delicious smell, my stomach rumbles again. “Thank you, I feel much better,” I say, rolling over.

“My pleasure,” says Raneeda, practically beaming.

“Let’s go eat.”

I rub my shoulders, resisting the urge to thank her again. She really does work magic—but I don’t want to make things awkward again.

The two women are stuck down here with me. Neither of them have been able to leave, just like me. They need a reason to be here.

From the three pinpricks in my mind, there’s a spike of anger and frustration, controlled and muted in a flash. Whatever happened, it was strong enough to pierce into my mind despite all my efforts to minimize them.

I walk towards the mess hall, smoothing the dress on my body. They don’t telepath me to explain what happened, and they’re back to cold, hard focus. What would it matter if I knew what it was? Some rebel attack, some problem with their soldiers, some affair far away that is part of their other life, the one that has nothing to do with me.

I grit my teeth—whatever the problem is, they’ll deal with it.

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