But she was already gone, bolting from the courtyard and back down the corridors the way she had come.
She ran until her lungs burned and sharp pains shot through her sides. She ran until she reached her rooms, dashing out onto her balcony and hoisting herself onto the roof. She curled up underneath an overhang of blue tiles, jasmine and honeysuckle twining up to meet her, and allowed the sun to sear her toes, the scent of hot stone to overwhelm her.
Talia had always divided her life into two halves: before her father died, and after.
Almost everything she dearly loved belonged to the first half: long winter nights on her parents’ estate in Irsa; learning to ride; learning to read outside on a grassy hill with the wildflowers dancing and the bees keeping time. Every summer she traveled with her parents to Eddenahr, and her father was the one who taught her to love the ancient city, its white walls and tiled roofs, its gleaming spired towers. The two of them went on adventures in the Emperor’s gardens when Talia didn’t have lessons to attend. Together, they explored the stables and the hound runs and the aviary. He held her hand as they visited the tiger pits, and would climb up with her onto the palace roof. They’d sit there with their legs dangling and eat sherbet that melted rapidly into colorful sweet soup in the hot sun.
But the year she turned eleven, he died in an accident on the road and the second half of her life began.
His scent faded from the book room in Irsa, and her mother packed their bags and moved them to Eddenahr for good. Talia was left with a raw, aching emptiness where her father had been. Her days were consumed with countless lessons and Eda’s never-ending derision. She lived for the moments she could steal to herself: riding on the plain or climbing about on the maze of palace roofs like a monkey escaped from the Emperor’s menagerie.
She thought about her father as she sat tucked under the roof tiles, hugging her knees to her chin and trying to understand what her mother had told her. What the Emperor had told her.
Talia wasn’t like Eda, desperate for any sign of affection from the Emperor, straining to see echoes of her own features in that wasted man. The thought that Talia might be the Emperor’s illegitimate daughter had never even entered her head.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
And yet—
“Talia?”
She jerked her head up to see her mother hauling herself onto the roof, then coming gingerly toward her across the slippery tiles. Her mother sat down beside her and peered at her with dark eyes.
Talia turned away, rubbing her thumb over the jagged edge of a broken roof tile. The tile cut into her skin and she flinched. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Let me explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Talia wiped her bleeding thumb on her skirt and faced her mother. “You couldn’t have spared even a second of your time in the last sixteen years to tell me that my father was the Emperor of Enduena?” Her shout echoed among the roof tiles, and her mother winced.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. Especially after Celdahn died. And I didn’t think it mattered. Not when the prince was alive and well.”
Bile burned in the back of Talia’s throat. “And now that he’s dead you find you have use for me.”
“Talia.”
“I loved my father! How can you take that away from me?” Tears nearly choked her.
Her mother bit her lip, moisture gleaming in her own eyes. “Celdahn loved you dearly. But he wasn’t your father.”
“How could you do this to me? To my father? Were you the Emperor’s mistress?”
“No.”
The fierceness in her mother’s tone refocused her, and Talia angrily scrubbed the tears from her eyes. “What then?”
Her mother squared her jaw, and for the first time in her life Talia realized her mother might not be the impenetrable marble queen Talia had always thought she was.
“The Emperor is not to be denied. What he asks for … he receives.” Her mother lifted her shoulders and let them drop again, the careless gesture belied by the shake in her voice.
“Did my father know?”
“Of course he knew.”
She let out a breath—she couldn’t have borne it if her father had only loved her because he thought she was his.
“Talia, you have to listen. Perhaps I should have told you a long time ago, but the Emperor and I wanted to protect you. No one else knows, and no one can know until the Emperor makes the announcement. You can’t tell anyone—not even Ayah. It’s too dangerous. Courtiers will try to manipulate you, maybe even try to harm you. Promise me, Talia.”
She felt blank and dull and numb. She didn’t understand how that even mattered. “Were there others like you? Is Eda my sister?”
Her mother frowned at the unexpected question. “Perhaps, but that doesn’t matter now. You have to promise me. If anyone asks about your party, it is only to celebrate your coming-of-age. Do you understand?”
Talia stared out beyond the rooftop. Heat rose in waves from the sprawling city below her. A crane winged its way across the sky, glinting silver in the sunlight.
“Talia. Will you promise me?”
She attempted to gather the shattered remains of herself, and turned her eyes to her mother. “I promise.”
Chapter Two
TALIA PRACTICED HER SPEECH IN FRONT OF her dressing table mirror while her parrot chattered from its perch and the fountains laughed just below her window. Her eyes were hot and itchy from too many sleepless nights, and she gave up trying to hold onto the formal words she was expected to say in a little less than six hours.
She collapsed onto the floor and lay flat on her back, staring up at the white dome of her ceiling, at the curls of vines and blue orchids painted on the marble. A hot breeze blew through her balcony and she screwed her eyes tight.
Tonight, the Emperor would announce that Talia was his heir, and her life would never be the same again. Already she felt like she didn’t belong to herself—she’d been passed about between seamstresses and dance masters and an ancient librarian who kept insisting she recite a passage from a dense religious text for the occasion. Her head had been measured for a crown. She’d been asked what she requested from the Emperor for a birthday present by a very stern steward. Talia had stammered something about a new saddle for her horse; the steward had blinked at her with amusement and said her father would supply her with an entire stable if she wished.
She still couldn’t think of the Emperor as her father. She didn’t think she ever would.
Tomorrow, she would move into the royal wing of the palace, into the prince’s old suite.
Tomorrow, she would be someone else: heir to half the known world.
“Talia Dahl-Saida, what are you doing?”
She opened her eyes and jerked guiltily to a sitting position. Her friend Ayah Inoll stood there with her pale hands on her hips, curls of startling orange hair tumbling into her face. “Are you feeling sorry for yourself?”