Chapter 51
The next morning, I wake up early. My hands shake when I pull my pants on. My breathing hitches when I yank my shirt down over my head. I’m not tired; I slept fine. But memories from last night flood my mind, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to look at Edam during our training session. I open my door a crack first, and then when I don’t see or hear any sign of him, I swing it open all the way, my eyes drawn to Edam’s handprint on the doorframe. I trace the indentations in the wood with my fingertips.
What do I do now? I can’t stand here in the hallway, swooning over last night. Maybe I’ll head for the training room early and run through forms for a while before our session starts.
But when I reach the ballroom, Edam’s already there. He picks up a sword and meets my gaze steadily. The jittery feeling just under my skin intensifies. Will he kiss me again? Will he pretend it never happened? He crosses the room one step at a time, his eyes never leaving mine. As he approaches, my heart races embarrassingly. I know he can hear it, because I hear his thumping steadily along in his chest.
“Obviously you’re not nervous this morning,” I say.
“Or maybe I’m always nervous around you,” he says. “So you can’t tell a difference.”
He’s teasing me.
I like it.
He stops a little too close and leans over and around me, his palm pressing against the wall behind me for support. His free hand holds a sword loosely at his side, but instead of being menacing, somehow it’s exhilarating.
Will he kiss me again? Will I be able to fight him? After that kiss, I don’t see how I could. His head dips toward me, and a pit opens up in the bottom of my stomach. I swallow and turn up to face him.
“Pick your weapons,” he whispers, and then he spins away.
My fingers tremble as I run them over the hilts in front of me. Anger floods into the abyss in my belly opened by desire. What’s wrong with him? Why didn’t he kiss me? Maybe he didn’t enjoy it last night, not like I did. My hands close around the hilts of two swords. Not a long and short sword, not this time. I’ve chosen a pair of evenly weighted swords, not too long, but not short either. I turn back toward Edam with a scowl on my face.
Edam’s blade flashes as he arcs it toward me, and I bring up both my swords to block. Instead of leaving me unwilling to attack like I feared, something about last night increases the energy of our sparring. Edam decimates me like always, but I’m faster, and I’m healing quicker still.
“Progress, right?” I ask at the end, afraid of his answer.
“You’re doing better,” he says. “Much better. A week may not be quite long enough, but you’ve improved faster than I’d have thought possible. Who knows what you may be capable of?”
A week might not be long enough.
“You know,” he says, “the day your mom died was probably the worst day of your life.”
I lean against the weapon rack. “It was.”
“And I’m sorrier than you can know. But for me, it was the first time I’ve had hope in a long time.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not because of your mom,” he says, “but when I found out that she changed the paperwork. I never picked Judica, you know. She picked me, and it wasn’t like I really had a choice. I mean, I dumped her, and she was going to execute me for it.”
True.
“But when I heard the paperwork had been changed and you were the new Empress instead of her, I couldn’t believe it. I know you feel like you’re not savage enough to rule and maybe that’s true by comparison to other rulers. I even get why the empresses act the way they do. It’s a kill or be killed world. But the evian system is messed up. Something has to change, and Judica’s a one-way ticket to the status quo. You’re Door Number Two. No one’s quite sure what might lie behind it, but I’m not afraid to find out. I’m exhilarated.”
The same word I’d just used to describe my feelings about him. And I agree with what he’s saying on so many levels. Exiling evians and kicking out half-evians from our society must stop. We’ve also allowed humans to form into patriarchal societies all over the world because men follow rules easier, but it’s suppressed billions of human women. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Without talking to others, I’ll never find out how many things must be changed or come up with the best solutions. Which is why I ask, “What would you prioritize?”
“I get that women’s bodies don’t experience deletions to their eggs as they age. It means you’ll have as genetically perfect a child in nine hundred years as you’ll have now. But that shouldn’t mean that the opinions of men don’t matter. Male evians have become expendable commodities. We’re literally bought and sold like stallions for breeding stock. Did you know your mother paid six times for me what she paid for anyone else because I’m seventh generation, same as you? Doesn’t that bother you? Like our worth has nothing to do with who we are, and everything to do with what we are?”
My jaw drops. I’ve been thinking about female humans for years, but I hadn’t even considered the injustices to evian males. Human men mistreat and abuse women because they’re stronger. But with evians, the genders are much closer in strength. Since our royal families sell their boys at birth to ensure loyalty, it leaves them without a support system, further weakening their power. My mom hated the system, but not enough to eschew following it.
“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.