“I wish,” I said. “She’s not even an heir. I wonder who she’ll marry. Surely someone important. Surely one of the clan heirs will take her for themselves to gain a better position for the seat of power, to be king. Her moral code is higher than anyone’s. Plus she is loved by everyone in Geniverd. They watch every move she makes on their visins. She’s the most popular person on this planet.”
“I know,” he said dryly. “I’ve seen it. They look at the girl like she’s a goddess. But is she really? Be careful who you idolize, Kaelyn. People are different in their souls.”
I frowned at him. “Now you sound like Mama. Soon you’re going to be warning me about the dangers of natural birth, how I need to freeze my eggs at the clinic, how I need to prepare what genes I want edited in my baby, and insisting I get all my vaccines so I don’t die of a superbug. Or worse, soon you’ll be warning me of the dangers of the Gurnots!”
“I’d never,” he said, so seriously I furrowed my brows at him.
“You don’t side with those … those Gurnots, do you?” I asked.
“Eh.” Roki shrugged. “They aren’t that bad.”
“They’re terrorists!” I almost shouted. “They’re fire starters! Haven’t you seen the news reports? They burned down another seaside estate this week. It was lucky the estate had just emptied for the season, or people could have died.”
“Maybe,” Roki said, his tone a little too relaxed for the topic of death. “Or maybe it was intentionally like that. They may seem like terrorists to you, Kaelyn, but to others, they represent change. Change for the people of Geniverd. I know the Nurlie Islanders support them. A lot of people do. Much of the world views Decens-Lenitas as an oppressive moral standard. They want to be rid of it. They are tired of this lopsided rule, these rich families who inherit power and then pass the power along. Nobody even knows where their power and wealth came from anymore!”
“What about the wars?” I asked. I could hardly believe what Roki was saying. “Aside from the Gurnots stirring up trouble, there haven’t been major conflicts in two hundred years, because of our moral standards. Would you see people die?”
“No way.” Roki looked at me, his eyes powerful in a way I hadn’t noticed before. I thought they could make me do anything. He seemed so serious. “Gurnots are against classism, which is promoted by Decens-Lenitas. I hate the idea of hurting people. That’s why I think we need change, so people don’t get hurt. Maybe you’ll be the one to do it once you’re queen.”
I sighed. “Sure, with you as my mistress.”
We laughed. We held hands. We kicked our feet in the pool, and soon the sun was getting low.
I said to Roki, “We should go inside and dry our feet.”
He smiled. “Whatever you say, Kaelyn.”
I led him past the sitting rooms, the kitchen, down the long hallway and up the back stairwell to the second floor.
“I’ve never been up here,” Roki said as we walked. “We’ve always stayed downstairs, in the dining room or in the parlor, where your parents could keep their eyes on us. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” I said. My heart was hammering in my chest. I was more nervous than ever as we neared my room. It seemed like the right thing to do and the right time to do it. Me and Roki, alone in my bedroom. I’d never known a boy I felt so strongly about. For that matter, I’d never had a boy in my room. Everything felt so … fated.
I pulled him through the threshold and stopped, turned to look into his eyes.
Roki made a loud gulp as he looked around. “We’re in your bedroom.”
“I’ll get some towels to dry our feet,” I told him, only half aware our feet were already dry.
I went into the adjoining washroom and came back with two fluffy white towels. Roki was seated on the edge of my bed. He looked out of place. Everything in my room was colorful, blue sheets and blue drapes, cute outfits hanging on hooks in the smaller closet, and makeup scattered on my vanity. I wondered how long it had been since Roki last ventured into a girl’s room. I wondered if he ever had. It seemed unlikely to me that such a handsome character hadn’t, even if he was still so young.
“Here.” I passed him a towel.
“Thanks,” he said with a laugh, “but my feet are already dry.”
I looked at mine and burst out laughing, mostly from awkwardness. “Mine too,” I said.
And that was when something happened, something powerful and indescribable. We both stopped laughing and regarded one another. The air thickened. Heat rose from an unknown place and overtook me. He parted his lips to speak, then stopped. Magnetism was drawing me to him, my hand to the flaxen scruff on his chin. It was soft, inviting. I said, “Roki …” and he shushed me with his finger to my lips.
Now his hand was at my cheek, caressing my skin. I thought, This is it. It’s what I’ve been waiting—no, yearning for!
“Can you feel it?” Roki said, his voice low and deep.
I nodded, swallowed dryly. “Yes.”
He was leaning toward me. I could hear his shallow breaths. I touched his chest through his shirt, felt the hard contours of his pecs, ran my fingers down his sculpted abs. I was in awe of his perfect body. His eyes pierced mine and then glanced at my lips, as my fingers slowly rolled over the stubble on his chin and jawline. His lips were getting closer. Electricity prickled through me, and I leaned in to meet him—
“Kaelyn! Kaelyn, where are you?”
I jolted in surprise, pulled away from Roki just as my lips brushed against his. “Is that my brother?”
Raad’s voice sounded again, booming through my open doorway. “Kaelyn, are you here?” His footsteps thundered and shook the house as he searched for me.
I looked at Roki. “He shouldn’t be here until tomorrow. I … I …”
But our moment had passed. Roki’s panic was clear on his face. He looked scared, like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.
I touched his knee. “Don’t worry. Raad’s my brother. It’s okay if he sees us together. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
Before I could say more, Raad exploded into my room. “Kaelyn,” he said, short of breath and totally wild. He looked different than I remembered. He was grown, burly, menacing. The Aska training had turned my brother into a fierce man.
“Yes, brother. I’m here. What is it? Why do you look so panicked? Shouldn’t you be at the—?”
“It’s Mama,” he said, and the blood drained from my face. “Something terrible has happened.”
Instinct maybe, or maybe the strip of mourning sackcloth wrapped around Raad’s left bicep—either way, I knew what he was going to say. I could feel it, could see the devastation in my brother’s tanned face. Already tears were welling in my eyes. I fumbled for Roki’s hand but couldn’t find it.
Raad took ten huge steps into the room and knelt in front of me. The tragedy was clear in his eyes, and I didn’t want to see it. I gawked around the room but couldn’t find Roki. He had vanished. But to where? And how?
Raad took my hands in his. I thought he was crying, but how could that be possible for an Aska warrior? Only something truly horrific could make an Aska cry.
“Kaelyn …” Raad was sobbing into my hands. “Mama’s dead.”
That was when I fainted.
Chapter 3
I was alone in the darkness of my apartment, a stack of unread books and tea beside my sofa. The visin embedded in my wrist was emitting a projection, a square holographic screen in front of me. I was crying softly. It was the hundredth, maybe two hundredth time I had watched the video in the past year. It always made me cry. There was something so final about seeing the mausoleum Raad had helped construct, the polished white stone seeming to swallow her casket as the funeral procession carried Mama’s remains into the structure.
Then there were the faces I recognized in the news footage. I was there, veiled in black and crying. Always crying. And there was Papa, hardly able to keep his composure. Raad was inside
the mausoleum with Mama’s casket. The other clan leaders were outside, dressed in their own ritualistic funeral attire. Ava-Shondur in leather, Ava-Surrvul in dark green fur, Ava-Krug in white garments, Ava-Nurlie in full-length purple and gold silk, and Ava-Lodden in elaborate sisal.
The only person missing was Roki. It made me mad when I remembered he hadn’t come. He had avoided Mama’s funeral just as he had avoided me. The night of her death, Roki had sent me a message on my visin: Sorry for disappearing so quickly. Everything okay? I miss you.
I had typed a handful of responses, but none felt appropriate. I had just lost my mother. I was in shock, broken, wounded, and grief-stricken beyond belief. And I was angry because in my time of need, when I had fainted and then sobbed heavily in Raad’s arms, Roki hadn’t been there to console me. Poof, gone like a ghost. And he had never come back.
I turned off the video of Mama’s funeral and flicked through the news channels on my visin. There were reports about a new species of fish found off the Nurlie coast. Another volcanic eruption had devastated Lodden, and three Aska trainees had perished trying to save the residents of a small village there. Gurnots had ambushed a tanker and stolen nearly sixty gallons of high-grade flyrarc fuel, yet the Protectors couldn’t find where they had stashed it. Three more fires in one of Surrvul’s wealthiest neighborhoods, huge properties burned to the ground—the authorities were beginning to suspect a single individual, perhaps one specialized team of Gurnots. And Lordin and Zawne’s wedding had just been announced.
I stopped on the channel showing Lordin and Zawne, took a sip of tea, and turned up the volume. They were quite the match. Lordin was highly esteemed and adored by all the people of Geniverd. Zawne was a prince.
The newscaster’s voice came loud in my ear: “The dashing couple, after dating publicly for the past eight months, have finally announced their engagement. These lovebirds have been spotted flaunting their affection on all six continents, and now finally they are to be wed. What could this mean for the upcoming coronation? Could Lordin and Zawne be the next king and queen?”
I hoped so. They were the ideal couple. Lordin did enough volunteer work to put anyone to shame, and Zawne was the son of the current king and queen. They were all anyone had talked about lately—Lordin this and Zawne that.
“Have you seen the footage of them together on the beach in Surrvul?”
“Have you heard what Lordin did for the orphans in Gaard?”
“Have you seen the way they look at each other?”
“Have you seen the secret footage of their first date? They made a song together and sang so beautifully. They’re truly in love!”
I adored them like the rest of the world, especially Lordin, a lowborn girl from Gaard who now had a shot at the throne. Lordin gave the people hope, real hope. She promised them a better future by potentially rising to queendom. I agreed with a lot of her reform ideas. I particularly liked Lordin’s idea about giving some of the Protectors’ jobs back to the people, reducing how much we rely on machines, if not just to give thousands of people some sense of purpose in their lives. However, this line of thought reminded me of Roki, and I tried to ignore it.
The only thing that irked me was how quickly the news of Mama’s death had gone away and been replaced by the unconventional lovers. Mama had been poisoned, and they had never found her killer. She had writhed in horrible pain and died before Raad’s homecoming ceremony could be concluded, right there on the floor in front of all those clan leaders and nobles. The fact that it had been swept under the rug so quickly upset me.
I endlessly replayed the events of that day in my head. What had Mama wanted to say when she called me? Why hadn’t I picked up? Why had I reacted so defiantly? Had she been right about Roki? If I’d been with her, could I have saved her? At the very least, if I’d swallowed my pride and resisted my craving for Roki, I’d have gone to the homecoming and been on better terms with her before her sudden death. I had thought we’d have more time together. Time to compromise. Time to mend our differences. Time for her to attend my wedding if I was to get married one day. And so her death didn’t seem real. Every time someone visited NordHaven, my heart reflexively jumped at the thought it was Mama coming home.
It was only after the ritualistic one-month mourning period that I truly grieved. The heartache got worse as the visits, flowers, and cards from all over Geniverd diminished. How could she be gone, forever and ever?
I turned off my visin and stared into the darkness. It was going to be one of those introspective nights, I could tell. I was already dwelling on the past. I was wondering why Roki hadn’t reached out to me after that initial message the night of Gaard-Ma’s death. Sure, I had ignored him that one time, but I had been grieving! I had been angry with myself! My last conversation with Mama had been a fight, a silly rebellion. I had chosen Roki over my family, and I could never take it back. I hated myself for it and couldn’t stand to talk to him right away. I had thought, If I don’t have Mama anymore, I don’t deserve to have Roki either. I had gambled with family and love, and I had lost both.
Then time had moved forward, and Roki had never tried to reach me again. I had hoped to hear from him once my emotions had cooled off a bit, but he never contacted me. I lost faith in him. I had been so sure he was the one for me. I still felt sometimes like he was, still smelled his scent on my clothes or when I walked into a room. I had been willing to profess my undying feelings for Roki and risk my family’s obsession with public image to be with him, and he had never contacted me again.
Eventually, I didn’t want him to. His silence justified my contempt. But I never stopped thinking about Roki. Obviously, I was still thinking about him a year later as I sat alone in my apartment, drinking fine tea by myself.
The next morning, I showed up to the office with a slight headache. It was nice to go to work. I had purpose here. It was my foundation, GMAF, Gaard-Ma Foundation, the organization I had set up in the capital city to keep Mama’s memory alive. We were doing good work with orphans, wildlife preservation, women’s shelters, education in rural areas, and other sensitive social issues. We were trying to regain some semblance of social purpose with the “normal” people, who happened to make up most of the world’s population. They needed work, better lives, and some way to feel like they belonged. With so many Protectors buzzing around and not enough work for everyone, it was no wonder there was so much social divergence going on.
“Good morning, Kaelyn,” Tissa said as I entered the space we rented in the bustling downtown. She was sitting at the table with paperwork splayed across it and a half-eaten granola bar in her hand.
“Morning,” I said. “Is that your breakfast?”
“You know how I am,” Tissa said. “Too busy to stop and eat. I can’t help it. We’ve been getting so much work these past few weeks. Just this morning we received an aid request from Lodden. Apparently, they need more than just the Askas to assist after the vicious volcano two days ago. I’m going over the bankroll to see if we can move some funds around and pay for extra aid workers. I’m wondering if we should pause the construction of the new school in the secluded Butri province of Krug. That way, the construction workers can relocate to Lodden.”
“No,” I said, sitting down at the table with Tissa. “If money is a problem, I can ask Papa for more funding. I don’t want to, but I can. We can also make some emergency calls for money if we need to. But that school is important. We should pay trained aid workers to go to Lodden and leave the construction workers in Krug.”
“All right,” Tissa said. “That sounds good to me. We sure are lucky to have Gaard-Elder to help support us. He’s been so generous since you started this foundation. I’m proud to be working here with you. I know Nnati is too.”
I smiled—both at Tissa’s kindness and at the thought of my father. “I think Papa needed to be a part of this as much as I did,” I told Tissa. “We were both so distraught after Mama’s passing. Papa was worse off than I was. It was like
he had died, like his soul was empty without her around.” I sighed, pushed some loose papers around distractedly. “I can’t blame him for it. Times were tough. We were all depressed. It was GMAF that pulled us out of the slump. When I told Papa about my idea to start this foundation, he perked up for the first time since Mama’s funeral.”
I paused to chuckle, thinking back on the day. His reaction was priceless. “It could be good,” Papa had said to me. “You can pursue a charitable career in advocacy while at the same time keeping your mama’s memory alive. Not to mention that what you’re talking about—a foundation for helping the lower-class citizens, using Decens-Lenitas—can help advance your own status as a well-versed woman of the moral code. It brings you closer to the throne. Perhaps we can involve the Grucken somehow, get it publicized. Any funding you need, I’ll provide. I’ll help you move to the capital city. I’ll help you with all my business connections. Anything you need for this endeavor, daughter, I will help with.”
Tissa must have known I needed a friend-to-friend therapy session. She listened attentively as I said, “I remember the sparkle in his eyes. It was exactly what Papa needed. He helped me with the research, with finding this space for our office, with hiring you and Nnati, and with getting us noticed by the public. At the same time, he made sure I had private tutors to help me finish my studies. And now look at us, Tissa. We have daily requests coming in for our assistance!”
She gave me a coy smile as she produced a letter from her pile of papers. “Not only requests for our assistance,” Tissa said. “You’ll never guess who this is from.”
“Who?” I nearly jumped out of my chair.
Crown of Crowns Page 3
