“A musty smell, like fish or raw liver.”
“That could be zinc phosphide, aluminum phosphide, or nickel carbonyl, and those are worse because they’re stronger.”
“The smell of mint,” she says.
“Menthol, if it’s too strong, or methyl salicylate.”
“Hay.”
“Easy. That’s phosgene.”
“Pepper,” she says.
“Tear gas, but that’s so strong I wouldn’t eat it.” I laugh.
“Rotten eggs,” she says.
“Hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, mercaptans, or disulfiram.”
“You missed N-acetylcysteine,” she says.
“That’s an antidote,” I say.
“An antidote that smells like rotten eggs.”
“Why would anyone put an antidote in my food?” I ask.
Mother smiles. “You’re learning.” She moves her piece on the board.
I move mine, and she cringes. “Uh oh.”
“What did you do wrong?” Mother asks me.
I squint at the pieces on the black and white marble chess board in front of me. “I didn’t use my bishops.”
“And you sacrificed your queen for a pawn.” Mother frowns. “You know the basic pawn level structures, and you’ve memorized the maneuvering techniques, but that’s not enough. You need to think about what I’m aiming for and how I’ll attack, even if you’re being distracted. Maybe especially when you’re distracted.” Mother points at the board. “See how I pinned you here and here? Knights are the best forks. You know that already, so act on it and play some defense.”
I duck my head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Mother says. “Do better. Failure is a choice, Judica, and it’s not a choice I accept from you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“It’s also a choice that could prove fatal.”
“I know, Mother. Thank you.”
A door creaks behind us and I glance up. Mother’s best friend Lyssa hovers in the doorway, her face uncharacteristically solemn. Mother stands up and points at the board. “Set this up for another round. I’ll be right back to play again.”
I start to shift the pieces into their proper places, but accidentally knock one to the floor. I lean over to pick it up and notice that Mother dropped her notebook. She might need it. I snatch it up and pelt across the floor to where she ducked out of the room to talk. The faint rumble of voices just around the corner stops me in my tracks.
Because Lyssa says my name.
“Judica was trying awfully hard to pay attention to that chess game, and you were grilling her at the same time. You’re being too hard on her. She’s only five years old.”
Mother scoffs. “You’re acting like she’s human. Only five.” She snorts. “She should be doing what? Playing with blocks? Please.”
“Lark’s a year older, but if I corrected her that sternly, she’d be in tears.”
“Judica is nothing like Lark, and your daughter won’t be running the entire family the second I die. I don’t like to say this, but that could be any time. I’m not young anymore.” Mother clucks. “Now what do you need? I’m sure you didn’t interrupt our training to chide me on my parenting techniques.”
“I know raising the Heir to Alamecha is trying, stressful and difficult. I know you’ve raised sixteen before her admirably. I’m just saying, keep her age in mind when you tailor her lesson plans. She’s not a robot. You’ve been drilling her every second of every day. Judica can recite basic chess strategy in her sleep. She speaks five languages regularly. She’s versed in a dozen instruments, and she does an hour of combat, and hour of pain, and an hour of healing training every day. You might be pushing her a little too hard. A cracked Heir isn’t any use to us.”
“You of all people know why I push this hard.”
“Eamon is dead. You need to stop atoning.”
Mother’s voice sounds angry. “I can’t stop. Half of her DNA came from him, and he’s flawed. I worry every day that Judica will turn out like her father. Melina did. And if she wasn’t royal, that would be fine. But she is. The damage she can inflict with one mistake, I shudder to think—”
“Judica is wonderful,” Lyssa says. “She’s bright, devoted, hard-working, eager to please, and she already grasps what makes hard decisions necessary.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Mother says.
“Wonder what?” Lyssa’s voice drops to a whisper.
“Whether I was wrong.”
A sharp inhalation. “In sparing Chancery’s life?”
“Of course not. I’ve never regretted that decision, not for a moment.”
“Then what?” Lyssa asks.
“I chose Judica as Heir the day they were born. I could have picked either twin according to the terms of the Charter, and I chose her. What if I picked the wrong infant?”
“If you’d killed Chancery, you wouldn’t be agonizing over this.”
“If I’d killed her, I’d probably have taken my own life by now. No, I did what I had to do, and I refuse to question that. But I wonder sometimes.”
“Whether Chancy should replace Judica?”
“I don’t know. I wish everything didn’t hang on this choice. But that’s why I push Judica. I have another option, a good option. Chancery would hate ruling, with every fiber of her being, but she would be exceptional. Charitable in ways I’m not, empathetic in ways I’ve never been. Sometimes I think—”
“Your sister would have destroyed Alamecha, and you know it.”
“Chancery reminds me so much of Alornis.”
“But she didn’t rule. You did, and she couldn’t have done what you have. She couldn’t have brought Alamecha this far, ushered in the growth, the prosperity, the peace we have enjoyed.”
Mother sighs. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“I know. You were the right choice, and you’ve made the right decision.”
“But how much better would Alornis have done in my place?” Mother clears her throat. “This line of conversation is going nowhere.”
“Judica isn’t Eamon, you know,” Lyssa says.
“She never even knew him,” Mother says. “But sometimes I see flashes of him looking back at me. The severity of her ideals, the refusal to go for the kill.”
“You’re wrong. That’s your paranoia taking hold. Judica is her mother’s daughter through and through. Alamecha is in good hands, I promise you.”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure, but I have time yet to rectify my mistake, if it was a mistake. Enough about all that. Tell me why you interrupted in the first place.”
“It’s not critical, just time sensitive. Recall the petition from Shenoah regarding the alliance in. . .”
I creep away, notebook still clutched in my hand. It doesn’t sound like Mother needs it. I’ve barely reached my table again when Mother comes striding through the doorway.
“Why haven’t you finished yet?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.
“I, uh, well.” I swallow. I don’t have a good reason, and eavesdropping won’t make her happy, that’s for sure.
“Do it now.” Mother purses her lips. “And pay more attention this time so I have to work harder to defeat you.”
I scramble to set up the board, and then I focus on the positions as well as I can. Mother still defeats me in less than twenty moves, but this time my lower lip doesn’t wobble, and I’m quick to point out what I did wrong. I may not be a chess champion yet, but I’ll get there. And I’ll show Mother that I’m nothing like my lousy father. I’m strong, and I can be the perfect leader Alamecha needs, just like she is.
3
The Present
I’m not dead. I know this because something metal is digging into my hip. Probably a bolt. My hands and feet are bound behind me with reinforced handcuffs. I don’t know if there’s life after death, but if there is, I’m sure I’ll be in more pain than this.
Also, I doubt hell smells like hot dogs and body odor, and I
’m practically positive heaven doesn’t. Death loves hot dogs. I hope he’s alright. They wouldn’t have killed him, right? I breathe in and out once, then twice to calm down. There’s nothing I can do about Death from inside this vehicle.
I run a critical assessment, like I’ve been training to do my entire life. My face is covered with a thick blindfold that’s tied uncomfortably tight. I’m lying on my side in some kind of vehicle, probably the back of a sound-insulated van, based on the bumpy suspension and lack of wind. I’ve always had a resistance to tranquilizers of all kinds, and whoever took me clearly doesn’t know or I wouldn’t be awake right now. That rules out Balthasar and anyone who has worked with him, as well as Inara, Edam, and most of my guards.
The air around me is drier than home, so I’m not in Hawaii anymore. I slide my head against the floor of the vehicle until my blindfold catches slightly on something that’s helpfully protruding from the floor. It takes a dozen tries, but eventually I use the small metal protrusion to shift the blindfold up enough that I can see. I’m definitely in the back of a cargo van, but it’s almost as dark without the blindfold blocking my face. There’s no carpet, and I’m lying on a bare metal subfloor. The helpful sharp object is, as expected, an exposed bolt. The back of the van’s empty, other than me.
They’ll regret leaving me alone back here, whoever they are.
I think back to my last moments. Angel brought me my food. She could be angry that I held her for so long, or for the threats I made. If she’s harboring a grudge, now that I’ve fallen, she may have decided it’s time for revenge. Maybe Chancery even sanctioned her action. I think about my sister. Could she have agreed to a petition from Angel, approving my quiet exile, or even worse, death?
I consider Chancery. She wears her heart on her sleeve for all to see. She acts on emotion, never doing the rational thing. But she’s always forthright. I’ve never known her to deceive anyone or anything. When she disagrees with Mother, she tells her, no matter who is around. When she is upset with me, she tells me.
An image of Chancery, extending the blade she’s holding out to me, eyes wide, rises to my mind. She offered me her life, when she had the power to take mine. She offered me the win I wanted, and all I had to do was slay her. She wouldn’t allow anyone to cart me off, secretly or otherwise.
In fact, now that I’ve considered that angle, I worry about her. Someone in her court had me poisoned and removed. That person is surely a threat to Chancery, too. I would suspect Edam, who might like things far better if I disappeared, but he knows tranquilizers wear off on me quickly. He’d have whoever took me dosing me more frequently.
The other strong option is a rival family. Surely they all saw me as a much more terrifying threat. Chancery’s ascension would pave the way for them to erode Alamecha’s power. But if I’m still there, hovering over her, I’m a constant risk. As long as I’m Heir, I can always seize the crown again. If one of them is feeling particularly ambitious, she could remove me to gain favor from Chancery, or to prevent me from taking control again.
The fastest way to discover who took me is to regain the upper hand. If I’m ready to take them out when they open the doors to the van, I can reverse the roles and I’ll be the one asking questions.
I strain against my bindings, but they don’t give a hair, meaning they’re a titanium composite of some kind. Whoever took me knows what it takes to knock out a royal evian. They’ll probably also be on the lookout for any signs of movement from the front of the van. Which means if I utilize brute force to escape these cuffs, they’ll hear it.
Torque it is.
I pivot my hands behind my back so that they’re facing opposite directions and pull as hard as I can, shattering my first metacarpal on my right hand. The fire of a broken bone shoots up my arm, but compared to blades slicing open my skin, it’s nothing. I don’t make a sound. I slide my broken hand through the cuff before it has time to heal.
When I check my navel, I can’t suppress my grin. The idiots didn’t conduct a thorough check for piercings, clearly. I’ve kept a sterling silver bar in my navel for years, just in case I need a shim. I slide it out, the piercing healing up immediately, and use the shim to unlock the cuffs and release my left hand.
I pull up to a seated position slowly, quietly, and hope that the sound of my shifting is covered by the jouncing and bouncing of the vehicle. I use the same shim to free my feet, holding the cuffs on my feet carefully so they don’t clatter against the floor of the van. I shove the shim back into the skin of my navel, forcing the skin to heal unnaturally around it so it will stay in place.
Then I crouch on the floor of the van, searching wildly for anything I could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, they did a good job cleaning out the back. Aside from prying bolts off with my teeth, and I’m not sure how that would help me, I can’t find a single thing. But when they open the back door, I’ll be ready for them. My hands aren’t as comforting as my sword, but if they’re expecting me bound and gagged, they’ll be in for a shock.
I search for peace and calm, serenity. I need to be prepared for whoever comes. But my mind whirs and spins like the inside of a clock. Is Angel working alone, or for someone else? Is my kidnapping connected with Mother’s murder? If so, did I uncover something and fail to grasp its significance? Could this be one step in a multi-pronged attack? Maybe Chancery has been poisoned or is under attack back home right now. The thought wrenches my stomach.
Because there’s nothing at all I can do from here.
I didn’t realize until this very moment that I would stand for my sister, against any or all attackers. If I could do it right now, I’d rip whoever wants her dead limb from limb. When did Mother get her wish? When did I decide to help Chancery?
Lot of good I’ll do her here, crouched unarmed in the back of a van, headed for who knows where.
I need to know who took me. I run through it again. Who stands to gain if I die? It could be any of the five other families, with Malessa at the top of the list. She and Mother fought, and I attended quite a few uncomfortable meetings, but Chancery has a reputation for being forgiving. If I were Malessa, I’d suss out Chancery’s plan before blindly attacking.
Or would I?
Maybe I’d take out her strongest defense, and then cut her legs out from under her. As much as I dislike him, it soothes me to know Edam’s on her side. And I’ve seen how he looks at her. He’s Chancery’s to the core.
It could be someone who expects to be on Chancery’s council, maybe even someone I’d advise against her choosing. Perhaps my removal was simply step one in a plan. Balthasar, if he thought Chancery might consult me over him. He doesn’t seem very ambitious, but he’s getting older. Perhaps with Edam’s rise, he feels put out.
It could be Inara for many of the same reasons. She’s next in line for the throne, once I fall, if she could eliminate Melina. I know perilously little about my reclusive, banished sister. I know she hated Chancery and fell out with Mother over our birth. But she’s the main reason I don’t suspect Inara. She’d be next in line, and by all counts, Melina would be hard to kill.
Now Alora, if she sees me as a wild card, could eliminate me out of a sense of protectiveness. For that matter, any of our older sisters could decide they’d like to become more involved in the day-to-day operations. Anyone with eyes or ears at the palace would know that Chancery and I have made peace and possibly worry that there won’t be room for them to advise the new queen.
Or of course, there’s always Melina herself. She’s next in line, after me. She’d become the new Heir if I die. She hasn’t expressed much interest in ruling, but she’s still in the line of succession. I wish I knew a single thing about her. In spite of their arguments, Mother never said a bad word about Melina. She simply placed her lieutenant Marselle in Austin to watch my sister without ever seeming particularly concerned about the situation.
Why didn’t Mother eliminate her? All those years she hovered, banished, but not removed. Cutting her out
of the family entirely would have cleaned things up, I believe. I should have pressed for more details. How did I not see this as a gaping blind spot in my political knowledge during the last decade?
I trusted Mother entirely, but now that she’s gone, I’ve been hit with wave after wave of ways in which she’s let down both Chancery and me.
The van slows and adrenaline pumps through my body. My muscles tense and my breathing accelerates. I slow it with practiced focus. If their hearing is sensitive, I don’t want them to know I’m awake. The van grinds to a halt, crunching over a gravel road.
I stand up slowly, arms spread, hands open, legs bent. I’m ready for whoever opens the back doors of the van.
Unfortunately, I’m not prepared for them to slide open a hidden partition between the front and the back. I didn’t even realize it could open. The tranq dart thwacks into the back of my neck and I spin around just in time to see Angel’s smiling face. “Look at this. The demon spawn of Alamecha, brought down by a horse tranquilizer. How delightful.”
I slump to my knees and fall forward, and everything goes black again.
4
The Past
I scowl at Balthasar. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Because I’ve really failed you if you believe it matters what you want to do.”
I just out my chin. “I’m your boss.”
“But you’re not your mother’s boss, and she set me to this task. Now stop throwing a fit and do it.”
I stare at the room full of coals and cringe. “They’re too hot. Can’t we wait until the flames go out, at least?”
Balthasar’s hand reaches out and shoves me right between my shoulder blades, knocking me forward a foot and a half. I sprawl onto my hands and knees, the burning coals searing my flesh immediately. The flames lick at my shorts and I scramble to my feet, patting at the fire before it can consume my clothing again.
unForgiven (The Birthright Series Book 2) Page 2
