unForgiven (The Birthright Series Book 2)

by Bridget E. Baker

  I’m nearly done with the piles and piles of correspondence when there’s a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  Larena enters, a box in her hand. “I’ve got next month’s rotation schedules for approval.”

  And she’s bringing them to me. I suppose there’s no one else. I suppress a groan. “That’s fine. Put them there.”

  I don’t want to wade through the eye-crossing lists of which guard will be on duty for each of the various tasks. I have no idea how Edam had the patience to create them every month, but the concept of approving every single one overwhelms me. Even an island as small as Ni’ihau boasts a wide variety of tasks that need rotations: kitchen work, grounds, security, training, reconnaissance, placements for ambassadors, negotiators, and on and on and on.

  But someone has to do it, and I can’t very well appoint a Council without officially being Empress. Even if I was Empress, I’m not sure who I can trust, which means I’ll need to go through these lists and make sure people who distrust one another are doubled up to lower the likelihood of conspiracy.

  Alamecha is a mess.

  This would break Mother’s heart nearly as much as me being at odds with Chancery. I dig into the lists, seeing patterns in the match-ups. There’s clearly a method to each chief’s selections. Harold always falls asleep on watch, but he’s the best shot we have. Octavia almost never sleeps, but she’s a lousy marksman. Louis offends almost everyone he interacts with, while men and women both adore Edeline from word one. I understand that things need to run smoothly, and I laud Mother’s leadership for their thoughtfulness, but I have different goals right now.

  Octavia is my great niece, daughter of my much older sister Vera’s third son. I can’t have her paired with Harold, who is Vera’s nephew. Vera is ninth in line for the throne, after me, Chancery, Melina, Inara, Alora, Rivena, Danika, Annekah, and Emmeline. It’s small, but it’s still a motive, and crazier things have happened.

  But when everyone is a threat, how can you narrow the field?

  Mother’s phone rings and I jump. I calm my shaking fingers and then pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “I thought I might reach you here.” Job doesn’t sound pleased.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve found trace elements of poison.”

  “You already told me that.” I frown.

  “We had found it in Cookie Crisp’s stomach. We had identified necrotic bowel in your mother’s stomach. We had not found poison in her body until now.”

  “Wait, does that mean—”

  “I found traces of the poison in her hair.”

  I gulp. “This didn’t happen yesterday.”

  “It has been going on for quite some time,” Job says. “You should be looking for someone who had consistent access to her.”

  “Was the poison consumed? Or could it have been delivered in another way?”

  “It’s too early to tell. It could have been administered through topical application, or through the air, though then it would likely have affected others around her.”

  And Chancery is fine. And Mom’s dog Duchess seems perfectly healthy as well. “Understood. Please don’t share this information with anyone.”

  “I won’t, but recall I have a partner.”

  Right, a partner we assigned. “Ask him to keep this to himself as well. Tell him if he doesn’t, there will be consequences.”

  I hang up the phone and process the new information. If the poison is in her hair follicles, it wasn’t a one-time thing. Someone who saw Mother often wanted her dead. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Inara, Larena, Angel, me, Chancery, Balthasar, Frederick, and a few others who had consistent access to her. As easy as it feels to focus on Angel, I need to broaden the net. Everyone who might have been around her frequently or consistently in any capacity is a suspect.

  I’ll get a list from Roman before too long detailing everyone she interacted with for the two weeks before her death. But that makes me think about the schedules I just reviewed. Some of the patterns in the rotation schedule had major variances. I wonder why, and whether the same was true of the last two weeks. With my hand still on the phone receiver, I pick it up and call Amelia.

  She answers on the first ring. “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “I’ve been reviewing the rotations for next month and I had a few questions.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “Yes, yes. I noticed that you have a handful of people who show up on the calendar at erratic intervals. Can you tell me the reason for that?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  I rifle through some papers. “Okay, you have Greta handling the front flowerbeds for five days. Frankfurt for the next five, and so on. In fact, almost all of your rotations run in days of five for each task, and then each worker has two days off in between before they’re brought in to handle another section of the grounds. But on the fourth rotation on the front flowerbeds, you have Quentin for eight days in a row, and then Greta for only two.”

  “Ah, I see what you’re asking. You’re wondering why don’t we stick with the five in a row. Why is Quentin stuck working eight? That’s your question.”

  “Even so.”

  “Well, your mother utilized humans for this type of work for a long time, but when you and erm, well, when you were born, she opted to forgo the use of humans for any tasks around the island.”

  Mother told me it was to keep us from growing unduly attached. Humans are like pets that might turn on us, but we would want to save them, help them. She worried that we could become distracted by them. “Fine.”

  “Well, using evians to do this type of work, it’s. . . Other than the prestige of serving here, there isn’t a lot to draw people to this job.”

  If she hems or haws any more than she already is, I might use her as a punching bag in tomorrow’s training. “Go on.”

  “We have found that we need to be flexible with our workers so that they will keep the job here. Instead of merely offering two days off, our staff has flex days. They can take any five additional days per month, and the rest of us work around the days they choose. That way the benefits of being stationed at the capital can be enjoyed.”

  “Networking, you mean.”

  “Even so.”

  “Basically, you set the schedules, but then you post them or something, and your staff can request to change them around however they like.” Which makes them almost entirely useless.

  “Within reason.”

  “Once the rotations have been posted, are they permanent?”

  “Emergencies arise.”

  “We don’t get sick, Amelia. What kind of emergency are you talking about?”

  “Well, when the staff wants to work elsewhere, or on a different day, sometimes they trade.”

  I may as well throw these rotations in the trash bin. “Is there a record somewhere of who actually worked each shift? Do they have to document why they’re trading and with whom?”

  “This isn’t Woodstock,” Amelia says in a huff, like that should mean something to me. “Of course we have records.”

  “I need to see them for the past month.”

  I call each of the chiefs of the various sections and ask for the same information, because I need to know who was scheduled to be with Mother, and who made arrangements to be there instead.

  A few hours later, Roman brings me his list of the people he saw interact with her. The number of people Mother interacts with daily is staggering. How is it so high?

  From all the various information sources, I compile a list of my own. People who were scheduled to be with Mother, and other people who traded places with someone in order to come in contact with her.

  It takes me seven hours to tease anything that makes sense out of the tangle of names and schedules, but when I do, I don’t even need Roman’s list. One person traded five times in the past month in order to clean Mother’s bathroom. He was assigned to work o
n her bathroom crew eleven other days as well. Which means he had access to mother’s soap, face cream, and sink sixteen days out of the last thirty. I’ve been so focused on food that I ignored other mechanisms of transference.

  And it’s someone I know. Roman’s first cousin, Nihils. I stop and tidy up Mother’s room. I should get something to eat. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.

  9

  The Present

  “First things first,” the girl says. “We need to get you out of those cuffs. They look miserable.”

  “Hold up,” the guy says. “We should find out why she’s wearing them in the first place before we take them off.”

  I sigh. “I’m Judica Alamecha. A full explanation would take quite some time, but to cut to the chase, my older sister Melina wants to supplant me and is trying to kill me. As soon as she can verify that she would step into my place in the family hierarchy. I managed to escape from the cell where she was holding me, but I haven’t been able to free myself entirely yet.” I lift my hands.

  The blood drains from both of their faces.

  “This is where you tell me your names,” I say.

  “I’m Ambrosia,” the girl says. “And this is my brother Billy. His real name is William, but I’ve never heard anyone call him that.”

  The boy scowls and something about the way he looks at his sister, with a mix of irritation and affection, makes my heart contract painfully. Chancery will never look at me like that. “I go by Will now.”

  Ambrosia rolls her eyes. “He’s a freshman at UT and bent on reinventing himself into someone fancier, but he’ll always be Billy to me.”

  “Your sister’s really trying to kill you?” Billy drops the bat and opens a drawer, his brows drawn together in concern. “That’s messed up.”

  He emerges with a screwdriver. I have no idea what he’s planning to do with that, but it’s not going to work. What I need is a shim. “Do you happen to have any paperclips? Or a small metal wire of any kind?”

  Ambrosia ducks out of the kitchen and reappears a moment later to dump a handful of paperclips on the table.

  Two paperclips later, I’m sliding my hands out of the cuffs and rubbing the abraded skin underneath. Blood oozes slowly from the skin around my wrists, and I feel genuine empathy for these humans. A little food and I’ll be good as new, but they’re like this all the time. So fragile, so weak. I couldn’t live like they do, afraid of every small injury.

  “That was amazing,” Billy says. He’s watching me now the same way Ambrosia did when she said I was the Wonder lady.

  “Who’s the wonder person you mistook me for?” I ask.

  Ambrosia’s nose scrunches. “You’ve never heard of Wonder Woman? Where has your sister been keeping you?”

  “I haven’t spent enough time studying human historical icons,” I admit. “But I can’t blame my sister for my deficit there. She only held me captive for me a few days.”

  “She’s not real,” Billy says. “Wonder Woman, I mean. She’s a cartoon character from comic books, but they made her story into a movie. A pretty epic movie, actually.”

  “Well, I’m flattered,” I say. “But right now, I’m also starving. Is there any chance I could get something to eat?”

  “Maybe we ought to get you bandaged up first,” Billy says, eyeing the puddle of blood on the floor, and the scabs forming around my wrist. “Did you run through a cactus?” His eyebrows rise precipitously.

  Two dozen or so needles stick out at odd angles from the skin around my ankles. I cringe. At least they haven’t noticed the gunshot wound on my forearm.

  “Trust me. Food first, bandages later.”

  “Maybe we should call Dad,” Ambrosia says quietly. “He could help her.”

  “He wouldn’t even answer,” Billy says. “And if he did, he wouldn’t come home to help.”

  “What does your father do?” I ask, hoping that’s the right way to ask a human about her parent’s job.

  “He’s a surgeon. A trauma surgeon.”

  “Quite impressive,” I say. At least, I think it is to them. Doctors go to school for a long chunk of a human lifetime. Several years, at least. “But really, if you’ve got some food for me to eat, I’ll be grateful and I won’t impose on you beyond that.”

  Their chronic and never-ending kindness is starting to skeeve me out. Surely one of them is waiting for me to turn around so they can knife me. Humans are greedy creatures, always grasping for things they don’t understand. Quick to shoot or injure without care for those around them. Human history may not be my best subject, but I’ve studied enough to know that at least.

  Ambrosia lifts one eyebrow dubiously, but she crosses the room and opens the refrigerator. “We’ve got kale, kombucha, Greek yogurt, peaches, plums, strawberries, spinach. Does any of that sound good?”

  Great, they’re health nuts.

  “Do you have any lean protein sources?” I ask.

  “Eggs,” Billy says. “We’ve got loads of eggs.”

  I flinch, but luckily they don’t notice. I can’t avoid them forever. “Sure, that’s great.”

  “How do you like them?” Ambrosia asks.

  “Here.” I shuffle across the floor, grimacing at the bright red trail of blood I’m leaving behind me. “I’ll do that.”

  Billy’s voice sounds abnormally high. “You sit, okay? We’ll make you some food.”

  “A lot of food,” I say. “I’ll take every single egg you’ve got. Scrambled, fried, whatever’s fastest.”

  Ambrosia shoots me several strange looks, but she pulls out a frying pan and starts cracking them into the pan, a full dozen, stirring as she does.

  Billy holds out a plate, and she dumps the entire mess on top of it. He carries it over and offers it to me like you might feed a feral cat, holding it out as far away from his body as he possibly can. “Is this okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. “It looks perfect.” Saliva floods into my mouth, and I lick my lips. “Is there any chance I could have some water, too?”

  “Oh sure,” Ambrosia says, rushing across the room to grab me a glass. She fills it at the faucet and then freezes. “Is tap water okay?”

  They’re worried they’ll offend someone who illegally entered their home by offering water from a pipe? “It’s perfect. Thank you.” I begin shoveling mouthfuls of eggs as quickly as I can. As they hit my stomach, my gut processes the energy and begins sending it out to my cells. After the last bite, I drink the entire glass of water without pausing for a breath. Then I close my eyes and suppress the sigh of relief that wants to rip out of me as my body finally heals as it should have all along.

  I really could use three times as many eggs, a few dozen waffles and another few glasses of water. I’ve lost a lot of volume. But I doubt they have any more eggs, and other things are more pressing. My bladder is about to burst, for one.

  “Could I possibly use a bathroom?” I ask.

  Ambrosia doesn’t answer, and I focus on her to try and figure out why. Her eyes are riveted on my feet. Cactus needles litter the bloody ground around them, because as my body healed, it forced the needles out. And of course, they’re unaccustomed to bloody injuries miraculously healing in seconds. Right in front of them.

  “I can explain.”

  She lifts her face to mine and her mouth turns up in a smile. “I told you she was Wonder Woman.”

  I shake my head. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I don’t know who that is, but it’s certainly not me.”

  “She didn’t know who she was either,” she says. “But she was the daughter of a god, and she couldn’t be harmed, not really. Just like you.”

  “No, no, no. You have this all wrong. I’m flesh and blood, just like you are. I can heal quickly, yes, but it’s not what you’re implying.”

  Billy’s face is much less rapturous than his sister’s. “Why exactly did your sister want you dead?”

  I stop myself from asking, ‘Which one?’ but barely. “It’s a really, really long story.�
��

  Billy crosses his arms. “My dad won’t be home for hours. I’ve got plenty of time.”

  Ambrosia rolls her eyes. “Chill out, okay? We can interrogate her more after she’s cleaned up.” She takes two steps down the hall and waves her hand at me. “Bathroom’s down here. I’ll give you some clothes.”

  I follow her gratefully down the hall and duck into the bathroom. The shower water feels as close to heaven as I’ve ever been. When I step out, wearing clean clothing and boasting an empty bladder, Ambrosia is waiting for me.

  “You still looked hungry, so I made you a smoothie.” She holds a large glass out to me. “It’s the only way I can choke down Dad’s healthy junk. I do think it’s good for you, though, and you look like you could use some vitamins right about now.”

  She’s kind of hilarious. I choke down the first two-thirds of her ‘healthy’ smoothie as fast as I downed the water. I still need calories and fluids badly. I’ll take anything, and this doesn’t taste half as bad as Roman’s attempt at making ice cream last year.

  “Now that you’re clean, care to answer a few questions?” Billy’s holding the bat again.

  “You want to know why my sister wants me dead, and how I healed so quickly.” Humans are so predictable.

  “Actually,” Billy says, “I’m most interested in what your plan is, because I think it’s about to matter.”

  I hear voices at the house next door.

  It could be nothing. Maybe they’re just visitors. “What time is it, exactly?”