Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future by Barbara Bartholomew Page B

added quickly.
    Claire was no fool and she knew her daughters well. For a Gare child, Lillianne was a bit of a babbler, having inherited that talkativeness, she’d always supposed, from her mom.
    But Adaeze rarely dropped idle words. And she’d said, ‘They know,’ as if she really knew what was going on back at the palace.
    She recognized from the look on their faces, a kind of checked-out and thinking about something look, that they were conferring. It wasn’t the first time since she’d become a Gare empress that she’d felt shut out by what was being said in ways she couldn’t understand.
    Always before there had been Mathiah to keep her up to date. “Back where I came from it was considered really rude to speak secretly in a language not understood by the people around you.”
    Lillianne’s lashes drooped as she avoided her mother’s gaze, but Adaeze looked into Claire’s face with a steady gaze.
    “The empress-regent knows that we have escape d and are on Capron. She is angry, but without a far speaker has no ability to send troops from other planets. The army on Aremia is rather engaged at the moment as the imperial guard has remained loyal to the wishes of our father . . .” Adaeze broke off, controlling the grief that obviously overcame her at the mention of Mathiah.
    “That little boy, Michel, the new emperor. She said he could far speak ,” Claire protested numbly, knowing that so much was going on here that she couldn’t just take it in with one big mental gulp.
    “He is still very young. His abilities do not extend past Aremia itself.”
    “That’s not a far speaker,” Lillianne said scornfully.
    Claire closed her eyes. This was too much. She felt dizzy with new knowledge. “Females don’t inherit the gift,” she whispered.
    “No,” Adaeze agreed.
    “Not until now,” Lillianne chimed in, than started coughing again.
    Breathe , Claire  told herself. Take deep breaths. In and out.
    “Which of you?” she whispered again.
    “Me,” said Adaeze, the word blunt and forceful.
    “And me,” added Lillianne in a soft apologetic tone.
    Claire considered, than finally asked. “Did your father know?”
    Lillianne nodded. “He didn’t want to worry you.”
    “Worry me!” She wished Mathiah were here right this moment so she could tell him what she thought of that. “Was he so determined that you would never take the throne?”
    “Not that,” Adaeze explained in her most rational voice. “Aremia is a very traditional world. Far speakers have always been male. Father felt they might be a little upset at the idea of us, Lillianne and I, with that gift. He told us we must keep our secret because we would never be allowed to serve and would either be imprisoned or executed.”
    “I guess he really didn’t want to worry me,” she said  sarcastically. “So that’s the real reason he made escape plans for us.”
    Adaeze nodded.
    Wave after wave of emotion rolled across Claire as she sat trembling on the dirt floor of the cave. So many new things had to be considered. The one question she had to ask must be spoken aloud no matter how much she feared the answer.
    “You inherited the gift? Did you also inherit the curse?”
    Adaeze gazed straight into her mother’s eyes. “Father didn’t think so. He felt the mixture of blood, the crossing of genes, left us free of disease. Though he feared we might pass it on to our male children, especially if we wed within the Gare.”
    Claire found she could breathe a little easier. Mathiah was not a dreamer to base his beliefs on what he hoped was so. He’d been one to face realities.
    Still, she knew that for the rest of her life she would have this in the back of her mind, that her girls might die as their father had died.
    She had so many questions. How long had they known they had the far speaking ability? How had their father advised them to use this talent? Why had she not been told?
    Damn, why had she been such an idiot as to not have