Evil Twin

“It must be worse to let that work fall to ruin, as if it were not worth maintaining and continuing.”

“I know. It would be.” Although she was obviously still wrestling with it, she moved on. “Do you truly think many people will come from Gocea? It was not such a bad place to live—and it was clear that most of the good was due to your influence.”

“Would that I’d had more influence.”

“Only the king could have had more and you were bound by a vow not to kill him.” She tilted her head to look back at him curiously. “So how did you do so much?”

“There was no oath to prevent me from killing corrupt officials and replacing them with better ones.”

She grinned. “Did Tamas know?”

“Probably. But he also probably persuades himself that they were his choice, because he’s too lazy to do anything about it.”

Nodding, she rested her head back against his shoulder again. “Good officials were the only saving grace in Phaira—but that was not my parents’ doing. Those officials and the expectations for them were already in place when they ascended to the throne, after generations of rewarding truly good service to the crown. I wonder sometimes why my parents cling to their power as hard as they do, because they take no steps to govern or to use it on behalf of their people. They are nothing like the queens and kings of Phaira who came before.”

“Is that what you fear will happen here, then? Why you worry that what we do is corpse-robbing? You wonder if people will come and claim what they see without honoring those that came before. As your parents did.”

“That is not at all the same as what must happen here in these villages. And it is not what we are doing, either.”

“Is it not? We are taking possession of a castle and the kingdom. Then we will toss the royal bones into a crypt and call ourselves the new king and queen.”

“But that is always the way with royals. We squabble and scheme and assassinate and marry and rule always changes hands. The history books of Crolum will be in the castle’s library, and when the time comes, you and I will be added to the books with a note about the scourge, and on the next page will be our children and their children—but the next page will be yet another change of rule. Perhaps not even a great change. There have been marriages between Crolum and Phaira in the past, and between Crolum and Gocea. If anyone cared to trace the history, they would find us both on a branch of Crolum’s royal bloodline. Even you and I are distant relations to each other.”

“Our children will be glad that we are very distant relations.”

A short giggle shook her against him. “Too true.”

“As you are the eldest sister, you might have been in line to inherit Crolum, regardless of our marriage.”

“I do not think it worth the effort to unravel those bloodlines—except to show that it is not so strange that we came to claim the throne.” She shrugged. “But that is how it always goes with royals. And no matter how the banners change, the people who live in these villages go on as they always have. That bakery”—she gestured to an abandoned building with a wave of her hand—“was likely in that family’s possession for much longer than the kingdom was held by the last royal family. Every single day, they labored to maintain their legacy. For generations. And now—”

“Someone else will claim it as their own and erase the legacy of the family who came before.”

“Yes. And I do not blame or begrudge the person who comes. That would be foolish. But it feels…disrespectful.”

“Then consider the two types of people who will likely take over that bakery—the bakers who are leaving their own homes that were also the work of generations, so they know what ought to be honored. Or it will be the second sons and daughters who could never have been the ones to carry on the family legacy—or even the carpenters who wanted to be bakers, but could never establish a new bakery in their own village. Yet now they all will have an opportunity that they never had before. They, too, will be grateful to those people who made it possible. So I do not think it will be too much to ask our people, when they come, to try to learn about those who lived here before them, so they can properly honor them—and so their names are remembered. Would that seem more respectful?”

Slowly she nodded before turning to arch a brow. “And will we do the same? Shall we name our first child Harmon after the king who came before us?”