it on purpose.Even after four years without him, the specter of my father’s death was a constant weight my mother carried. Her grief followed her everywhere, and his memory colored every private moment we shared.
Mother perched on the edge of a gilt-legged settee piled with furs and patted the seat beside her. I sat obediently, careful not to wrinkle my jacket or sit on her skirt. She ran a hand through my newly shorn curls. She used to cut it herself when my father was still alive, as she’d done for him. We’d had the same dark brown curls, unruly and difficult to style. But since his death, she’d left the task to my valet and was ever critical of his work.
“I have something for you.”
I looked at her questioningly. “I thought we were going to wait to open gifts until tomorrow. The spectacle’s half the ceremony, or so Claes and Penelope are always telling me.”
“You’ll get the rest of your gifts tomorrow, but this is between you, your father and me. He and I decided long before his passing.”
She pulled a small cedar box from her skirts and handed it to me. I untied the crimson ribbon. Inside the box, a long, brass key rested on a velvet cushion.
“A key?” I asked, bewildered. There was no door in our house I had any reason to unlock, and the only time I left our estate was in the company of my mother and our ever-present cadre of servants. There was never a need for me to unlock anything at all.
“To your father’s house here in Penby. You’ll need a place to get away from the chaos in the palace as you spend more and more time at court. Your father’s house is perfect for a crown prince. We’ll have to hire a staff to open it, but that shouldn’t be any trouble. I’ll even give you an allowance to redecorate it to your taste. Do you remember it?”
Strange that, after years without thinking of it, the property had come up twice in one week. I hadn’t been there often—since Father’s death, we’d always stayed in the palace when we went to court. Before his passing, I’d only been a child, and rarely visited Penby—children of the nobility were raised in the countryside, where they could breathe clean air and learn genteel sports. But, much to my mother’s dismay, Father had taken me to see the sunships launch when I’d been briefly fascinated by them as a little boy. I’d wanted to become a ship’s captain in the royal navy, to spend my life at sea, exploring the vast swaths of land left unpopulated and destroyed by the cataclysm. I remembered sliding down the banister of the grand, sweeping staircase in the front hall and hiding on the landing long past my bedtime, wrapped in blankets and listening to my parents laugh with their guests.
The reality of what lay ahead of me curdled my stomach. The responsibility of guiding the empire, of working hand in hand with the Suzerain—it was daunting, especially when I felt so very alone. I wished, as I so often had, that I was normal; that I had a twin like everyone else. And seeing the expectation, the eager hunger for my accomplishment and success in my mother’s eyes inflamed me.
The old argument, the one that tangled our every interaction lately, took hold before I could stop myself. “Mother...”
Her jaw tensed. “Don’t start, Ambrose. You are the Queen’s choice. It’s your duty to serve the empire. To become its next King. You will show Queen Runa that you are, without a doubt, the best choice to lead the succession, just as your father or I would have done, had we had the luck to be singleborn.” She tucked the key and its box into an end table drawer.
I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to extinguish the anxiety rising in my chest like a flame. If only I could escape from that word. My whole life, I’d been told I was special because I’d been born alone. Singleborn. The conscience of the empire. Every move I made was lauded, commented upon. My interests became trends. I was deferred to, admired and praised at every turn. But Mother’s eyes never rested on me for a moment without the expectation that I could do more, be better.
As if she could read my thoughts, Mother reached out and cupped my cheek. “You know that I’m proud of you? You know that I love you?”
I sighed. “I know. I know you want the best for me. I love you, too.”
Before the heaviness of the moment could weigh me down more than my anxiety already had, I changed the subject.
“Has there been any more news about what happened in the park?” I asked.
Mother dropped her hand into her lap, exasperated. “There’s no need for you to continue to bring that up,” she said, annoyance sharpening her words. “It was a coincidence. One of the diminished. Honestly, if there were something to tell you, I would. Now, tonight is a momentous occasion, and I want for you to remember it fondly.” She glanced at the clock on the mantel. “We should go down. Your cousins are doing what they can to keep Her Majesty occupied, but Claes may run out of gossip if we don’t relieve him soon.” She laughed, a sound like a burbling spring that did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves. “Worse, Penelope will be in a state trying to keep him from saying something out of turn.”
I grinned, knowing she was right. I offered her my arm. “Best make my entrance, then. Into the den of foxes, as it were.”
Mother swatted at me as we left my room. “Hush, you. You mustn’t make jokes about the other singleborn where someone might hear you.”
“It’s Father’s joke,” I protested.
“I know.” Mother stretched up onto the tips of her toes and kissed me on the cheek. “But those foxes hold your fate in their jaws.”
* * *
Outside the great room, I stared at the enormous, ancient doors. Doors I’d seen so often during our many visits to court, but never truly looked at. I wondered what had crossed the minds of each of the other singleborn chosen to wear the crown, who’d all waited outside this very door on the night of their sixteenth birthdays. It was a sobering thought, and all my jokes and nervous giggles fled my body.
Gunnar, my valet, knocked twice on the carved panel beside the great room door. I took a deep breath, and three bass notes from the horn just inside the great room reverberated through my bones. The musicians went quiet, and an anticipatory hush settled over the crowd inside. Gunnar looked to Mother for her signal. She wound her arm through mine and looked up into my eyes searchingly.
“Ready?” she asked.
I nodded and set my jaw, forcing a slight smile onto my lips. Gunnar heaved against the doors’ polished bone handles. Inside, a uniformed servant took up the Trousillion horn, curling and carved, and blew a long, clear note. Silence hung heavy in the room, and the weight of hundreds of eyes fell upon me all at once. The solar lights were dimmed, and they cast a golden glow over the nobles dressed in their best silks and furs. Their jewels shimmered as they waited for the ceremony to start.
Penelope, Claes and I had spent months shaping the guest list. In addition to the ambassadors from Denor, most elite Ilorian merchants and the highest-ranking members of the nobility, the guest list included a number of my more irritating relatives who had to be invited, despite their tendencies to hoard all of the attention in a room. The three other singleborn of my generation were like that, captivating and dazzling all at once. Even Rylain, despite her hatred of public appearances, was the kind of person who could enchant a crowd with a single word.
I felt drab standing next to them, like a baby puffin before its plumage fills in. I should have been brimming with excitement, but instead I was blinded, unable to move, like a fish frozen in a streambed. My eye landed on a woman draped in austere black wool, her dark brown hair threaded with silver, and a serene look on her unlined face: Rylain. My heart lifted slightly—I hadn’t thought that she would be willing to make the trip to court, even for such a significant event. I was relieved to see her—perhaps her presence would stop Patrise and Lisette from spreading their bizarre notion that she’d had something to do with the shooting in the park.
Patrise lounged on a chaise nearby, flanked by a beautiful, red-haired woman. I wondered if the accusations he’d leveled at Rylain were a thinly veiled attempt to hide his own involvement in the most recent attempt on my life.