Chapter 11

Mom raises one eyebrow. “You know better than to ask me that. Humans are quick to label things magic, but really, they just don’t grasp how it operates. Staridium is the only stone of its kind, but it’s not magical.”

When Mom walks back into her closet, my eyes go to the portraits hanging on either side of her closet door. One of Judica, one of me. The photo of my twin was taken last year during one of her training sessions. She’s holding a broadsword, her muscles straining, and she’s bringing it up and over her shoulder. The photographer captured her perfectly, her face so determined that it’s practically feral. Her hair is pulled back tightly, but a few stray strands stick to the sweat on her brow. Instead of looking unkempt, it looks fierce, like she’s been honed to as sharp an edge as her blade.

My portrait hangs on the other side of the door. I’m sitting cross-legged in my favorite pair of jeans, barefoot in the shade of the huge banyan tree in Mom’s private courtyard. I’m hunched over a good book, so enthralled I didn’t realize the photographer was even there. My hair’s down, loose curls obscuring part of my face and eyes, almost covering the high cheekbones, square jaw, and aquiline nose Judica and I share. Mom chose photographs of each of us doing something we love, but it doesn’t paint a very flattering picture that I love to sit around indulging fantasies while Judica could hack the entire cast of Game of Thrones into bite size bits.

If you asked a hundred of my mom’s subjects which twin was born to rule based on these photographs, every single one of them would pick Judica.

Including me.

I hear rustling inside the closet as Mom changes gowns. I stand up to get a better look at the black stone in my mom’s ring. As I bend over it, I realize this is my chance. I’ll never be queen and I’ll never wear my mom’s ring by right, but a desperate desire grips me to watch it change from deepest black to a sparkling rainbow of colors on my finger. I want visual evidence that my blood is as pure as Judica’s, even if we don’t share any talents or even similar temperaments. I reach for it greedily.

“Chancery?”

My hand freezes and blood rushes to my face. Even worse, I know Mom senses my elevated heartbeat. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

How’d she change clothes so fast? Her heart pounds steadily one step behind me. I yank my hand back and look up at her guiltily.

Maybe some well-deserved flattery will distract her. Because if the last dress was beautiful, this one is breathtaking. “Oh, Mom, you have to wear that. Georgina and Keren outdid themselves.”

She lightly touches the overlay on the gown. “You may be right.”

My heart sinks when she reaches around me to pick up her ring. She holds it in her hand for a moment and then extends it toward me, the metal band clasped between her thumb and forefinger. The simple platinum band shines dully, encasing a black rock that looks flat and unappealing.

This time it’s my turn to ask, “What are you doing?”

“Go ahead and try it on,” she says. “It’s been an awful day, and I’d like to see it on you. I’ve only seen it on one other person’s finger in my lifetime, and that was many, many years ago.” She looks sad.

“Your mom,” I guess.

She nods. Since the youngest daughter inherits the throne, a new empress rarely has a chance to know her mother for very long. Mom was only 27 years old when her own mother died. It must have been hard for her to rule alone at such an early age.

“Go ahead, little dove.” She waves it in my face.

“Are you second guessing your decision to make Judica Heir?” I joke.

“I’m not changing my mind.” Mom smiles to soften her words. “But I’ve come to realize how much Judica needs you. And one day, when I die, you’ll be her Heir. Don’t let titles determine your value.”

“Mom.” I roll my eyes. “Judica will probably pick a Consort five minutes after she’s crowned and then have a child each year until she births a daughter.”

Mom shakes her head. “Crass.”

“I won’t be her heir for very long, okay? That’s my point.” I sit down, the ring forgotten. “Judica hates me, so whether she needs help from me or not, she’d never accept it.”

“That’s a conversation for another day when we have more time.” My mom takes my hand gently and places the ring in it. “Try it on. No one else will ever know.”

The ring is colder and heavier than I expected. Much heavier. I slide it on my right middle finger and look down at the stone. I always assumed it was carved carefully, like a diamond or other precious gem, to refract the light.

It’s not.

It’s jagged and uneven, and the rock is set so that the base of the stone rests on the back of my finger. It’s the size of a large grape and even though the cold base is touching my skin, the stadium remains black. Black as pitch. Black as sin. Black as death.

My stomach sours.

Why isn’t it lighting up? Where are the colors sparkling across it to prove that I’ve got pure DNA? I look up at my mom, whose face is riveted to the rock in a way that is not reassuring. Even after a full five seconds, the stone is still utterly dark. Even if I’m not the Heir, it should respond to me, right? I mean, Mom’s only six generations removed from Eve, which makes me seventh generation. Plenty of other empresses are seventh generation, and their stones sparkle on their hands right now.

A horrible thought grips me. What if our line somehow suffered a major deletion, generations early? We all know it’s inevitable. One day even our DNA, perfect, royal, evian DNA, will falter.

Suddenly I’m angry. I may not be as vicious as Judica, and I may not be my mother’s Heir, but I’m not damaged. I’m as good as Judica. I glance up at the portraits. Looking at them, it finally hits me. I’m not as good as she is. Maybe I really am deficient. We may be twins, we may even look identical, but perhaps there’s something wrong with me.

I want to read instead of fight, and I love baby animals. I’ve always binged on human television, books and movies. I’m not good enough, not strong enough, and I’m not fierce enough. I’m glaring at Judica’s portrait, about to yank the cursed ring off my finger, and I’m fighting the urge to hurl it to the ground, when I feel something. Something strange.

There’s a pressure inside my head, like my ears need to pop, like there will be a spark the next time I touch something. I smell ozone. And then a second later, like a lightning strike, like an explosion, like fireworks on the Fourth of July, the rock flashes. The room is bright with a blinding light, like the force of the sun for a single instant before my vision goes dark and a flash of heat explodes outward from where I’m standing.

I blink several times while my retinas heal and realize that all the lights in Mom’s room have gone out. If sunlight wasn’t shining through the stained glass in her big bay windows, the only light in the room would come from the ongoing pulses of bright, angry light emanating from the stone on my finger. Well, that and the flames currently licking up the side of Judica’s portrait.

There’s a pounding at the door. Mom’s guards.

Mom says, “Everything’s fine in here, Frederick. Check in with Balthasar and secure the perimeter before you return.”

What’s she saying? Nothing is fine. The wall is on fire, for heaven’s sake.

Mom steps toward me, one finger pressed to her lips and the other grabbing my wrist. She stares for a moment, marveling along with me at the bright, bold, clear flashes pulsing angrily from the ring. The stadium looks like someone stuffed a rainbow down inside it that’s desperately trying to claw its way out. I tear my eyes away from the ring and look at the burning portrait of Judica.

The ceiling sprinklers should have kicked on to put out the fire, but they haven’t.

“What happened?” I ask. “And what do we do about that?” I point at the wall. The flames from Judica’s portrait are licking the paint on the wall above them when a low humming noise begins somewhere far behind us. “What’s that sound?”

“The generators are finally kicking on,” Mom says.

“The generators?” I look around the room. The lights still haven’t come back on. “Why do we need generators? And if that sound is the generators, why aren’t the lights working?”

Before Mom can answer, the sprinklers in the room pop down from the ceiling and put out the fire, soaking us in the process.

Mom ducks into her closet to keep from ruining the gown she selected. She comes out in slacks and a silk blouse just as the sprinklers shut off. She’s lucky the sprinklers inside her closet didn’t go off, too. When I meet her eyes, they’re full to the brim with sorrow. A shiver shoots down my spine. I have no idea what just happened, but I really wish I’d never touched her blasted ring.

Her voice is soft, but it cuts through me like a sword. “You definitely aren’t going to New York, Chancy. This changes everything.”