The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 35: The Descendant of Mariva

"Nemia, that's... that's like the plot of some play they would put on during a holiday. Some girl discovering she's a long-lost princess. It doesn't happen. Nobles are obsessed with lineage, and royals are even worse. They wouldn't let this kind of thing stay secret."

Nemia laughed. "Putting aside the fact that you're still not a princess, that's exactly why it makes sense — because they're obsessed with bloodlines. Everyone involved was probably so ashamed that their queen would have a child who couldn't properly take the name Solan. I mean, just think about how people look at Sam. They don't know whether to treat him like a prince or a bastard, and he's just King Aeric's son. Queen Juno was idolized. They wouldn't let it get out. But they couldn't wipe out all evidence of her being Queen Juno's daughter either, because she had Solan blood. It would be... sacrilegious. And if anything happened to Queen Juno's other children—"

"Magali the First," Morie murmured. "She was Queen Juno's Heir."

"—if anything had happened to her, Mariva would have been next in line. So they had to keep track of her and her line."

"Alright, if all that other stuff is true, it makes sense they'd keep a record. It's incredible, but I guess in the end it doesn't really matter. Especially since there won't be any more royals, if we succeed."

"It might matter, if the royal family has been keeping track of the Laerharts for years in case the Solans ever die out. The Laerhart line is like a backup." She chewed on a nail. "And... there's another thing."

"Yeah?"

"I wondered... when I was looking through that record... if anyone else knew. I know the Maenar library isn't used much, and the name Laerhart doesn't mean anything to most nobles so they wouldn't bother looking at it, but still, your family was right there with all the other records. Someone who noticed that and realized it's strange could also know about your ancestry."

"I suppose so."

"I guess the thing that occurred to me, the thing that made me almost blurt all this out downstairs, is what if Iso knows? Because he's so sneaky and secretive, and we don't really know why he let you live, when killing you would have taken you away from us just as much with less trouble for him."

Morie shrugged. "Nah, I don't see it. Seems like if I had royal blood that would just be another reason for him not to let me live."

"Oh. Well. You still ought to know all this."

"You're right, Nemia, thank you. I know I left you all alone there... yet again..."

She shook her head quickly. She didn't want Morie to feel bad about leaving her in Maenar, not when she'd been through all this. And her first abandonment had been well justified, considering it was Nemia's fault to begin with.

She didn't have so many nightmares about killing Jaden anymore. She was always going to hold that guilt, but she could sleep more easily now. She could make proper death-offerings in his name instead of sacrificing more of her soul with each day.

Truth be told, she didn't know if she had gotten better due to the natural passage of time since that night, or from being taken away from the place where it happened, or from Morie accepting her despite it.

Or because she was not the Assassin, and would never have to do it again.

"I was fine in Maenar," she told Morie, helping her out of her sleeping shirt. "Liz got me out of my room when I started obsessing, and Evvie took me places when she wasn't busy, and Therese was really interesting when she was there. Wanted to know all about Irina Laycreek." That had been a little painful, but perhaps in another way it had been freeing. Therese had no emotional history with Irina; to her, Irina was just a clever, haughty girl on the other side of the political battle, who she delighted in gathering "intelligence" on. From Therese, Nemia learned to see Irina as a distant rival rather than the girl who had used her — and the only other girl besides Morie who had ever come close to Nemia's heart, in the romantic sense.

Therese had stories of her and Irina's rivalry, and their loose connection as two noble girls who preferred other girls. "Not a lot of us out there," Therese said cheerfully. "I suppose it's easier to be open to anyone pleasant enough, like me. But I do prefer girls, when all's said and done, and people know that, and they know Irina's never so much as looked at a man without contempt. So people would wonder about us, if we were ever even in the same room together, not that that happens often. They should know it's ridiculous. She's disgustingly Inigrit, and my mother is the leader of the Cycla. That's a tragedy waiting to happen. It's a good thing we can't stand each other to begin with."

Nemia smiled at the memory of Therese's casual cheerfulness, and brushed Morie's hair back. "I saw Kay sometimes. It was strange not being the Assassin, and most people not even knowing I was a Guardian. People talked to me."

"People should talk to you. As long as it doesn't give you less time for me."

"Never." Nemia kissed her forehead. She couldn't help glancing at the bandage on her shoulder and remembering the bloody carving beneath it, though she tried to avert her eyes and keep Morie from suspecting anything.

But how horrifying it was. Last night she kept seeing the image of it in her sleep. She couldn't help perversely imagining her own mark carved out like that, how much it would hurt. Hoping Morie didn't suspect any of that made her cheeks flush. She quickly picked up the tunic and helped her into it.

"It's funny you brought up holiday plays before," Nemia said. "After I'd pretty much figured out as much as I could from the dreams, I got a bit bored and started looking for any other material related to all this stuff. Some of them were novels with that sort of plot, just fun and romantic."

"The other stuff less fun and romantic?"

"Decidedly less fun and romantic. There were some old revolutionary pamphlets that Kay dug out for me, and some novels had anti-monarchy tones. Strange logic in some of them. Some of the authors were definitely radical Cycla members who thought the Guardians should rule Solangia. Those pamphlets had to be printed secretly because they're seditious, or just sort of alluded to in novels where all the royalty die for convoluted reasons and everyone's like oh, if only there were someone else in charge. Those made me think about our theories about your family."

"I see your enjoyed your research."

"I did! And another common theme was the royal line deteriorating, symbolized by them no longer being able to command the Guardians. A bunch of novelists bought into the idea that a long time ago the Heirs could control their Guardians a lot more, and then the ability either faded over time or was lost all at once. Usually because some jealous royal sibling who was not the Heir stole the throne, they liked that trope."

Morie gave her a slant-eyed look. "You don't believe any of that happened, do you?"

"No, it's all fiction. But you see the connection to your ancestor Mariva. Novelists would have turned that into an epic tale of how Mariva was either the pure, good sister who should have gotten the throne or the greedy, wicked sister who tried to fight Magali the First for it."

Morie hummed. "I suppose that's why we have our practical stars to tell us who the Heir is. So we don't have to go through that in real life."

"Sure, but who can prove what the stars said hundreds of years ago? It's free ground for novelists. They could have worked that plot as the reason royals couldn't control Guardians anymore, and how the true Heir had to be found, and how she was probably a poor, hardworking orphan girl who's actually very beautiful once she has a bath."

"Well, I'm glad they were interesting," Morie said with a grin.

Nemia smoothed her hair, pleased with her work. "Yeah. They're like a window into other times, these stories people wanted to read about, even if they're not true. You know? Stories are so powerful."

Morie gave her a long look. "That's true."

Nemia figured she knew what Morie was thinking about, and smiled at her. "Tell people a story with enough confidence and they'll believe it, right? Come on, it's time to see the Protector and tell her a story about Morane Laerhart and how, how—"

"How totally fine I am?" Morie suggested. "Yeah. Let's go." She looked thoughtful all the way to the meeting chamber, as if there was something quite a bit different from pretending to be herself on her mind.