Page 4 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Malice

“ A nother day at court. Hoorah.”

The royal palace had been my home during my formative years, and as such, had long since lost its luster. I no longer saw the glorious stained-glass windows or the ornate statuary, only the cracks in the pale gray stone walls.

Playing court games was the last bit of amusement left to me.

It was the only thing that brought a smile to my face during the ride to the palace.

As much as I loathed being there, I relished making the courtiers and classed members uncomfortable.

Petty of me? Absolutely. That only made it more satisfying.

“If you’re so miserable, why are you here?” Longshot asked.

Fair question. One I’d asked myself countless times. He always asked fair questions, and infuriatingly, he was almost always right. Longshot Griel had been my first ally at court. A true friend and mentor, he trained me in combat—both physical and political.

The youngest son of a classed landowner, he was the product of his mother’s unwanted pregnancy. She had tried a variety of abortifacients to be rid of him, believing their family of eight children was the sacred limit. In the forbidden religion, eight was an auspicious number. Nine was a curse.

But Longshot was not so easily denied. His mother died in labor, cursing him with her final breath—at least, that’s what his family liked to say.

His family was insufferably cruel to him, locking him in a closet for the first year of his life before they finally figured out a maid had been caring for him.

Longshot came out of the closet only half-wild.

After the maid was executed for her poor choices, he was sent away to the academy.

His father had hoped he wouldn’t survive it.

Instead, Longshot excelled in every field, infuriating his family further.

When I came to court, he was the first to reach out to me.

He had a soft spot for the unloved and the odd.

Maybe that was why I did, too. In spite of my guardian’s opinions regarding the matter, I had a habit of aligning myself with those who had been discarded by everyone else.

Unfailingly, the discarded were the most interesting people in any room.

I huffed a sigh at Longshot. “You know as well as I, if I don’t show my face at court every now and then, Justice becomes an insufferable prick.”

Lady Piven, within earshot, gasped at my impropriety.

I turned to her, unapologetic. “Perhaps a lady shouldn’t be eavesdropping if she doesn’t want to hear the truth.”

She hissed back, “Perhaps a tailless disgrace such as yourself should be more grateful to his royal guardian.”

Tailless. One of the nicer things I’d been called at court.

My condition was a visible reminder of the separation between me and them.

I had grown up as Justice Bateen’s ward, an orphan of the war.

To the surprise of his court, he had taken pity on me, after hearing of a strong twelve-year-old with memory loss.

Justice’s own father had suffered memory loss before his mysterious illness placed him in a coma, so he felt a special connection to me before he ever met me.

It was dumb luck that I was raised at the palace and given classed status.

I was fortunate to be alive at all. No one would have thought Justice would have taken in a war orphan, much less a tailless child.

I was the only tailless classed person on Orhon, raised among royalty.

Longshot came to my defense. “How is your cooking instructor, Lady Piven? Still giving you those special private lessons? You know, the ones your companion doesn’t know about?

” He tilted his head. “Still managing to burn your aliubock, or have your lessons finally started to include actual cooking?”

She gasped, then turned around and wedged her way to the front of the tittering crowd and away from us.

I snickered. “You never miss, do you?”

“I earned my Honored Courtier title for a reason, Malice.”

I rolled my eyes then noted Justice approaching his golden throne. “You’re up.”

“Indeed.”

Longshot made his way up to Justice’s dais. At thirty-five, he looked older—taller than anyone else on the platform, lean-muscled, skin tinged green. He refused to tan like fashionable Ladrians. Said it dulled his sheen. Camouflage, he once told me. Back when he was a sniper.

Now? Court was his battleground.

As the rest of court settled down, an excitement filled the air at the dais. Justice was happy about something. Murmurs of Illiapol and the associated festivities overcame the crowd. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Ruler Justice Bateen, my former guardian and current employer, smiled as his dark eyes glazed over.

His smiles were never actual smiles, only different kinds of sneers.

Richly tanned to the point of being bronzed, his purple tunic and trousers were the finest silk and even still, I had thought the color combination never suited him.

He insisted that purple was the color of royalty, so he would always wear it.

Years ago, he had decreed no one on Orhon could wear the color, unless they were associated with the royal palace.

Then, we were all to wear various shades of purple.

So, naturally, I wore black. I preferred Earth-style suit ensembles—black suit, black shirt, black tie.

Stylish for Orhon, annoying for Justice.

My black suits blended with my skin, so from a distance, I appeared nearly nude.

Close up, I was well-dressed. I enjoyed the confused looks from strangers.

Justice raised a hand. “Bring the first of the docket.”

Cue the boredom.

Insipid courtiers and classed folk came to supplicate themselves before Justice and the court, asking for Justice’s approval or help with minor tasks.

Since the war had ended so long ago, nothing challenged Justice anymore and his ennui permeated the court.

Even at the council meetings, he was like a child picking the tail off a cina out of the craving for novelty.

The only thing I had seen anyone excited about in months was Illiapol.

Every classed family’s second favorite holiday, second only to Rysenpol, Illiapol got the public’s blood up.

There was to be a ball the night before, and a feast the day after.

The palace bakeries would start their work soon, preparing Illiamor cakes to give out to the unclassed.

A delicious reminder of their dedication to the classed.

Or at least, I was told they were delicious.

It seemed in poor taste to me to give out cakes shaped like a woman’s body that were filled with red sweet cream that looked like blood when you cut them open.

The cakes were delivered to the homes of the unclassed—they weren’t permitted to refuse them.

In defiance of the custom, some brave unclassed left the cake at their doorstep to rot, stepping over them every time they left their home.

It was a strong statement, until a week later, when their homes became overrun with cinas who had eaten the cake and thought there might be more food inside the house.

Then the unclassed had rodent problems, feeding into the classed’s notion that the unclassed were filthy wretches.

What I wouldn’t give for those filthy wretches to break here and overturn the court’s rules of decorum.

The thought left me with a smirk on my lips. It did not go unnoticed by the nearest courtiers. Lady Winderbell, especially.

The eldest daughter of the Winderbells was a beauty to be sure, but haughty in a way I did not like.

Her upturned nose and confident chin only served to annoy me.

An ego that rivaled my own would have been fine, had she the ability to back it up.

It wasn’t her black hair or her full lips or her perfect figure that should have diminished her ego, but her mind which was at fault.

She was too ignorant to grasp that she was, in fact, ignorant.

She harbored a confused crush on me. She could never admit her affections—I was tailless, after all—but it did not stop her from keeping an eye on me during court.

When her smile met my smirk, I loudly sighed my disdain and looked away.

Which, apparently, she took for encouragement.

Lady Winderbell gracefully sidled up to me. She whispered, as it was rude to speak normally when Justice was holding court. “You’re looking well, Malice.”

“As are you, Lady Winderbell,” I replied, as was expected.

“How many times do I need to remind you to call me Blossom?”

“One more, it would seem,” I drawled.

She quietly giggled. “You are attending the Illiapol ball, are you not?”

“If I did not, Justice would be disappointed in me.”

“And are you…going with anyone?”

Fuck . “I have no intent to go with anyone.”

Her lips crinkled in distress, and undeniable pity coated her voice. “I can’t imagine a lonely bachelor such as yourself would be content to be alone on such an important evening.”

A lonely bachelor? Is that what they’re saying about me now? I smiled, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. “I prefer the company of those who can hold up their end of the conversation, and as such, will be attending by myself.”

Her distress boiled into a full frown. “I don’t understand.”

“Precisely. Excuse me.”

I escaped her presence by sliding myself to the other half of the court. Those who were nearby parted to avoid me, and I was once again alone. The way I liked it. A lonely bachelor, indeed . I shook my head at the thought. There was nothing wrong with being a bachelor at twenty-eight.

Still, Lady Winderbell’s pity roiled in my gut. To be pitied by such a loathsome woman was enough to make me leave court for the day. But if I were to simply walk out, I would never hear the end of it from Justice come the next council meeting, so I gritted my teeth and stayed.