Tasia returned her attention to her tutor. “I’m sorry, Wise Man Norix,” she said. This time, at least, honesty might be her best choice. “I think I might not have heard you when you said what conditions led to the formation of the House of Wisdom.”
Norix sighed. He sat across from her, looking as old and desiccated as ever, his snow-white hair cut in the Wise Man way — a close-cropped but thinning ring around his head. Despite the neat discipline of his hair, his beard consisted of unkempt, patchy tufts that refused to face any particular direction.
He pushed back the sleeves of his grey robes. “Princess, your father told me about what happened last night. I’m sure you must be shaken — and very tired — from your ordeal.”
“I didn’t mean to doze off. It’s just… it’s hot in here, and it makes me sleepy.”
“Your father told me earlier today that he intends to make you his true heir,” Norix said. “You’ll still have to marry, of course, but your father wants you to be the one with the power, not your husband.”
The unexpected non sequitur jolted her awake. Perhaps Norix had designed it that way.
Tasia sat straighter in the high-backed wooden chair. “Me?”
“Yes,” said the old man with a wry grin. “You.”
“But… why?”
Norix gave her a kind, if somewhat condescending, smile. “When Emperors only have a daughter, they find a young lord to marry her, and that young lord becomes the adopted son of the House of Dorsa. You know this from our recent studies of the Empire’s early history.”
Tasia nodded. Of course she knew that. She was the Princess, after all; she didn’t need to read the Empire’s early histories in a textbook to know that her sex had determined her destiny from the time of her birth.
But it was Norix’s way to take his time getting to the point. Everything had to be a lesson with him.
“It hasn’t always been this way,” Norix continued. “Everyone knows the story of the Empress Adela, who ruled the Empire after her father died in the early days of the House of Dorsa. Few realize there were three more Empresses after her who, directly or indirectly, had been their father’s heirs.” Wise Man Norix paused, as if choosing his next words carefully. “And I happen to believe that your father’s decision is rooted in wisdom. This may be the right time in history — and that you may be the right princess in history — for a woman to rule the Empire again.”
Tasia’s brow furrowed. She was the right princess to rule the Empire? Norix’s sudden proclamation was more than out-of-context and unexpected; it was out-of-character. She was relatively certain that her tutor didn’t even like her, let alone think her capable of ruling an entire empire.
And besides the fact that he rarely did anything but criticize her — for her work ethic, for her willingness to learn, for her attention to detail — women were simply not heirs. The Empress Adela had been history’s one shining exception; the three other Empresses Norix named must have been obscure or had short rules, because Tasia could not think of any of their names. Neither could her father, when they’d discussed Empress Adela the night before.
So why this? Why now?
Slowly, Tasia said, “Wise Man Norix, I respect my father’s judgment, and yours, of course — ” (a bald-faced lie) “ — but why does my father intend to make me heir? And why are you telling me this before he has the chance himself?”
Norix sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands on the table before him. “Last night’s assassination attempt gave us all a fright. My Wise Men have been interrogating the man who tried to kill you, but so far, they have only learned one thing of use: He can resist truth serum.”
The revelation hit Tasia with a shock.
The man who almost killed her had resisted the truth serum of the Wise Men. That wasn’t possible. To resist the truth serum required years of careful, painstaking training. It required poisoning oneself with the serum in ever-increasing doses, tolerating months of sleepless nights and vomiting until one built up an immunity to it, built up the ability to push back against it. And the fact that the assassin could even get his hands on enough truth serum, over a long enough period of time, to make it through that training…
It meant the assassin really was a Wise Man. Which in turn meant he was connected to a noble family.
The other alternative was that he’d been trained by a Wise Man. Which in turn made him part of a noble family. Or extremely close to one.
Which option was more frightening — a traitor amongst the Wise Men, or a traitor amongst the highborn with a Wise Man accomplice?
The thought of it made Tasia’s pulse quicken.
“It is clear that someone wants to destabilize the Empire, Princess,” Norix said, lowering his voice despite the fact that they were in one of the most remote parts of the entire palace. “That ‘someone’ has enough resources, influence, and ingenuity that they could be successful. But we do not yet know who they are. What if, in choosing a husband for you, we play right into the conspirator’s hands? What if we inadvertently choose — ”
“The son of the very lord who tried to have me killed,” Tasia said softly.
“Precisely.” Norix sat up straighter, shook an arthritic finger at her. “Do you see that, Princess Natasia? When you actually use the mind that your father gave you, you are very clever. You think like he does. You have the potential to… to…” His rheumy eyes went distant and he waved one hand in the air before him as he searched for the right words.
But he didn’t need to finish his statement, because Tasia already knew what he was thinking.
“I have the potential to carry on my father’s legacy,” she said, “if only I would stop behaving like a foolish girl.”
“I would not have phrased it quite that way… your Majesty,” Norix said.
Another shock. Norix had never called her your Majesty or your Highness. Other servants did sometimes, but not Norix, her father’s senior-most advisor. Her tutor since the age of four. And the Wise Man never said anything he hadn’t carefully considered first. Which meant that by using the honorific now, he was sending a signal to her. A signal that implied who she could be. And who he could be to her.
“You are many things, Princess. You have a quick mind — though you rarely use it for your studies,” he added wryly. “You are savvy when it comes to reading people, both men and women, both highborn and commoner alike. You are capable of manipulating the people around you, and you press on those levers to your advantage.” Tasia opened her mouth to protest, but Norix spoke over her. “Like the guards of the Sunfall Gate, for example.”
She blanched, snapped her mouth closed.
“Surely you didn’t think the Emperor and I were unaware of your nighttime … erm, meanderings?” He offered a slight smile — a sly smile, Tasia thought. “I am the palace’s chief Wise Man, after all. It is my duty to know the comings and goings of each palace inhabitant. I am not that different from Cole of Easthook in that way; he knows where they each hide their knives.” He leaned closer to her, tapping the side of his head. “I know where they keep their minds.”