Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,45

Gal groans against a pillow, “never to introduce that woman to my mother. I think they’d burn the galaxy together.”

I nearly laugh out loud at his obliviousness, but a sudden crumpling of his expression gives me pause. I sit hesitantly on the edge of the bed as Gal starts to curl in on himself. “What’s up?”

He closes his eyes, trying to bury his face into the pillow. “Not important.”

“Hey, no. You don’t get to lie to me anymore.” I reach over and try tugging the pillow away. “You’re…totally out of lies—give me that,” I snarl as Gal tries to yank the second pillow over to replace the first.

“Fine,” he huffs, relinquishing both. He rolls onto his back, scrubbing his palms over his eyes. “I was thinking about my mother. And about how she came to the throne.”

That’d do it. In the end, Iva emp-Umber bore the true blood of the Umber line, but she wasn’t the eldest heir. Iva was sixteen years old and still shadowed, running trade empires at the knee of the Bahren System governor, when her older sister Ximena turned eighteen, revealed herself to the galaxy, and began the succession process. Ximena never suspected there might be another Umber heir waiting to step in, and two years into her developing reign, her guard was down.

Iva could have chosen differently. She’d retain her emp-Umber name and its many privileges for the rest of her days. In a different life, maybe that would have been enough for her. Iva could have been content playing backup to Ximena in the tenuous time between the start of the empress’s reign and the day her heir came of age and began to share power with her. There were so many other ways she could have served her empire.

But to an Umber mind, the empire wasn’t hers yet, and that had to be corrected.

When Ximena began to consider marriage alliances, Iva saw her opportunity to prove her right to the throne—to prove her blood ran stronger than her sister’s. She disguised herself among the young nobles vying for her sister’s hand. Managed to get a moment alone with Ximena. Needed no more than a moment to carve her sister’s throat open in the heart of the citadel.

Iva cloistered herself in the Imperial Seat for a week, turned eighteen, and claimed her bloodright. And unlike her sister, she wasted no time finding a match. Yltrast sys-Gordan, a governor’s son standing to inherit one of the most critical interior systems, was among Ximena’s candidates. Rumors whispered that Iva had confided her identity to him before she slew her sister, and he helped arrange the circumstances. Some even suggested that it might be a love match.

Iva’s ascension was ruthless. Calculated. Effective. Decisive. And now I’m starting to understand exactly what’s eating at Gal.

Because everything his mother did, she did to establish her bloodright. She did it to secure her rule. And like any good ruler, Iva emp-Umber knows her rule doesn’t end with her time on the throne. An empress can hold the empire in her hands for only a few decades.

A dynasty can hold it forever.

In a way, everything Iva did, she did for Gal too. He’s part of her unshakable rule, born a scarce two years after his mother killed her sister and began her succession. Iva carved him a legacy.

Now Gal has to live up to it.

When he uncovers his eyes, they latch onto the worrisome stains and cracks that scatter across the ceiling. Gal’s expression tightens. “I…I know I’m not like them. Not enough. And I know that’s going to be a problem soon. When they find out I ran—”

“You had to,” I say automatically, but he stiffens, and I know it wasn’t the right thing to tell him.

Gal heaves in a deep breath, his brow furrowing. “Even with the bloodright, my rule’s not…It’s not…I have to be better than this. Better than running and hiding and sneaking back into my empire’s bounds. Blood only earns so much.” He swallows, his eyes darting back and forth across the patterns that cheapen our new digs. “I’m scared, Ettian. Scared of what it might take.”