She was also nervous because only the AllMother knew about this. In some ways, it wasn't fair since she knew about Thoreaux's parents, but he'd never heard about her past. He knew about her parents, of course, but not the whole story—because the whole story included a young man named Appius and his death.
Chapter Seven
“The difference between my sister and me is I still respect my lineage. She thinks she can forsake it. We are de Finitas forever and ever.”
—The AllSeer
Servia had known she was going to marry Appius from the moment she saw him. In that way, she was a lot like Prometheus.
They’d met when he was seventeen and she was sixteen.
Within the AllMother's family, there was no royalty. If there had been, both of their families would have been part of it.
Her parents were close to the AllMother, but Appius' were slightly closer. Truthfully, it should have been him and Thoreaux serving her. It was only through Appius' idiocy that Servia wound up in the spot where he belonged.
Was it idiocy, Servia? she wondered whenever the thought came to her. Or was it love?
Love.
It had always been about love.
Servia remembered the first time she saw him. He was tall, his skin much darker than anyone Plutoborn. At that age, the two of them were not allowed on Pluto. The AllMother kept all children off the planet, though the reason wouldn't become apparent until a decade later. They'd both been on one of Venus' moons. Their parents were gone, doing whatever the movement required of them.
The kids stayed wherever the Commonwealth wasn't hunting too ruthlessly. Servia had been awestruck by the young man's beauty and elegance, so she'd done what came naturally. She'd walked up to him and made a fool of herself.
"I've never seen someone as tan as you."
He'd been in the middle of biting into an apple, and he stopped, mouth open wide, eyes almost as large. He pulled the apple back and said, "Excuse me?"
"I've never seen someone as tan as you," she repeated, sounding as confident as always but wanting to crawl into her skin and then disappear from the world.
Appius chuckled as he put his apple down. "How well-educated are you?"
"Excuse me?" she shot back.
He raised his hands in surrender. "I only mean, have you heard of Africa on Earth? It no longer exists, obviously, but it did, and that's where my people are originally from. That's the darkness in my skin, though there's been mixing, I'm sure. Or else I'd be even more tan."
He grinned at that last bit, and Servia didn’t ask if she could sit down.
She just did.
Two weeks later, he gave her her first kiss.
A month later, they made love.
Servia might have romanticized the whole affair, and wasn't that natural? After everything that came, wasn’t it natural to look back on a piece of life and think, Yes, that was perfect.
The two of them had fought like any young couple, though there was a sense of fear permeating the relationship. Neither of them knew if they would get the dreaded holovid, the one the AllMother sent to children whose parents died in the line of duty. This was before Servia had met the old woman, though she knew her parents loved the AllMother dearly.
Appius scored some imported wine. It was hard to get because the moons around Venus had been terraformed, but not in a way that would support the growing of grapes. Distilleries could brew fake vintages, but a year into their relationship, Appius had worked hard to find something real.
Servia hadn't even known what the hell it was. The AllMother might have held their families in high esteem, but by Earth standards, they were savagely poor. To get actual wine? It wasn't conceivable.
Yet, Appius had managed it.
The two of them were young, but parental supervision was not very strict on the moons. They managed to sneak out of their dorms and find a field of grass. Servia hadn't known what Appius was planning, only that she was glad to be out of the dorm and in this field with her boyfriend. The slight risk of being caught added to the excitement.
After they were beyond the lights of the small town, Appius pulled a blanket out of his bag, laid it out, and squatted on it. Without saying anything, he pulled the bottle out of the bag. It had no label, and the cork, something Servia had never seen before, was old.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Shhh," Appius said with a grin. He reached back into the bag and pulled out a metal contraption. It was something else Servia had never seen, but the smile on Appius' face kept her quiet. He screwed the contraption into the cork and pulled.
He glanced up with an open bottle in his hand.
"Appius, what in the hell are you doing?" Servia couldn't help but let his smile infect her.
He tossed the contraption on the blanket and pulled something else out of the bag: a small banged-up tin cup. He handed it to her, then took one for himself. "Sit."
She sat on the blanket. He nodded at her cup, which she held in front of him. He poured it full, then did the same for his own.
He carefully placed the cork back in the bottle without a word, then titled his cup toward her. "Cheers, my love."
They touched cups, but as she went to drink, he slowed her hand. "You're supposed to smell it first."
Her face grew confused. "What? Why? What is this?"
Grinning, Appius said, "Wine, love. Tell me what it smells like."
She did. "Cherry. Wood?" She looked quizzically at him.
"Probably how it's stored while it ages."
"I think a hint of chocolate? I can't tell."
Appius titled the cup to his nose, closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply. After a moment, he drank, and she did too. Servia would never forget the taste or the sweetness as
