Displaced (The Birthright Series Book 1)

by Bridget E. Baker

  I shove Edam. “What was that for? He tried to save me from drowning!”

  “Right after kissing you,” Edam says. “How do you think I found you two? I watched Frederick’s feed until it lost you both, around the time you dove into the East River.”

  “You should be mad at me, not him. He didn’t even know who you were.”

  Edam inhales slowly through his nose. “But I can’t make myself be mad at you. I just can’t.”

  Noah has gotten back up and is holding his fists up in the air. He looks like a 1950s boxer.

  I roll my eyes. “Knock it off Noah. Apologize, Edam.”

  “I’m not apologizing,” Edam says at the exact same time as Noah says, “The only thing I’m knocking is his head.”

  My life has devolved into an Acme cartoon.

  I don’t want to deal with it and I’m suddenly both exhausted and famished. I want to tell Noah goodbye properly, but it’s not going to happen with Edam here, so I don’t even try. When I climb into the car, Frederick hands me a new phone. “Yours was submerged, I believe.”

  I love Frederick. No punching people and no yelling. He just does his job. Edam should take notes. Noah and Edam are still yelling at each other on the sidewalk.

  “What’s his problem?” I ask Frederick.

  “He loves you, Your Majesty. It ruins the best of us.”

  He can’t possibly love me, not yet, but I get his point. It can’t be easy for Edam to watch me kiss another guy, especially now that I’ve committed to taking his offer. In my defense, the decision is mostly about my otherwise imminent demise. Even so, it’s not entirely about that, which means I need to talk to him about it.

  My replacement phone buzzes in my hand with an all caps message from Inara. I WAS WRONG, it reads, and a video file is attached. I stick my headphones in and click play.

  It’s grainy and it’s taken late at night. The video is date and time stamped. The person in the corner is talking on the phone just after midnight, less than sixteen hours after I set off the EMP. I turn the volume up as high as it goes, and I can still barely make out what the man on camera is saying.

  “But why break things off with her?” the shady guy asks.

  A pause.

  “Of course I don’t love her, but it took me a long time to get her to trust me this much. She wants to name me as Consort. I put her off to confirm it’s what you want.”

  Pause.

  “I never wanted to date her in the first place. But I want to make sure that’s what you want before I throw away all that work.”

  Another pause.

  “Fine, then what’s the new plan?” His voice is muffled, but it sounds familiar.

  A short pause.

  “You can’t be serious. Yes, I like her a lot more, admire her even, but they hate each other. That won’t ever work.” I know this voice. It’s low, it’s rumbly, but I know it if I can just place it.

  Another long pause.

  “Your intel better be right, because I’m the one risking my neck. What you’re telling me makes no sense.”

  A short pause.

  “Yes, okay, I told you that already, but I—”

  The shady man goes quiet again.

  “Fine, I got it.”

  Another pause.

  “I said okay. If she’s awake I’ll do it now. If not, I’ll do it first thing tomorrow.” He hangs up and glances around the hall, his face briefly coming into view of the camera before the video cuts off.

  Of course I know the voice. I just didn’t want to believe it. The shady guy is Edam.

  Inara’s cryptic message —she’s telling me I shouldn’t make Edam my Consort. How could I, after watching that? Who was he talking to?

  When Edam finally gets in the car, I shift to face the window. He sits on the opposite side and doesn’t look at me either. I watch as we drive away from Noah, who looks heartbroken. I put my hand to the window and he waves back, as if we’re going to see each other in the morning. Except I know we won’t. It hurts to drive away from one of the only people I know likes me because of who I am instead of my genetic code.

  Unfortunately, without any conversation, I have to think about what happened in the past few hours. Someone, almost certainly Judica, attacked me. The fact that it happened hours after I decided to name Edam my Consort can’t be a coincidence.

  Only four people knew about my recent decision: Inara, Lark, Alora, and Edam.

  This morning I trusted all four of them almost unconditionally. But one of them probably told Judica. The question is, which one? The one who seems the most likely is also the one who makes the least sense. Edam stands to gain a lot when I name him Consort. If he’s sure he can defeat her, why would he betray me? Unless he’s been working for Judica all along. But that video. . . He broke up with Judica the next morning, just like the video indicated he would, which means the odds he’s somehow playing me against her are low. He’s working for someone else.

  Edam’s loyalties are split. How did I not see that before?

  Could he have killed Mom?

  I lean my head against the glass, my heart contracting painfully.

  I don’t know who he was talking to, but I don’t think he’s working for my twin. I’ll have to put a pin in the question of who he called for now. One betrayal at a time.

  I consider Inara next. She’s the one sending me incriminating information on Edam, as if to cast suspicion elsewhere. Video can be doctored, of course, but it’s hard, time consuming work. And his voice confirmed the face, not the other way around.

  Inara stayed behind with Judica. I thought she was risking herself for me, but for all I know, she’s been working against me all along. She’s been sending me videos under the radar, helpful videos, but maybe Judica approved each one.

  I think about the videos, their content, and I doubt it.

  Inara did follow me to my room immediately after Mom’s death. But if Judica murdered Mom, and if Inara knew, there’s no telling what plan they hatched in advance. My brain scans through thousands of interactions with Inara, all of them positive. Could she really have been hatching plots all along? I can’t keep thinking about it, so I move along.

  I see no way that Alora benefits from selling me out to Judica. There are too many angles, and until very recently, I wasn’t even paying attention. I have zero agents, no advisors and not a clue what to do.

  I can’t even think about Lark. She has no contacts, none that know she’s alive, and she stands to gain nothing. Judica hates her. Or worse, doesn’t consider her at all. She’s the lowest likelihood of betrayal.

  But she can’t help me either, for the same reasons. I drop my face in my hands.

  Edam shifts on the seat and pulls me closer, slinging his arm around me. “Relieved isn’t a strong enough word for how I feel about you being okay. I should never have let you go to school alone today. Please forgive me.”

  I turn toward him, and his arms pulling me even tighter, and I sob against his broad chest the rest of the way home. By the time we reach Alora’s brownstone, I feel better. I shouldn’t let him comfort me, because I don’t know who Edam is, not really, but my body still trusts him. He’s done nothing but protect it. Always.

  When I walk up the steps and through the doors at Alora’s, an old friend greets me. She towers over Alora and me both, standing at eye level with Edam. Her skin shines, almost as dark as the color of black calla-lilies. The combination of dark skin and russet hair makes the emerald sparkle of her eyes even more startling.

  I run toward her, my arms outstretched. She envelops me in a reassuring bear hug.

  “Marselle!”

  “Little dove.”

  My mom’s old endearment from her Field Lieutenant for her spy network brings a tear to my eye. I wipe it away quickly.

  “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you here?” I ask. “Is everything okay?”

  Our chef back home, Angel, has run my mom’s spy network for hundreds of years, bu
t Marselle is my mom’s second. She implements whatever Angel commands in the United States, anyway.

  “Is everything okay with Melina?” Marselle’s stationed in Austin where my other full sister lives. I’ve never met Melina, presumably because she caused so much trouble before I was born. She hasn’t been welcome in Ni’ihau since. Marselle was tasked to Austin full time a few years ago because Melina had attracted so many exiled evians from other families. Mom thought a stronger Alamecha presence was prudent.

  Marselle shakes her head. “All is quiet on that front thankfully, but there’s something else. Your mother called me the day she died. She told me she wasn’t sure how things would play out, but that she might need to pass her network.”

  Monarchs don’t usually pass their network along. Typically an Heir develops her own network over a period of years from a core group of people she can trust. I should have vetted and placed each of my spies myself, allowing me to determine the reliability of each person as events transpire.

  But I didn’t think I needed one. Which Mom knew, and that’s probably why Marselle is here. She’s my mom’s last gift, which means I need to make sense of Mom’s final words. She said I need her keycode, and the clue she provided was ‘The one I love more than any other.’ Does she mean the one person Mom loves more than any other? Or who I love more than any other? Or does she mean a thing, like control of the family? Or something more esoteric, like security?

  I’m a little conceited, I suppose, because if it’s who my Mom loves, I assume it’s me. It wouldn’t be Chancery, though; that’s too obvious. Perhaps Chancy? Or maybe Little Dove? But Marselle just called me that. She wouldn’t have used the keycode so casually, would she? Or maybe she was helping me, putting the thought in my head. My brain throbs and I don’t know how all this works. I wish things could be simple for once.

  A sick thought occurs to me. Could my mom have meant Sotiris? Did she love her unborn child more than me already?

  “Can you pardon us for a moment?” I ask Edam and Alora. “Marselle and I need to talk.”

  Marselle follows me to my room, and I don’t waste any time. “You need the keycode.”

  She nods. “I didn’t think we should do this over the phone. Also, I fear that—”

  “Angel may be compromised,” I say.

  Marselle’s shoulders droop. “I’ve reported to and worked with her for more than four hundred years. We were in the field together on our first assignment. I don’t want to believe it, but she’s the best chef I’ve ever known, which helped her get a lot of positions over the years, and she watches everything that leaves her kitchen like a hawk. I can’t see how any of her food could have been poisoned without her knowledge.”

  “Sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think.”

  “I loved her,” Marselle says, “like a sister.”

  My jaw tightens. “Unfortunately, I’ve learned that trust doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with affection.”

  “You’re still so young,” Marselle says, “but you’re not wrong.”

  “What do you need from me?” I ask.

  “Just the keycode. If your mother intended to pass you her network, she’d have given it to you.”

  “How many chances do I have?” Because I have a few ideas.

  “Two,” she says. “Otherwise people could just guess and guess forever. Two gives you one mistake.”

  I almost can’t bring myself to say the word, but I have to know. Please, Mom, please let this be wrong. “Sotiris.”

  Marselle shakes her head.

  I sigh in relief. Mom couldn’t have expected me to guess something bizarre, like security or world peace. She must have meant a person, and it must be me. Now I need to figure out whether it’s Chancy, Chancery, or Divinity. I don’t think Marselle would have called me little dove if that was the code, so I rule that out, and both Chancy and Chancery are too obvious. “Divinity,” I say.

  Marselle smiles. “Correct, and we have a lot to talk about.”

  “First and foremost, what’s Judica been up to while I’ve been gone?”

  “She sent the members of each of the Five Families home about two seconds after you left.”

  I expected that. “Go on.”

  “There’s a lot of movement from them. I imagine several of them would support you, including the second family, Malessa. As you know, the last ruler of Malessa, Senah, didn’t have many sons just like your mother didn’t have many daughters, and now that she’s dead and her daughter Analessa is ruling, she hasn’t had many sons either. When she heard Edam followed you—”

  Suddenly it clicks. Analessa, Edam’s sister, hasn’t had many sons, and neither did Edam and Analessa’s mother, Senah. I didn’t know that. My mom struggled with the guilt of selling her sons and she had a lot, but if you only had a few, selling them off would be even more difficult. You might even keep one. If that son was only three when you died and your daughter came to power, she might sell him so that other families would sell their sons to her when she had an Heir to raise, but if that daughter didn’t have any sons either, she might gain a new understanding. She might even regret doing it. She might try to bring him back to her side. And if that brother thought the sale of children was barbaric, if he raged inside over the betrayal. . . who knew whether he’d agree.

  The phone call had to be from his sister Analessa or someone else from the Second Family. I would bet on it. The question is whether he’s loyal to Alamecha and by extension to me, or to them. There’s a reason sons are sold at birth. With our evian memories, even three years can result in shifted alliances and skewed loyalties. When I finally start to listen again, Marselle is talking about the other families and what our agents say about who they support.

  “I want to hear all of this, but not right now. You’re putting off something big, and I don’t have time for delays. What is it?”

  Marselle looks surprised. “You’re right. I didn’t mean to put it off, but it frightens me. Judica may officially be ruling in your place, but she’s not acting like it. She wants to set the tone for her rule. She means to unite the Six, according to prophecy she says. She wants to rename Alamecha the Seventh Family once it’s done. She says the uniting of all evians under one ruler would explain the obscure references in various texts to the Seventh Family. If she’s going to show the other families she’s strong, she needs to make a statement.”

  Once she has chosen a way to proceed as the new leader, she’ll need to tie up loose ends. Hence the hit team on me. If she can’t be completely positive she can defeat me in the ring, because I might choose Edam, she’d send her people for me. What I know of Judica, and what I’ve seen of her current actions, tells me her next step.

  Queens through the millennia have usually started off their rule in the way they mean to move ahead. Judica discussed her plan with my mom a million times.

  Before Marselle can say it, I guess. “She’s launching a nuclear bomb against China.”

  Marselle’s mouth opens and then closes. She nods.

  I can’t wait until the end of my ten days. I need to go back now, or millions of innocent people will die.

  29

  I dismiss Marselle and rush from my room to arrange a flight home, but I end up standing in the hallway like an idiot. Whose plane do I use?

  Bellatrius and Arlington’s presence by my door reminds me. I never even asked Frederick if my guards all survived the attack.

  “Was anyone injured?” I ask.

  Bellatrius bobs her head. “Simeon sustained a sliced hamstring and recovered quickly.”

  “And Ralph?”

  “He lost his hand and is in the process of regrowing it,” Arlington says.

  “And being a baby about it, too.” Bellatrius smirks. “Men do have a tendency to whimper more.”

  “Some men.” Arlington huffs. “But not all.”

  I glance from Bellatrius to Arlington, both of whom stare at me expectantly. Arlington serves me because he’s grateful
I spared his sister. Bellatrius serves me because I voted for her to be able to leave the family. I had no idea either of them cared about my opinion at the time.

  Or that’s why I think they’re here.

  “Bellatrius, why did you follow me? Everyone knows Judica’s stronger, fiercer, and more powerful. Why pick the losing side?”

  Her eyes widen. “You’re not weaker. You’re merciful. The two aren’t the same.”

  “How do you figure?” I ask.

  She shifts and crosses her arms. “When I fell in love with Patiron, it was a mistake. We never should have met. I love Alamecha, Your Majesty. I love my family. But Patiron loved Shenoah, too. And sometimes, someone has to be willing to bend.”

  “And you were willing to bend.”

  “Exactly,” she says. “And I could have run away with him like he asked. I could have abandoned my family. Our families were at war, so I knew Shenoah would have granted me asylum.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask.

  She swallows hard. “Because I wanted to do things the right way. I believed I would be granted permission to go, and so I requested it.”

  “But your request was denied.” I recall the hearing perfectly.

  “Your mother and sister didn’t care at all for me or my future. They only cared about the family.” Bellatrius looks at her feet.

  “That’s their job,” I say softly. “To protect the family.”

  “The family is made up of individuals,” Bellatrius says.

  She’s quoting me. I advocated for allowing her to go, because our highest calling is not to protect a group, but each person.

  “We’re more to you than soldiers in an army,” she says. “And that’s why I’m here. And that’s why Ralph shouldn’t be whimpering over an injury justly taken protecting you. It’s an honor to be one of your guards, Your Majesty. The singular honor of my life.”

  I am utterly unworthy of that kind of devotion. “You’re free to go to Shenoah,” I say. “I need guards, but I need citizens who aren’t in pain more. You may leave and join Patiron with my blessing.”