Chapter 8

Enora the Merciless.

That was Mom’s moniker for almost nine centuries, but I could never make sense of it. Mom nursed me herself. She held my tiny hands in her own while I learned to walk. She fed me spoon after spoon of pureed peas and carrots. She swung me up in the air and rained kisses down on my cheeks, the bridge of my nose, my forehead, and my mouth. She changed my diapers without complaint, and when it was time, she taught me to go pee in the potty. Mom tucked me into her bed every night, until I was old enough I wanted to sleep in my own. And then she complained that I was growing up. She rocked me and read to me and watched human movies with me.

Mom’s the opposite of merciless.

She has always been the epitome of mercy, forgiving my weaknesses and flaws before I even realized they existed. She kept peace among our lands and protected our people. She taught me everything I know, and she gave me everything I needed. Always. She was a gracious friend, a doting mother, and an excellent ruler. I never understood how people could call her merciless.

Until today.

She killed her friend without a thought. No hesitation, no regret.

My heart breaks, the light goes out of the room, my knees shake, and I can’t even process the scene before my eyes, but Mom doesn’t pause. She marches down the aisle between petitioners and strides to the door. I follow her numbly, passing Lyssa’s fallen form without looking. Judica walks along next to me, head high, eyes flinty, as though Mom acted exactly as she ought. My best friend’s mom keeps one tiny secret and off with her head?

It’s like we’re in a demented scene from Alice in Wonderland and my mom’s been possessed by the Queen of Hearts. Only it’s real life and no part of this was drawn with ink or created with CGI.

When we reach the exit, Mom tosses a command over her shoulder to Balthasar. “Call Larena for clean up, and find Lark. She stands trial here in fifteen minutes. I’m taking a small break to confer with my daughters.”

Confer with me? I have nothing to say to her. I can’t believe she killed her best friend. I can’t believe she’s really about to try Lark for the crime of being born.

Mom doesn’t stop until she reaches her room and we’re all inside. She shuts the door carefully, not showing the least bit of anger, frustration, or grief.

“How could you do that?” I ask, the second the door’s closed.

I wish I hadn’t. Mom’s shoulders sag, and her face looks older than I’ve ever seen it. Lines crease her forehead, and crows’ feet crinkle around her eyes. She sinks onto the bench at the foot of her bed and Judica puts an arm around her in a shocking move. Judica never comforts anyone.

“I did what I had to do.” Mom turns watery eyes toward me. “And you will follow my lead in a few moments with your friend.”

Wait. Is she implying that I’ll behead Lark?

I stumble backward, bumping into the door. “I will never kill my friend.”

“This is your fault,” Judica says. “Lyssa as good as said she kept Lark because Mom kept you.”

“Excuse me?”

Mom drops her face into her hands and I hear a sound I’ve never heard from my mom in my entire life: sobbing.

I want to shove Judica aside. She couldn’t comfort a brick wall, much less a human. I settle for walking around Mom’s other side and taking her hand in mine. “I’m sorry if this really was my fault.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I chose to keep you, and I knew the risks, if not the price.” Mom squeezes my hand. “I’d pay it again if I knew. I don’t regret keeping you, and I never will.”

“Is that really what caused this?” My voice sounds surprisingly small. I’m supposed to be comforting Mom, not soliciting reassurance myself.

Mom shakes her head. “There was no law that required me to kill you, Chancery, as you know. It became common practice after the Hundred Years’ War, but there’s no rule. Every time twin heirs are left alive, they battle for the throne.” Mom pauses. “But the two things have nothing to do with each other, and Lark was born before you. Lyssa made her decision before I made mine. Lying about Lark, keeping her among us, she violated that law. Among other things, that decision left her susceptible to influence from the other five families. On top of that, it was dangerous for Lark, and for the rest of us. It’s one of our oldest standing rules, and it’s inviolable.”

“Even so, you might have simply exiled her, but...” Judica trails off.

Mom couldn’t look weak, not after keeping me. Not after everyone talking for the past seventeen years and eleven and a half months about Enora’s folly.

“So it is my fault.”

Enora closes her eyes. “I’m not worried about looking weak. Let the other families attack. I’ll raze them to the ground.” She clenches her fists. “But Judica.” Enora stands up, pivots on the ball of one foot and slaps my twin full across her face.

My jaw drops.

“If you ever, ever again try to steer an interrogation toward the implication of your sister in a crime, I’ll execute you. And you’ll deserve it for disloyalty to me and our family. Do you understand?” Mother’s eyes flash, and her body shakes with suppressed rage.

Judica’s voice raises goosebumps on my arm. “Yes, Mother. I understand perfectly.”

What had Judica been asking when Mom beheaded her friend? She’d been pressing Lyssa for who else knew. Which means...

Mom knows Lark knew, because Mom knows I knew Lark’s secret.

Judica realized it too? And was angling toward making sure I was punished. How did I wind up in this family? I’m so dense compared to everyone else.

Because I’m only now realizing that Mom executed her oldest friend without a reprieve, without letting her say goodbye to her daughter or her son who are both in residence... because of me. Not in a roundabout way, because of an old decision, or because Mom keeping me emboldened Lyssa to hide Lark. No, Mom executed her friend to keep Judica from implicating me in the whole mess.

Mom killed Lyssa to cover for a mistake I made today. Mom protected me: the weak one, the stupid one, the deficient one. Same as always.

She really should let me go to New York. Her life would be much better without me around to ruin everything.

Mom brushes off her skirt and steps toward the door. “We need to return. They’ll have located Lark.”

No, no, no. Not Lark. I whimper. “We can’t, we cannot execute her, Mom. It’s not her fault. She had nothing to do with the decision to stay.”

Judica’s cheek isn’t even red, but she’s on the war path anyway. “She is the decision. She must die.”

I look at Mom, desperation freezing my muscles, tightening my jaw, forcing my hands to shake uncontrollably. “No, no. There’s something we can do, right Mom?” A sob escapes before I can clamp down on it. “You can’t kill her too. You can’t.”

“If Lark knew,” Mom says, “then the law is the law.”

“But she’s so young,” I protest. “You can’t hold someone to a law when they’re a child. She’s barely an adult, and we have no idea when she found out. Don’t you think killing her mother is enough punishment for just, I don’t know, being who she is?”

The lines on Mom’s face pull at my heart. She’s resolute. “She’s eighteen, almost nineteen.”

Great tears stream down my face and I brace for Mom to yell at me, or maybe even slap me. I know I need to pull things together. I can’t walk into a trial sobbing like a baby. But Enora the Merciful is here in this room, and she draws me carefully into her arms. “I’m so sorry, little dove. So very sorry. If I’d had any idea, we could have worked out a way to avoid all of this, but it’s far too public now, which means our hands are tied. If she knew, our hands are tied.”

If I’d trusted my mom with Lark’s secret, she could have done something, avoided this. But I didn’t. I thought I could help Lark myself, and I wanted to be the one who kept her safe. I thought I was helping, but something about that fight must have triggered someone to pull a DNA test.

I’m so stupid.