Chapter 7
Mom stands up and brushes off her immaculate skirt. “I have work to do.” She spins on her heel and marches out of the room. The rest of the audience begins to whisper after she leaves, but I don’t listen to a single word. As I heal up all the minor wounds and seals things off, I can’t quite suppress a small smile of relief. Mom may be annoyed or embarrassed, and I will surely catch crap from Judica, but Lark is a lock for an intelligence placement where she’ll be safe. We did it.
When I open my eyes, Edam’s watching me, and I don’t like his pensive expression.
“What?” I ask softly.
“Most people don’t look happy when they lose.”
“I’m not happy.” I force myself to sit up as the skin of my abdomen closes up. “I’m relieved I’m not hurting anymore. That’s all.”
“Your sister becomes downright hostile.” He offers me a hand, which I accept.
“I heard she never loses.”
“Everyone loses sometimes,” he says.
“Speaking of Judica, why aren’t you guarding her? Aren’t you head of her personal guard?”
Edam shrugs. “I run the guard roster, and I take my turns, but I’m not watching her all the time. Besides, my duties as Balthasar’s second take precedence, and he asked me to moderate this.” He reaches for my blade.
I snap it up off the floor before he can.
“I can clean it for you,” he offers.
“No,” I say childishly. “I always clean it myself.” As if it’s not completely obvious to everyone in the room it was my first time ever using a sword. It’s like my IQ drops fifty points around Edam.
“As you like,” he says. “But for the record, I didn’t think you did badly at all.” His voice drops to the barest whisper. “In fact, I really thought you had her.”
If Mom hadn’t drilled it into my head that swearing is a sign of low intelligence, I’d say a horrible word under my breath. Because I just healed my severed spine, and I thought we were in the clear. My only play is to act like I have no idea what he means.
“I thought so, too. Overconfidence, maybe. I’ve clearly got some hard training ahead of me. Mom looked... displeased.”
Edam studies my face for a moment, his eyes travelling from my mouth up to my eyes. “I’d be happy to help, if you ever want to try any other training methods.”
Studying with my twin’s super hot, uber intense boyfriend? Umm, I really want to say yes, and I also want to run away screaming. Lark notices I’m drowning and jumps in to drag me to shore. “We both better get cleaned up. Thanks for moderating.”
Edam straightens and assumes the expression I’m used to seeing. Total absence of any emotion. “Of course. It’s my job.” When he straightens, I notice my blood on his pants and sleeve.
“Uh, you might need to change clothes,” I say. “Sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Part of the job. I’m glad you healed up so well.” He salutes and heads for the office, presumably to record Lark’s win.
When I make for the exit, no one tries stopping me. Once I’ve showered and cleaned up, I tap on Mom’s door. No response, but I push through. She’s not there, so I leave. No guards outside her door means she’s already en route to the petition hall. I groan and hang a right.
There’s no part of me that wishes I was Mom’s heir. If I’ve learned anything in the past seventeen years, it’s that being an empress sucks. But the worst task of all, in my opinion, is making decisions about how to punish whiny people who can’t get along. And evians have got to be the world’s most entitled group of complainers. Luckily, I reach the petition hall at the perfect time.
“That’s everyone on the docket,” Mom says. “Unless there are any petitioners who didn’t file formally?”
In seventeen years, I’ve never seen anyone register an informal complaint. These petitions are prepared, researched, and evidence is assembled in advance.
“Your Majesty.” Balthasar steps toward Mom. “There has been an anonymous complaint filed.” He hands her an envelope.
“What is this?” Mom looks around the room expectantly, waiting for a petitioner to step forward.
“Did you read this?” she asks him. “Anonymous complaints aren’t allowed.”
He shakes his head.
“Who brought it to you?” Mom’s eyes flash and her fingers tap on the armrest of her throne. “I have half a mind to toss it in the trash. If someone can’t be bothered to speak their complaint, why should I take the time to hear it?”
No one responds.
Mom sighs and slides a finger under the seal of the envelope. Fear spikes through me. What are the odds that something like this happens on the very day I let Lark defeat me?
“Wait,” I shout. “Think about the precedent this will set. Toss it, and let them bring a formal complaint in the future or nothing at all.”
Judica raises one eyebrow, scenting blood obviously. “I’d like to know what it says.”
Mother’s already reading, and her face drains of color. The only time I recall seeing her react this obviously was to communications from my older sister, Melina. Surely it’s not a birthday card from Melina disguised as a petition? Or worse, a threat from her?
“Lyssa ex’Alamecha,” Mom says, her voice sepulchral.
I close my eyes, as if this might all disappear. I snap them open, in case anyone is watching me. But all eyes are on Lark’s mother.
Lyssa stands up from the second row of the audience and turns back toward me briefly, her eyes questioning. Even if no one saw me close my eyes, people noticed that look. I glance surreptitiously around, looking for Lark, but I don’t see her. What are the odds that Lyssa’s summoning is unconnected to today’s challenge? My stomach turns and I want to expel whatever is left of my breakfast onto the swirly white and gray marble floor. That kind of reaction would draw far too much attention my direction.
Lyssa kneels at the foot of Mom’s throne. Judica shifts uneasily in her smaller throne next to Mom. I should be sitting on Mom’s other side, but I’m frozen in place at the back of the room.
“It has been alleged, and a DNA test has been provided as evidence, that your daughter, Lark ne’Lyssa Alamecha, is half human.”
My hands shake and I force myself to still them. Was it Edam? Did he figure us out? Did he notice where the blood spatter from the one injury I caused to Lark landed? Did he commission the test? How could it have been completed this quickly?
Is this my fault?
“That’s ridiculous.” I stride quickly toward the thrones. I step up into my place at Mom’s side, forcing myself to look impartially at Lyssa. As if I don’t care. As if I’m not crumbling to pieces inside.
Mom ignores me. “Lyssa ne’Davina Alamecha, answer my question. Is your daughter half-human?”
Lyssa bows her head. “She is, Your Majesty.”
“And you hid this from me for more than eighteen years.”
I silently will her to say she didn’t know. If she’d only claim she suspected, but didn’t believe. Perhaps she could claim she recently discovered the truth.
Give Mom something to work with, Lyssa. Anything.
She obviously doesn’t hear my urging, and she isn’t thinking along the same lines. Her whispered defense won’t help, either. “Lark had no idea.”
“She knew nothing?” Judica grins. “Which means nothing, since you’re saying she had no idea. Which means she knows now. Unless you’re claiming she anonymously turned herself in. Whether she knew for an hour or a decade without immediately surrendering, the punishment is the same.”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t really mean—”
Judica shouts. “Lyssa’s been training her daughter in private for years. Obviously that was to cover this abominable lie.”
“I train alone,” I say.
“Because you’re pathetic.” Judica sneers. “I honestly don’t know which is worse.”
“She asked me why she trained alone,” Lyssa’s voice wavers. “I told her it was to preserve the mystique of her skill, Your Highness.”
Judica stands up and steps down so she’s eye level with Lyssa. “You told her she had to train alone because otherwise the entire evian world would see her for what she is.” Judica’s face twists. “Trash.” I never realized how much she hates humans.
“I did not,” Lyssa says. “She never knew.”
“Liar,” Judica says. “You’re compounding your crimes by trying to protect her.”
“Step back, Heir,” Mom says. “This is my interrogation.”
Judica’s fists clench, but she steps back and sits down.
“Why did you keep her?” I ask softly.
“Because I loved her. From the moment she was born and I realized she wasn’t Paolo’s child, I knew she was half-human. But my love for her kept me from giving her up.” She meets my mother’s eye, and I don’t know what she sees, but Lyssa flinches and looks back down at the ground.
“You should have left with her,” Mom says. “You know the law.”
“I do,” Lyssa whispers. “I broke it, and I will accept your judgment.”
“Others knew,” Judica says. “They must have. Didn’t Lark have some kind of challenge today? I just heard—”
“Lyssa ex’Alamecha.” Mom cuts Judica off. “I convict you of treason, compounded by eighteen years’ time and unmitigated by confession. I take no pleasure in this, but I sentence you to immediate death by beheading.”
Mom draws her sword from the sheath at her side with a snick and before I’ve even stood up to protest, she beheads her best friend of more than eight hundred years with a single stroke.