Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(115)

She directed a glare in Claudia’s direction, and that was when Mae got her first solid look at her sister’s face. “Something important” might have been an understatement. Claudia was pale and looked as though she’d been crying. Mae glanced between them uneasily.

“What…what’s happening?” she asked.

“What’s happening,” their mother said, “is that your sister is a slut.”

Claudia’s white face turned red. “That’s not true! It’s not my fault!”

“Really? Someone else was whoring herself out?”

“It wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me keep my implant!” Claudia cried.

Their mother’s expression could have frozen the room. “Well-bred ladies don’t need contraceptive implants once they’re of age. It’s an insult to keep them…which reminds me, Maj. You can get yours removed now too. You’ll want to once you’re married anyway.”

“Really?” demanded Claudia. Her eyes shot daggers at Mae. “Even now, you manage to make this about her?”

Mae was still a few beats behind. “Are you…are you pregnant?”

“You win the prize,” said Cyrus with a chuckle. “You’re going to be an aunt. She beat Philippa and me to it.”

“But that’s good news,” said Mae slowly. “I mean, there’ll be talk since you and Marius aren’t married yet, but still…a baby so soon….” Claudia was late getting engaged since she hadn’t had all that many boyfriends after her debut, but pregnancy at the beginning of a marriage was a dream come true for most Nordics.

“It’s not Marius’s,” said her mother flatly. “It’s not even Nordic.”

“Oh.” Mae didn’t need to hear any more to understand now why things were so grim. A plebeian had gotten Claudia pregnant. It was pretty much the most scandalous thing that could happen to a young patrician woman. They’d all had the importance of virtue driven into them from youth, with plebeians especially being regarded as the dirtiest of the dirty. Why would anyone risk sullying their genes? “What are you going to do?”

“Well, we can’t terminate it. It’s impossible to find a safe doctor to perform that off the grid. If we go to a qualified doctor, there’ll be a record of it. Even if it’s confidential, we can’t risk word of this getting out.” Her mother sighed and shook her head. “No, there’s only one choice. We’ll have to send her away and find some reason to delay the wedding. There are places that specialize in this. It doesn’t require much skill to have a baby—or to make one, apparently—and then after that, we’ll have it sent out of the country.”

Mae hadn’t really thought anything could shock her more than Kris’s proclamation. “Just like that?”

“It’s easy,” said Cyrus. “I mean, not as easy as Claudia is, but it can be done. It happens more than you think, and I know some people who can help.” Mae didn’t acknowledge that. She’d heard rumors that her brother was getting involved with the Br?dern, but it wasn’t a topic she wanted to pursue right now.

“How can you just send away another person?” Mae turned to Claudia. “How can you send away your own child?”

Even irreverent Cyrus seemed surprised. “What else do you expect her to do? She’d lose Nordic citizenship.”

“That baby’s a plebeian.” Their mother practically spat the word out. “Generations of pure genes mixed with who knows what kind of background. What kind of child would that be? Certainly not one we can keep around here. I’m sure it’ll have a nice home wherever it ends up. Now stop looking so appalled. It’s not like this happened to you, thankfully. Go back to your party. And you, go to your room. I don’t want you ruining Maj’s day.” That was to Claudia, who skulked away after leveling glares at everyone in the room.

“Hold on,” Mae told her mother. “We have to talk about the Erikssons.”

“Now isn’t the time or place.”

“It’s the perfect time and place.”

“Maj.” There it was, the patronizing voice again. “You have two hundred guests to entertain. Go back out there, and we’ll discuss this in the morning. Avoid Kris if it makes you happy, but after you sleep on it, I’m sure you’ll see what an ideal match this is. Like I said, you’re our last, best hope. I know you won’t disappoint us.”

Refusing to hear anything else, her mother glided out of the room. Cyrus followed, after first slapping Mae on the back. “Congratulations, little sister.”

Mae remembered very little of the party after that. She resumed her role but didn’t even know what she said half the time. Her thoughts kept flipping between her forced engagement and Claudia’s pregnancy. After a while, Mae began to feel her own identity merged into the baby’s: both of them tossed heedlessly around by people too entrenched in a shallow and antiquated culture. She’d gone through her upbringing with little questioning, not even when her mother had denied Mae the future she wanted. Now it was as though Mae was able to step back and see all the pettiness and empty tradition that had shackled her for her entire life. There was no reason for it that she could see.

There was no purpose.