CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I wrench my hands out of the old queen’s, but she’s nowhere near finished. “Let me tell you what the goddess Amba told me.” In spite of the horrified looks on the faces around her, she continues. “There was once an adventurous, ambitious young girl named Kyra. She swam deep into the seas of the Empty Moon to find the blueflower, a bloom so perfect that even gods are entranced by its beauty.”
These are Amba’s words, the same ones she used when she first told me this story.
“The girl offered the flower to the goddess Amba, and Amba, who appreciated the beauty of the flower and was impressed by Kyra’s courage, gave her something in return. ‘Three times, I will come to your aid,’ she said. ‘Three times, I will grant you a wish. Choose wisely.’”
No one seems to know what to say.
The old queen looks hard at me. “Well, great-granddaughter? What comes next?”
And I find myself answering. “To seal her promise, the goddess gave the girl a single petal from the blueflower.”
No one in this room can possibly understand the significance of that detail, of course. None of them know that petal became the jewel pinned in my hair as we speak.
“Some years later,” I continue, “Kyra made her first wish. It had consequences she didn’t intend, and she was cursed for those consequences.”
The old queen gives a sharp bark of mirth. “That was it, was it?” she crows. “Amba didn’t tell you the truth.”
“She didn’t tell me it was you who cursed us, no.”
“She didn’t tell you why I did it, either, I suppose.” Her eyes needle into mine, shrewd yet unexpectedly full of pity. “What did she say about your mother?”
I repeat what I explained to Alexi and Bear earlier. “Amba said that the curse said I would destroy my family. My mother sent me away so we would all be safe. It broke her heart, but she believed it would only be until I was old enough to understand the curse and then I could subvert it. Amba erased my parents’ memories so they wouldn’t be tempted to look for me too early.”
The old queen looks around the silent room, then nods her head. “Not very Kyra, is it?”
“I suppose she could have done that,” Guinne says, though her voice is threaded with doubt.
“She didn’t,” says the old queen, “because that’s not how it happened. It would seem Amba went out of her way to spare your feelings, child. Let me tell you what she told me. Kyra fell in love with a boy named Cassel. He was heir to the throne of Kali, and his mother, the queen, wanted him to marry a princess from another realm. Dismayed, Kyra impulsively wished she could marry the prince instead.”
Guinne frowns. “She wished that? Exactly that? She didn’t try to word it more carefully?”
“She didn’t think to,” says the old queen grimly, “and so Amba granted her wish. Queen Vanya died that very day.”
I pale. “But gods can’t hurt mortals without becoming mortal themselves! Amba couldn’t have killed her.”
“She didn’t have to. All she had to do was give Kyra an idea, and let Kyra act on it if she chose to. And Kyra did. In all the time she’d spent on her youthful adventures, she’d picked up a few unusual skills and she knew just how to meddle with elevator mechanics to ensure that the elevator in question would malfunction. And it did. With Vanya inside.”
I open my mouth but no words come out.
“To be fair to Kyra,” the old queen continues, “Vanya wasn’t supposed to die. When the elevator mechanics went awry, Kyra had intended to arrive on the scene as if by pure coincidence, activate the emergency brake, and save her. Amba had told Kyra that if she saved Vanya, the queen would be so grateful, she would grant Kyra any favor.” Cassela sighs, an old, sad sound. It must be so painful for her to talk about the death of her own child like this. “What neither Amba nor Kyra knew was that the emergency brake on that particular elevator was unreliable. She pressed the button, but it stuck. She had to press it again, and by then it was too late. The brake didn’t catch in time.”
“An accident,” says Elvar softly. “That’s what the engineers called it. No one realized.”
“Cassel became king and Kyra became his wife,” the old queen says. “Kyra’s conscience would not let her rest easy, much as it will surprise some of you to hear she has one. She came to me and confessed the truth. She hoped I would grant her absolution.” Cassela snorts. “I did not. You know how they say that the gods’ favorites can wreak havoc with just a few words? I am one such favorite. And I wreaked havoc. ‘Your selfish desires brought destruction to my daughter’s door,’ I said, ‘and so I curse you to a future in which your daughter will bring the same to yours.’”
“Cassela, how could you?” Rickard demands. “You didn’t just curse Kyra. You cursed a child who had done nothing to deserve it!”
“As I said,” the old queen replies, with a hint of what could be shame, “I’m sorry. I, too, was careless with my words.” She turns to me. “When she gave birth two years later, Kyra bore twins. First came a boy, perfect and loved, and then a girl, who filled Kyra with terror. Amba let you believe she was heartbroken to part with you, but the truth is, she wanted only to protect her son. As soon as Cassel left the room, she snatched you up and put you in a sealed boat and jettisoned you out into the darkness of space.”
“She didn’t do that!” I protest. “She gave me to Amba, and asked her to take me somewhere safe.”
“She put you in a sealed boat,” the old queen says again, gently this time. There’s too much pity on her face.
“Kyra shipped her away in a pod?” Elvar demands. “A newborn baby? How did she expect the child to survive?”
The silence hurts my ears.
“She didn’t,” I say, my tone numb. “My mother didn’t expect me to survive.”
Splinters cut into my heart. I don’t want to believe the old queen’s words, but I do. Because her story fills in the gaps. It answers questions I never dared to ask, afraid of how much the truth would hurt. Why would you send your daughter away only to reunite with her later? It never made sense that she wanted me to find a way around the curse when I was older. Why not, instead, keep me close and teach me about the curse early on so that we could be careful yet still stay together?
So many questions I didn’t want to ask, but now I have the answers all the same.
I’ve loved her all my life, and she wanted me dead.
“She was not quite so cold as that in the end,” the old queen tells me. “There was little chance that the child in the boat would survive, but Kyra regretted her rash act, and she called upon Amba a second time. ‘Let her live,’ Kyra prayed. As before, she did not choose her words well. What she should have said was: Let her live, but let her live a life that will never allow her to enact the curse upon me.” Cassela shrugs one shoulder. “She did not say that. And, as before, Amba granted Kyra her wish.”
Let her live, my mother had said. And as far as my mother knows, I’m now the exact enemy she feared. Let her live. And so Amba took her at her word and did just that. She let me live so that I could grow up and take a warship away from my brother. She gave me a blueflower jewel that would let me live no matter who tried to cut me down. Let her live. My mother couldn’t have had the faintest idea what would result from that wish. If she had, perhaps she wouldn’t have made it. Perhaps she wouldn’t have shown what little mercy she did.
The silence in the dining room is absolute, broken only when Cassela, herself, hobbles across to the table and drops unceremoniously into a chair.
“Well?” she asks. “Are we going to eat or not?”
So my mother cast me adrift. And before that, she killed a queen. And the person who cursed her for it was my own great-grandmother.
I spent my entire childhood wanting a family, and this is the one I got. The gods have a twisted sense of humor.
I want to flee, but I stand my ground. Why should I feel embarrassed or ashamed? I didn’t make any poorly worded wishes. I didn’t curse anyone. Like Titania earlier today, I was just the tool someone used to try and destroy someone else. I was the arrow, the old queen the archer.
No, that’s not quite true. Grandmother may have turned me into an arrow, but I took back control the day I asked Rickard to train me. I took back control when I competed for Titania. I did that. No one made that choice for me.
And that choice is why I’m here. I refuse to flee.
Dinner is a stilted, awkward affair. My appetite is gone. And Lord Selwyn, the queen’s brother and the king’s shadow, uses the opportunity to ask me a series of questions obviously intended to catch me out in a lie. I expected to be treated with suspicion, and had prepared for it, but I’m too tired to guard myself well.
In the end, what makes me snap is not the questions, themselves, but Lord Selwyn’s use of my name—Alexa. The name I wanted to claim so badly, the name so like my brother’s, the name my mother gave me, the name that now hurts.
“Lord Selwyn, would it be too much to ask that you call me Esmae? I find my given name quite unbearable after Grandmother’s story.”
Lord Selwyn raises his eyebrows. “How I envy your blissful certainty that one can so easily discard a name, dear princess.”
“And why can’t she discard it if she wishes to?” Sybilla asks. “Why should Esmae Rey be any less suitable than Alexa Rey?”
“Ez-may.” The old queen overemphasizes the syllables with the expression of someone picking up a dirty handkerchief. “I’m not sure it’s a name for a Rey. Mind you, nothing can be worse than Abra. Kyra’s family name! She gave birth to a second son and named him after her own family! We can only be thankful he goes by Bear, which does not exactly scream royalty but at least is not her name.”
“Bear’s name is irrelevant, Cassela,” says Rickard, “And I see no reason why Esmae can’t be a good name for a Rey.”
“What does it mean?” she presses. “For Alexa, you know, means protector. As does Alexi, for that matter. Both are excellent names.”
I’ve always assumed Madam Li picked my name at random when I was taken to her as a baby. I never bothered to find out what it means. It was supposed to be temporary, a placeholder until the day I could proudly claim the name Alexa Rey.
Max is the one who answers. “It means beloved.”
“That is hardly suitable,” Cassela complains. “Beloved is not a good name for someone who will one day be queen of Kali.”
The entire table pauses, a theater tableau of half-raised forks and glasses poised at lips and widened eyes. Lord Selwyn’s teeth snap together like this has only confirmed his belief that I am a viper in their nest. Rickard gives me a look of profound pity.
Very stiffly, I say, “I’m afraid I fail to see how my ascension to the throne is inevitable, Grandmother. Surely Max’s children will inherit after him?”
“And who will inherit if Max dies before he has any children?” Lord Selwyn asks. “You will, dear princess, as the only Rey left on Kali. It would be only natural to consider that an attractive possibility.”
“Esmae doesn’t share your sense of ambition, Selwyn,” Rickard says, his voice dry as dust. “What you consider an attractive possibility is unlikely to be so to her.”
Rickard’s statement eases some of the tension, but it’s already too late: I see the fleeting doubt on some of their faces, the suspicion, there and gone again. Elvar and Guinne twitch their heads in my direction. Jumpy. That’s what Rama said his father used to call them. I don’t think they’re seriously wondering if I intend to assassinate Max, but Selwyn has let the idea creep across the table like poisonous smoke, and it’s only a matter of time before someone breathes it in.
I glance at Max to see how he’s taking the idea that I would murder him for his crown. He looks somewhat amused.
“No one’s talking about Max dying,” Cassela says irritably, jabbing a piece of lamb with her fork. “I was referring to the fact that the line of succession is by no means decided as yet. We don’t yet know for certain that Max will inherit the throne when Elvar dies. Elvar could name Alexa his heir instead.”
My mouth falls open. Is that even possible?
Lord Selwyn is even more aghast. “Absurd!” he snaps. “The king would never disinherit his own son.”
Cassela scoffs. “Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time a ruler made that choice.”
“And I am not the king’s own son, anyway,” Max points out. He doesn’t look amused anymore.
That statement just seems ridiculous to me, but neither Elvar nor Guinne argues.
“I’m curious,” Lord Selwyn says coldly, “was the princess invited to Kali just so she could replace my nephew?”
Max opens his mouth, but I reply first, just as coldly. “Why should it matter who is named heir? Alexi was my father’s heir, yet you may have noticed he is not king. Clearly, the line of succession is utterly irrelevant on Kali these days.”
Lord Selwyn’s smile shows teeth. “Those are rash and poorly considered words, princess, and you may wish to take them back.”
“I see no reason to take back words that are merely facts. Alexi was my father’s heir. Alexi is not king. What part of either of those statements is untrue?”
I regret the words as soon as I see the way Lord Selwyn’s knuckles go white around the stem of his glass. “I will not be spoken to with such insolence,” he snaps. “This is not Wychstar.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Max fix his father with a look so intent that I’d swear Elvar can feel it. The king’s voice cuts across the table. “That will do, Selwyn. As king, I think I am better suited to decide what behavior will or will not be tolerated. Let us leave it at that.”
Guinne tries to steer the conversation away, but then there’s a rumble in the distance, and it grows like thunder until the glasses clink and the silverware rattles noisily on the table. Sauce sloshes over the side of a bowl and splashes the snowy tablecloth, a spreading stain that looks like blood.
Anxious, I glance at Rickard for reassurance. He gives me a small smile. “It’s just a rock assault. Nothing to worry about.”
I had no idea they were this intense. I whip my head around to the window, but the skies look calm. No space debris, no asteroids. The rock must have struck us on the other side of the ship.
The room trembles and my muscles tense. It’s a brief disturbance, hardly even a minute long, but in that minute, it feels like the asteroid may just tear the base ship apart.
I almost wish it would.