39. Jaxson
39
Jaxson
I despise Vindication Day, particularly the celebratory conference held every year to commemorate it: Vindication Day weekend.
I understand its necessity. I understand the importance of its lore in the Sovereignty.
I still despise it.
Thousands of Sovereigns and guests from all over the world come to celebrate Solomon Wallace coming to America and reestablishing the Sovereignty in what would later become Chicago, Illinois, after he was run out of Britain. But more than just celebrating a long-dead man, it’s a chance for Sovereigns and supporters all over the world to congregate in one place and socialize.
As the presumed but not officially recognized heir of the Sovereignty, it meant having to play nice with Sovereigns who wanted to come up to greet me and take pictures. It meant conversations with Sovereigns young and old. Blessing a baby every now and then. Usually, I’d make my rounds for an hour or two and then go back to my hotel room until the main Sunday lecture. Now, as Oracle, my hotel room isn’t even a sanctuary from social interactions .
Not only am I the Oracle, I’m the officially newly anointed Oracle as of a very public ceremony for all Sovereigns to witness on Thursday evening of Vindication Day weekend. I haven’t been left alone since.
I comfort myself with the fact that I only have to get through today’s keynote address, a dinner with hand-chosen priests and priestesses this evening, and then Lauressa and I can fly out of the country first thing tomorrow morning to spend our honeymoon in Portugal. It remains to be seen whether we’ll be doing much more than sitting at the resort while Lauressa throws up anything she tries to eat.
“I wanna die,” Lauressa says, lying face down on the bed in our suite.
There’s nothing I can say that won’t make Lauressa snappy at me in response, so I just sit next to her and rub small circles on the small of her back.
Finally, I say, “You can stay in for the day if you’d like?”
“No!” Lauressa exclaims, lifting her face out of her pillow. “It usually passes after a little while. Besides, what would it look like for the new Oracle’s new wife to not show up to his first Vindication Day address?”
“You have a good reason for it.”
“Not one that we can tell anyone yet,” Lauressa grumbles miserably. “Just… pass me one of those ginger candies that Lilah gave me earlier.”
I pass Lauressa one of the candies. She pops it in her mouth and closes her eyes to suck on it, taking deep breaths through her nose .
“I swear to God, if this baby comes out looking like you after how sick it’s making me, I’m going to kill you.”
I, again, don’t answer. Lauressa has been making all kinds of threats to my life ever since her pregnancy started to make her sick a couple of weeks ago, only days after Lilah took one look at her and said that Lauressa had “the glow.”
Immediately after Lilah's comment, Lauressa had just frowned and tilted her head at the woman before her eyes widened in realization while I looked at Lilah expectantly for an explanation. Lilah ignored me, sitting next to Lauressa and saying in a comforting tone that it was understandable that she hadn’t realized with the stress of my faux recovery and everything happening in the Sovereignty. Her saying that it always takes a while for first-time mothers to realize what’s happening finally clued me in to what was going on.
My plan was to marry Lauressa before getting her pregnant, and I had no immediate plans to marry her until after my reign as Oracle was stable in a year or two. But for all the ways I’m planning on introducing what could be seen as less restrictive policies in the Sovereignty, tolerating pregnancy out of wedlock isn’t one of those policies. The Sovereignty wouldn’t tolerate it. Having a child out of wedlock would probably be the quickest way to have accusations of being corrupted by the anti-force thrown my way.
Thus, the anointing wasn’t the only ceremony that happened on Thursday evening. Following being officially anointed Oracle, Lauressa and I officially became husband and wife. Now, everyone will turn a blind eye to the fact that Lauressa is going to be giving birth only six months into our marriage. It’s a wonder the entire Sovereignty doesn’t know about her pregnancy, given that Lilah can’t hold a secret to save her life. Thankfully, she seems to appreciate the need for discretion, and the only ones who know of Lauressa’s condition are Lilah, Adah, Magdalene, Abigail, and Landon. I didn’t want Landon to know yet, but he and Lauressa are like two peas in a pod nowadays.
“Jaxson,” J says, poking his head in the room. He notices Lauressa and frowns. “Res okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a little under the weather,” Lauressa answers.
Seeming satisfied with that, J says to me, “Rini wants to talk to you.”
“Serenity?” I confirm.
“That’s what I said,” J replies, leaving the room.
I lean over and kiss Lauressa on the forehead before leaving the bedroom and entering the living room of our suite.
Serenity is sitting on the couch, taking in the décor while J stands behind her.
She stands to her feet when she sees me and says, “Oracle.”
J rolls his eyes, having the same reverence for my title as it refers to me as I did when it referred to my father. I resist a smile.
“Miss Yates,” I say, mimicking her formality.
“I apologize for bothering you so soon before your address and interrupting any communion you might have been having with the Supreme Force, but I wanted to… Can I speak with you? Privately,” she says, giving a pointed look to the two S-Team members on post to guard Lauressa and me.
“Clear the room,” I order, sitting across from her .
“Oracle. We must advise—”
“If a fourteen-year-old girl can get one up on me to kill me, then I deserve it,” I state. “Now leave us.”
The two men start to leave the room.
“You too, J,” Serenity says pointedly to him.
J groans. “You know I hate you keeping secrets with Jaxson from me.”
“Relax. I’ll tell you afterward,” she says.
J rolls his eyes but leaves the room.
Once everyone is gone, Serenity looks at me nervously, twiddling her fingers.
“I…” She trails off. Takes a deep breath. Continues, “What I’m about to say could be wrong… and if I am wrong, I’m open to your wisdom and correction, Oracle!”
“Go ahead,” I encourage.
“The Sovereignty, the Supreme Force, the Oracle… it’s all… it’s not true. Is it?”
It takes everything in me not to chuckle. I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew very early on in my observation of Serenity that eventually she’d uncover that all of this was a scam. Still, before I answer her, I need to know how much she’s figured out.
“What do you mean, not true?”
“I went back and listened to all of Dr. Cult's podcasts. Not just the Sovereignty ones, but the ones on other religious cults and scams and… the Sovereignty is a cult. Isn’t it? And you know it is.”
“The answer I give you to that depends on what you plan to do with that information,” I answer .
“Well, if you were to tell me it’s true—that this is a cult and all this is made up—I’d ask you to give me something in exchange for not making a big fuss about it all,” she says.
No one would believe her. Not anyone who mattered, anyway. But Serenity is angling for something here, and I can’t say I’m not impressed by her ambition.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“In a few years, I want to be your conduit.”
“And what do you get out of being a conduit?” I ask. “Especially given you think this is all a scam.”
Serenity shrugs her shoulders and answers, “Away from my dad and my mother. Don’t get me wrong. I love them, but they have every aspect of my life planned out. They don’t care what I want to do. If I become your conduit, they’d turn me over to you without question.”
“And you’re assuming that I have no intention of planning your life out that way?” I ask.
“I’ve seen the way you treat J and the Queen Priestess. Or rather, the way they treat you. They do what they want, and you let them. I want that.”
She sees being bonded to a man more than twice her age as freedom compared to her parents. It makes me wonder what’s actually going on in her house. I decide not to ask.
“I have no intention of taking any conduits in the future,” I answer.
“You don’t?”
“No. ”
“Oh.”
Even if I did, even for appearances, it would never be Serenity. Clearly she’s oblivious to how smitten J is with her. No matter what does or doesn’t come of that, I’m not my father. I’d never do that to my son.
“But I have a proposition for you,” I begin.
“Oh?” Serenity replies, leaning forward in anticipation of what I have to say.
“Become Magdalene’s understudy,” I offer.
“The High Priestess?”
“Yes. We’re looking for a successor for her. She’s not stepping down any time soon, but eventually she’s going to want to in the next ten or so years, and we’re going to need a new, youthful High Priestess. Someone like you who cares about people the way you demonstrated. You were willing to stand up to me to do it. The Sovereignty needs that.”
Serenity is silent for a few moments, considering my words. Then she says, “You still didn’t answer my question about whether any of this is true or not.”
Nor am I stupid enough to give her an answer one way or another. Instead, I say, “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. You have to decide that for yourself. What is true is the mission of the Sovereignty, which is the eventual salvation and perfection of humanity, and you have talents toward that end. I’ll talk to Magdalene and your parents about it after this weekend is over. ”
Serenity's eyebrows furrow in confusion and uncertainty, but she nods all the same before standing up, nodding her head in reverence, and leaving.
J pokes his head in the door and says, “Jaxson, I’m headed over to the arena with Rini.”
He leaves before I can reply, but I’m confident the S-Team is already a step ahead of him in preparation, so I don’t bother to go after him.
“She’s going to be one to watch,” Lauressa says, coming out of the room looking much better than she did not even ten minutes ago.
“She’s certainly going to be useful to the Sovereignty one way or another,” I state.
“You like her,” Lauressa says with a smile.
“I said she’ll be useful.”
“That’s your way of saying you like someone. The same way you did with Abigail.”
“Because she’s useful for keeping High Demand going,” I state.
Useful only because High Demand and Dr. Cult are useful controlled opposition for the Sovereignty. A concrete enemy shrouded in mystery to point to and stroke the persecution kink of the Sovereigns, while also proving that no matter what our enemies do intending to take us down, it can only be a boon. Proven by High Demand and Dr. Cult unwittingly exposing the false prophet leading us into purgatory with the intent to take us down only to lead them to their true anointed one.
“You said that before she started working on High Demand,” Lauressa points out .
There’s no time to answer her because the head of my S-Team, men promoted and granted the title from my previous independent personal security team, comes into the suite to notify me that it’s time to leave if I want to get to the arena in time for the keynote address.
I wasn’t nervous any of this weekend. Making a speech or giving a lecture before the Sovereignty isn’t anything I haven’t done before, even if it has been a few years. But even still, my heartbeat picks up, and I find myself growing antsy, taking everything in me to sit still. My nerves aren't just about today. It's about tomorrow. It's about the future of the Sovereignty. There's so much to do. So many things to change. So many rules to implement. But even with all that, I can't do it too fast. Yet, some things can't wait. Some things I have to change and implement, have my people mitigate the fallout, and hope for the best.
If Lauressa notices my nerves, she doesn’t call me out on it, staying silent for the duration of the ride.
I ignore Abner’s voice over the loudspeaker as we’re let in from the back of the arena and to the backstage. One of the event coordinators spots us and notifies the stage coordinator to ping Abner to let him know to bring on the speaker who will introduce me: Lauressa herself.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say to her. “You can go sit on stage and look pretty while Abner introduces me to the Sovereignty.”
Because even now, there’s no way to know exactly how the Sovereignty will receive me. The anointing ceremony was one thing. Even as public as everything was, it was still limited. This is literally the entire Sovereignty and then some.
Lauressa smiles and gives me a reassuring pat on my chest. “I was raised in an Evangelical Baptist church in the Bible Belt. If there’s one thing I learned and know how to do, it’s how to charm and get a crowd going.”
Then Lauressa turns and, with the confidence of someone who owns the world, walks out from backstage to stand in front of the podium with her black, purple-streaked hair, piercings, and dark burgundy dress. Even as far as she's come, Lauressa still has to be contrarian in some way. It’s in her nature to be rebellious and not follow rules, and in the long run, I couldn’t care less what she wears.
Lauressa begins her introduction.
She’s mesmerizing. Not just to me because I’m always biased toward being mesmerized by her, but she’s also mesmerized the audience of fifty thousand Sovereigns. As she weaves the tale of the Oracle, a false prophet, and his boy child, the supposed true heir that Zachariah saw in his vision all those years ago. As she manipulates scriptures and historical events to the only possible logical conclusion.
With her bright smile, her wit, her speech skills, and irresistible charm that make people like her on a personal level in a way that I’ll never get people to like me because I have little social patience, she could be a cult leader. She could be the Oracle if she wanted.
If I’d made that conclusion about anyone else, I’d be scheming how to remove them from relevancy. But as she finishes her introduction and brings me onto the podium to thunderous applause and calls of “Long live the Oracle,” as she leans forward and places a kiss on my lips before leaving the podium, I am not jealous.