Chapter 13

Mom holds out her hand and Inara takes the ring off with a sigh. Mom turns her attention to Judica, staring her down. Judica snatches the ring from Mom’s hand and gazes at the black stone, dumbstruck.

“Slide it on your finger,” Inara says. “Go ahead. It won’t bite.”

Judica startles, but she doesn’t snap at Inara or scowl at me. She simply slides it on. The stone remains black for a single instant, and then fills with the same pastel colors as on Mom’s finger and Inara’s.

“So are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Inara asks.

Mom stares intently at the ring. They know something is up, and Inara already figured out that it’s somehow the cause of the EMP.

“Did Chancery already put the ring on?” Judica asks. “Because you aren’t asking her to do it, and I know there’s no way you two decided to assemble an EMP in your spare time.”

Mom sighs, and I glance her way. She’s aged a hundred years in the past half hour. The dark circles under her eyes tighten my chest. She closes her eyes for a long moment and opens them again. “Chancery set off the EMP with my ring inadvertently. It was an accident, but the event has... significance. I wanted to see if either of you could do the same.”

Judica’s eyes narrow. “Why were you even wearing the ring in the first place?”

I open my mouth, realize I don’t really have an answer, and snap it shut.

When my twin’s face turns toward our mom, I imagine for a moment I see sorrow, or pain, but just as quickly, any emotion is gone. Her heart doesn’t miss a beat or speed up, not even a hair. I don’t smell perspiration. I wonder what that kind of control costs her. Or maybe she really has very few strong feelings. Judica pulls the ring off and shoves it toward me. I stand and take it without thinking, but it’s heavy between my fingers. I want to drop it, or better yet, throw it.

“Put it on,” she says.

I shake my head.

Judica narrows her eyes. “I want to see what happens when you put it on.”

I shrug. “I didn’t do anything. I put it on, and it stayed black. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me—”

Judica snorts.

I clear my throat. “But then, I guess I got a little mad about feeling that way. Suddenly, I felt this buzzing or humming feeling and then wham. Heat flew out of me and the picture caught on fire.”

“Anger at me, then?” Judica asks.

I shrug again. “Maybe. I don’t remember exactly.”

Inara looks down at the black lump of stone in my hand expectantly. The same phrase keeps repeating in my head: This changes everything. What did Mom mean? The EMP changed everything? Or the fire? Either way, why would my reaction to the ring change anything at all? What did Mom mean, it has significance?

I glance down at it, the ring I’ve seen every single day of my life, lights usually flickering in its depths on Mom’s hand. Now, it’s completely black, heavy, solid. A chill slinks down my spine and I suppress a shiver. I try to hand the stupid thing back to Mom.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this.” I shake it at her. The dead and lifeless stone fills me with an inexplicable terror, a sense of foreboding I can’t explain. The image of Lyssa, dead at Mom’s feet, floods my mind and I drop the ring. An ominous certainty that putting it on again will change our future forever grips me, and I hope it hits the ground and shatters. Which is highly improbable on the carpet.

Mom snatches it out of the air before it even has a chance.

She puts her hand on my arm and I glance up at her face, expecting her to be angry. Instead, her voice is small, quiet. “None of us know how much time we have left.” Before I can object, she continues, “But Judica’s right. I need to see you wear it again.” She places it into my unwilling palm.

I shift from one foot to the other for a moment, but I finally slide the ring back on my finger, shoving down the inexplicable sense of doom. The stone still feels more like a burden than a treasure, like it’s loaded down with expectations. It remains dark again, and the sinking feeling stays with me. What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t it fill with simple, gentle light like it does for my entire family?

Mom touches my arm again, and I expect something big to happen, something shocking, something electric.

Nothing does.

“Maybe you drained it, like it’s a battery,” Inara says.

I close my eyes and think about the weight of the stone and suddenly I feel something faint in the back of my skull. Like a small cup is sitting there, slowly filling with liquid. That’s wrong, it’s not a cup, and it’s not liquid, but I can’t think of any better description for it. My shoulders tighten and my neck shivers.

“What?” Judica asks. “What now?”

Mom squeezes my arm. “Stay calm. If this has anything to do with emotion, we should tread carefully.”

“What else do we know about this?” I ask. “I don’t want to freak anyone out, but a bucket in the back of my mind is filling and it’s near the top. I don’t know what happens when it overflows.” I try to pull the ring off, but Mom stops me.

We all wait. The sensation that power is oozing into that space is odd, and I can’t explain it, not even to myself. But finally it stops. And the ring begins to flash with light as the power overflows the cup. Not the gentle rays of light that sparkle when it’s on Mom’s hand, or Inara’s or Judica’s. This is different. It flares and flashes like burning chunks overflowing the top of a contained fire. Mom, Inara, and Judica all stare at it, their mouths dangling open in almost the same fashion.

“It’s gone,” I say. “I can’t feel it anymore, the filling sensation I mean. What do I do now?”

Mom shakes her head. “No one knows. To my knowledge, no one else has ever done anything like what you did earlier.”

“Maybe I haven’t either,” I say. “Maybe there was an attack earlier, a real EMP.”

“The flash came from the ring on your finger at the exact moment of the EMP,” Mom says. “If nothing else, Occam’s Razor demands the assumption that you set it off.”

I sigh. “You and your scientific postulates.”

“It’s a principle, little dove, not a postulate.”

Judica huffs.

Mom ignores her. “Think about the light the ring is giving off. That’s coming from you. Even without any kind of electromagnetic pulse, that’s a very strong reaction, much stronger than mine has ever been.”

“You’ve been wearing it for a long time. Maybe it’s excited for someone new.”

Mom tsks. “First of all, it’s not alive. Don’t personify it. Secondly, I’ve seen lots of women wearing their rings over the past nine hundred years and I’ve never seen this reaction, including its reaction to both Judica and Inara a moment ago. They say the stronger the ruler and the purer the DNA, the brighter the light.”

Judica growls, but Inara looks thoughtful.

“That makes no sense,” I say. “The reaction should lessen over time if that’s true. Any way you look at it, the three of us are farther removed from Eve than you.”

Inara clears her throat. “Unless God included junk DNA at the bottom of our strand. Perhaps the purest DNA requires a few deletions of extraneous materials. You’re seventh generation. Sevens come up a lot in the records and prophecies. It might be significant.”

“Loads of empresses are seventh generation right now. Plus you and Judica are, too,” I protest.

Judica balls up her fist, and her arm trembles. I know that look. She wants to punch Inara in the face.

“Maybe you haven’t decided what you want to do,” Mom says. “Channel your thoughts into something. Give the energy, or whatever it is, a purpose.”

“Okay. But what?”

“Well, we know the sprinklers are working,” Inara says. “Why don’t you try and set your photo on fire. Then maybe Judica will forgive you for targeting hers.”

I roll my eyes, but I don’t have a better idea. I focus on the picture of myself and will it to catch fire. Nothing happens.

“It’s not working,” I say.

“Failure is a choice,” Mom says.

It’s her personal motto. Every time I said I couldn’t do something when I was little, I’d hear “Failure is a choice, Chancery.”

I grit my teeth and look at the stupid portrait of myself reading. I stare at the useless, irrelevant kid who gets to sit around and read while the important people do stuff that matters, like weapons training, strategy, studying history of warfare, and diplomacy. I mean, I hate the idea of having to do all of that, but it sucks that I’ll never need to. I look at the girl in that portrait, her face unconcerned, her legs crossed at the ankle, flip flops skewed. Her life doesn’t matter, and the image is an accurate reflection of reality.

My life doesn’t matter.

I was born before Judica, but that’s not why Mom chose her. She chose my twin because I’m not good enough. I’m not the one Mom thinks is strong enough, not the one suited to rule. I’m too soft, too kind, and too weak. I focus on it all, on the ring I’ll never really have, the position I’ll never take, and the world I’ll never inherit. The power in that little cup flares to life, and the flashes from the ring intensify.

I feed the flames with my anger and frustration, and then I push on it with my brain, clamping down on the bucket until the ring flashes again. Not like it did the first time, but darker, hotter, and sharper. The fireball that flies out of the ring heads straight for the wall and blasts a hole in it, burning a path through the right side of my mom’s closet.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!”

I race into the closet before Mom can stop me, plowing right into the burning clothing. The flames lick against my skin, tasting my wet shirt and shorts. I stare at the mess I created with horror, willing the damage away. Then, just as quickly as the fireball burst out, I suck the flames back. The fire around me snuffs out and the ring bursts once and then scales back to smaller, less insistent flashes again.

The plush, shaved ivory carpet under my feet is singed and smoke billows into the room in front of us. I glance around the closet and breathe in a huge, smoky breath, but at least the Marchesa for tomorrow was on the left side of the closet. I’m staring at it dumbly when Mom takes my arm and pulls me back, away from the closet. The sprinklers don’t go off and I wonder why.

“No sprinklers?” I ask numbly.

“I think you blew the generator,” Mom whispers. She slides the ring from my finger and gently pushes me toward her bed. Balthasar, Mathias, and Frederick burst in the room without even knocking.

“What’s going on in here?” Balthasar’s eyes flash and he waves his sword in the air. “Give me the EMP, Enora, just hand it over.” He holds out his free hand. “You’ve blown the generator now. Unless there’s a backup generator no one told me about, we are screwed.”

Mom sinks down on the edge of her bed with a sigh. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Balthasar’s face darkens. “You hadn’t thought of it!?”

“I’m sorry. I promise there won’t be any more EMPs today. They’re kind of a single use thing and the last one has been used up.”

Balthasar notices the closet and expletives pour from his mouth. I listen closely and make note of a few new ones.

“That’s quite enough, Balth.” Mom grabs his arm and he pulls up short.

He leans toward Mom and whispers, “Are you alright? What’s going on?”

“I’ll fill you in on more details later. You’ll recall I asked for fifteen extra minutes. I’m done now. You can begin replacing circuits in the generator first and work your way out from there. I’m truly sorry for the confusion and frustration.”

Balthasar opens his mouth as if to say something else, then rethinks it. He turns on his heel and marches out the door, dragging the others behind him. Edam turns and glances over his shoulder. Directly at me. His intense, deep blue eyes meet mine questioningly. The pulse from Mom’s ring didn’t burn through me that hotly.

I break eye contact with Edam, and he jogs down the hall to catch up with the others.

Once we’re alone again, I explode. Figuratively this time. “Don’t ask me to do that again, ever.”

“No kidding, freak,” Judica says.

“Judica, Inara, you may both return to your duties, but remember. Not a word about this to anyone. Ever. Chancery and I need to talk.”

Judica stomps out the door, Death on her heels. Once he’s gone, Cookie crawls back out from under Mom’s bed and curls up near my dangling feet. Inara walks calmly to the door, and as she ducks out, she turns back and throws me a double thumbs up. “Very interesting development.”

Normally that would make me smile, but with Lark decimating me today, and Lyssa’s execution, and now this, I can’t summon any humor. I’m hollowed out like a gourd.

Mom wraps an arm around my shoulder and I collapse against her, sobbing. She hugs me close and lets me cry on her for the second time today. Eventually, my tears lessen. I gulp in deep breaths and sit up.

“What do you need to talk to me about?” I ask.

“For starters,” Mom says, “after my party is over and the guests have returned home, I’ll be drawing up new heirship documents.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“I won’t lie to you. I still think Judica’s better suited to ruling, Chancy. Nevertheless, you’re my new heir.”