Firstborn

by Tosca Lee

  “Nikola didn’t idolize my mother. He killed her!”

  “So he said. That claim never set well with me. There was only one hand strong enough to kill Amerie—hers. But Nikola was insanely jealous of her. As he is of you.”

  I turn away, trying to shake the image of her body floating in the Danube, snared in the bracken of the shore.

  “Jester said you declared war against him,” Luka says.

  Tibor shrugs again. It’s practically a tic with him. “I never wanted to be prince anyway.”

  I blink. “Then why were you?”

  “Because Jester and those that matter—your mother, Ivan, even you—needed a safe place once in a while. And resources.”

  “What do you mean, ‘resources’?”

  “Do you think you can persuade money into accounts?” he snarls.

  My turn to shrug. “Yeah.”

  “Pffft! Not the kind it takes for Jester’s pursuits. Servers in Switzerland. Payments to colleagues . . . bribes.” His words drift, but he’s staring at me. His voice drops. “She said you found it. That there’s an end in sight to this rat’s existence.”

  At that moment, he reminds me of Claudia the night her makeup was running down her face. Looking like a crackhead, saying this life wasn’t living.

  When I don’t answer, he gets up, paces away.

  “You won’t tell me. Of course you won’t. I don’t care!” He stares into the fireplace, hands on his hips. He’s thin—thinner than I remember him.

  “Ivan believed in you,” he says hollowly. “More even, I think, than he believed that God was good.” He looks back at me. “It’s very hard to believe that God is good when you spend your life on the verge of extinction. But Ivan, my big brother, believed it. Somehow. He believed in a messiah for his every sin. And for us. The last time we spoke, I called him an idiot and worse.” He reaches back to scratch his neck. “I was about to throw my lot in with Nikola, who had been pestering me by then for months. Did you know that?”

  I shake my head.

  He comes toward me, and Luka moves closer.

  “There was a way, he said, to rise above this pile and live—truly live—without fear. For once. With some surety for the future. A concept so foreign I couldn’t imagine it. Had to have him practically paint me a picture,” he says, spreading his hands in the air. “And he did. A picture of life in the upper world. Without looking over shoulders. Without wondering if I would make it to the age of thirty. Filled with beautiful superficial worries! Money. Losing weight. A job. Staying beautiful the older I got. A family . . .”

  My skin prickles and I look fixedly at the fire. Will my face to stoniness, worried it’ll give something away. That the mere thought of Eva will betray her existence. But Tibor is no longer looking at me.

  “A life so mundane that we would search for meaning. Imagine! A life so secure, that we have to search for meaning because staying alive is such a given that we don’t even know what it is for.” He turns to me and laughs. But I don’t.

  “A life of true power, when ours is gone. Because when you’re Progeny, those moments of persuasion—of power over another—are the only power you ever feel. Because you never feel powerful yourself. Not really. There is only power over. It’s the loveliest deception, the easiest form of abuse, thinking you’re powerful because you can make someone else do something. The sign of the truly weak,” he says, lips curling back from his teeth. “Never mind that it costs you in the end. Maybe that’s why Ivan used his gifts so seldom. He was wiser than all of us. In all my life, I saw him use them only a handful of times. To save me once. To save your mother. To save you.”

  I glance up at him, startled.

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? It doesn’t matter. You don’t trust me. So what. I don’t care about my life. I’m not interested in that kind of illusion.” He gets down in front of me, clasps the arms of my chair, peers intently into my face, so close that I can see the crooked row of his lower teeth.

  “But you need to know. Nikola has gathered his court around him. ‘The one true court,’ he calls it. He’s grasping, which means he’s desperate. Desperate enough to hold on to a rat’s life because it’s the only one he knows. Because the minute this ends—if it even can end—who is he then?” He leans forward and whispers: “Nobody. He’s already lost his gifts. He only knows one thing—how to survive. Not up there!” He points to the floor between us. “Down here. With the rats.” He scrunches up his mouth into a series of disgusting rodent smacks against his teeth before pushing away.

  “Which is why he’s brokered his deal with the Historian. He wants to save the Utod—or at least that group loyal only to him—by keeping the Scions in power.”

  “How do you know all this?” Luka says.

  “How do you think?” Tibor snaps. “I’ve played both sides of this game as well. I catered to Nikola for far too long in the name of survival myself.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re sharing this to ease your conscience,” I say.

  “It’s called pragmatism. I have never been”—he gestures in the air—“a gambling man. Sometimes the only way to survive is to hedge your bets . . . play a little on either side.”

  “Is that what you’re doing here?” I say.

  “No. I came to tell you there’s a split in the Scion ranks. It is the great irony of all of this, that what happens with the Scions or Progeny is mirrored in the other side. Now ask yourself: Why hasn’t the Historian cracked Nikola’s head open like an egg to find the goodies inside?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Because he was the way to you.”

  “Why are you telling me this—why come here to tell me in person, and not Jester?”

  He leans forward, lifts his brows. “I came to speak, one prince to another.”

  “I’m no prince!”

  “Aren’t you? Whom do you think every disowned child of Zagreb is waiting for to draw him or her home? We’re ruled by popularity. Which is why no princes in power are actually the leaders they should be—much like your American presidents,” he says dryly. “I’m here because Jester, in all her brilliance, is no use to the Scions.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Don’t be naïve. It doesn’t suit you. Nikola isn’t the one the Historian truly wants, and he knows it. He would have killed you long before this except that you were the key to something his master wants. So he delivered you because his survival depends on keeping that master appeased. But now what’s to stop him from eliminating you as he did your mother—to keep you from Scion hands and retain his place with them?”

  Tibor produces a scrap of paper from his pocket, unfolds it, smooths it out on the table.

  “What’s that?” I say, not moving to touch it.

  “The name of a Scion who wants to take down the Historian nearly as much as you do. What is the saying? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

  “And you want me to do what? Help him?”

  “So high and mighty! So proud! Don’t you see it? The Scions are afraid of you!”

  I actually laugh.

  “Think about it,” he says, somberly.

  “You know what I think? What you’re suggesting would make me no better than Nikola.”

  “Stupid girl! There are no clear sides in this. No one is purely anything.” He lifts his eyes. “Not even you.”

  Our gazes lock.

  “You have more opportunity than you know. With or without the diary. Not because of what you found but because of what you are. But not if you continue to think in black and white. The world doesn’t work that way! I didn’t come thinking you’d tell me anything,” he snarls. “I won’t even ask Jester about it. But you should know there are Progeny on the streets of Zagreb, leaking into Hungary singing your name with no place to go. Our people. My former so-called subjects who have no more ties to me, whom I feel responsible for just because they danced in my hall! They will be cut down in Budapest for their beli
ef in you, because Nikola has seen to it that your name has become a curse there. And they will die—if not by Scion hands, then by Nikola’s. Utod turned on Utod. And then what do we have? Not even each other.”

  I’m stunned. By his bluntness. By the swift change in the underground in the course of a week. And for a moment I don’t know what to say. He gathers up something from the chair on which he was sitting—a gold comedy mask—and I realize he’s about to leave.

  “Tibor,” I say impulsively. “Thank you for what you did for my mother. For me.”

  He gives a small laugh. “Don’t thank me. I was always a coward. Ivan’s the one who should have lived. Now you only have me. Lucky you. And what am I?” He smiles and bows low, arms out. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I say. “The Croatian court respects you. Needs you.”

  “No,” he says, straightening. “They need you. Maybe you can’t end this. But one thing I know: If you can’t, we’re already as good as dead. Most days, I’m fine with that. I’ll be twenty-nine next month. But there are Utod roaming the streets who don’t know what they are . . .” His jaw twitches. “Progeny, fifteen, sixteen years old. Who want to live, far more than you or I.”

  I look away. I don’t want to hear that. This is a vendetta. It’s personal. The last thing I need is the lives of faceless others riding on my actions—as well as my conscience.

  I’ve had plenty of that already.

  “But what do they know at that age anyway?” His laugh is slightly manic. Perhaps his insanity hasn’t been a complete act after all. But then his expression instantly changes, as though the laughter was a mask he’s just thrown off. “You know I dreamed, once, of being Firstborn? When I first heard the legends. Of having that kind of power, whatever it was, however it looked. But now . . .” He shakes his head, looks me up and down. “I don’t envy you. It’s hard enough, staying alive, when you’re one of us. The day you stop fighting, you’re already dead.”

  He looks down at the mask and then lifts it slowly to his face, fastens the strap behind his head.

  “You can trust Arrick,” he says, words muffled. “And Jester.” He turns to Luka. “But are you sure you can trust the others?”

  We stare at him, stunned, as he sprints for the door.

  “Where will you go?” I shout after him.

  Luka takes off and returns a moment later.

  “He’s gone. There’s a back exit,” he says.

  He walks over to the table, picks up the scrap of paper, and then shows it to me. It contains a single name: Serge Deniel.

  I snatch it from him and fling it into the fire.

  “You know,” Luka says. “Maybe there’s something to what he said.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” When he just looks at me, I exhale an incredulous laugh. “Work with a Scion?”

  “Is it the strangest thing you’ve ever heard? Really, Audra?”

  But I don’t get a chance to respond as I sense the arrival of others. A moment later the door to the living room opens below.

  13

  * * *

  It’s not the reunion I expected.

  “Audra.” Jester and Claudia kiss me in swift turns as Piotrek claps Luka on the shoulder, says something about the state of Luka’s face. The three of them look like they just came from some casual-chic photo shoot, Jester in her usual purple.

  “I’ll get your bag,” Claudia says, and I open my mouth to say I don’t have one before I realize she’s speaking to Jester.

  I glance among the three of them: Claudia and Jester, unpacking the laptop, the awkward way Piotrek shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. The cautious distance they’ve all moved back, as though I might detonate.

  “So,” Piotrek finally says, glancing around us. “This is a very strange place, yes?”

  “Pretty much,” I say, walking gingerly toward the sofa. “Happy, uh, Oktoberfest.”

  “What is this?” Jester says, tying back her dreads and glancing at me as though I were the one with the prosthetic leg. “You are walking like me now.”

  “There was a field, and don’t even get me started about the horse.” I give an uneasy laugh.

  “She twisted her ankle,” Luka says.

  “I wondered what that smell was,” Claudia says, not looking up.

  Jester glances between us and, after a beat of silence, says, “Well, let’s see what you found.”

  But right now I don’t want to think about it. I want to reconnect with the only family I know. A family who apparently doesn’t know how to act toward me anymore. I actually open my mouth to speak in an attempt to break this strange ice, to say I’m the same person I was before.

  But that would be a lie.

  I’m married—to my own hunter. I have a daughter, who is part Scion and will grow up to be more gifted than I, assuming she lives so long. I have secrets I can never tell them. That I, myself, should not know.

  And I’ve just met privately with Tibor, who fled rather than run into them. What would Claudia say, to know the prince she once feared came here to chat—“Prince to prince”? What would Jester say, knowing Tibor was here and didn’t stay?

  “Anyone know where we can get some clothes?” I say instead.

  Claudia offers to find some, excuses herself without looking at me. Like chicks do when they’re upset.

  “What’d I do to her?” I murmur.

  “Nothing,” Jester says. “Now that you’re safe, we have a lot to do.”

  Nice to see you, too.

  Jester sets up, and I pull the baggie from the waist of my pants, dump the chips from my progression of phones on the table. “It’s one of these,” I say. “The rest of it’s here. I didn’t have time to photograph them all.” I hand her the flash drive and unfold the last of the cache, lay it out on the sofa.

  Piotrek comes to examine the pages with a frown, as though they were some random garbage I picked up along the way. “This is no diary.”

  “There is no diary,” I say. “There never was.”

  “There has to be!” he says, seeming baffled and offended at once by my statement.

  Impatience wells up like anger inside me. “Even if there was, it wouldn’t make any difference! Even if Bathory’s innocent—who cares? I’ll tell you who doesn’t. The Historian.”

  He blinks at my outburst, and I instantly regret it, though a part of me has far more lashing out to do. Not at Piotrek—not him personally. At any Progeny naïve enough to think some holy grail is going to actually end this. At the medieval idea that some magic talisman is going to save us all. How many Progeny have died holding out for that hope—raving in their dungeons by night, getting killed by day?

  Piotrek looks from me to Luka, and back to the pages Jester has spread out around us as though we had brought back a bunch of used hamburger wrappers. “Then what is this?”

  Only what Luka and I both just risked our lives for.

  “A crime wall,” I say, thinking back to the collage I created, sans string, on the ship. “Which I guess is a kind of diary,” I concede. “Of corruption. Conspiracy to commit murder. No, just murder.”

  Jester picks up one page and then another, quickly scanning them.

  “This isn’t anything we didn’t know,” Piotrek said.

  “Yes, but now we have names. Transactions that can be traced. Confidential letters—for hundreds of years,” I say, gesturing to the stack. A conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.

  “You can’t convict the past!” Piotrek says, frustrated.

  “Maybe not,” I say more calmly. “But you can convict the present. Look. This is dated last year,” I say, lifting out a copy of an e-mail.

  “Oh, mon Dieu,” Jester breathes, and Piotrek leans in to look more closely. “This is the president of the Curia—the Hungarian Supreme Court.”

  “How’d you know that?” I say.

  She shrugs. “You remember faces and images. I remember names. And this woman”—she taps a name at the top of a page
—“is one of the most influential people in Europe. And this is a confidential European Commission e-mail address. If we so much as breathe a word of this to the wrong person—”

  I know the look on her face. It was the same one I had just two days ago.

  “Forget all that. We have to find the story, catalog names and relationships between these people or the groups they’re affiliated with. Their circles of influence, who their family members are. Follow the money and the favors. There’s something here the Historian either wants to know or doesn’t want anyone to find. Whatever it is, we need it.”

  “The Historian already has to know all of this,” Jester says.

  “Maybe. But I think there’s something here that can be used against her.”

  “Her?” Piotrek and Jester say in unison, looking up at me in shock.

  “Yeah.”

  Piotrek exhales an incredulous laugh, and Jester says something in French under her breath.

  “And there’s twenty times this much on the chip,” I say.

  Jester is shaking her head, sorting the rest of the actual pages I brought with me around her into chronological order, when the name on one—some large stock purchase nineteen years ago—catches my eye.

  Serge Deniel.

  “Who’s that?” I say.

  She squints at it, clearly flustered. “I don’t know. I’d have to research.” She exhales heavily, plugs one of my SIM chips into a reader. “If there’s as much as you say, this is going to take time. You might as well get some rest.”

  But the last thing I feel capable of is rest, especially with the tense dynamic going on with the others right now. Jester, escaping into the analytical ether. Piotrek, stealing glances at me as though I might morph into something else before his eyes. His sibling, Claudia, conspicuously absent. With Tibor’s proposed Scion collaboration and Luka’s saying I should consider it still echoing in my mind. With Serge’s name on a purchase record right in front of me. The things they won’t say. The things we—Luka and I—can’t.