It doesn’t take long for Alora’s sleek black car to reach her enormous brownstone near Gramercy Park. When I walk up the steps, I almost forget that Mom’s not climbing up behind me. The last day has passed in a haze, with no Mom, no Cookie, and no Lark or Lyssa. I don’t even have Judica around to restore some balance.
When the front door opens, I almost expect to see Lark shoot through and hug me. But of course, she can’t be seen by the guards without giving away the fact that I never executed her.
Alora walks through the large front entry and starts up the stairs that curve up and to the right. “Chancy, you and Edam are this direction.”
Frederick and one of his guards, Arlington, follow on my heels quicker than Edam.
“I doubt she will need a door guard in my household,” Alora says. “I vouch for each of my indoor staff, and I have a fully functioning security crew. I promise we will keep my sister safe while she’s in residence.”
Frederick frowns.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Let him do his job.”
Alora bobs her head and continues onward. We walk up the stairs and follow her down the hallway to the right, passing several of her guards along the way. She points at the first door on the left. “This one’s yours, Chancy.” She indicates the door across the hall. “That’s Edam’s. I figured you’d want him close, since you worked so hard to secure his release.”
I glance sideways at Edam, but he just walks into his room and closes the door. I do the same, and Alora follows me inside.
She gestures at my bed, where a brand new phone is sitting on top of a basket of other basics, like shampoo, towels, granola bars, and mineral water. “Edam’s angry.”
I bob my head. “I saved his life. Who knew that would piss him off?”
Alora’s mouth turns up into a smile, but her eyes are full of pity. “Would Judica really have killed him? Or was she angry and hurting and looking for someone to blame?”
“Even so, best case scenario, he’d be sitting in a cell if I left him there.”
“And now?” she asks. “Now he’s, what?”
If I return and die, he does too. And if I abdicate, he’ll have to run. Which probably looks bleaker than a cell to Mr. Perfect Evian Posterboy.
She sighs. “Your heart was in the right place.”
Which is exactly why I ought to abdicate. Having a good heart does not qualify me to rule Alamecha. In fact, from what I’ve seen so far, it makes me less suited to the job. “He was in line to take over for Balthasar before all of this happened. Which means my mom’s death and the fallout was nearly as bad for him as it has been for me.” I drop my bag on the ground and collapse onto the enormous sleigh bed in the middle of the room.
“What’s done is done,” Alora says. “He’ll either forgive you or he won’t, but you can’t worry about it. Right now you need to focus on training. You have to do your best to be ready to fight your sister in ten days. I can’t have you abdicating because you think it’s your only choice. I’ve already ordered my staff to clear the entire ballroom on the fourth floor and to clean that room as often as necessary.”
“It’s equally important that I spend some time with humans to find out whether I want to return to evian life at all.”
Alora smiles. “I’ve arranged for that too. I enrolled you, Lark, and Edam in a local private school. If you think you can trust him. I assumed you could, but if I’m wrong. . .”
I think about how he saved me, and then I consider our recent interactions. “I do believe I can trust him. I don’t love his attitude, but at least he’s not pretending he’s fine with things when he’s not. And now, like it or not, his fate is kind of tied to mine.”
“Unless Judica asks him to kill you, and he does it to get back into her good graces.”
Shoot.
A tap at the door, in the corner I assumed was the closet, startles me.
“Come in,” Alora says.
The door opens, and Lark walks through. She rushes toward me, a mournful expression on her face. I don’t even realize I’m sobbing against her shoulder until she pulls back. “I’m so sorry, Chancy. Even with how everything went down with my mother, I didn’t wish that for you. I truly didn’t.”
“I know.”
Three days ago, we had moms who would kill for us. Now we’re both alone. Alora excuses herself, and I catch Lark up on everything. For the first time in almost twenty-four hours, it feels like there’s enough air in the room for me to breathe.
A tap on the door to the hallway makes me jump. Lark hops up and points at the door she came through earlier. “I’ll head back to my room,” she mouths.
“How?”
“Passageway,” she whispers.
Wow, my family likes their hidden corridors. “Fine.”
After Lark has shut the door behind her, I count to five. I’m walking to the door when there’s a louder, stronger, more insistent knock.
“Hang on, I’m coming. Geez.”
I’m expecting Alora or Frederick. I am not expecting a broody Edam, white t-shirt molded to his perfectly sculpted chest. I do not sigh, or breathe deeply, or widen my eyes. Or at least, I try not to.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I assume you’re ready to begin training,” he says.
“Training? I’ve been here for fifteen minutes.”
He nods. “Right. I allowed you some extra time in case you needed to use the restroom.”
My cheeks heat. “You’re training me? I thought Alora would be the one—”
“She’s a melodics master.” Edam snorts. “You have ten days. If you want to die, suit yourself.”
“You think you can teach me enough sladius to compensate for more than ten years of subpar melodics training?”
“I think I’m your best option.”
“Alora mentioned the ballroom is also her training arena.”
“She has a ballroom in Manhattan?” Edam asks.
“Ballerina,” I say.
“Fine. Let’s go then.”
I shoo him out the door so I can change, and a few moments later I’m standing across from Edam in a vast ballroom that’s at least as large as Mom’s outdoor courtyard. Last week I hadn’t spoken ten words in the last five years to the man the world assumed would marry my wretched sister. Now he’s trying to teach me to kill her.
He extends a knife toward me, holding the blade with two fingers so the hilt is out.
“We’re using daggers now?” I ask.
“Hand-to-hand, bladed weapons, we need to mix it up. You will choose the mode of combat, but you can’t make that choice until we’ve isolated your strengths.”
“I certainly hope no one chooses hand-to-hand for a battle to the death. That sounds... protracted,” I say. “But I’m not very good with swords.”
“That’s why we’re starting small. We can work our way up. I’m going to focus on teaching you moves that will use your current skill set and improve upon it, things you can learn quickly. If you want to defeat Judica, you’ll have to triple your past efforts.”
“But three times zero is still. . .”
Edam rolls his eyes. We start with one knife each and move to two. Every time I try to throw them, he stops me. “We need to work on your weaknesses, not your strengths.”
We identify plenty of those. An hour later, I’m exhausted and covered with blood from a million swipes with his daggers. Alora’s ballroom looks like the set of a bad slasher movie. “How long are we planning to do this?”
Edam pulls a sword from the weapons rack and hands it to me. “All day today. You’re way behind.”
“So far you’ve been slicing me to ribbons, but I haven’t learned a thing.”
“That’s not true. You’re healing faster.”
I think back to what my mom said about pain training. I guess I’m getting the integrated version.
Edam starts swinging his sword around in circles.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “You loo
k silly.” Or he would if Edam could ever look bad.
“I’m warming up,” he says. “Our other main goal today is ferreting out your natural talents and skills so we can develop the right overall strategy. Ready to show me what you can do with a sword when you aren’t busy arguing with your sister?”
Without any further warning, he comes for me, slicing, pulling back, spinning around. He moves so fast I can barely follow him, and I use my left forearm to deflect his strikes as often as my blade. The spray from my last block reaches the chandelier, and I pause for a moment to consider who will clean that up. When I glance back down, Edam almost severs my arm above the wrist. My focus narrows to the present. I really don’t want to regrow an appendage. I hear it’s the worst.
About half an hour in, Edam pauses in his attack and pulls a long knife from his right boot. He tosses it to me and bends over to pull another from his left boot. Before I can ask why he’s given me a second blade, he comes after me again.
Without thinking, I stop using my forearm and begin to use the long knife to deflect his strikes, attacking with the sword one-handed. I struggle through another half hour of attacks and subsequent healing, but my legs quiver like jelly, my right arm throbs, and I practically whimper when Edam calls for a halt.
I sink down to the ground and slump over my own knees. “Am I a lost cause?”
Edam sits across from me and looks me dead in the eye. “Do you trust Inara?”
I bob my head. “Yeah.”
“You need to ask her to send you videos of Judica fighting over the past few months. Your mother trained you in your private courtyard, so no one has ever seen you, aside from that debacle with Lark and the one match with your twin, but Judica trained in the arena. There are security feeds in there that anyone with top level clearance can access them. Larena, Balthasar, Inara. You would have access too, if you were still home. If we can get those files, you can learn how Judica fights. Instead of me telling you she favors her left arm and her right leg, you can watch how she pulls back on kicks with her left. How she pauses before striking from her right with a sword. We have to focus on every single weakness, because you’re going to need to exploit them all if you want any hope of surviving this. And we have to watch the fight the two of you had that last morning, because that will also be invaluable.”
“I’ll call and ask Inara, but even without videos, I improved a little today, right?”
Edam sighs. “She’d kill you in under two minutes if you fought her tomorrow.”
Ouch. “Still that bad? Really?”
He averts his eyes.
I jump up and start to pace. “Why are we even wasting our time, then?” Tears well up in my eyes. Can I get pruney cheeks from crying too much? If so, I’m sure to have them soon. Maybe my only real choice is to abdicate. It certainly feels easier. Would Mom want her murderer to rule? Maybe she would, since it’s her daughter.
But Mom chose me. I’m so confused.
“I want to help you, Chancery. I’m on your side.” He clenches his fists. “Even if I didn’t decide to be myself.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I say. “Yesterday flew past at a million miles per hour. It seemed like the right thing to do. I guess I should’ve known you’d be fine without my intervention. With your history, Judica wouldn’t really have killed you, but I swear that didn’t occur to me in the moment.” I doubt Edam can hear my last words, they’re so quiet. “I was bleeding out last night. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Actually with our history, she might have gone through with it. We’ll never know.” Edam stands up and grabs my hand, turning me to face him. “If you’d asked me, I’d have chosen to come with you. If I were a better person, I’d have realized that sooner and spent less time sulking about it. You need help, and you’re a good person. You didn’t deserve my temper tantrum.” He squeezes my hand quickly and then releases it. “With everything that happened to you yesterday, I shouldn’t have gotten upset. Forgive me.”
My heart picks up the pace. It’s hard to look at him without that happening, but this time it’s not about his face. It’s about his words. “Thank you.”
“I’m going to say something now and I want you to think about it,” he says. “Don’t dismiss it out of hand. And try not to get offended.” He tugs me back down to the ground and sits across from me. He looks right into my eyes. “You have a big decision to make, and you can probably guess that I don’t want to be exiled. I’m evian down to my bones. I would hate living away from our people, but that’s not why I’m offering this, I swear that to you. I really think you’d make a better ruler than Judica. I think your mom realized that and it’s why she changed the documents. I don’t know exactly what’s going on in your head, but I’ve spent a lot of time with your sister.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and then another. I can’t seem to stop it, not this time. And it’s not even about my mom, not specifically. It’s Edam’s words, his faith in me. He’s the first person to say that I’d be a better ruler without knowing about my reaction to the dumb ring.
He scoots over until he’s sitting right next to me. He pulls my head over on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know if I’ve told you that. There’s never a good time to lose your mom, trust me, but that had to be the worst timing in the world.”
I’m not sure how long I cry on his arm, but eventually I stop and lift my head. I slide far enough away that I can look at him again without craning my neck.
“Sorry to interrupt your tough love moment.” I hiccup. “What was your point? I’m ready to hear it.”
He offers me a half smile. “This is going to seem strange, but like I said, think about it before you turn me down. It’s an option you might not have considered or even known about. Right now you’re contemplating two very different paths: either abdicate and live with Alora as a human, or return and fight your twin to the death. If you win, you become Empress.”
He doesn’t say I’m unlikely to win. We both know that already.
“Okay,” I say. “That sounds right.”
“Here’s where I need you to remember not to get upset. I think you’ll be a good ruler, I really do. You may not have been trained as the Heir, but you spent every waking moment with one of the best evian rulers of all time. You surely learned principles of justice and mercy and when to apply each. You had to have learned about warcraft and political management, even if what you learned was only high level from watching your mother. You can be taught the basic elements quickly because you’ve seen them all in application. I have no doubt you can handle Alamecha’s affairs and do a fine job. You told me before it seems silly to choose a Security Chief based on his combat prowess. Similarly, it seems barbaric that our ultimate ruler is sometimes chosen by a duel to the death.”
I agree. It’s the dumbest method possible to choose someone who will dictate the order of the world, but it’s always been our way. It’s not like I can change the Charter to make it a history test or a bake off.
“If you go back, you’re going to lose. Judica will kill you easily. I’m going to do my best to improve your skill and teach you to beat her, but I’m not overly optimistic. It’s almost certain that if you return, you’ll die.”
This hardly seems helpful.
He reaches out and takes my hand in his. “Please listen to my point. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m being honest, and offering you a third option. Choose me as your Consort, marry me, and let me fight her for you. You know I can defeat her, as surely as she can defeat you. Let me do what you can’t, so that you can do what’s right for our people and avenge your mother.”
I’ve imagined the man of my dreams proposing to me a dozen different ways. That is so not how any of them went in my head.
17
I call Inara the second I reach my room to ask about the videos, but as soon as she answers, I find myself telling her about Edam’s offer instead. It’s stupid. She’s with Judica, and this call might
even be tapped, but I can’t help myself. I want to talk to Mom about it, and Inara is as close as I can get.
She doesn’t respond. Not a single word. I wonder whether the line went dead.
“Are you still there?” I finally ask.
“Yes.”
“Care to share your thoughts?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Choosing a Consort is a big decision. Evians don’t divorce.”
“I could always have him executed,” I joke.
“That would literally be your only option if choosing him is a mistake.”
I was kidding. “Uh.”
“You’re not even eighteen for two more weeks,” Inara says. “Mother would freak out if you told her this plan.”
“I’m in this mess because she isn’t here to freak out about anything anymore.” I clench my hands into fists. “What would you do?”
“I don’t know,” Inara says. “I just don’t know. Do you feel like your combat skills are improving?”
“I think so, but Edam says it’s not nearly enough.”
“It’s your first day.”
“Even so, we don’t have many more.”
“Regardless, you’ve got at least another week before you need to make any major decisions.”
True. “By the way,” I say, “he wants you to send me as many videos of Judica fighting as you can get your hands on, including our fight the day of the you know what.” If anyone is listening, no reason to give them anything specific. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Judica won’t like it,” Inara says. “I’ll need to do it without her knowledge. I wonder what Balthasar will make of all this. He’s devastated about Mother, and he misses Edam. And you, too, of course.”
“Don’t tell him if there’s any way around it.”
“He has all the videos and the log of who accesses them. Security section protocol,” she says.
“Isn’t there a way around that?” I ask.
Displaced (The Birthright Series Book 1) Page 18