“You’re kidding,” Cardenia said.
“The House of Wu is its own mercantile family and it has the monopoly on ship building and military weaponry,” Naffa said. “Likewise, control of the military runs through the emperox, not the guilds. So, no, it would be difficult for the guilds or any of the houses who control them to make short-term inroads into control of the house or of the empire. That said, your father has been very lax in controlling the mercantile houses and has allowed several of them, including the Nohamapetans, to build power centers that are unprecedented in the last two hundred years. This is, of course, leaving out the church entirely, which is its own power center. And you can expect to see all of these try to grab more power for themselves because you are expected to be a weak emperox.”
“Thanks,” Cardenia said, dryly.
“It’s not personal. Your ascendance to the crown was unexpected.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No one knows what to think of you.”
“Except the executive committee, who wants to marry me off.”
“They want to preserve an existing potential alliance.”
“An alliance with terrible people.”
“Really nice people don’t usually accrue power.”
“You’re saying I’m kind of an outlier,” Cardenia said.
“I don’t recall saying you were nice,” Naffa replied.
*
“None of this was supposed to be your problem,” Batrin said to Cardenia, later. She was back in his bedroom, sitting in the chair. The medical staff that had worried on him while he was asleep had retreated to nearby rooms. It was just the two of them again, plus an array of medical equipment.
“I know,” Cardenia said. They’d had this conversation before, but she knew they were about to have it again.
“It was your brother who was groomed for all of this,” Batrin continued, and Cardenia nodded as he droned on slowly. Her brother, Rennered Wu, was actually her half brother. He was the son of the imperial consort Glenna Costu, while Cardenia was the result of a brief liaison between the emperox and Cardenia’s mother, Hannah, a professor of ancient languages. Hannah Patrick met the emperox while giving him a tour of the rare books collection of the Spode Library at the University of Hubfall. The two corresponded on academics after that and then, a few years after the sudden death of the imperial consort, the emperox gifted Hannah Patrick first with a rare edition of the Qa?īdat-ul-Burda, and subsequently, not too long thereafter, and a bit to the surprise of both, with Cardenia.
Rennered was already the heir and Hannah Patrick, upon reflection, decided that she would rather step out of an airlock than become a permanent fixture of the imperial court. As a result, Cardenia’s childhood was pampered but far removed from the trappings of actual power. Cardenia was acknowledged as a child of the emperox and saw her famous father regularly but infrequently. She would occasionally be teased by classmates, who might call her “princess,” but not too often or too viciously, because as it turns out she was a princess and her imperial security detail was sensitive to slights.
Her childhood and early adult years were as normal as they could be when one is the daughter of the most powerful human in the known universe, which was to say not very but close enough that Cardenia could see normal, distantly, from there. She attended the University of Hubfall, received degrees in modern literature and education, and upon graduation gave serious thought to becoming a professional patron of some arts-related programs and initiatives for the underadvantaged.
Then Rennered had to go get himself killed while racing, slamming himself and his charmingly retro automobile into a wall during a charity exhibition race with actual race car drivers and basically decapitating himself in the process. Cardenia never watched the video of the crash—that was her brother, why would she—but she read the forensics report afterward, which while clearing the event of any suspicion of foul play, noted the safety features of the automobile and the unlikelihood of the accident being fatal, much less one that ended in decapitation.
Cardenia later learned that at the charity auction after the race Rennered was supposed to have publicly announced his engagement to Nadashe Nohamapetan. The confluence of those two events stayed firmly connected in her mind afterward.
Cardenia had never been very close to Rennered—Rennered was a teenager when she was born and their circles never meshed—but he had treated her kindly. As a child she idolized him and his playboy ways from afar, and as she grew older and saw how much of the crush of imperial fame had passed by her to land on his shoulders, was quietly relieved he was there to shoulder it. He seemed to enjoy it more than she ever would.
He was gone and then suddenly the empire needed another heir for emperox.
“I think I lost you there,” Batrin said.
“I’m sorry,” Cardenia said. “I was thinking of Rennered. I wish he were still here.”
“So do I. Although perhaps for different reasons.”
“I would be happier if he were succeeding you. A lot of people would be.”
“That’s certain, my child. But Cardenia, listen to me. I don’t regret that you are succeeding me.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. Rennered would have made a perfectly good emperox. He was literally born for the role, just as I was. You weren’t. But that’s not a bad thing.”
“I think it’s a bad thing. I don’t know what I’m doing,” Cardenia confessed.
“None of us knew what we were doing,” Batrin said. “The difference is that you know it. If Rennered were here, he’d be just as clueless but more confident. Which is why he’d faceplant right out of the gate, just like I did, and my mother, and my grandfather. Perhaps you’ll break the family tradition.”
Cardenia smiled at this.
Batrin cocked his head, almost imperceptibly. “You still don’t know what to make of me, do you?” he asked.
“No,” Cardenia admitted. “I’m glad we’ve come to know each other better, these last few months. But—” She opened her hands, palms up. “All the rest of this.”
Batrin smiled. “You want to get to know your father, but you have to focus on getting ready to rule the universe instead.”
“It sounds ridiculous. But yes.”
“That’s on me. You know you were an accident. At least on my part.” Cardenia nodded at this. “Everyone, including your mother, told me that it would be better to keep you at a distance. And I was happy to agree with them.”
“I know. I never blamed you for that.”
“No, you didn’t, and you have to admit that was odd,” Batrin said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are a literal princess, but you didn’t live like one. I think it’s fair to say most people in your situation would have resented that.”
Cardenia shrugged. “I liked it being optional. When I was eight, I resented it a little. When I was old enough to know what being a princess meant, I was glad I got to miss most of it.”
“It caught up to you anyway.”