“There is no question that your blood is that of King Ulron, Your Highness,” Elder Jacobs offered, taking a leather-bound book from one of the Council’s pages. “You are a prince of the realm. Your sister is a princess. But the law is clear.” He opened the book to a page marked with a piece of silk and read: “Only a successor whose right to the throne is acknowledged as greater than any other claims can be awarded the crown. If the current royal family has no successor that meets the succession threshold, the Council of Elders will legally choose a new successor with the most powerful claim to start a new line and do all that is necessary to make sure the kingdom thrives under the light.”
Chief Elder Cestrum sighed. “Both of your claims are equal. Neither is greater than the other. Therefore neither meets the threshold of the law.”
“Equal—because we are twins?” Carys looked at him. Her chin was raised. Her stance was defiant, but in her eyes he saw worry.
“That’s crazy,” Andreus said.
“I wish it was, Your Highness.” Elder Cestrum took the book from Elder Jacobs. “Unfortunately, the laws of Eden are quite clear. It is illegal for the Council of Elders to allow anyone to rule who cannot be declared, with absolute certainty, to be the next in the line of succession. Since none save your mother and her midwife were present at your birth, there is no one who can give first-hand testimony as to whether you, Prince Andreus, or you, Princess Carys, were born first.”
The midwife was dead. She had passed not long after their birth.
And their mother was mad.
“My brother is the eldest,” his sister announced. “My mother has always said as much.”
“The passage of the crown cannot be based on hearsay,” Elder Jacobs said, his voice tinged with what was supposed to be offense but sounded more like glee. “Since neither of you can fulfill the terms of succession, a new line must be installed.”
“A new line?” Carys’s voice cracked.
Out of the corner of his eye Andreus saw guards appear through the side entrances of the Hall. He tried to signal his sister, but Carys was focused on the Council. “You’re saying you plan on setting our family aside even though the Queen is alive and there are two children of King Ulron standing right before you? And you think the kingdom will meekly accept that? Do you believe we’ll allow them to?”
“Is that a threat, Your Highness?” Elder Cestrum asked as he signaled with his iron fist for the guards to approach.
“Carys,” Andreus whispered as he stepped closer to her and reached for his sword. “Be very careful.”
“I’m not threatening anything, Chief Elder,” Carys said with a calm Andreus could not help but admire considering the guards currently drawing their swords. “I am suggesting that the kingdom is already at war and there are those in the realm who believe that the Bastians living in exile are the rightful rulers of Eden. Setting our family to the side in favor of a third will only divide this kingdom further. That is chaos. I can’t imagine you’d want that.”
“Of course not, Your Highness. Which is why the Council of Elders is meeting tonight. We wish to determine the best way—within the laws of our realm—to install the new ruler of Eden and keep the peace. Elder Ulrich has come up with a plan that should satisfy the law and the virtues our kingdom holds dear.”
“And what plan is that?” Andreus asked, anger burning deep in his throat as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at any moment.
Elder Cestrum smiled. “There is one successor whose claim is above all others. His grandfather fought against the Bastians. Your grandfather, upon taking the crown, declared him to be his successor until natural heirs were born.”
Carys gasped a moment before he did and said, “You can’t mean to put High Lord James on the throne.”
James’s cruelty as a High Lord was known throughout Eden. He claimed it was his duty as lord of the district that represented the virtue of strength to rule his subjects stringently. The one time Andreus and Carys had been allowed to travel with their father to visit the Stronghold, he saw from the slumped shoulders and terror-stricken faces of the castle servants how strength could easily be turned from a virtue into a vice.
“No, we cannot,” Elder Cestrum agreed. “I was informed earlier today that High Lord James succumbed to illness a week ago. His son and heir, Garret, will appoint a new High Lord of the Stronghold after he is installed as King.”
Garret. Micah’s former best friend. Elder Cestrum’s nephew. Andreus should have realized that’s what the Council had planned. With Garret on the throne the Council, and especially Elder Cestrum, would have the kind of authority they had always wanted.
“And what is to happen to us?” Andreus asked, wondering how quickly he could slide his knife from his belt and pass it to Carys while also drawing his sword. Carys was at least as good a fighter as he was. She should be after practicing with him in secret all these years. They wouldn’t be able to kill the dozen guards waiting for the Chief Elder’s signal, but he and his sister would send some to their graves before they fell. “Are we to be treated like the Bastians were?”
That any of them survived the slaughter was still hard to believe.
“I think we all can agree there has been enough tragedy in Eden,” Elder Cestrum said. “As long as neither of you oppose Garret’s coronation—”
“Of course they will oppose it.” Imogen stepped from behind one of the gold pillars into the light. She was still wearing the white dress from earlier. When had she come into the chamber? And how had she not been detected doing so? “The Council of Elders will oppose such a coronation, too,” she continued, “since it not only betrays the oath you took to uphold the laws of the realm but will also plunge the kingdom into the shadows that the virtue of light cannot reach.”
A guardsman drew his sword, but Elder Cestrum held up his iron claw to stop him. “The Council of Elders has made a study of the laws of Eden, Seer Imogen, as is required by the oath we took. And Garret’s coronation—”
“Is premature.” Imogen’s white dress against the white stone of the Hall of Virtues gave her an almost otherworldly glow as she glided across the floor. She turned and nodded to the doorway of the Hall, and a young girl carrying a large black leather book with the gold seal of Eden on the cover stepped out of the shadows. When she reached Imogen’s side, the seeress said, “Since taking my oath to serve the Kingdom of Eden, I have spent my days reading the histories of the land and my nights studying the winds and the skies. I’ve read the laws you are quoting now. But I fear in your haste to find the solution you sought, you did not consult the Book of Knowledge.”