were always the same distance apart—it was our perspective that shifted.
No great wonder Birger was so fascinated by the moons. He and his twin, Thamina, were always whispering in each other’s ears and exchanging those infuriatingly weighted looks twins gave one another. Nothing made me feel more alone than standing in a room full of twins, steeped in the knowledge that I ought to be grateful for the fact that I was singleborn. I knew it was a blessing, but the constant reminders that I’d been born with a greater conscience, a keener sense of justice, a powerful birthright—they had never helped me see those things in myself.
A knock at the door brought me out of my reverie, and Mother swept into the room, not waiting for my response. Rather than her usual well-cut breeches, silk tunic and jacket, She wore a floor-length, lavender-gray gown that sparkled with silver embroidery and accented her olive skin. Her brown hair had been curled, and it brushed the immaculate white fox-fur stole wound round her neck. Huge hunks of raw diamond set in creamy gold cuffs decorated each of her wrists, but her bare arms and sleeveless dress made more of a statement than those jewels. She was the living personification of Dzallie, invincible and immune to the chill of the early summer night.
She narrowed her dark eyes and looked me up and down and adjusted my jacket. “That color suits you, Ambrose. It brings out the gray in your eyes.”
“I thought it was a little garish, but Claes insisted I choose something bright.” I felt like a pigeon dressed in peacock feathers. The purple silk jacket was festooned with scads of embroidery; colorful birds and flowers exploded from my shoulders, trailing down the sleeves and to the wide hem that brushed the floor. At least my trousers were plain—if very fine—gray wool, with embroidery only along the cuffs.
I was waiting for someone to notice how out of place I really was.
“You look so like your father, Ambrose.”
She wasn’t exactly right. I saw him in the line of my jaw and the stubborn set of my mouth, but my eyes were gray where my father’s had been hazel, and I’d grown taller than both my parents by the time I was twelve. Four years later, and I still hadn’t filled out the promise of that early growth. Though my shoulders were broad enough, I was tall and skinny, where the rest of my family was small and muscular.
I coughed, not knowing what to say. I never knew what to say about my father. His absence was like a gaping hole in our lives, and Mother had an uncanny knack for bringing him up at times when feeling the enormous emptiness of his loss would be crippling. I didn’t think she did 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
