Secondborn

by Amy A. Bartol

  “They won’t need her moniker to know who she is. Her face is everywhere. They’ve all watched her grow up.”

  Dune’s eyes widen in shock. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “Leave us, Roselle,” Othala demands. “Wait for Dune to join you in the Grand Foyer.” I retreat through a bronze doorway, leaving it open a crack. “I have given her all the tools she needs to survive,” Mother says. “I gave her you for eighteen years. The best strategists have trained her. She has a better chance than any one of the secondborns twice her age. We both knew this day would come, but unlike you, I was smart enough not to become attached to her. Anything you feel in this moment is on you, Dune.”

  A foot taps behind me, and I turn to see Emmitt. Sighing, I close the door and try not to show any emotion. We hate each other, but it’s dangerous to antagonize him. He organizes all of Mother’s appointments. For my entire childhood, if I’ve wanted to see her, I’ve had to go through Emmitt, and it was rare that I was granted an audience with her. I want to believe it was him and not her who kept me away, but deep down I know it’s not true. Emmitt is vindictive, though. He once ordered all of my shoes a couple of sizes too small after I’d complained about wearing a pink velvet bow in my hair for All Fates Day.

  Emmitt appraises me, taking in my unflattering new uniform. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his long fingers. “Remind me to address the hideous state of the Tropo uniforms in our next session with the Clarity,” he says to Clara, who stands next to him.

  “What difference does it make?” she asks, giving me a cursory glance and twirling a piece of her lavender-colored hair around a sharp fingernail. Emmitt’s calm is a mask. He doesn’t like to be questioned by anyone.

  “This color doesn’t play well to the cameras.” He flails his lanky arm in my direction. “It makes her eyes look haunted and her skin too pale. And the fit!” I stand still as he straightens my already-straight collar. “It hides her delicate neck.”

  “She’s going to war, not to tea.”

  “It’s more important than ever to show secondborn citizens the example of sacrifice. Roselle is the embodiment of the service they owe to the Fates.”

  “You mean she’s propaganda.”

  Emmitt snorts. “She’s essential to our great nation and to firstborn supremacy. The Clarity of Virtues himself is adamant that she make a final statement today to show her support for the cause.”

  Clara sniffs and touches her stylus to her blue-painted lips. “Her support? She’s eighteen. She’s been raised to do whatever you tell her to do.”

  “And she does it so well,” Emmitt purrs. They discuss me as if I’m not even here. He pauses in his fussing with my collar to take in the effect, tilting his head to one side with a delicate lift of one ruddy eyebrow.

  “Will I get to see my brother before I leave?” I ask.

  “Of course you’ll see your brother. You just have to memorize this official statement, and then you’ll have a few moments with Gabriel.” He extends a small tablet with the crest of St. Sismode on its underside. “How long will it take you to memorize that?”

  “‘It is my honor to serve Clarity Bowie and to uphold the founding principles of the Fates of the Republic,’” I read. “‘Today I fulfill my birthright as defender of the firstborn bloodlines.’” I scroll down for more, but there isn’t anything else. “That’s it?” I stop short of adding that I have the same bloodline as the firstborn of my family.

  Emmitt wrinkles his long nose. “Do you have it memorized or do you need more time?”

  “But it says nothing about the Fate of Swords—our Fate of the Republic—or my mother—”

  Emmitt snatches the tablet from my hands. He reads it aloud in a mumbled, insulting way, then looks directly at me. “It says exactly what Clarity Bowie wants it to say. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No.” I lower my chin.

  Emmitt thrusts the tablet back into my hands. “You have less than an hour to practice this before you’re taken to your Transition point. Follow me.”

  He turns with a prissy swivel of his hips. We traverse the west wing. As we pass secondborn servants in the corridors, they stand aside and bow their heads. Emmitt ignores them. Like them, he is from the Fate of Stones. He’s not a Sword, but he pretends to be, as if he has forgotten that he’s secondborn as well.

  We enter the cavernous reception area of the Grand Foyer at the entrance of the Palace. The windows afford views of the Warrior Fountain outside, and I study the mobs of photographers and spectators gathered to watch the hovercade transport me to secondborn processing at the Stone Forest Base.

  The wrought iron gates and fences outside are lined with people waiting for a glimpse of me. Young children rest on their parents’ shoulders, clutching little blue flags with golden swords on them. Others carry “red Roselle roses,” a fad that began when Father sent Mother flowers to mark my birth. The idea had come from one of Mother’s PR specialists, intended to make my parents’ relationship appear loving.

  I set down the tablet on a nearby table and press my face against the one-way glass, observing the citizens who have come to wish me farewell. A commotion behind me makes me straighten. Gabriel’s voice rises in irritation as he enters the foyer, descending one side of the Grand Staircase. He’s arguing with his advisors. “She’s my little sister! I’m going to see her before she leaves, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!” His reflection is clear in the glass. He shakes off the hand of his mentor, Susteven. “The next person who touches me loses his hand!” Gabriel warns.

  His black boots click on the marble floor as he crosses directly over the inlaid St. Sismode crest, which we’ve both been taught to circumvent as a show of respect. His image in the glass grows larger—dark and brooding. He stops next to me, facing the glass. He’s at least a foot taller than me. Our blue-eyed stares meet in the window. Gabriel’s little finger brushes mine, and he whispers, “It should be me.”

  Chapter 2

  No Sudden Moves

  Gabriel has changed so much since we last spoke. Once upon a time, he would sneak into my training sessions to watch me fight. He’d ask me to teach him combat—a boy in love with war but with no one to instruct him in the art. No one dared raise a hand to him. Now he’s a man—a man doing everything in his power to forget that he’s firstborn.

  My heart feels sore as I gaze at his reflection. He has a puffy, night-after look about him. He’s probably still coming down from some drug-induced fun. He and his firstborn crowd are notorious for their fetes, which are little more than excuses to get intoxicated and destroy their palatial apartments, leaving the wreckage for the secondborns of their estates to sort out. I hear his secondborn attendants whisper about it when they think I’m not listening.

  On a normal day, they say he doesn’t leave his apartment before noon. I’m a little surprised he has made this exception for me. It hadn’t been easy for him, as his appearance attests. He’s too thin. His shoulders lack the bulk of muscle that men of the guard achieve through constant physical training. Gabriel compensates by wearing a thicker cape. The midnight-blue wool attaches to his shoulders with golden clasps in the shape of swords, flowing down his back from his impressive height. It drapes one bicep, the other uncovered. His one-of-a-kind sword is sheathed at his waist—a gift from our maternal grandfather to the heir to The Sword.

  I lean against his shoulder. “It shouldn’t be you, Gabriel. You’re not meant for Transition. The Fate of Swords needs you here. It’s you who carries the burden of everyone’s tomorrow.”

  Shame turns to anger. “There is no burden! I get everything I want, Roselle. I don’t work for anything. I’m useless.”

  “You’re the next Clarity of Swords.”

  “I don’t even know how to use the sword that I carry.” His chin juts out. The skin over his cheekbones is gaunt. I wonder when he last had a meal.

  “I taught you to fight.”

  He snorts. “When you wer
e eleven. I haven’t touched my sword since.” His fingers move to the arch of his eyebrow, where the hair no longer grows. A small white scar runs from his brow over his eyelid to just beneath the bottom lashes of his left eye. I remember the terror of the moment when I sliced through his skin. It had been unintentional, a lapse in concentration, but it cost me almost all contact with the brother I adore.

  To my immense relief, he hadn’t lost his eye. It’s still as blue as ever. The wound was superficial, just a graze from the tip of my fusionblade. There was no blood. The intense heat of the golden light of my sword seared his flesh as it moved through.

  Gabriel sees me staring at the scar, and his face clouds with shame. “It wasn’t your fault. I begged you to show me how to fight.”

  “You threatened to have me sent to Transition if I didn’t. Listen, you look tough, Gabriel. Practice your scowl, and you’ll intimidate the Heritage Council into siding with you on all of your important issues.”

  He lets out a small sigh and gives me a grudging smile. “I already do. They all fear me for my ferocious glare.”

  They fear your temper. I think of the pieces of gossip passing between Sword guards and Stone chamber workers. “Is that why you haven’t had your scar removed?” I ask. Skin regeneration is commonplace, takes only a few hours, and is nearly painless.

  “Mother thought I should keep it.”

  His scar is a reminder not to get too close to me. I blink back tears and force a smile. “Ah. Your sneer will be legendary.”

  “I’m sorry I never came to see you after . . .”

  A sharp pain slices through my heart, a black mark on my soul that mirrors Gabriel’s scar. “I know you were forbidden to see me.”

  “That’s not an excuse.”

  A part of me is glad he didn’t come right away. Dune had been forced to punish me—twenty lashes with a heavy cane. I couldn’t walk for weeks. But days stretched into years and not a word came to me from Gabriel. I tried to see him countless times, but my requests were always denied. I was reduced to spying on him from windows and balconies—watching reports of him on-screen while he performed ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the like. “You’re here now.”

  His eyes blaze with restrained guilt. “You shouldn’t have to go away. I’ll speak to Mother. She’ll see reason—”

  “I missed you, Gabriel.”

  He fumbles for my hand. His skin is smooth, his palm not calloused from training with a sword. Turning my hand over, he opens my palm, running his fingers across it.

  “You’re a fighter.”

  “It’s my destiny.”

  “I wish it were mine.” His honesty holds a note of jealousy. He turns my hand to the side, his warm fingers following the line of the implant moniker beneath my skin. When his holographic symbol is parallel to mine, our two swords glow golden. A shiver of dread quivers through me. Soon, my sword’s light will turn silver. It’ll no longer be golden after my Transition. Its radiance will pale and my life will change forever.

  Gabriel traces my crown-shaped birthmark. “The Crown of Swords,” he whispers. “What do you think it means?”

  “Nothing.” I try to pull my hand away, but he won’t relinquish it. His grip turns painful.

  “Maybe everyone has been right about you,” he grumbles, finally letting go. His head tilts. “Maybe you are dangerous, Roselle. Do you want me dead?”

  “My fate is to protect all firstborns,” I gasp. “It’s what I’m born to do.”

  Gabriel suddenly unsheathes his sword. It flares golden, a glowing length of condensed fusion energy, capable of cutting diamond. It’s the shape and length of a broadsword of old, but without the heavy weight of iron or steel. I back away, wary of his intentions. Gabriel’s advisors watch us. A few appear horrified, but most, like Susteven, have malicious grins. They’re hoping for bloodshed.

  “Here’s your opportunity, Roselle. If you can kill me, you can be firstborn.” Gabriel’s gaze is a silent showdown.

  I stand immobile. “My sole purpose is to serve The Sword, Gabriel—to serve you.” The pop and crackle of his weapon raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I taste its energy in the air, familiar and warm.

  “Do you regret not killing me when you were eleven, when it would’ve been seen as an accident?” He swings his fusionblade at me in a wide, flailing arc of dizzying light. I step back from its fiery edge, but my posture doesn’t change.

  Gabriel’s eyes turn predatory. He swings again and again—the same clumsiness. I sidestep him, and he loses his balance and staggers. His midnight-blue cape sweeps forward and drifts against his sword. A swatch falls to the floor, resting on the inlaid marble map of the nine fatedoms that surround our family crest, covering the northern district, the Fate of Stars. It’s one of the regions plagued by open rebellion. Secondborn Stars have aligned with secondborns from other Fates to form the Gates of Dawn—a rebel army.

  I smell burning fabric. Gabriel straightens. He swings around and grasps at his ruined hem. His advisors snicker from the gleaming stairs, and Gabriel’s hand tightens on the hilt of his weapon. “Do me the courtesy of drawing your sword!” he bellows.

  “No.” My lips press together.

  “No?” The sweet boy has given way to the bitter man. “I’m to be The Sword!”

  “I know who you are, Gabriel.”

  “Everyone here thinks you intend to kill me! Here’s your chance, Roselle! I’m attacking you. Defend yourself.” He hurls himself at me again. I step back, without drawing my sword, and realize that I’m standing on the Fate of Swords crest. A small voice inside me whispers, I could be firstborn. I could kill Gabriel, and then no one would raise a hand to me ever again. But the penance would be too much—I’d never sleep again if I murdered my brother.

  Gabriel lunges. I avoid his sword and grasp his thumb, wrenching it back against his wrist. His grip on his weapon loosens and he drops it. Catching it before it hits, I angle it away from us, and I drive Gabriel to his knees with another twist of his thumb. His head bows and he winces.

  Holding his thumb, I lean down and whisper. “One day, Gabriel, you’ll be a powerful Clarity. When that day comes, follow your heart. Be the leader we need, not the ruler we don’t. I love you, Brother. I’ll miss you every day for the rest of my life.” I let go and he looks up, anguish in his eyes. I nod my head in the direction of the Grand Staircase. “And get rid of your advisors. They like seeing you on your knees.”

  “I know who you are, too, Roselle.” Gabriel tries to control his breathing. He wears a desolate smile. “I knew you wouldn’t kill me. It’s never been who you are—the girl who finds wounded animals and hides them away, tending them until they’re healed and she can set them free.”

  My eyes widen. He has been watching me these past years. I offer him my hand, but before he has a chance to move, my mother’s shrill voice screams from the balcony above us. “Shoot her! Stop her before she murders the firstborn!”

  My breath catches, and I turn to the mezzanine. Othala’s torso leans over the gilded railing, pointing at me in wild thrusts. Dune is just behind her, his expression grim and drawn. Along the railing, guards raise their fusion-powered rifles. I lose my grip on Gabriel’s fusionblade. It slips from my hand to clatter on the cold tile, extinguishing from loss of pressure on the hilt.

  Gabriel springs up from the floor, spreads his arms wide, and moves to stand between me and the soldiers. “Wait, wait, wait!” His arms flail. “I was just demonstrating for everyone here that this is all a mistake. Roselle has never been a threat to me. I proved it! I attacked her, and she never even drew her weapon.”

  “Move out of the way, Gabriel!” My mother leans farther over the balcony and waves her arm at him.

  “She didn’t do anything!” Gabriel insists. “Roselle’s innocent!” His eyes dart from Mother to Dune, and then to his advisors. “Tell her!” he shouts at Susteven.

  Light from a glistening chandelier shines off Susteven’s balding head. “Roselle drove h
im to his knees,” he says with a cunning look in our direction. Bile rises in my throat.

  Gabriel scoffs. “It’s not what you think! She was trying to stop me.”

  My mother seethes. “Gabriel, move!”

  I dare not breathe. Unless Gabriel convinces them otherwise, the moment he fails to shield me, I’m dead. I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t manage even one word in my own defense. I should never have touched him. They can end my life for that infraction alone.

  Dune moves from behind Othala and hurries to the Grand Staircase. He descends the stairs two at a time. As he approaches us, Gabriel’s voice cracks—a plea. “It wasn’t her fault, Dune! It was me—I did this!”

  “I’ll see to her, Gabriel.” Dune moves between Gabriel and me, turning me toward the immense doors that lead to the waiting crowd outside. I take a shaky step, and then another. Dune is right behind me. No one can get off a shot without hitting him, too. Maybe Mother still holds some affection for him, because she doesn’t give the kill order.

  “I’m sorry, Roselle!” Gabriel’s tortured voice strains behind us.

  We make it to the doors. I push one open. Squinting in the sunlight, I stop just over the threshold. The roar of the crowd is a punch to my stomach. Dune grasps my upper arm and raises his other hand in a wave. “You can’t go back in. They’ll kill you,” he says through a false smile. “From this moment on, we go forward. We never look back.”

  Chapter 3

  Fate Traitors

  Dune ushers me to the waiting hovercar. Fine mist from the Warrior Fountain settles on my skin. Bronze statues tower fifty feet or more above our heads. I lift my eyes to their vicious-looking swords. Their snarls are ferocious even on the best of days, but this is the worst day of my life. In a daze, I duck my head and climb into the back of the driverless vehicle, a Vicolt. This model hasn’t been manufactured for hundreds of years. The rear of the hovercar is made of chrome and glass. It reminds me of an overturned fishbowl, and me, the beta fish on display.