He Took the Heirs' Emblems, Then Became Their King novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Sign and Go Back to Sleep
James wakes holding a pen over a share transfer in front of three clans, refuses to sign before his nap, and finds all three heirs waiting in his dorm room.
The share transfer was already on the table in front of three whole clans, and James woke up holding the pen.
He had no idea whose hand it was.
Then a lifetime of someone else's memories arrived all at once, and the hand became his own.
His name was James Phoenix, he was twenty-two, and he was the last of the Phoenix line.
Twenty minutes ago he had been asleep on a break-room couch in a warehouse, in a world with no magic and no clans, and nobody had told him that was a way to change worlds.
The Hall of Emblems in Emberhall was packed to the balconies.
Four banners hung from the roof, a phoenix, a griffin, a serpent and a mermaid, and under them sat every elder in the kingdom, waiting for him to sign.
"It's a formality, cousin," said a warm voice at his elbow.
The memories supplied her name before he turned his head.
Bella, twenty-eight, honey-brown hair, a painted fan, and a smile that had never once been late to anything.
She set a cup of tea beside his hand.
"Sign here, and you can go straight back to bed."
James looked at the tea, the paper and the pen.
Going back to bed was the most attractive offer anyone had made him in two lifetimes.
A clerk at the lectern read from the paper in a bored voice.
"The undersigned transfers management of the Emberfall furnaces, the Ashfield glass works and the Phoenix vault to Bella Phoenix, in trust, so that the heir may give his full attention to his studies."
"I like the studies part," James said.
"Everyone does," said Bella.
White letters slid across the inside of his eyes, plain and cheerful, and nobody else in the hall could see them.
SYSTEM: Welcome, James! Your previous occupant has checked out. I am your system.
SYSTEM: Survival odds if you sign: 4%.
SYSTEM: Survival odds if you do not sign: 31%.
James kept his face still. "What are my odds if I sign after a nap?" he whispered.
SYSTEM: Also 4%. But rested.
At the high seat, a heavy man in a gold chain of office rose and spread his hands.
The memories said this was Matthew, his father's younger brother, and the chain was a rank he had bought.
"Ten years ago the Ashfall Winter starved the three clans," Matthew told the hall.
"Roads buried, ships iced in, children eating bark."
"My daughter and I stood with them when no Phoenix would, and the clans have not forgotten it."
There was a rumble of approval from the benches.
In the front row sat three young men in the colors of the three clans.
The tallest had silver-blond hair, a perfectly straight back and grey eyes fixed on the paper.
That was Grant of the Griffin clan, and he looked at James with open dislike.
Beside him a man with long dark hair tied back was studying his own fingernails.
That was Harry of the Mermaid clan, and he looked bored to death.
At the end of the row a third man with chestnut hair and a face full of freckles was eating a pastry from a napkin on his knee.
That was Felix of the Serpent clan.
When he caught James looking, he gave a very small shake of his head and mouthed: Don't. Yet.
James did not understand that at all, and he liked it anyway.
"Sign, heir," said Matthew. "The clans are waiting."
Bella's fan tapped the table.
The clerk coughed.
The hall clock above the doors said twenty to three.
"I can't sign this," James said.
The hall went quiet.
"I mean I can," he said. "I just never sign anything before my afternoon nap. It's a family rule."
"There is no such rule," said Matthew.
"There's no rule against it, either."
"A signature before witnesses must be freely given," said the clerk, who was now reading from a different page.
James nodded. "Then I'd like to freely give it after a nap."
Somewhere in the balcony, someone laughed, and then ten people laughed.
Matthew's face went dark red.
Bella's smile did not move at all.
"Of course, cousin," she said sweetly. "Rest, by all means. We have all year."
She leaned in to straighten his collar, and her voice dropped.
"The academy has given you such lovely roommates. I do hope they're persuasive."
So he did not sign.
He stood up, and his knees nearly sent him straight down the steps.
A hand caught his elbow.
It was a warm hand, steady and a little sticky from pastry, and it lit a line of heat all the way up his arm.
"Easy," said Felix. He smelled of cut pine and sugar. "You've been standing for three hours."
"I've been awake for twenty minutes."
"That would do it." Felix grinned, and his freckles moved. "You asked a full hearing for a nap, James."
"Is that bad?"
"It's the best thing I've seen all year. I lost two silver to Harry, who said you'd sign." He steered James through the crowd, one hand still at his elbow. "I said last year's James would. Looks like this year's has a spine."
James let himself be steered.
The host's memories offered a picture of that face, laughing in a library, and then a closed door.
He filed it under later.
Highspire Academy sat on a cliff above the capital, and Room 4 in the Ember Tower was at the very top of the stairs.
His trunk was already inside.
There were four beds around a common room, a stove, a table and one bathroom door.
There were also two men, already moved in, and a stack of papers.
Grant sat on the bed by the window with a pocket watch open in his palm.
"You are four minutes late," he said.
"I was at a hearing."
"You were at a nap."
Harry looked up from a book long enough to say, "He's thinner than the file said," and went back to reading.
On every pillow lay a copy of the share transfer, each with a clan's name written across the top in Bella's neat hand.
Felix set his pastry napkin on his own and sighed.
"She does like her paperwork."
James knelt by his trunk to hide his face and opened the lid.
On top lay a folded note in a handwriting he knew was Felix's.
I read your letter. Don't write to me again. F.
The host's memory was perfectly clear on one point.
He had never written Felix a letter.
James put the note back under a shirt and shut the lid.
Later, he told himself again.
SYSTEM: Good news! Your Bloodline of Desire activates at dusk.
SYSTEM: Contacts in range tonight: three.
James looked up at the three men, who were all looking at him.
"Sign by the end of the week, Phoenix," Grant said, and snapped his watch shut.
"Or I'll see that it gets done."
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