“Unlike all the other empresses and heirs, you listen to opinions from everyone around you. You’d treat a Consort as a partner. Which means that you and I together could fix so many broken things.”
Edam doesn’t know about the prophecy. I have to remind myself of that, because he sure sounds like he does.
It’s freaking me out.
“I need to think, Edam. Please don’t pressure me.”
“I’m not trying to,” he says. “I promise.”
I rush to my room to shower, but Alora’s waiting for me. She’s always so serene, so calm, so peaceful. I need to discover her secret, because Mom exuded calm too. I’m nothing like them. I’m nothing like Edam thinks. I can’t do this, any of it.
“Chancery,” Alora asks, her voice soft, her eyes gentle. “Is everything okay?”
I jog across the room and pull her into a hug. “Nothing is okay.”
I sob against her shoulder, and after a short moment, her arms tighten around me and she bawls, too.
When I finally get things together, I sit up straight and wipe my tears away. “I need some advice.”
Alora chuckles. “From your washed-up sister who hides in New York City?”
My jaw drops. Alora doesn’t think she’s good enough either? I’m beginning to think that everyone I know is secretly faking it.
I drop my face in my hands. “Fight, abdicate, fight, abdicate. I keep thinking I’ve made up my mind, but then five minutes later something else happens and I’m lost again.”
“What are you thinking right now?” She sits down next to me. “No processing, just your current thoughts.”
“I can’t fight,” I say. “I’m trying, but I’m still lousy. I can’t beat Judica.”
“So you’re leaning toward abdication?” she asks. “Because you’re always welcome to stay with me. You already know I have this home in New York, but I’ve got extensive holdings elsewhere too. I can make sure you’re safe and hidden, if that’s necessary.”
“Maybe, but I’ve got a third option too.”
Alora’s lips compress. “Edam.”
“He offered to be my Consort.”
She nods. “I expected that.”
“Because you knew I wasn’t strong enough to fight her myself?”
“Ha! No. Because I’ve seen how he looks at you. That boy is smitten.”
Smitten? How old is Alora? Oh, right. “I don’t know about that, but he’s willing to fight Judica for me. I think it has more to do with his burning desire to make things right in the evian world, but he’s passionate about it. I believe he can do it, too.”
“Really?” Alora’s right eyebrow rises. “Edam’s a social warrior? I didn’t see that one coming.”
I suppose I didn’t either.
“Okay, same question, but including all three options. You have to pick one right now. Which is it?”
“I guess I’d abdicate. I like Edam, but I’m not even eighteen yet. And beyond that, I don’t know whether I want to win at all if it means killing my sister. I hate fighting. Slashing someone with a sword until they’re dead isn’t who I am. I doubt letting someone else do it by proxy will be much better. At the end of the day, whatever they do is still my fault.” I shudder. “Can Edam just win the fight, but not kill her? Like, hold his sword to her throat until she surrenders?”
Alora closes her eyes and runs a hand over her face. When she opens her eyes, they’re sad. “You can’t, Chancy. You know that.”
“How do I know that? Why can’t I? My older sister, Melina, the one who shares a dad with Judica and I, she challenged Mom, right? When Mom gave birth and refused to kill one of us. That’s what I heard.”
Alora looks at me funny. “I don’t know the details since I wasn’t there and Mother never discussed it, but I heard the same as you. Melina challenged Mother, and they fought hours after she gave birth to you and Judica.”
“Clearly Mom won, but Melina’s still alive. So why can’t I let Judica live?”
Alora looks sad. “I don’t know exactly what happened. No one does. Mother threw everyone out of the room before exiling her.”
“But she lives in Mom’s territory.”
Alora nods. “She lives in Austin and can’t leave, from what I understand. And Mother forbade her to participate in politics. Not just Alamecha’s politics, but all evian politics. Melina agreed, and Mother trusted her word.”
“Why can’t I do something like that?”
“You can’t forcibly remove an Heir. Judica could choose to abdicate, but do you think she would?” Alora looks at me sideways.
Judica will never, under any circumstance, abdicate. Never.
“So if I defeat her and don’t kill her,” I say, “she’ll simply challenge me again the next day.”
“And if you defeat her that day, she’ll challenge you again.”
I groan. “So I have to kill her or bow out.”
“You won’t know whether you can defeat her until you’re in the ring, not for sure. Training is very different than a real fight to the death,” Alora says. “It may come more naturally to Judica, but being able to easily strike another human doesn’t make her the better warrior. Anyone can learn to fight. I had no taste for it, but I improved. I actually think part of what you need to know is coded into your genetic material.” She smiles. “Which is how I became the best fighter in my century.”
“Wait.” I shake my head. “You were a fighter?”
Alora raises one eyebrow. “I don’t look it to you?”
I take in her ballerina’s body—long, lean lines, an arched neck, and understated grace. “No.” I shake my head. “Sorry, but I’m kind of glad you don’t look like a warrior. You wouldn’t be you.”
“I won first place in Combat in the Centennial Games in 1900.”
Humans have the Olympics every four years, but evians live a millennium. We don’t need a competition every four years. Once a century is quite often enough to have thousands of evians compete in four events: Endurance, Regeneration, Strategy, and Combat.
How did I not know that Alora won Combat?
“Why aren’t you training me then, instead of Edam?”
Alora looks at me sadly. “Melodics can’t be mastered in a week. It’s not about quick tricks or smart thinking or fighting strategy. To have any hope of winning, you need to know your opponent. It’s about understanding them well enough you know what move they’ll make and why. And at the risk of sounding like a fortune cookie, you can only understand them when you understand yourself. I could go through the forms with you, but you can only master melodics when you master your own heart enough to see clearly into the hearts of others.”
“So you think that melodics is dying because—”
“No one takes the time to understand themselves anymore, much less the people around them. Yes, I believe that’s why melodics has fallen out of favor.”
Wow, Edam would laugh so hard at all this, but I almost understand her.
“Chancery, you would be an excellent ruler. I think you can master the principles of combat too, but only if you desperately want to do it. And only if you dig deep. Our family motto is pretty cheesy, but it’s also true. It’s time for you to accept the world as it is or do something to change it.”
“Do you think I should be the one fighting?”
“Fighting isn’t the only way to change the world,” Alora says. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t fight Judica.”
“You wouldn’t?” I’m beginning to think I don’t know a thing about my favorite sister.
She laughs. “What did Mother tell you about my life? Did she recount any stories of my youth?”
I shrug. “Not really.” I wrack my memory and come up with just a few facts. I know Alora was born in 1706 and that she was Heir for more than a hundred years, until Inara’s birth in 1820. Mom hadn’t said much else, not that I could recall. Just a few small things here and there: Alora loves Chinese food. Alora moves with grace. Alora detests rudene
ss.
But no anecdotes or stories about her early years.
“I wasn’t an exemplary Heir, so I shouldn’t be surprised she didn’t share. Actually, maybe I should be grateful.”
“But it still hurts your feelings?” I guess.
“Not anymore. I passed beyond getting my feelings hurt by anything our family does long ago,” Alora says.
“What’s the story?”
“I fell in love with a human, a man without even a drop of evian blood.”
I must look surprised, because she smiles fondly. “It wasn’t as unlikely then. Mother hadn’t created her island palace and humans surrounded us much of the time. We didn’t always have evians cleaning, and cooking, and serving us. We used humans for those tasks. After this, she opted for seclusion, at least until the formative, early years had passed for Inara, and later for Melina, and now for you and Judica. In any case, his imperfect blood notwithstanding, you might have heard of the man who caught my eye. I’m not sure if they still teach about his life on Ni’ihau, but he’s still part of the curriculum in public schools around here. His name was Benjamin Franklin.”
I snort. “Uh, yeah, he’s come up,” I say. “He made the first lightning rod, and was born in 1706 – wow, I never made that connection before, because why would I? But you’re the same age.”
Alora looks away from me, her eyes glassy, as if thinking about this pains her. “We first met in London. He was brilliant, Chancy. Brilliant and imperfect and full of life and fire in a way that no evians I knew were.”
“So what happened?” I ask. “I want to hear every detail.”
Alora glances at her watch. “One day I’ll share the whole story with you. But since it’s getting close to time for school, I’ll skip to the critical part. I became pregnant.”
I can’t breathe. “Oh.” For years, I thought Mom would change her mind if she were confronted with a half-evian child or grandchild. I guess I was wrong.
“Mother presented me with my options. I could give the child up and remain her Heir, or I could leave. She made it clear that if I left her side, I would never be welcomed back.”
I splutter. “Whoa, you left way back then?”
Alora’s shoulders droop and her eyes won’t meet mine. “The worst mistake of my life is that I didn’t. I gave him up. Benjamin raised William himself, never revealing the identity of William’s mother to anyone, including William himself.” Her voice trembles. “I forsook the man I loved, and I abandoned my child. I can never undo that misstep. Never.”
“Then why are you—”
“You’re wondering why I live like an outcast now, I suppose.” Alora smiles ruefully. “It’s not really that bad, you know. Evians think that the rest of the earth is covered with trash, teeming with unfit people. They think humans aren’t worthy of time or attention. It’s true that things are harder for humans. They work harder to comprehend, to overcome, and to create. But hard work isn’t a dirty word. Evians are wrong that humans’ shortcomings make them unworthy. Every life has value. People are still people, no matter how short a time they have on this Earth, or how imperfect their visage. In many ways, the humans’ limited time on Earth helps them remember not to waste it.”
“I don’t think humans are trash,” I say.
“I know you don’t, Chancy, which is part of why I’ve always loved you. You’ve been fed the same stories as all the other evians, but you open your genetically perfect eyes and look around at the world as it is. You draw your own conclusions, even when they’re not popular ones.” Alora drops her voice. “It’s the reason you’ll make a better ruler than Judica.”
“So you think I should fight her?”
“I think Alamecha and the world would be better off if you defeated her and ascended the throne. I didn’t say it’s what’s best for you. And we can’t live by what should be. We have to live by what’s possible.”
“You had to let go of the regret.”
Alora nods. “I did.”
“If you weren’t exiled, why did you come live with the humans?” Why didn’t she stay in Ni’ihau for me? I could have used her help and guidance.
“After I gave them up, I mourned. Mother thought it would pass, but it didn’t. Part of that may be Benjamin’s fault.” Alora looks wistful. “He really was incomparable. The man never gave up on anything. Every time he popped up somewhere, I relived my mistake, regretting it anew. Mother was furious every time, but I wasn’t a complete moron. When I gave up the child, I made Mother promise she would protect William and his trouble-making father as well. Mom swore, not realizing how difficult her promise would be when she saw how distracting they were to me.”
“But Mom would never—”
Alora chokes. “Don’t Chancy. Don’t defend her to me. I know you spent every waking minute with her. You think you know her, and maybe you do, but you don’t know how much keeping you changed her. Fundamentally. The Mom you knew and loved was not the same mother who raised me. She was softer after you, not as cruel, and also stronger at the same time. She did many things in her nine hundred years that would make you squirm, if not hate her outright.”
I lift my chin. I won’t listen to Alora besmirch Mom. She was complicated and hard to understand, and sometimes people didn’t know the truth. To the rest of the world, Mom ordered Lark’s execution. Who knows what else Alora saw that might not have happened. I know Mom, and that’s enough.
“The point is, seeing Benjamin’s rising glory reminded me over and over of what I’d done. I couldn’t move past it, and after Inara was born, Mother didn’t need me anymore. That’s when I realized that I’d given Benjamin and little William up... for nothing. I’d spent a full century training, learning, and studying for something that never came to pass. With Inara alive and well, I became extraneous. The sacrifice I made of everything that mattered to me felt so necessary at the time, but ultimately it was meaningless.”
“You were angry and you stormed out?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “My anger had long since gone cold.”
“You fell for someone else?”
She laughs. “Never again, not like that first time.”
My heart sinks when I think of Alora’s despair spanning centuries. It must show on my face.
“Don’t look so crestfallen. I’ve fallen in love many times since then, but it was never the same, never like it was with Benjamin. Even when you live a thousand years, love like that is rare, almost non-existent. If it hadn’t been my first love, I’d have recognized it for what it was: epic. I found the kind of love that changes who you are, and coupled with my loss...” She swallows. “I never should have let it go, and humans die so quickly.”
“Then why did you leave the family?”
“I couldn’t bear to stay, knowing I was unnecessary and seeing how hollow everything was. Everything that I valued became meaningless. I needed a clean break. And the saddest part is, I think Mother was relieved when I finally left.”
I bite my lip. “She missed you. She never spoke of you, but she kept your photo on her dresser. She would stare at it sometimes, wistfully.”
Alora pats my head, like she’d comfort a dog. “I believe that. I have children myself, you know. And grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren, some of whom you’ve now met. For propriety’s sake, most of them don’t know I’m their grandmother several times removed. They call me Great-Aunt Alora, and even that gets confusing. Once they realize they aren’t aging normally, I fill them in, at least a little bit, on what it means to be part evian.”
“So William? Your son, is he still...?”
“Alive?” She stares out the window. “Benjamin never divulged our secrets, but eventually I broke down and told William who I was, and I explained his legacy. And he was loyal to me, you know, very loyal, always to me and to Alamecha, even though the family spurned him. When the colonies decided to start their little revolution, before Mother decided to embrace it and rule this upstart group of people
in a new way, he fought for me, for the family that despised him. In the end, he fought the father who raised him and who loved him dearly, and he did it for me, the mother who abandoned him.”
“And?” I ask.
“He died for it, Chancy. He wasn’t full evian you know, and he was more... susceptible. In the end, we think it was poison. People had begun to notice that he wasn’t aging, even though he had false portraits painted depicting white hair and wrinkles. There were a lot of accusations of witchcraft then, and we think someone suspected he was different and took measures.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“I recovered from that loss long ago.”
Alora can say what she wants, but her eyes swim with unshed tears.
She takes a deep breath. “I’m not sure what the future holds for you Chancy, but there are lots of teenagers like you at Trinity doing normal teenage things. Mother told me you love TV, and I know they fascinate you, the humans. You could be happy with them, especially with my help. Living your life without the burden of leadership, without the sacrifice and the all-consuming demands it makes, it will free you. I’ll support any decision you make if you promise me one thing. If your epic love appears, if your Benjamin comes along, whether he’s evian or not, promise me you won’t let him go, no matter the price.”
“Thank you for supporting me.”
“The last thing I’ll say is that a thousand years is a long time to regret a mistake.”
I think about Alora’s story while I shower. By the time I dry off, I’ve made up my mind. Alora’s story was about a guy. And while I think Edam and Noah are both intriguing, my decision isn’t about choosing what kind of guy I want to build a life with. On the surface, Alora’s story reminds me of Romeo and Juliet, but that interpretation misses the point. The real tragedy is that Alora didn’t find her own path. She let Mom dissuade her from it, and she couldn’t rewind a clock on the human she loved, or the half-human she lost. That became her defining moment, preventing her from finding her true calling.
Displaced (The Birthright Series Book 1) Page 29
