The Queen of All that Dies (The Fallen World Book 1) (4 page)

Once we’re situated in front of the computer, my father calls up the representatives. They answer almost immediately.

“Ambassador Freeman and Serenity Freeman checking in,” my father says.

On the other side of the screen I can see the bunker’s conference room and the representatives sitting around the table. Now that I’m here inside the king’s house, in this place filled with glittery objects and natural light, the conference room looks especially bleak.

“Good to hear from you Carl,” the general says. “How’s it going?”

My father’s eyes slide to mine. “Fine so far. Have you been watching the footage?”

“Yes. Is Serenity there?”

My father turns the laptop so that my face takes up the screen. “General Kline.” I nod to him.

“Serenity, aside from that comment you made during your introductions, you seem to be doing well making the king’s acquaintance.”

There are so many things that I want to shout at the general, none of which I can voice, one because he’s still the leader of my country, and two, because I have to assume we’re being recorded.

So instead I say, “Surprised? I was too.” I lower my voice. “You’ve thrown me to the wolves, General.” That’s the closest thing I can come to the truth, that I’m here to persuade the king through more carnal means.

“Serenity, nations rely on your actions. Now is not the time for weakness.” General Kline’s practically chastising me.

My throat works. “He killed her.” My father reaches over and squeezes my shoulder, his subtle way of telling me to shut up, that I’ve said too much. But the king already knows what I’ve just spoken out loud—that I blame him for my mother’s death.

“And you’ve killed mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. War has taken something from everyone, Serenity. We can end that. You can end that.”

His words sober me up. He’s right, of course. The only difference between the king and I is that the king’s body count is much higher, and for most of his kills he never had to dirty his hands.

My gaze moves from the general to his son who sits further down the table. “I’m sorry, Will,” I say. His face is too grainy to make out, but I’m sure the expression he wears is not a pleasant one.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he says. “Negotiate an agreement and make it back here safely. That’s all I want.”

My throat constricts and I nod. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I know what I must do.

I’m going to have to charm the king into giving the WUN what it needs.

Chapter 6

Serenity

Five years ago
my father and I moved into the bunker. By that time we were in a full-scale war with the eastern hemisphere, and the king had started picking off those political leaders not already dead. Located several miles outside of D.C., the bunker was an asylum for what was left of our government officials and their families.

It also offered some measureable protection against the high radiation levels caused by the nuclear blasts. Not that it mattered. The radiation was in the water, in the earth and the food supply. We’d lived with it long enough; the damage was already done.

The day my father and I moved in, when I first saw the beds that lined a single room, my chest tightened. I realized that the world I thought I knew had been gone for a while now and somewhere along the way
people
had become synonymous with
threat
.

My wariness eventually wore off, and my next reaction was excitement. I might make
friends
. I had to dust that word off; I’d shelved it from my vocabulary for so long.

The bunker, however, came with its own sacrifices. No natural light filtered into our new home, and I had once been a self-proclaimed child of the sun. An unpleasant schedule came to rule my days. And social interactions were difficult to maneuver; I found I was way more skilled at making enemies than I was friends. 

Still, I was safe, surrounded by people that didn’t antagonize me, and I had reliable food and shelter. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful.

“I hate dresses,
” I mumble as one of my guards zips me up.

He snickers.

“Shut up. It’s not funny.” I can’t breathe in this thing.

“Freeman in a dress? Hell yeah it is,” my guard says.

I throw him a look just as Marco knocks on the door to our suite.

The guard squeezes my shoulder. “Own those negotiations,” he whispers.

I leave my room as my father opens the door. “Morning Marco,” he says, grabbing his briefcase.

Marco nods to him. “Ready to go?”

My father looks over to where I stand.

“I’m ready,” I say, now that my wispy dress is on. I glance back at my room. My gun lies underneath the pillows on my bed. It’s hard to walk into the peace talks in my flimsy outfit without my usual protection.

“’Kay, then let’s do this,” my father says.

We follow Marco out into the hall, our guards shadowing us. At least they are allowed to carry holstered weapons. I’ve seen most of them in action, so I trust their skills.

We move to the other end of the king’s mansion, where the negotiations are to take place. I fist my hands in the black folds of my dress. I’ve learned a lot about diplomacy from my father, but I’ve never been able to apply any of my lessons. I know how negotiations with an enemy state work in theory, but not in practice, and I fear that something I say or do might cause irreversible damage.

I can identify the conference room from all the way down the hall. Cameramen and film crews cluster around the door. Flashes of light are already going off, which makes me think that the king must have arrived before us.

My heart pounds a little faster at the thought. Last night felt like we danced on the edge of a knife. One wrong move and I’d cut myself.

Despite the obvious danger that comes from dealing with the king, yesterday he hadn’t struck me as particularly … evil. Nor, for that matter, did he seem immortal, though he did appear to be younger than his true age. If I had to guess, I’d say the king is in his mid thirties. King Lazuli, however, has been conquering countries for nearly thirty years.

My thoughts are interrupted by a flash of light, and then the camera crews are on us, snapping shots and filming our entrance.

Unlike the conference room back in the bunker, this one is full of light and gilded surfaces. It is a room that a king does business in, and the sight of it reminds me all over again just why I despise the man who rules over half the world.

King Lazuli waits for us inside the room. His eyes find mine almost immediately. Once they do, they don’t bother looking away.

In that moment I can feel in my bones that my father and I are merely toys here for the king’s entertainment. Nothing more. We have no real power, so the king is allowed the luxury of gazing at the emissary’s daughter and ignoring everyone else in the room.

I can still see flashes of light from my peripherals, but my attention focuses on the table. Someone’s set placards in front of each seat. I look for my name, not surprised to find it placed next to the king’s chair.

“How … convenient,” I murmur quietly as I pass him.

King Lazuli pulls out my chair and leans in. “Convenient—yes, I do believe that word sums up our relationship.”

I didn’t notice it last night, but there’s a subtle lilt to his words. English is not his first language. I wonder what is.

“We have no relationship,” I whisper back to him. Luckily, there’s too much going on around us for our conversation to gather unwanted attention.

His eyes linger on my face, moving to my scar, then my lips. “You won’t be saying that by the time you leave.”

I hold his gaze and suppress a shiver. As much as I want to fight his words, I fear they’re true.

My father takes
a seat across from me. His eyes move between the two of us, but other than that, there’s no indication that the seating arrangement bothers him. I’m not deceived. He hates the king more than even I do.

Someone places a document in front of me. It takes me a minute to realize this is a peace treaty, a tentative contract drawn up listing the conditions that need to be met in order for the war to end.

King Lazuli’s arm brushes mine from where he sits to my right. My eyes flick to him, but he’s not paying attention to me. “Ambassador Freeman, Serenity,” the king says, nodding to each of us, “in front of you is a draft of the terms of your surrender.”

I see flashes of light go off as each media outlet allowed in here captures the beginning of the negotiations. Each one distracts me from the matter at hand.

My father pulls out the document the WUN crafted up that catalogues our terms of surrender. After reading it on the flight over, I can rattle off the essentials: Our people must be provided with medical relief, first and foremost. Then steps must be taken to clean the environment—too much radiation has seeped into the earth and the running water. It’s in our food, and until we can expel it, people are going to keep getting cancer.

Once those two requirements are met, then our secondary measures are to boost the economy and reestablish the social order that existed before the war.

The king takes the document from my father and flips through it. Suddenly he laughs. “You think I’m going to let your country revert back to the materialistic, wasteful state it was in before the war?” he says, his eyes moving over the page before lifting to meet my father’s gaze. The irony of his statement isn’t lost on me, here in this opulent palace of his.

Across the table, my father relaxes into his seat, looking at ease when I’m sure that’s the last thing he feels. “The WUN is not suggesting that. We merely wish to get our economy back on its feet.”

The king’s eyes flash. “Your hemisphere will never be where it once was.”

The negotiations draw
on for a long time even after the king makes it known that he wants to cripple our economy. I shiver at the thought. Though pretty much anything would be an improvement from the current state of the western hemisphere, I know from history that there’d be long-term problems if the king decided to purposefully weaken our economy.

I page through the king’s document in front of me. Most passages are long-winded discussions of the terms of the agreement. I keep looking for the medical relief the king would provide for our people, but I can’t find any mention of it.

“Where can I find the terms of medical relief you’ll provide the WUN?” I finally ask, turning to the king.

He swivels his body to face me. “There are none,” he says.

I blink at him a few times. “None?”

“None.”

I stand suddenly. “You’d leave our people to suffer? To die?” I don’t know what I’m doing. It feels as though someone’s squeezing my lungs because I can’t seem to get enough air.

The king leans back in his seat. “Only some of them.” He gives me a challenging look.

My anger obscures my vision. I ball my hands into fists. “This isn’t a game!”

Silence.

No one moves.

And then a whole lot of things happen at once. The king stands, and judging by the vein throbbing at his temple, he’s pissed. Behind me several people push forward, and my guards press in close.

King Lazuli leans in, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Yes, Serenity, this is a game. One you’ve already lost.”

I’m escorted from
the negotiations for the rest of the day. The king’s guards take me back to my room. They linger outside it, standing guard in case I try to leave.

Now that the anger has dulled somewhat, embarrassment and guilt quickly follow. I can’t act like that, even if I think I’m defending the WUN. No one’s going to thank me if the negotiations dissolve because of my emotional outbursts.

I hear the door to our suite open and, a few seconds later, a knock on my door. My heart hammers away in my chest. I stand, and my muscles tense. Knowing my father, he’s not going to yell, and his quiet disappointment is so much worse to bear.

The door opens, but instead of my father, King Lazuli stands in the doorway.

My eyes widen. “What are you doing here?” My earlier anger hasn’t simmered back to the surface yet. I’m too surprised.

He closes the door behind him and strolls into my room, taking a look around. “How are you liking the palace so far?” he asks.

I raise my eyebrows. “It’s fine.”

“
Fine
?” It’s his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Surely it’s more than just fine.”

Now my anger’s returning, like a dear old friend. “Okay, it’s more than fine. It’s absolutely repulsive that you can live around such opulence when the rest of this city is so broken. I’m sickened to hear you deny my people basic medical relief while you host dinner parties inside your palace.”

The king approaches me. “There it is. The truth: you hate everything about me.”

I suck in a sharp breath of air. “
Yes
,” I breathe.

King Lazuli holds the crook of his arm out. “Walk with me.”

I take a step back, eyeing his arm like it’s poisonous. I just admitted to the king of the eastern hemisphere that I hated him.

When he sees my hesitation, he says, “I don’t bite.”

“No,” I say, “you kill.”

“So do you, soldier.”

We stare at each other a moment. Not one fiber of my being wants to touch him, but I remember General Kline’s words yesterday. I need to play my part.

Reluctantly I slide my fingers through the crook of King Lazuli’s arm, and he leads me out of my room.

“Where’s my father?” I ask as soon as we pass his empty room.

“He’s still in discussions with my aides.”

“And you’re skipping out to what—give me a tour of your mansion?”

The king glances down at me, a small smile playing on his lips. “Something like that.”

I frown at his expression and a sick sensation coils through my stomach. I can practically smell the desire wafting off of him.

The thought makes me want to puke. I’ve been rude to him since we met. I stood up to him; I admitted that I hated him. He must truly be psychotic if that excites rather than angers him.

He leads me outside to the gardens. “How lovely,” I say, “you pay someone to cut your hedges into cute little animals. I’m so impressed.”

His lips twitch. “I’m pleased to hear you like them so much. I’ll have the gardeners shape another just for you. Perhaps a gun? Or are you more of a hand grenade lady?”

“How about you simply uproot the hedge you plan on shaping and watch it slowly die? That would be a more accurate representation of me and my people.”

The king sighs. “You do not know the first thing about power.”

“And you don’t know the first thing about compassion,” I bite out.

To our right, a large alcove has been cut into the hedge that borders the gardens. Inside it sits a marble sculpture. The king pushes me into the alcove.

My back bumps into the nearly solid surface of the hedge as the king presses his body against mine. “You think you know something about compassion? A soldier trained to kill?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Then prove it.”

I raise my eyebrow, still pinned between him and the hedge. Despite his closeness and his heated emotions, I’m not scared. I know how to take him down if I need to, and I trust him more when he’s not so composed.

“How exactly would you suggest I prove it?”

His gaze flicks to my mouth. “Kiss me.”

My breath hitches. “I think you’ve confused passion with
com
passion.”

“No, I haven’t.” His eyes glitter, and I have to remind myself that he’s a sick human being, because right now all I’m noticing are his expressive eyes and sensual mouth. “Compassion is showing kindness towards the man who killed your mother.”

“You want to see compassion? Fine.” I take the hand pressed against my shoulders and kiss his knuckles. “I’ve now kissed the hand of my mother’s killer.”

Before he has time to react to my chaste kiss, I bring my other hand up and slap him.

His head whips to the side. “I’m also a vindictive bitch,” I say.

Slowly he moves his face back to where it was. There’s a dull pink handprint across his cheek. His eyes flash, and I’m already learning that this is when he’s at his most dangerous. “And I don’t play fair,” he admits.

The words are hardly out of his mouth when he closes the distance between us and his mouth captures mine.

There’s nothing sweet or diplomatic about this kiss. His lips move roughly against my own, and his hand runs down the length of my side, as if even a kiss isn’t enough to satiate him.

I will my mind to go blank before I kiss him back. I press my eyes tightly closed as I force myself to wind my arms around his neck and lean into him.

As soon as he feels me respond, the kiss deepens. His lips part my own and his tongue presses against mine.

Oh God, I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much. I turn my head to the side to break off the kiss.

I swallow down my bile. “Enough,” I say, my voice hoarse.

He steps away from me, and I pull in a deep breath of air. The king’s staring at my lips, as though looking at them long enough might cause them to resume their former activity.

I gaze at him, feeling like a cornered creature. This is when
I’m
my most dangerous. He must sense it as well because he steps aside. I brush past him, and he catches my wrist. “I want to see you tonight.” His meaning is clear.

“No,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Not until you offer full medical relief to the WUN with no strings attached.” It’s a ballsy move, manipulating him like this. But this is why the WUN sent me.