Displaced (The Birthright Series Book 1)

by Bridget E. Baker

  Mom sighs. “I know what it is. I do think Alora could help with your perspective. You seem to be operating under the delusion that being away from Alamecha’s base of operations will fill your life with boundless joy.”

  “You think she’ll tell me all the horrible things about living amongst humans? Mom, she surrounds herself with them by choice. Plus, it’s not like I haven’t done my homework. I’ve watched a million movies and television shows. I know what humans are like. And Lark will be there.”

  “Movies and television shows are one image they present, but I doubt the shows you like so much accurately reflect reality. Regardless, I’m not budging on the Heirship. The ring reacted to you, which means you’re going to reunite the families. You’re going to save the world. The sooner you accept it, the sooner we can address any deficiencies in your training to prepare you for that task.”

  “Oh my gosh Mom, how can you possibly know that’s what it means?”

  “What we will not do is stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich. You will not hide from this, because it won’t go away.” Mom sighs. “Even so, it might be wise to give Judica time to process the change without you being in residence. Since I’ll be changing the paperwork soon, sending you home with Alora after her trip next week seems prudent.”

  I smile. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. I’ll miss you of course, but I think it will help. Did you hear Judica tried to kill me again yesterday? More time with her is not helping us get along.”

  “Agreed, but there are terms. Alora will prepare you as my Heir while you’re there, a full regimen of training around the clock. You’ll adhere to the same schedule Judica follows. Routine weapons training, battle strategy, political maneuvering, pain training—”

  “Wait, pain training?” That sounds terrible. How have I never heard of that?

  Mom rubs her temples almost like humans in movies with headaches, which makes no sense. Evians don’t get headaches, just like we never get sick. “Being Heir is miserable, Chancery. I know you think my selection of Judica was a slight against you, but honestly it’s a lot of awful training and even more work. Pain training is similar to healing training.”

  I groan. Mom explained that last week. She delayed mine as long as possible, but when I turn eighteen, I’m supposed to start. I’ll be systematically injured and practice healing while being distracted with other things. Sounds horrifying.

  “Similar. You must continue to fight in spite of injury or ongoing pain. There are several ways to do it, including the placement of a blade in your body, which you cannot remove, but must fight around.”

  So you can’t heal it. My lip curls.

  “You may have noticed that pain distracts us during a fight. But the more you practice fighting through your injuries, the better you become at doing it, and the less negative impact an injury will have on you during an actual challenge.”

  “So it’s essentially torture?”

  “Actually, torture training is separate, and that particular course—”

  “Geez Mom, do you even hear yourself?”

  “It’s a lot to take in.” Mom reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I’m sorry things are changing so fast, but I have one more thing we need to discuss. It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours. If I thought I could, I’d put this off. But if you’re leaving with Alora soon, we need to discuss it now. The thing is, I may look the same, but I’m getting older. None of us live forever, and—”

  “Stop, Mom.” I shake her hand away. “You aren’t old. You’re fine, and you’ll be around for decades and decades.”

  “Nevertheless, getting older has side effects. It could be that I’m older, or it could be something else, I’m not sure. But for whatever reason, this is harder than it ever has been.”

  I think about the bags under her eyes and I wonder what she’s trying to tell me. Is Mom dying? I shake off the thought. It can’t be. We have time. So much time.

  “Mom, what’s harder? What’s going on?”

  Before she can answer, there’s a loud banging on the door. Mom looks at me with great sorrow. “It’ll have to wait. I’ll tell you after my party tonight.”

  “Tell me what?” I ask.

  “Enter,” Mom says.

  Larena and Inara stomp into the room. Inara’s mastiff, Brutus, lays down by Cookie Crisp under the table and whimpers a little. I reach down and rub his head. What’s wrong now?

  Inara and Larena sport identically furrowed brows.

  “Is everything alright?” Mom asks.

  Inara sighs. “Adika and Venagra are wearing the same color and they’re upset. Shamecha’s hiking oil prices and Adika has raised their tariffs, but whatever the real issue, Adika’s insisting you loan something to Venagra since she’s only an Heir, and I would usually just pull some things from your closet, but it all smells like smoke. I can’t give them something smoky or they’ll ply me with questions.”

  “Which we couldn’t even answer if we wanted to,” Larena says. “Because you won’t tell us what’s really going on.”

  “In due time,” Mom says, “but for now, I’d better go. Venagra will fit into something of Chancy’s just fine.”

  They storm out as quickly as they barged in.

  I don’t want to wait until tonight. I clear my throat. “You said—”

  “I know,” my mom says, “and I will explain, but it’ll have to wait until after the party. Have a little faith in me, but for now I have something pressing to take care of.” She glances at her watch and then looks back at me. “I told you that you’ll be training as Heir. That starts today. You have weapons training in five minutes.”

  “That’s plenty of time,” I say, “but can you tell Balthasar to lay off the swordplay? There are other weapons, you know.”

  “I told him you needed to focus on bladed weapons since it’s your weakest area. I don’t plan to revise that direction. You can’t just ignore things you don’t like anymore. That’s not what an empress does.”

  “But I won’t be sparring with Judica, right?”

  Mom sighs. “No, not today anyway. But Balthasar’s vetting security rewires and running interference on the entire party. He’s too busy to handle a training session, even though it’s important that you catch up quickly.”

  “I thought you said I’ve got weapons training in less than five minutes.” I stab a pancake and plop it down on my plate. “Make up your mind.”

  Mom stands up. “That is what I said and it’s true. You’re training with Edam today.”

  I hop up without taking a single bite. “I better get going, then.”

  Mom winks at me on my way out. She obviously heard my heart rate pick up when she mentioned his name. Some days I really hate evian hearing.

  11

  I’m training with Edam alone.

  Which is totally no big deal. Even though Judica doesn’t begin to deserve him, I’d never do anything to ruin whatever weird thing they have. I walk through the door to my room, Cookie Crisp trailing behind me slowly for some reason. Probably because she isn’t about to train with the hottest dog in Ni’ihau.

  If I’m fast, I can change clothes. After all, if I’m practicing bladework, I need tighter pants and a fitted shirt. Obviously. And if I choose my nicest jeans and my favorite shirt, well, that doesn’t mean anything.

  I signal Cookie to stay in the room, but instead of lying down like usual, she whimpers. I crouch down and rub her ears. “It’s been a rough few days, I know.” Instead of calming down, she licks my hand and whines piteously, which is not at all like her. She must be anxious about all the party guests, or maybe she can feel my tension since Lyssa’s execution, or Lark’s departure, or the ring incident.

  It’s been an awful twenty-four hours.

  I relent and let her come with me. It’s not like Judica will be there trying to saw me in two again. What could it hurt to have Cookie curled up in the corner while I train? I glance at the clock. It’s two minutes before th
e hour, and yesterday Edam came looking for me when I was late. I rush out the door and toward the arena.

  He’s sitting in the chair in front of the room’s computer interface. He looks up at me when I walk in, then glances at the large, round clock mounted on the back wall. “Right on time this morning.”

  He’s alone in the room, a room that holds six training rings, one of which is raised for formal duels. I’m dozens of yards away, but I try my best to calm my heartbeat before moving closer. Did I mention that I hate evian senses? No human girl has to worry that her pulse will give her feelings away to her crush. Every one of them can pine away without her heart betraying her. Plus, human high schools might be small, but the sheer volume of guys a human girl encounters dwarfs the tiny pool of available men when you’re evian. Especially an evian in the line of succession like me. I’ve got a pool of three dozen guys from whom to choose any future mate, in case something happens to the current Heir and I have to step up, a pool I share with Judica. Which leaves me constantly trying to make sure the one guy my stupid sister is dating doesn’t realize I think he’s yummier than a stack of chocolate truffle pancakes.

  “Sorry about being late yesterday,” I say. “I’m not accustomed to training with anyone other than my mom, and we just train whenever she has time.”

  Edam crosses the room and stops directly in front of me. “Never apologize, Your Highness. Not to me or to anyone else.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re second in line to the throne of the First Family of the Six. You should never apologize.”

  I raise one eyebrow. “I appreciate the advice, but I always apologize when I’m wrong. I’m not my sister.”

  He bows. “You most certainly are not.” I listen to his tone for any evidence that he’s mocking me, but I can’t find any.

  He looks so serious for someone so young, at least, young in evian terms. He can’t be much older than I am, not more than a decade anyway. How has he advanced so fast? “You’re taking over for Balthasar when he retires as Chief of Security, right?”

  “If he ever retires, you mean?” He smiles. “Even if I do take over, you’ll still outrank me. Don’t apologize.”

  My heart melts. Until a little voice in my head screams, ‘He’s the demon-spawn’s boyfriend!’ I repeat it over and over to remind myself that even if he’s beautiful and kind and impressive, he’s still the enemy.

  Out loud I say, “I’d take your advice if I agreed that I should only apologize to people who rank above me, but I think people should apologize whenever harm has been done. I’m sorry for a lot of things that aren’t my fault. It’s called empathy, and evians in general need to find a little more of it. Even if it makes people perceive me as weak, I won’t forsake common courtesy.”

  “You aren’t common. It doesn’t apply to you.”

  “Changing my behavior because you tell me to would be worse than apologizing for a slight. As you pointed out, I outrank you, so even if I’m not as strong and impressive as your girlfriend, you’ll have to deal with it. I am who I am.”

  “She’s not,” he says.

  “Huh?” She may be a horrible person, but even I admit Judica is both strong and impressive.

  Edam coughs and takes a step back, then turns toward the weapons rack. “Judica’s not my...you know.”

  “Not your what?” I ask, because I need to hear him say it. Even so, I’m suddenly very interested in the weapons in front of me.

  “We aren’t together anymore.”

  My jaw drops. “Whoa, she dumped you?”

  Edam’s head snaps around toward me so fast it practically blurs. “No, she didn’t end things.”

  “So you’re still together? I’m confused.”

  “None of this impacts our training.” Edam reaches for a long sword and I imagine it swinging down toward my neck. I suppress a shudder. His hand pauses. “What do you want to work on today?”

  I shrug. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  He reaches for a scimitar.

  “Not that,” I say.

  He pulls his hand back and looks at me expectantly.

  “Mom says I should practice my aim. Other than that, I dunno.”

  “I wasn’t trained in melodics, but I know a few drills. Should we start with some of those?”

  “Mom and I usually do.”

  He walks to a cabinet and pulls out a flute case.

  I laugh. “I haven’t used a flute in a decade.”

  “Oh.” He looks sheepish. “What do you do, then?”

  I walk over to the computer screen he was sitting at moments before and tap a few things. “The flute is for basic runs. Triads, scales, and so on. I mastered all the variations of those by age seven.” I tap the screen again. I put my selection on time delay.

  “Beethoven’s Fifth?” He’s standing right behind me, and when he speaks, his breath warms the back of my neck. Steady, heart, steady.

  “Beethoven was the last great melodics composer.”

  I untie my shoes and pull them off. I peel off my socks and set them on the floor by Cookie, who has curled up in a ball, fast asleep. At least she’s calmed down. Her heart’s barely beating. I could use some of that zen myself.

  I walk to the middle of the room before inhaling and exhaling deeply a few times. Then the music begins. Melodics ties a sequence of notes to each body motion. You learn to flow from one movement to the next, following an established method. Turn, strike down, pull back, drop, strike up, crouch, leap, kick, spin. I move from one form to another, following the pattern of the music. The great dance, that’s what Mom sometimes calls it.

  The song ends and Edam claps. “Graceful, but perhaps not so useful.”

  “Mock me if you will, but there’s a reason evians have trained with melodics for thousands of years.”

  “Science hadn’t invented guns, yet?”

  “Funny. And that’ll be a good argument against it when the evians update their duels and use guns or bombs. For now, we still fight it out in arenas, up close.”

  “But even as hand-to-hand or weapons training,” Edam says, “it’s outdated.”

  I shake my head. “It isn’t. The body learns certain movements and how they connect, and it helps you read your opponent and respond without thinking about it. You feel it.”

  “Were you feeling it yesterday?” His eyes are kind, but the criticism still annoys me.

  “Look, you don’t drop the external music until you reach a certain point in your training. It’s hard to hear the music in your head, to feel the movements and see the patterns without actually having music playing. They call hearing the music around you ‘sensing the score of all things’ and when you can hear it, you go ‘off book.’ I haven’t reached that point yet, and yesterday I wasn’t feeling much of anything.” Except for a brief moment, maybe. But the euphoria from that blinded me to Judica’s hidden blade. Not exactly a winning endorsement.

  He taps his lip thoughtfully, probably to help him focus, but it has the opposite effect on me. “You improved dramatically the second time. Were you hearing it then, this score?”

  I blush. “I finally did, a little, but it wasn’t enough.” The sympathy in Edam’s eyes pisses me off. It’s not like I’m delusional. I know Judica destroyed me. “So, I’m warm now. What’s next?”

  Edam walks to the middle of the arena until he stands so close I could reach out and touch him if I dared. I focus on keeping my heart rate steady.

  Edam’s voice is scratchy and low when he says, “I shouldn’t have asked about yesterday. Your relationship with your sister is none of my business.”

  I arch one eyebrow. “It’s so much simpler to just say ‘I’m sorry.’”

  “Touché.”

  “Besides, everyone knows Judica and I aren’t close.”

  “She was out of line,” he says. “You’ve never threatened her, and I told her that last night.”

  “Whoa, that didn’t go well.”

  “It did
n’t,” he said. “In fact, you could say it precipitated our breakup.”

  So she dumped him because he defended me? I should keep quiet, but I don’t. “Sometimes change is for the best.”

  “I hope so.” Edam reaches out to touch my arm and I jump back.

  “So, what now?” I ask.

  Edam turns away. When he turns back to face me, he’s wearing a strange expression I can’t read. “Hand-to-hand. Even if you don’t want to work with swords after yesterday, I think you could use some practice in dueling forms.”

  “You’re probably right.” I spread my feet shoulder width apart and let my arms drop to my sides.

  “Shouldn’t you take your necklace off?”

  “This?” I gesture to the necklace I never remove. It’s a framework of silver in a ‘U’ shape, set with purple stones of varying colors. It circles my neck, the larger stones near the bottom. “No, I don’t think so.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “Really? I could grab it and use it to take you down.”

  “I’m prepared for that possibility. I never take it off. Mom’s orders.”

  He looks curious but doesn’t press for more.

  His stance shifts to match mine. “On my mark, then.” He claps and we’re off.

  He’s good. He pins me in under a minute.

  “Again,” I say.

  And again, pinned in under a minute.

  “Don’t pin me this time,” I say. “Hit me.”

  “Full contact?” His words practically quiver with doubt.

  “I didn’t do much right yesterday, but I think I proved that I heal just fine.”

  He grins. “True enough.”

  Less than two minutes later I’m lying flat on my back with a broken shin and a bloody nose. I roll over and spit blood all over the mat while I mend my shattered bone. “Why did I ask for full contact? Yuck.”

  Edam chuckles.

  I moan as I sit up. “If you aren’t better than Judica, I’ll eat my boiled egg tomorrow.”

  “Not a fan of eggs, huh?”

  I snort. “You may be the best fighter I’ve ever met.”

  Edam smiles. “Didn’t you wonder why Balthasar’s finally talking about retiring, after nine hundred years as Security Chief?”