Irris kept pace with Sorrow as they made their way back to Sorrow’s rooms, though neither spoke. The palace, always quiet, now seemed eerily so in the aftermath of Alyssa’s death; the only sound was the fluttering of the curtains as the two girls moved past them, the oil lamps guttering in the breeze they created. It was all Sorrow could do not to break into a run, and to keep running, out of the palace, out of Rhannon. Away from this place, and the legacy she didn’t want. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But what choice did she have? Charon was right – there was no one else. Her family had seen to that, centuries ago. They were clever, her ancestors. Manipulative and canny. They’d paid off the nobles who’d survived the initial purge of the royal family – the Mizils, the Blues, the Marchants and others – buying their support with land and titles, and together they’d disposed of, or discredited, those who wouldn’t join them.
The time had been ripe for revolution, the nation starving while the royals feasted and feted. When the Ventaxis family and their supporters had risen up and overthrown the king, they’d become heroes. And they’d insisted they wouldn’t govern unless legally elected to the post; they didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the monarchy.
They told the people they would get to choose their new leader. Somewhat like the kings, the chosen family would hold office for life, an enduring and stable authority, free from the uncertainties of other countries who changed leaders every five or so years. But – and the Ventaxis family insisted this was the crucial difference – their presence would a democratic one. One the people elected themselves, at the death of each chancellor.
Even though there was only ever one name on the ballot, and it was always a Ventaxis.
The choice, the people were told, was always theirs. And the people lapped it up.
Ironically, Sorrow was the only person who was aware she had no choice in it.
Her chambermaid was in the middle of turning down her bed when she and Irris strode into her apartments. They passed through the sitting room, and into Sorrow’s wardrobe and dressing room. The maid followed hurriedly, but Sorrow dismissed her.
When the door closed behind them, she turned to Irris and took a deep breath.
“What happens next?” Sorrow said.
Irris didn’t hesitate. “My father will summon the Jedenvat to a meeting tomorrow, announce there is a Ventaxis successor willing to take over the chancellorship, and then they’ll vote on whether the present chancellor is unfit to govern. After that, they’ll call you in, give the verdict, and invest you.”
Sorrow swallowed. “What if the vote doesn’t pass?”
“It will pass,” Irris said, offering Sorrow a small, sad smile.
“I don’t think I can do this.” But even as she spoke, Sorrow knew it was useless. From the moment she’d found her father earlier, she’d known, even if she didn’t want to admit it, that she was out of time. That whatever hopes – however pointless, however insubstantial – she’d had for her future, they were over. “I don’t want to do this,” she said instead. “Not yet. It isn’t fair. What about what I want? What about…” She didn’t finish.
Irris gave her a curious look. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know, necessarily.” Sorrow rubbed her forehead. “But my father was thirty-two when he became chancellor. He was married with a child, he was educated, he’d travelled – he’d been to Meridea, Skae and Nyrssea. I’m seventeen,” she said. “There are parts of my own country I’ve never even seen, for the Graces’ sake, let alone anywhere else. I don’t know the people. How can I be chancellor? I barely know Rhannon.”
“So you want to travel?” Irris asked, clearly confused.
“Yes. No. It’s not about that.” Sorrow paused, trying to find a way to explain the maelstrom of anxiety, anger and sheer terror inside her. “It’s one thing to know the storm is coming, but it’s another to be caught in it. And now I’m caught in it. For ever.”
“Row, I know you’re scared…”
“I’m not scared. I’m…” She paused. “I’ve been locked up in this … this dungeon of a palace my whole life. As of tomorrow, that’s all I’ll ever have. This palace. This life. At seventeen, that’s it. My future decided.”
“Sorrow, I know—”
“No, you don’t know.” Sorrow threw her arms wide, as though gesturing to all of Rhannon. “I’ve only ever known Rhannon as it is. This is Rhannon, for me. No one in their right mind would want to be in charge of this. No one in their right mind would want me in charge of it.”
The truth slipped from her before she could stop it, and she turned away, trying to unbutton her gown, her shaking fingers making the task more difficult than it ought to be. “Rhannon is too broken to survive another useless leader.” In her haste to get the wretched dress off she pulled one of the buttons free, sending it flying across the room. And in temper she pulled off a second, flinging it after the other. “Damn this dress. Damn everything.”
It was too much. The weight of a whole country, on Sorrow’s shoulders – a broken, dark country at that. What if Rhannon couldn’t heal from what her father had done to it? Some sicknesses went too deep – Harun was the living proof.
Irris reached for her hand. “Sorrow, you have an opportunity anyone else would die for. People have, in the past. You can remake the world how you want it to be. You can make all your dreams come true. You can make everyone’s dreams come true. You have that power, it’s right there – take it.”
“What if I can’t?” She couldn’t meet Irris’s eye as she pulled her hand away. “What if I’m not enough?”
She hadn’t been enough for her mother to live for. She hadn’t been enough to keep Harun away from Lamentia. How could she do anything except make it worse?
She’d heard the legend of how she’d been named, what her mother had used her dying words to proclaim. It wasn’t a name at all, but a threat. Sorrow is all she brings us. Wasn’t that a sufficient warning to Charon? She was cursed. She was a curse.
There were days that she was so full of darkness she couldn’t speak in case it spilled from her, coating, ruining, drowning everything she loved. It was inside her sometimes, the same need her father had to destroy, and to self-destruct. The way she had destroyed her mother, and any final hopes that Harun might have recovered. The way she ran to Rasmus, even as she knew she could never give him what he wanted and it would break him. What if she unleashed that on Rhannon? There was no one to depose her. No one to stop her.
“What if I make it worse?” Sorrow said aloud, without meaning to.
“You can’t talk like that,” Irris warned her. “People will see it as a sign of weakness—”
“I am weak,” Sorrow bit back at her. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you. I’m not strong enough to do this. You’re all backing the wrong horse.”
“You’re the only horse, don’t you get it?” Irris finally lost her temper. “Fine. So be it. Let your father carry on as he is. Until he dies, and there’s no one to take his place. And then sit back and watch as civil war breaks out, with people like Lord Samad or Balthasar trying to take over. Or when Nyrssea decide to invade, because they’ve figured out we don’t have the money or troops to stop them. Or when Meeren Vine stages a coup and kills us all, before turning the country into a prison state. Is that what you want? Is it?”