A woman is arguing but I can’t see her face. Her hair falls in dark brown ringlets to her shoulders, just like Esther’s. I see the broad slope of a nose, and the rounded curve of a lip. Esther stands on her toes to get a better view of them, and I finally see the woman’s hand resting on her rounded belly.
Esther moves to another memory, and this one is crisp and fresh. She sits at her father’s bedside. He’s sick—that much is obvious. His skin is dry and his expression reveals an underlying pain.
“I need to tell you something,” Fallow says. His voice is uncertain and scratchy. “And I need you to remember it.”
“Of course,” Esther says, scooting closer, but neither of them reaches out to touch the other. There’s a stiff formality between them—a far cry from Esther’s childhood.
“You are my daughter,” Fallow says. “I know we don’t know each other as well as I would have liked…but that’s the truth. You have the crown tattoo now. I know you’ll have a lot of questions, that you may not understand why you have been put in this position.”
“I’ve had it for years now, Father,” Esther says. “I understand it well enough.”
Fallow continues as if she hasn’t spoken. “Two tattoos—it’s a dangerous mistake that needs to be rectified. But there is no greater danger to address within Seriden than the plight of the Nameless. No one should be without a name, legal rights, a family, or a home. You should understand that more than anyone.”
Fallow clears his throat. “Please understand, dear daughter, that everything that has been done is in service to Seriden. A sovereign’s first responsibility is to…” Fallow breaks into a fit of coughing.
Esther nudges his glass of water toward him, and she finishes, “A sovereign’s first responsibility is to their city. I remember. I understand. I’m ready.”
Fallow smiles sorrowfully. “You’re not. But you will be. You both will be.”
Confusion edges in on Esther’s thoughts, and she tilts her head.
I let go of Esther’s hand this time, pulling us out of the memory.
“What exactly are you trying to show me?” I demand, and already my mind is wheeling and racing. The first memory she shared with me was of the former queen—Fallow’s wife, and Esther’s mother. The second memory was from the last weeks of Fallow’s life.
“My mother…,” Esther starts, her voice tight with pain. “She died in childbirth soon after the first memory, and I never saw her again. I always thought…everyone thought…that the baby died too.”
Esther looks at me, really looks. Her eyes roam over my hair and my face, the curve of my nose, the angle of my chin. “My mother died nearly eighteen years ago.” Don’t say it, Esther. Don’t think it. Don’t ask. “How old are you, Coin?”
My head swims, and I suddenly can’t remember how words are supposed to work. “I…I don’t know. I never knew. Marcher looked after me for as long as I can remember.”
“Father wasn’t talking to me,” Esther insists. “When he said those things, he knew we’d be here, sharing this moment. That wasn’t him telling me to mend the divide between Seriden’s classes. It was him talking to you, apologizing for letting you grow up as one of the Nameless when you had a name all along. It was him talking to the daughter who never knew him.”
I shake my head, stunned.
“It explains why Father knew your name,” Esther continues. “How you ended up with Marcher when you were so young, and how you had a name but didn’t know it. It explains why he told me that the crown would be reunited in the next generation. My generation. Our generation. Coin—you’re my sister.” Esther clasps her hands in her lap to stop herself from touching me.
For once, I don’t say anything. I stare out at Seriden and beyond to the ocean.
Everything Esther is saying makes sense. It answers every question I’ve ever had about what happened to my family and how I could have been named queen.
Fallow was my father. I am a king’s daughter. I have a family.
Had. I had a family. Fallow is dead.
But Esther. Esther Merelda Fallow, the girl sitting beside me on the edge of a tower, is my sister. I have no father or mother, but I have her. A sister. A family, however small and broken it may be.
“You’re the one who told me that memories and fears can lie,” I say carefully. “Belrosa showed me her thoughts of the future. Maybe that’s all this is. Maybe you’re lying to me.” But despite everything, I believe her. I want to believe her, and that’s what makes believing so dangerous.
“I’m so sorry,” Esther says. “It could have just as easily been me who ended up on the streets instead of you. I’ve been so angry because I’ve been an orphan for two weeks, but you’ve been alone your entire life. When my father died, I couldn’t sense a difference in my tattoo, and I knew he’d given it to someone else. When you came forward, I didn’t believe it at first. It took me a while to put it together, but I finally understand.”
My head is spinning. I believe everything she believes, because it makes sense.
I rise to my feet and backpedal into her room. She said this place is her sanctuary—her escape from the auras of Seriden’s citizens. But all I can sense is her guilt, frustration, and fear—they leach into me like the cold winds of winter.
I don’t want to feel her pain or her guilt. I don’t want to see her memories of the family that could have been mine. I can’t be here for another second.
Under her watchful, fearful gaze, I do the only thing I can think of.
I do what comes naturally.
I run.
* * *
I run down the entire spiral staircase, my mind and heart racing. It’s all I can do not to trip over my own feet. I sense Esther’s aura as she follows me, but I quickly outpace her. I run out of the tower and down the palace corridors. I cover almost the entire north wing before I make my way to my sleeping quarters. I find Glenquartz there, waiting for me.
“What’s going on?” Glenquartz asks as he takes in my breathless, haggard appearance.
“I…understand how I became queen.” As I walk past him to pace the length of the room, I pickpocket the decorative blade that hangs at his hip.
“Oh?” Glenquartz says, trying to sound politely intrigued instead of intensely curious.
“I was given a name when I was born,” I say, throwing the heavy blade in a half rotation so it lands in the soft wood of the wardrobe. “I grew up my entire life as one of the Nameless, thinking I was Nameless, but I had a name the whole time! And now that I’m queen, in a position of power, I don’t have a name. It died with him.”