Secondborn

Chapter 1

Crown of Swords

I trail my mother, her personal assistant, and four public relations specialists as they retreat toward the beveled-glass doors of the St. Sismode Palace. Clara, the newest PR assistant, hands Othala a glass of water, waits for her to sip it, and takes it back from her. Fumbling, she spills some on herself. Clara’s sparkling moniker, the holographic symbol that projects up from the back of her hand, shines like crystal as she dabs at the water droplets with a lacy handkerchief.

She’s a Diamond, I think. She won’t last long here among the Sword aristocracy. I feel a twinge of pity. It’s not as if Clara ever had a choice. She’s secondborn. She was placed in this den of lions, and if she fails, it will be a long fall. Females who don’t make it in their secondborn Transition positions usually end up in the entertainment sector. I shudder. She’ll probably become a plaything for some firstborn officer. Clara teeters on her elegant high heels and tries to keep up with my mother’s rapid pace.

As we enter the mansion, my eyes are drawn to the stone pediment above the doors. I wonder if Clara even notices the ancient warriors carved above the frieze, or that our name, St. Sismode, is etched upon the swords of the soldiers. Does she realize that a St. Sismode has been the Clarity of the Fate of Swords since anyone can remember?

“Let them try to criticize me for the draft now!” Mother says. She paces over the midnight-blue carpet embellished with a golden fusionblade called a St. Sismode sword, after our ancestor who designed it. Pausing on the point of the carpet’s wooly blade, she hugs herself in victory. “No Clarity of any Fate has ever given more than I have!” She turns to Emmitt Stone, her personal assistant. He’s glowing with pride.

“Your Fate loves you!” Emmitt gushes, adding flamboyant applause. “All of the nine Fates love you!”

“They do, don’t they?” Othala smooths her hair back, losing herself in the moment. If she were a cat, she would purr.

Dune growls low. “You don’t have to do this,” he says bitterly. “Roselle’s still too young. She’s not ready for war!”

Othala sobers. She narrows her eyes at her assembled staff. “Leave us.” Clara and Emmitt nearly bump into each other in their hurry to the door. I turn to follow them out.

“Stay, Roselle,” Dune commands.

I hesitate, looking to Mother for confirmation. She remains silent until the others have left, closing the bronze doors behind them, then whirls to face Dune. “It’s done,” she says, sneering.

“You can undo it,” Dune insists. “You can save Roselle.” He is rigid with barely suppressed anger, except for one hand, which twitches near the sword sheathed at his waist. My eyes widen. I know his aggressive posture well. It’s the stance he uses before he attacks.

“You underestimate her,” my mother replies. “She’s resilient and capable of surviving whatever is thrown at her. She has my blood.”

“You will spill her blood!” Dune’s sand-colored eyes narrow. He takes a menacing step toward Mother. My response is automatic. I move between the Clarity and my mentor, as I’ve been trained to do. My hand rests on my own sword’s hilt. I face Dune, my warning unmistakable. “You see?” Dune flicks his hand toward me. “She wants only to protect you, Othala. You have nothing to fear from her. She would never harm you or Gabriel. She loves you both.”

“And you care for her,” Mother hisses. She walks around the golden silk settee, putting it between her and us. Dune grinds his teeth. It’s an accusation I don’t fully understand.

“Of course I care for her. Roselle has been my student since she could crawl!” He rubs his hand over the short, dark stubble of his new beard. “I have always treated her with the utmost respect.”

“Yes, you two are quite close. She looks at you like a father.”

“You and I both know how little interest her own father has taken in her.”

Othala waves her hand as if to dismiss my father from the conversation, or maybe from her life. “Kennet is not one to form attachments. But you treat her as if she were your own daughter. You’ve taught her everything you know about being a leader, a fighter, someone who could maybe one day be the commander of this Fate?”

“I’ve tried to prepare her for any eventuality.”

My mother grips the back of the settee, her bejeweled fingernails digging into the fabric. “You’d just need to get rid of anything that stands in her way, wouldn’t you?”

Dune rubs his eyes, for a moment looking older than his thirty-eight years. “So, this is revenge against me! My decision to end my personal relationship with you, Othala, has nothing to do with Roselle.”

“It has everything to do with her, Dune. You’re her mentor. We both know that if something were to happen to Gabriel and me, she’d be The Sword.” A snarl twists my mother’s lips.

My hand, still on the silver handle of my sheathed sword, grows damp. Dune meets my eyes, and his soften. “Your daughter has no idea what you’re talking about, Othala. She’s a student of chivalry. Her only thought is how to win your love, not steal your power.”

Mother’s blue eyes look upward. “Even if the thought never crossed her mind, she’s still too dangerous, Dune. I have to protect Gabriel. He will rule the Fate of Swords one day, not her. It’s his birthright.”

I cringe, turning to face my mother. “I would never hurt my brother. I only wish to serve him—to protect him.”

Mother’s normally supple mouth pinches. “You say that now, Roselle, but what happens in the next few years after your Transition Day? Gabriel will marry—have children. You’ll come to realize that you’ll never have a family, never hold a baby in your arms and call it your own. Gabriel will inherit all our wealth and property. What will you do when you realize the only option open to you for the rest of your life is government service? You are secondborn. The Fates own your life. It’s better that you leave us now. The abrupt change will be easier than a slow, excruciating march to your destiny.”

“It will be easier for you, you mean.” My eyes widen at my own audacity.

For once, she seems not to notice my breach in protocol. “It will be easier for us all when you’re gone.”

Dune glares at Othala. “You could make her an Iono soldier—part of this guard or one for another Clarity. She could—”

“Even if I concede that she poses no threat to Gabriel,” Othala interrupts, “which I don’t, and I make her the rank of Iono and assign her duties for one of the other Clarities, every secondborn of any consequence will cry ‘Nepotism!’” She lets go of the settee and paces.

“You expect me to believe that’s why you made her a Tropo?” Dune asks. “It’s equivalent to throwing her to the wolves, Othala, and you know it! And for what? So you don’t have to listen to a few complaints? They’ve never bothered you before. Secondborns may mutter about unfairness, but you strike them down hard whenever they do.”

She stops. “I show them their place!”

“And you wonder why we have a rebellion of secondborns? You never hear their suffering.”

“Their suffering?” she sputters. “You would side with the Gates of Dawn over the Fates? That’s treason!”

“You of all people know that my loyalty is to the Fate of Swords and to all the Fates of the Republic. I have fought for them since the day I was born.”

“Since the day you were firstborn,” she corrects. “Never forget you’re one of us, Dune.”

“Othala, see reason! Once Roselle is processed, she’ll be chattel. They could put her on the front line.”

“She’s eighteen years old—and a St. Sismode! Our commanders will have better sense than to do that.”

“So you haven’t even specified where she will be placed? You’re going to leave it to the secondborn commanders—or whatever algorithm they’re using—to decide your daughter’s life?”

“I have to trust that the Fates work, Dune. Otherwise, the Gates of Dawn are right. My father believed in the system. He allowed for an organic Transition for his secondborn child. He would expect me to do the same, were he alive.”

“Bazzle was dead within a month of his Transition.”

“He served the Fates with honor,” she says weakly. She walks to her desk and faces us from behind its broad expanse of glass and touchscreens.

“Your brother paid for your father’s position as The Sword, Othala. He was murdered as revenge for what some secondborns see as injustice in a system that makes them slaves.”

Dune grasps my left arm. He leads me to Mother’s desk, extending the back of my hand in front of her. In the shape of a fiery sword, the chip implanted under the skin between my thumb and index finger glows golden. My moniker is who I am. All my information is stored within it, from my name to my age, address, DNA profile—almost everything that makes me me can be accessed by scanning it. It contains all the codes that allow me to travel both within the Fate of Swords and into the eight other Fates.

“Once they process her and find out you’re her mother,” Dune says, “Roselle will be made to suffer for your decisions as The Sword. Do you want that?” Othala’s eyes dart to my moniker. I quickly pull my hand from Dune’s and hide it behind my back. My moniker has always been a source of irritation for my mother. It isn’t like everyone else’s. I have a small crescent-shaped birthmark on my left hand. When the holographic image from my implant shines through my skin, it is partially obscured by the birthmark, so the hologram looks as if a dark crown rings the top of the sword. Gabriel teased me about it, calling me the Crown of Swords.

“They won’t need her moniker to know who she is. Her face is everywhere. They’ve all watched her grow up.”

Dune’s eyes widen in shock. “You don’t care, do you?”

“Leave us, Roselle,” Othala demands. “Wait for Dune to join you in the Grand Foyer.” I retreat through a bronze doorway, leaving it open a crack. “I have given her all the tools she needs to survive,” Mother says. “I gave her you for eighteen years. The best strategists have trained her. She has a better chance than any one of the secondborns twice her age. We both knew this day would come, but unlike you, I was smart enough not to become attached to her. Anything you feel in this moment is on you, Dune.”

A foot taps behind me, and I turn to see Emmitt. Sighing, I close the door and try not to show any emotion. We hate each other, but it’s dangerous to antagonize him. He organizes all of Mother’s appointments. For my entire childhood, if I’ve wanted to see her, I’ve had to go through Emmitt, and it was rare that I was granted an audience with her. I want to believe it was him and not her who kept me away, but deep down I know it’s not true. Emmitt is vindictive, though. He once ordered all of my shoes a couple of sizes too small after I’d complained about wearing a pink velvet bow in my hair for All Fates Day.

Emmitt appraises me, taking in my unflattering new uniform. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his long fingers. “Remind me to address the hideous state of the Tropo uniforms in our next session with the Clarity,” he says to Clara, who stands next to him.

“What difference does it make?” she asks, giving me a cursory glance and twirling a piece of her lavender-colored hair around a sharp fingernail. Emmitt’s calm is a mask. He doesn’t like to be questioned by anyone.

“This color doesn’t play well to the cameras.” He flails his lanky arm in my direction. “It makes her eyes look haunted and her skin too pale. And the fit!” I stand still as he straightens my already-straight collar. “It hides her delicate neck.”

“She’s going to war, not to tea.”

“It’s more important than ever to show secondborn citizens the example of sacrifice. Roselle is the embodiment of the service they owe to the Fates.”

“You mean she’s propaganda.”

Emmitt snorts. “She’s essential to our great nation and to firstborn supremacy. The Clarity of Virtues himself is adamant that she make a final statement today to show her support for the cause.”

Clara sniffs and touches her stylus to her blue-painted lips. “Her support? She’s eighteen. She’s been raised to do whatever you tell her to do.”

“And she does it so well,” Emmitt purrs. They discuss me as if I’m not even here. He pauses in his fussing with my collar to take in the effect, tilting his head to one side with a delicate lift of one ruddy eyebrow.

“Will I get to see my brother before I leave?” I ask.

“Of course you’ll see your brother. You just have to memorize this official statement, and then you’ll have a few moments with Gabriel.” He extends a small tablet with the crest of St. Sismode on its underside. “How long will it take you to memorize that?”

“‘It is my honor to serve Clarity Bowie and to uphold the founding principles of the Fates of the Republic,’” I read. “‘Today I fulfill my birthright as defender of the firstborn bloodlines.’” I scroll down for more, but there isn’t anything else. “That’s it?” I stop short of adding that I have the same bloodline as the firstborn of my family.

Emmitt wrinkles his long nose. “Do you have it memorized or do you need more time?”

“But it says nothing about the Fate of Swords—our Fate of the Republic—or my mother—”

Emmitt snatches the tablet from my hands. He reads it aloud in a mumbled, insulting way, then looks directly at me. “It says exactly what Clarity Bowie wants it to say. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No.” I lower my chin.

Emmitt thrusts the tablet back into my hands. “You have less than an hour to practice this before you’re taken to your Transition point. Follow me.”

He turns with a prissy swivel of his hips. We traverse the west wing. As we pass secondborn servants in the corridors, they stand aside and bow their heads. Emmitt ignores them. Like them, he is from the Fate of Stones. He’s not a Sword, but he pretends to be, as if he has forgotten that he’s secondborn as well.

We enter the cavernous reception area of the Grand Foyer at the entrance of the Palace. The windows afford views of the Warrior Fountain outside, and I study the mobs of photographers and spectators gathered to watch the hovercade transport me to secondborn processing at the Stone Forest Base.

The wrought iron gates and fences outside are lined with people waiting for a glimpse of me. Young children rest on their parents’ shoulders, clutching little blue flags with golden swords on them. Others carry “red Roselle roses,” a fad that began when Father sent Mother flowers to mark my birth. The idea had come from one of Mother’s PR specialists, intended to make my parents’ relationship appear loving.

I set down the tablet on a nearby table and press my face against the one-way glass, observing the citizens who have come to wish me farewell. A commotion behind me makes me straighten. Gabriel’s voice rises in irritation as he enters the foyer, descending one side of the Grand Staircase. He’s arguing with his advisors. “She’s my little sister! I’m going to see her before she leaves, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!” His reflection is clear in the glass. He shakes off the hand of his mentor, Susteven. “The next person who touches me loses his hand!” Gabriel warns.

His black boots click on the marble floor as he crosses directly over the inlaid St. Sismode crest, which we’ve both been taught to circumvent as a show of respect. His image in the glass grows larger—dark and brooding. He stops next to me, facing the glass. He’s at least a foot taller than me. Our blue-eyed stares meet in the window. Gabriel’s little finger brushes mine, and he whispers, “It should be me.”