“Thank you.”
“I mean it. Rennered would have made a perfectly good emperox. He was literally born for the role, just as I was. You weren’t. But that’s not a bad thing.”
“I think it’s a bad thing. I don’t know what I’m doing,” Cardenia confessed.
“None of us knew what we were doing,” Batrin said. “The difference is that you know it. If Rennered were here, he’d be just as clueless but more confident. Which is why he’d faceplant right out of the gate, just like I did, and my mother, and my grandfather. Perhaps you’ll break the family tradition.”
Cardenia smiled at this.
Batrin cocked his head, almost imperceptibly. “You still don’t know what to make of me, do you?” he asked.
“No,” Cardenia admitted. “I’m glad we’ve come to know each other better, these last few months. But—” She opened her hands, palms up. “All the rest of this.”
Batrin smiled. “You want to get to know your father, but you have to focus on getting ready to rule the universe instead.”
“It sounds ridiculous. But yes.”
“That’s on me. You know you were an accident. At least on my part.” Cardenia nodded at this. “Everyone, including your mother, told me that it would be better to keep you at a distance. And I was happy to agree with them.”
“I know. I never blamed you for that.”
“No, you didn’t, and you have to admit that was odd,” Batrin said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are a literal princess, but you didn’t live like one. I think it’s fair to say most people in your situation would have resented that.”
Cardenia shrugged. “I liked it being optional. When I was eight, I resented it a little. When I was old enough to know what being a princess meant, I was glad I got to miss most of it.”
“It caught up to you anyway.”
“Yes, it did,” Cardenia agreed.
“You don’t still want to be emperox, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I would have rather you had given it to a cousin or nephew or someone else.”
“If Rennered had married earlier and had a child, that would have solved your problem. But he didn’t. And anyway if he had married that Nohamapetan woman, and she’d produced an heir, then she would have been regent. That seems like a bad idea, to have her running things unchecked.”
“You pushed him to marry her.”
“Politics. You’re being pushed to marry the brother already, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“It’s politically advantageous.”
“Do you want me to?”
Batrin coughed, extensively. Cardenia poured him a glass of water and held it to his lips to let him sip. “Thank you. And no. Nadashe Nohamapetan is heartless and vicious, but Rennered was no innocent, either. He reminded me of my mother that way. He would have kept her in check, and he would have enjoyed the challenge and so would she. You’re not like Rennered, and Amit Nohamapetan doesn’t have his sister’s saving grace of being brilliant.”
“He’s a bore.”
“A much more succinct way of putting it.”
“But you just said it’s a politically advantageous match.”
Batrin gave the very slightest of shrugs. “It is, but so what? You’ll be emperox soon enough.”
“And then no one can tell me what to do.”
“Oh, no,” Batrin said. “Everyone will tell you what to do. But you won’t always have to listen.”
*
“How much more time does he have?” Cardenia asked Qui Drinin, at dinner. More accurately, Cardenia was having dinner in the residential apartment private dining room, which was only ridiculously sumptuously decorated rather than appallingly so, in delightful contrast to the rest of the residential apartments. Drinin was not eating but rather was standing, waiting to give his report. Cardenia had asked him if he would like to eat, but he’d refused so quickly that she wondered if she had unwittingly breached some bit of imperial protocol.
“No more than a day, I think, ma’am,” Drinin said. “His renal system has basically failed, and while we can help with that, that system is running just slightly ahead of everything else. Pulmonary, respiratory, and other systems are at critical milestones. Your father understands that heroic measures could be taken but those would prolong his life by days at best. He’s opted not to take them. We’re really just making him comfortable at this point.”
“He’s still lucid,” Naffa said. She was also not eating.
Drinin nodded at this and turned to address Cardenia. “You shouldn’t expect this to continue, ma’am, especially as the toxins continue to accumulate in his blood. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, if you have anything very important to say to your father, you should do it sooner than later.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Cardenia said.
“Of course, ma’am. And may I also ask how you are doing?”
“Personally, or medically?”
“Either, ma’am. I know you had your network installed a few weeks ago. I want to be sure you have no side effects from that.”
With the hand not currently holding a utensil, Cardenia reached back to the spot on her neck, just at the base of her skull, where the seed of the imperial neural network had been implanted, to grow into her brain over the course of a month or so. “I had some headaches a week after it was implanted,” she said. “It’s fine.”
Drinin nodded. “Very well. Historically, headaches are not uncommon. If you experience any other side effects let me know, of course. It should be fully implanted by now, but you never know.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Cardenia said.
“Ma’am.” Drinin nodded and moved to leave.
“Dr. Drinin.”
Drinin stopped and turned. “Ma’am?”
“After the transition I would be pleased if you and your staff were to remain in the service of the emperox.”
Drinin smiled and bowed deeply. “Of course, ma’am,” he said, and departed.
“You know you don’t have to ask every member of the imperial staff to stay,” Naffa said, after he had gone. “You’d spend your first month doing that.”
Cardenia motioned to where the doctor had departed. “That man is going to be giving me physical examinations for decades,” she said. “I think it’s okay to ask him personally to stay.” She looked up at her aide. “It’s weird, you know. You not eating with me right now. Just standing there with your tablet, waiting to tell me things.”
“Staff doesn’t eat with the emperox.”
“They do if the emperox tells them to.”
“Are you commanding me to eat whatever disgusting thing you’re eating with you?”
“It’s not disgusting, it’s a cinnamonfish bouillabaisse. And no, I’m not commanding you. I’m telling you that you may, if you like, have something to eat with your friend Cardenia.”
“Thanks, Car,” Naffa said.
“The last thing I need right now is you being staff all the time. I do actually still need friends. Friends who don’t get worked up about who I am. You were the only kid I knew when we were growing up who didn’t make a big deal out of me being a princess.”
“My parents are republicans,” Naffa reminded her friend. “If I treated you differently because of who your father was, they’d’ve disowned me. They’re still mildly scandalized that I’m working for you now.”
“That reminds me that when I become emperox, I’ll be able to give you a title.”
“Don’t you dare, Car,” Naffa said. “I’ll never be able to go home for holidays.”
“‘Baroness’ has a nice ring to it.”
“I’ll dump your fish soup on your head if you keep this up,” Naffa warned. Cardenia smiled at this.
*
“I saw the video you made,” Batrin said, once he had woken again. Cardenia observed that Drinin had been correct; her father’s demeanor was fuzzy and wandering now. “The one where you were talking about me.”
“What did you think?” Cardenia asked.