“You may have endured the pain training, the healing training, the torture preparation, the poison tolerance and identification, the one-on-one combat, the weapons training, the multi-opponent drills, and everything else. You may be savvy with political intrigue and family power lines. You may know the names and alliances of every known evian.” She presses her face up against the glass, pressing both palms hard on either side of her face. “But I completed the same rigorous program as you did, and I did it for longer. The only reason you supplanted me was that you were born. It had nothing to do with skill or ferocity. So if you think I don’t know how to crack you, you’re wrong. And I will have that information. It’s just a matter of how hard I have to pry before I jostle it loose, and how much damage I do in the process.”
“Okay.” No sense arguing with a crazy person.
“Wouldn’t you rather save us both some time and agony and tell me what I want to know?”
Tell her that Mother thought Chancery was the subject of some super-secret prophecy that Inara hadn’t even heard of? Inara was Heir far longer than Melina, and she had no idea.
“Why do you need to know?” I ask. “Maybe you should have waited a little longer before murdering our mother. She might have told you herself, though I doubt it. She tended not to over-share. Not like some family I’ve met.” I lift one eyebrow pointedly.
Melina slams the inside of her left forearm against the glass, and I realize there’s writing on it. I squint a little to make out the words.
With the might and power of God, the Eldest shall destroy all in her path and unite my children as one. Only through her blood can the stone be restored to the mountain.
I look up at her and realize my mouth is hanging open dumbly. I close it with a tiny click.
She drops her arm and slams her right forearm against the glass. More words.
Together, with the strength of her strongest supporter, she shall open the Garden of Eden, that the miracle of God shall go unto all the Earth to save my children from utter destruction.
I don’t know what to say. Mother said no one but the Empress could access the prophecies from Eve. I shake my head. “I don’t know what that is.”
Melina frowns. “You never knew Father. He was very persistent. Mother would never have shared this with me. There was some kind of vow made by the governing queens. But she told our Father and he passed it along to me. He thought it would be me, you know. He was convinced I’d be the key to this kind of sweeping change, redeeming and purifying the corrupted Earth from itself. He convinced me, you know. I was absolutely positive that this referred to me.”
“Because you’re the Eldest?”
“It was a reasonable assumption,” Melina says. “After all, I was the Eldest of Mother’s children with her new Consort. I was the eldest of this new bloodline, and Mother’s Heir. It made sense.”
I lift my eyebrows but don’t comment.
“It took me a little time to process how wrong Dad was. How wrong I’ve been for years.” She leans close again, her eyes shining like garbage fires. “It’s Chancery, isn’t it? Mom realized it was Chancery.”
I’ve never stammered in my entire life. Until now. “Sh- sh-she isn’t the eldest. She’s seventeen, just like me.”
“But she’s the Eldest of two twins, twins who shouldn’t have both survived. I thought Mother made a dire mistake many years ago, but now I’ve realized that I had everything backward. I had the right idea, of course, but I missed the mark. That happens more often than you’d think, with these prophecies. They describe something so far in the future that they seem unclear until all of a sudden, they’re crystalline.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Mother discovered something,” Melina says. “Something about your sweet, kind, generous sister. Angel tells me Chancery espouses radical ideas. She says your twin was always making suggestions that Mother change things that no one would ever change. Things Mother entirely discounted as nonsense. Angel says Chancery isn’t like other evians. She says she’s special.”
She’s jealous, I realize. She doesn’t want Chancery to be this prophesied queen. Because that means she’s not important at all. I shake my head. “Chancery loved Mother, and she followed everything Mother ever told us.”
Melina smiles again. “You haven’t been able to explain why Mother changed her mind so quickly. Why flip on the Heir without provocation? No, there’s more to this story.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.
“Oh, darling Judica. I’ve been on your side for so many years. I argued for you, and I left our people for you. I challenged Mother when she wouldn’t kill Chancery, you know. So you should believe me when I say that I don’t want to do this.”
Do this? What’s this?
“My mistake was understandable.” Melina begins pacing. “As Eldest, I needed a staunch supporter. One supporter, not two, and every single history book decries the problems created by twins.” She spins around and fixes her gaze on mine. “What do you know about the Hundred Years’ War?”
Now she’s giving me a history lesson? “The humans think Plantagenet and Valois were fighting over the crown in France.”
“And?”
“And it was really Senah and Denah fighting over control of Malessa.”
She nods. “And?”
And what? “The third time is the charm. After that enormous disaster, all the empresses vowed to kill one of their daughters if they ever have twins.”
Melina smiles. “Mother didn’t hide that from you, at least, she didn’t try to disguise her infraction. Her rebellion from what was required of her.”
“No. She didn’t.” My voice is flat, which is just as bad as scowling. I need to cover my feelings better. I’m projecting nearly as badly as Chancery.
“Did she tell you that Denah and Senah were best friends for nearly fifty years?”
I don’t drop my jaw. I don’t widen my eyes, but my heart rate accelerates. Luckily, I doubt she can hear it through the communication devices. I know I can’t hear hers.
She grins as if she can. “You didn’t know that. You had no idea that their arguments came after a period of great peace and prosperity.”
I reach for my inner calm. I need to take back control of this conversation, but it’s hard to feel calm when you’re half-naked and stuck in a rock-encased cell. “Clearly Mother left a few things out.”
“It would appear so. The two of them were inseparable, but as time wore on, they weren’t as eager to share. Evians are very, very good at sniffing out opportunities, and driving a wedge between those two, well, it was too good to pass up. Over time, the two sisters both picked up special allies who whispered in their ears. Their respective allies worked on them, playing them against one another. They were a powder keg from the start. And powder kegs can be relied upon to do the one thing they always do best. It’s inevitable, unless they’re preempted.”
“Boom,” I say.
Melina nods. “So you see, it’s nothing personal.”
“What’s nothing personal?” The skin on my arms crawls.
“I actually thought it was Alamecha’s fatal flaw: our inability to kill family members, even when it was clearly necessary. First Enora couldn’t kill Chancery. Then I couldn’t kill Mother for sparing her. Which would have then been followed by my murder of Chancery, right? Otherwise, what was the point?”
“You thought that was our flaw? Refusal to kill?” I think of Mother, beheading Lyssa without a single pause. I contemplate the justice she’s dealt out impartially for nearly twenty years in front of me. Mother never had trouble killing people she loved. She always followed the law, to the letter.
Melina stops pacing and meets my eye. “I thought it for a while, yes. And then from what I heard, even when Chancery spared you and you had the chance, you didn’t step up to take her out. The dragon among heirs, the insane berserker, brought as low by empathy as the rest of us poor saps. Y
ou didn’t kill Chancery when you had the chance either.”
Berserker? I don’t roll my eyes, but it takes an effort. “Chancery and I have a lot of things to work out, but I don’t begrudge her the throne. In fact, if you tell anyone this, I’ll deny it, but I’m relieved she beat me. For the first time in my life, I’ve shed the anvil wrapped around my neck to the bottom of the sea.”
“You’re missing the point,” Melina says. “It’s not about whether you will fight her, not anymore. That’s why I left, that’s why Mother and I fought, but I was so lost I didn’t see up from down. I thought her failure to kill your gentle twin would result in a protracted war that would damage Alamecha and evians at large. I thought it was my duty to stop that. But I missed it. I missed something so obvious that I could kick myself.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” I say. “In fact, let me out, and I’ll help with that.”
Melina rolls her eyes. “I missed the thread that ties this all together. The answer was staring me in the face, but I was too blind, too obtuse to see it. It’s not that we can’t kill people who matter to us. Mother beheaded her best friend last week, for heaven’s sake.”
I gulp as that image replays in my mind. She’s right. We don’t shy away from hard things. “What’s your point?”
Melina drops her voice so low I strain to make out her next words. “Mother beheaded Lyssa to spare your sister, I’d bet on it. I’m not sure how or why, but every crazy, insane, bizarre thing Enora has done has been for Chancery Divinity Alamecha. At every step, Chancery should have died, but God spared her.”
God? I want to scream. I spared her. Mother spared her. Melina spared them both. God wasn’t even there.
“He needs her,” she says. “And He protects his tools.”
Fantastic. She’s bonkers.
“And now the biggest threat facing Chancery is standing in front of me. I messed up last time, thank goodness, but this time I’m positive. You may not be willing to admit it, but I’ve got other methods to confirm my suspicion.”
“What suspicion?” Crazy people don’t behave in predictable ways.
“You’re Chancery’s Heir.”
The non-sequitur throws me for a moment, but her leaping on that can’t be good. “Only for a short time,” I say. “It won’t be long before Chancery manages to birth a girl. And I’ve seen how Edam looks at her. She’ll name him as Consort before the end of the year, I’m sure of it.”
“Edam, Senah’s boy?”
I gulp.
“I heard that the two of you. . .” Melina lifts both eyebrows. “And he switched, just like Mother? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Like Mother? “Why exactly did you bring me here?” I ask. “Because you went to a lot of trouble when you could have just called me to ask me these questions.”
“Ah, I couldn’t have done this over the phone. I did wonder whether you’d have come if I issued a polite invite.”
“Probably not,” I admit.
“And I needed to see you.” She throws her hands up in the air.
“You needed to see me?” A sense of unease creeps between my shoulder blades. “What are you going to do?” I don’t need to ask. Before she responds, I already know what she’s planning.
“I am your sister, Judica, and I’ve been impressed by you at every turn. I have, regrettably, been forced to watch you from afar. Notwithstanding that fact, the reports from spies and allies have all been extremely promising. And now that I’m finally seeing you in person, all grown up.” She shakes her head and beams at me. “You’re every bit as magnificent as they all told me. Dad would be so very proud.”
I flinch like she slapped me.
“Do you miss him?” she asks.
I lift one eyebrow.
“Well, you never met him. But what I mean is, do you wish you had known your father?”
I square my shoulders. Just say it. Own up to your plan.
“It doesn’t matter. The point is that Chancery’s the Eldest, the empress of prophecy, and you may be the one person who could take her down. That makes you the biggest threat to her, to Alamecha, and to the whole world.”
“You’re going to kill me.”
Melina sighs heavily. “I don’t have a choice. You’ve seen the prophecy. Utter destruction.”
Egan pulls a gun from an inside pocket and I want to kick myself for not patting him down. I tense, preparing for a shot, when I realize it’s a dart gun. She is planning to kill me, but if she’s darting me, she isn’t doing it yet.
“Since you won’t admit anything, I’ll need to independently verify. Or maybe I’ll get the information out of you yet. But for now, it’s lights out,” Melina says.
I could avoid the dart, but what’s the point? They could release gas into the room through the air vent, or they could fire way, way more projectiles. The more I struggle, the more they’ll double down on protocols. And I need them to be as lax as possible if I want to have any hope of killing my insane, treasonous sister. And I want to kill her, badly. She didn’t deny killing our mother, and she even admitted that she couldn’t kill Chancery.
But I don’t suffer from this Alamecha epidemic. I have no qualms whatsoever about killing Melina. She will pay for killing our mother, and I’ll collect on that debt myself.
6
The Past
Stephanie pins my hair up in a complicated knot on top of my head. After the last pin slides into place, she steps back. “What do you think?”
She’s a miracle worker. My hair is thick, shiny, and curly. It’s hard to work with, and I don’t have the patience to reconfigure it all the time like my sister does. Mom’s stylist has braided the top part in a line running straight back from my forehead, and then artfully brought the various pieces together to form a beautiful configuration in the center of the top of my head. I look older, sophisticated even. But my neck is uncovered, and as beautiful as I look, I hate it.
It leaves me . . . exposed. Like my skirt has flown up around my shoulders, like everyone can see my flaws. “It’s too much.”
“Nonsense,” Mother says. “It’s a New Year’s Eve ball. Chancery’s hair is up, my hair is up. Yours should be, too.”
I swallow. She wants me to look like them. “If you say so.”
Mother nods. “I like it, but you should like it too.”
“How about if we leave the top part up.” Stephanie’s hands move across the crown of my head at lightning speed, pins falling to the ground around us. My hair falls around my shoulders in a waterfall. “But we let the rest down. You’ll look formal, but fierce.”
She finally stops and spins me around to see. My hair is braided in a line across the top of my head in a Mohawk, but the rest falls down around my shoulders, tumbling in a riot of curls. I look more like me. Not quite my utilitarian braid, or severe ponytail, but less alien than the debutante updo.
“I like it,” I say.
Mother sighs. “It’s acceptable, but—” She shakes her head. “It looks fine. It’s more you, that way.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Thank you, Stephanie,” Mother says. After her stylist leaves, she turns to inspect my dress. “You look elegant, Judica, even with your hair down. As much as it hurts me to admit it, you look older. You don’t look seventeen. You look closer to twenty-five. I wish I could still dress you in pinafores and pigtails.”
I roll my eyes.
The corner of Mother’s mouth turns up. “But I can’t. Not anymore, and I think quite a few young men have begun to take notice.”
My heart races, just a bit, but I quickly regulate it. Can’t have Mother thinking she’s struck a chord.
But of course she notices. “Is there someone you’re hoping to see tonight?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“You have dozens of options Balthasar trained right here in Ni’ihau to choose from. None of them have caught your eye?”
Caught my eye? Am I shopping for a handbag? “Umm, no.”
<
br /> “Would you tell me if one of them did?” Mother’s eyebrow goes up.
I clear my throat. “When did, uh, when did you decide that you loved Althuselah?”
“Loved?” Mother asks.
“Or you know, when did you decide you liked him?” I shrug. “Either way.”
“Althuselah?” She pauses. “Wouldn’t you rather talk about your father?”
I flinch. “You didn’t love him.”
Mother’s finger taps her lip. “I don’t suppose I really did, no. I wanted to love someone, but we didn’t quite get there. I missed being in love and I longed for a partner, but you’re right that your father didn’t turn out to be quite who I hoped he would be.”
“What about Althuselah?”
Mother’s eyes focus beyond the wall she’s staring at, as if she’s watching something beyond comprehension. “I was only sixteen the first time I saw him, his bare chest gleaming with sweat.”
“His chest?”
Mother nods. “It was covered with blood, of course. Everything was a complete mess in the years leading up to Mother’s death, you know. It wasn’t entirely her fault, what with all the insane Viking attacks she dealt with for so many centuries. So many half-evians were unhappy around that time. Mother wasn’t exiling them, but they didn’t have a place. They didn’t belong among their own people, so they banded together and called themselves Vikings. They claimed our God had forsaken them, had forsaken us all, and then they made up their own pantheon. They were just strong enough to irritate us, and we felt too guilty to completely eradicate them. In fact, many of their parents commanded the armies sent to deal with their attacks. Droves of humans in our armies died fighting them. It was utter madness.” Mother shakes her head. “But Mother was tired of it all by then and she wasn’t at her best.”
“When was that?”
“Eleven-Thirty-Six.” Mother sighs. “My mother had killed so many humans, put down so many tiny squabbles, but most of it was for the good of the rest of her subjects.”
“Why hadn’t you seen him before?” I ask. “Wasn’t he trained in your household?”
unForgiven (The Birthright Series Book 2) Page 5
