The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3) (27 page)

Chapter 54

Serenity

Once we exit
the plane, Marco and I are taken in one direction, the body in another.

Dozens of guards escort us from the airfield. No one from the West mentions what’s going on or where they’re taking us. Half of me is sure we’re being led straight to an execution. But then Marco and I are loaded into armored cars and driven up to the Iudicium, the domed building I’d so recently been in.

On either side of the street people crowd the sidewalks, cheering. Ever since my father and I entered Geneva, I’ve been on the losing side of those cheers.

Our car pulls up to the Iudicium, and Marco and I are unloaded from the vehicle and led inside. Rather than entering the circular courtroom, our guards steer us to an elevator.

We arrive on the third floor and then we’re shuffled down a wing of the building. In the short time I’ve been here, no one’s tried to take my weapons. I wonder how long that will last.

Eventually, the group of us halt in front of a solid wood door. I still have no idea what’s going on.

Marco stops alongside me.

“Not you,” one of the soldier’s barks. “That’s the former queen’s room.”

Former
queen. The WUN is already taking efforts to strip me of my titles.

“I’m still Queen of the East, soldier.” I say to the guard that spoke. “Do yourself and your leaders a favor and don’t piss me off until after we have a signed peace agreement.”

The guard dips his head and manages to bite out, “Apologies, Your Majesty.”

Marco leans in. “Be careful,” he whispers. I don’t have time to get a good look at his face before he’s led farther down the hall.

Five guards remain at my side, and while one of them is busy unlocking the door, another says, “The representatives would like to give you a chance to sleep before you meet with them. They give you their regards and look forward to speaking with you in person tomorrow.”

The door to my room opens, and a luxurious guest suite waits for me on the other side. I assess it like one would a trap.

“Please,” one of the guards says, gesturing for me to enter.

I eye him, just to let him know I am no fool. I’m aware that as soon as the door closes behind me, I’ll be locked in.

Knowing this doesn’t change the fact that I’m supposed to at least attempt to go along with the West’s schemes. So I step inside.

“We’ll be posted outside your doorway and along the halls for your protection.”
So don’t try anything.

“Tomorrow at eight a.m.,” the soldier continues, “we will escort you to the representatives.”

The soldier doesn’t wait for my response. The door closes behind me. Just for the hell of it, I try the doorknob.

It doesn’t budge.

Short of shooting my way out of this room, I’m trapped.

I bathe, washing
off the smoke and dust that seems as though it’s embedded itself into my skin.

After I finish, I shake out my old clothes and put them back on. Briefly I eye the platter of cheeses and cold cuts someone’s left out for me, along with a pitcher of water and an uncorked bottle of wine.

If only I trusted the representatives not to poison me. Instead I drink water from the tap. Even if the WUN’s water supply doesn’t filter out radiation, I’d rather take my chances with it than with these men.

I unholster my guns, and once I make sure the safety’s off on both of them, I place the weapons under the pillows of the large bed that dominates the room. Most people that enter this walled city don’t come out alive. If they come for me, I’m not dying without a fight.

Pulling back the covers, I slide into bed, combat boots and all. Just to be ready.

Now that I’m in bed, my body at rest, my mind only wants to return to one thing.

The king.

My throat closes up at the thought of him. I should’ve forced Heinrich to let me see the Sleeper’s readout, I should’ve stayed longer to make sure Montes lived through his wound. I can’t bear the thought of that powerful body of his devoid of life. Life that I snuffed out.

My chest tightens. He survived the gunshot. I
have
to believe that.

I cover my eyes with my hand. I shouldn’t be worrying about the king when I’m currently sleeping in the lion’s den. The odds of me escaping this place aren’t good.

I fall asleep without realizing it, and when I wake, it’s dark out. I’m disoriented before I remember. The bombs, the king whom I fatally shot, the flight over.

And now this.

The king’s reckoning came yesterday. Mine will come today.

Grabbing my guns, I get up and sit at the window that faces out onto the street below. The city is dark beyond. Every so often I see a light glimmer from somewhere far off in the distance.

Even here in the WUN’s capital, the world is bleak. I’d hoped that a century would be long enough for my homeland to get back on its feet, but obviously it wasn’t.

I lean my head against the window. I should get back to bed; I need the sleep. But I can already tell it won’t happen anytime soon. I’m too wired, and even if I wasn’t, the West has a habit of snatching people up in the night.

So I watch and I wait.

I’m comfortable with this. There’s a lot about war that is simply waiting. Waiting to kill. Waiting to die. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Hours pass before I hear footsteps moving down the hall, straight towards my room.

I pull out one of my guns but don’t bother aiming it. Not yet.

Is it Marco? A representative? My executioner?

My money is on this last one.

The door that’s been locked since I entered now creaks open.

I wait as a shadow enters the room. It’s big enough for me to know it’s a man, probably a soldier on active duty.

I wait, studying the individual while they cross the floor and head towards my bed. Their eyes clearly haven’t adjusted, or else they’d know I was no longer in it.

Now I point the gun.

“Were you planning on killing me in my sleep?” I rise to my feet slowly as I speak, gun still trained on my target.

“My queen.”

Styx.

He’s going to come for you at some point.

I step away from the window, my aim trained on Styx’s chest. “Or were you simply going to rape me?”

Styx isn’t like Montes. He might want me just as the king did all those years ago, but at least then the king had struggled with the morality of the situation. This man hasn’t. I sense that if he gets the chance, he’ll assault me and he’ll enjoy it.

Just knowing that has me putting pressure on the trigger.

“I came to talk,” he says. I see his silhouette lean against the wall next to my bed.

“And that’s why you knocked.” If I shot this man now, how would that affect my meeting with the representatives? It’s very, very tempting.

“I still can’t believe you’re real,” he says in a hushed tone. “That you have a personality behind that face. I’ve wondered what you would be like. I didn’t imagine this.”

He takes a step forward, out of the shadows. The moonlight catches the contours of his face. It brings out his scars. He looks more monster than man.

“That’s the last step you get,” I say. “Move towards me again, and you’re going to bleed.”

He lifts his hands in the air, like that’ll appease me. “I wanted to speak privately with you.”

“There’s no such thing as privacy here, Garcia.”

“I don’t want to talk about politics,” he says.

That leaves personal affairs. “We have nothing else to talk about.”

“Come now, my queen, we will be working closely together in the coming days, and you need friends in this world.” He’s the worst type of predator. I’m amazed that after everything he’s seen of me, and after that sneaky entrance of his, he still thinks he can convince me to let down my guard.

“You think I’ve never come across men like you? You think I haven’t
killed
men like you?” I say. “There are cemeteries of them beneath this earth.”

“Are you trying to scare me?” He hasn’t dropped his jovial act.

“My first victims were exactly like you. Big men who thought that they could take advantage of a little girl. They picked the wrong girl.”

Attached to Garcia’s side I can see the handle of a wicked knife. It’s the kind of weapon that you used to subdue someone. Place it right next to their jugular and you’ll get a person to cooperate real well.

I have no doubt he was going to use that on me.

“I don’t know who you think I am,” Styx says, starting to sound aggravated, “but I came here to get to know you. Nothing more.”

“I don’t want to know anything about you,” I say, “and I sure as hell don’t want you know anything about me.”

In the moonlight, I see his expression tighten. Any minute now he’s going to get violent. Fortunately for me, a bullet moves faster than a full grown man.

“Now,” I say, “get the fuck out of my room, or I will shoot your dick off.” I’m tempted to anyway. I have an unhealthy amount of violence for predators.

The seconds tick by, and he doesn’t move. Just when I’m about to pull the trigger, the corner of his mouth lifts. “You will be fun to tame.” His voice—hell, his entire demeanor—changes.

Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him
, my heart chants.

I can’t. Not yet, anyway.

My upper lip curls. “Get. Out.”

He inclines his head. Still keeping his hands in the air, he backs up, towards the door. The barrel of my gun follows him. I know enough about men to know that this one is obscenely dangerous. Not the same way Montes is. Styx is not terribly strategic or calculating.

He’s just evil.

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” he says when he reaches for the knob. “Sleep well.”

As soon as he leaves the room, I sag against the window.

That was far too close a call.

It’s only once
the sun peaks out from between the mountains that someone else comes for me.

These footfalls are not quiet, which is a relief. If Styx Garcia came for me again, I wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

The door to my room opens, and I see a familiar face. Chief Officer Collins stands with a group of soldiers out in the hallway.

“It’s good to see you again, Your Majesty,” Collins says by way of greeting.

The feeling isn’t mutual.

He and the soldiers march me to the Iudicium’s main room, the same place where, only weeks ago, I agreed to kill the king.

Twelve representatives wait for me. I bite back my disappointment when I see that thirteenth seat once again unoccupied.

My plan hinged on having all thirteen representatives gathered in a single room.

When I’d plotted with Heinrich, I’d been so sure the cocky SOBs would finally unveil their elusive thirteenth representative.

I stare up at them, no longer in shackles like I was last time, but it doesn’t take handcuffs to be someone’s prisoner. How stupid they must think I am to get myself in this situation.

“You decided to come into the West armed.” Tito is the first to speak, his bulging eyes staring at my firearms.

“And you decided to lock the Queen of the East in a guestroom,” I say. I glance at the several guards that still surround me. “I was brought here under the assumption that we were going to discuss a peace treaty between our two hemispheres as allies would.”

“Yes, we will discuss the treaty momentarily,” Alan says. “Please,” he gestures to the benches that face them, “be seated.”

“I prefer to stand.” My eyes move over the representatives. “What, exactly, is the hold up?”

“We’re waiting for the bloodwork and dental records to come back,” Alan says.

I stare stoically at him.

He leans forward. “You didn’t think we were just going to assume the body you gave us was the king’s, did you?”

I don’t respond.

“Once it all checks out,” Alan continues, “we will begin negotiations.”

Not five minutes later, someone knocks on the double doors at my back.

“Ah,” Alan says, “that should be the medical examiner. Let him in, let him in.”

I can feel Ronaldo’s eyes on me. “Troy,” the traitor-turned-representative says to one of his soldiers, “keep a bead on the queen. If the results don’t match the king, please shoot her where she stands.”

A soldier to my right removes his gun from its holster, the barrel of it pointed at my temple.

My situation settles over my shoulders.

I’m not leaving here alive. And now all I can think about is my monstrous king.

He’s going to wake up and I’m going to be dead, and I can’t guarantee that the world will survive it.

A man in a lab coat strides down the aisle, stopping just a few feet away from me.

“The results?” one of representatives inquires.

The man’s eyes slide to me, then back to the line of men sitting above us.

“It checks out. The body is that of Montes Lazuli.”

Chapter 55

Serenity

It takes a
moment to register.

The DNA matches?

Impossible
.

Is the man lying? That’s the most obvious possibility.

The soldier to my right lowers his weapon.

“Do you swear before God and men that this is the truth?” Ronaldo asks the medical examiner. I can tell he’s hoping it isn’t.

“I do,” the medical examiner says. “My technicians can verify it. The remains belong to the former king.”

The representatives look almost disappointed.

The remains are the king’s.

“It seems our suspicions were misplaced,” one of them says to me. “Our apologies. Surely you understand …”

The king is … dead?

I give no sign of it, but my fallen heart is falling apart. It fell for a fallen king amongst the ruins of this fallen world. And all of that has now fallen into the hands of these men.

No, I refuse to believe that. There was a mix up of some sort. The king can’t be dead. Otherwise, these men win, and they don’t get to win. That is not how this world ends.

The double doors swing open again.

I swivel to see who’s entered this time.

Styx Garcia strides down the aisle behind us, his eyes devouring me.

I fight the urge to touch my gun.

What’s he doing here?

This is not going according to plan.

“You’re late,” one of the representatives says.

“I couldn’t fall asleep.” He stares at me proprietarily. “Jet lag.”

I watch him with narrowed eyes as he passes me and heads back behind the representatives, taking the final, empty seat.

I don’t breathe.

Styx Garcia is the thirteenth representative.

“You’re surprised,” Styx
notes, scooting his chair in.

I don’t bother denying it.

He leans forward. “How do you think I managed to find you in the first place?”

“The First Free Men?” Did the group even exist, or was it just an elaborate ruse meant to throw off the East?

“A real organization that I also run. Convenient when the West needs mercenaries to get a job done without any of the messy political ties.”

Removing me from the Sleeper had been one of those jobs.

“My queen, I will admit, I didn’t think you had it in you to kill the king,” Styx says, changing the subject. “You’re a more dangerous woman than even I gave you credit for.”

I’m going to die. I can sense it.

“We are in a quandary, Serenity,” Ronaldo interjects. “We could just kill you—that would be the easiest.

“But that still leaves the problem of swaying public opinion. It seems they like you.

“Fortunately, Styx here has a solution.”

The representative in question leans back in his chair, his sick eyes on me.

You will be fun to tame.

He doesn’t even have to say what the solution is.

We will be working closely together in the coming days.

My anger feasts on the indignity of their proposal. I’ve already been given once to a man. That will never happen again.

I’m done with the deception.

I let them see my empty, empty eyes. Killer’s eyes.

In the distance, I hear a muffled sound. The ground shivers then resettles.

I am chaos. I am the undoing of man. And all the world will fall to my feet.

That’s what this feels like. That’s what everything since my awakening feels like. And today it ends.