Chapter 21

The next morning, my newly nine-hundred-year-old mom makes time to train with me. First, we go back down to the bunker and practice with her ring again. I’m better, but not by much. I manage to send a few short bursts of heat only, in between a handful of fireballs, and then I let loose a dozen controlled EMPs that short out some goods Mom had brought in from Kauai.

“Better call it a morning,” she says.

“Why?” I ask. “I’m finally figuring it out.”

“This fire extinguisher is empty,” Mom says.

Neither of us wants to count on my ability to suck the flames back in like I did yesterday in her closet. I haven’t been able to replicate it since.

We return to the private courtyard outside our adjoining rooms to work on my normal melodics training. We’re already running late for the normal daily routine, and with the party we can’t afford to be, but Mom makes time anyway. We run through the cues we’ve been working on quickly, and I’m smiling by the time Mom stops the music.

“You’re ready,” she says.

“For what?” I ask. “Breakfast? Because I’m absolutely starving.”

She smiles. “You’re ready to go off book.”

I shake my head. “You said it takes twenty years at least. That means I have almost a decade to go since I started at five.”

“You’ve always shortchanged yourself, little dove. You let other people’s expectations interfere with your progress. You aren’t like anyone else on Earth. You’re ready now, and it’s good that you are, because change is upon us.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “It sounds like a movie script. Except if you said something that corny, you’d be sure to die in the next scene. At your age, you should probably be asking yourself, ‘Does this sound like something someone in a Greek tragedy would say?’ before you speak.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m being serious. You’re ready to fight without musical cues, and we’ll start this afternoon, before my party.” Mom turns and walks toward the table in the corner of the courtyard, which is already covered with food for breakfast.

“Perfect,” I mutter, just loudly enough for her to hear. “I was thinking a little swordplay would be just the thing to get me ready to entertain all your guests.”

When we reach the table, I dig into my food. I polish off a stack of French toast, a pile of pancakes, half a pound of bacon, and I’m sliding the fried egg off my loco moco when Mom clears her throat.

“Chancery.”

“Oh come on, Mom. It’s so much better without the egg.”

“You can choose which egg to eat. Any type you’d like is fine.”

I glance between my options. Chef Angel put a boiled egg on a stand next to my plate, a fried egg on top of my loco moco, and a huge blob of scrambled eggs on a salad plate. “You do know that a chicken pooped out every single one of these. Have you been around chickens? They’re gross.”

“I didn’t realize you were an expert on poultry.”

“Besides, it’s like I’m eating their baby. Even if you like chickens, that’s still disturbing.”

Mom sighs. “The eggs we eat haven’t even been fertilized. They could never become chicks.”

I groan. “Mom, seriously. Ease up on the egg pushing.”

“Fine, we don’t have to talk about it, but you have to pick one and eat it. I’m done with your theatrics. They’re good for you, and you’ll learn to eat them. Not everything in life is fun.”

I stare at the one thing I hate even more than evian politics: a boiled egg. It sits there trying to look innocent with its slimy white exterior, but I know it’s hiding a bulbous, chalky yolk. I shudder. I finally groan and pinch off a piece of a fried egg for Cookie.

“You have to eat it,” Mom says.

“I know, but Cookie hasn’t tasted it yet, to make sure it’s fine.” That’s the official reason everyone in the royal line has a dog—they taste our food. But honestly, there aren’t many kinds of poison that can hurt an evian. Even so, I use the excuse to delay consuming my eggs whenever I can.

Mom’s still staring pointedly, so I’m about to take my first bite of the fried egg when my mom’s chamberlain, Larena, breezes through the door. She gives us a report on the progress of the repairs, which went on throughout the night. I take that chance to feed the rest of the egg to Cookie under the table. Mom doesn’t bat an eye.

Larena leaves and I beam at her. “All done?”

“Chancery,” she says, “you aren’t invisible because I’m talking to someone. I saw what you did.”

“What? I’m supposed to give Cookie the first bite.”

“Which implies you would take a second, or a third bite.” My mom cocks one eyebrow.

“The fried ones are so gross,” I whine, “especially the inside. The yolk is usually runny, or if not, it’s rubbery.”

“So eat the boiled one.”

“That’s even worse. The yolk is mealy.”

Mom slams her hand down on the table and I jump.

“What is going on Mom? You usually think this is funny.” I take a good look at her and notice faint circles under her eyes, so faint that it’s almost like they’ve been disguised by something.

“Mom, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you wearing makeup? You don’t look so hot this morning.”

“Happy birthday to you, too.”

“It’s not my birthday.” I ignore her joke because I’m genuinely concerned. And because this gets the conversation off my egg eating... or not eating.

“Next year,” she says, “I plan to institute a new birthday policy: no age jokes.”

“Mom, I’m not joking. You don’t usually look a day over six hundred. But today you look... tired. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Not really,” she says. “I have too much on my mind to sleep.”

“Like what? I know you’re worried about the stone and all that, but maybe I can help. I’ve been thinking about it, and I still think going to live with Alora is my best bet. Your prophecies don’t say how exactly the reuniting queen will do what she does. Judica knows what I can do, so why can’t I go do what I want, let the better twin rule when it comes to that, and then she can call me in if she needs me. I’ll be like a pinch hitter. That’s someone who bats for someone else when—”

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 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.

“It’s similar, but not exactly the same. 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. I’d normally pull something from your closet for one of them, but it all smells like smoke. If I hand over something that smells, 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 really happened.”

“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.