Kevin Wyndham didn’t save the world from the greatest agricultural disaster in the history of mankind.
He invented it.
He could have stopped it at any moment. But he didn’t. Not until a billion—a billion—people had died.
This young, ambitious CEO wanted so badly to put his company on the map, to immortalize himself and his work, to make more money than most companies could ever dream of, that he allowed more than a billion men, women, and children to starve to death.
And the current King, the one I’m married to, knows it.
My throne is built on the lives of a billion innocents. More, depending on secondary effects. The Norwegian Blight led to a complete collapse of the third world. Whole nations languished in anarchy for decades. Wars were fought over the economic fallout. Sonoma shone a beacon of hope into that darkness—hope for the salvation of humankind.
It’s a lie.
It’s worse than a lie. It’s an act of such inhuman depravity I can scarcely comprehend it. I’m not certain there’s any single person in history responsible for more destroyed human lives than my husband’s great-grandfather. I feel sick.
Who else knows? Surely it’s a closely held secret; I doubt even the highest of the high nobility is aware.
It’s surely the greatest of all Sonoma’s secrets.
With the hot burn of tears in my eyes, I realize that this terrible, devastating discovery is exactly what I’d hoped for.
Blackmail.
And the thrill that sends through me says, more plainly than anything else possibly could, that the good part of me I thought I could tuck away, the last remnant of conscience I thought I could lay claim to, is gone.
I AWAIT MY husband’s helicopter in paralyzing fear. Not of him—not really. Not anymore. It’s me I fear now. This is the hardest I’ve ever had to work to hide my disgust for the man. My disgust for myself. How many people suffered and died so I could wear this pretty dress? It’ll take every ounce of self-control, every trick Giovanni ever taught me, to disguise what I feel for Justin. I even asked Saber to stay in my chambers tonight. I can’t face Justin with a smile when I know Saber is watching me. Maybe tomorrow, but not tonight. Not this first time, when my pretending will be put to the ultimate test.
I can’t rationally blame Justin for the actions of his great-grandfather—money and power may be heritable, but guilt isn’t something any child should be expected to bear for their ancestors. No, not even if they’re descended from the most prolific mass murderer in history. But grave damage was done, and even though Justin knows it, he’s preparing a move that will enrich his company in similar ways by causing similar damage, through his robotic revolution. Not only does he not care, he revels in it. Guilt isn’t passed from parent to child, but that doesn’t mean the apple falls far from the tree.
Last time—the Norwegian Blight—we saved the world. No one will think us so heroic this time.
Or will they? In five hundred years, will anyone care about the people who will suffer, perhaps die, as a result of the poverty triggered by Sonoma and Amalgamated’s robots? Or will they only speak of the pioneers who invented a new way of life? Visionaries who paved a broad and bloody path?
If I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that everything has a cost. All the awful things I’ve done, desperately or deliberately, were the price tags on what I desired. But I would never, never, sacrifice a billion—a billion!—lives for something as hollow as profits.
For all my loathing, it’s impossible to miss the fact that His Highness looks both stunning and extraordinarily pleased to see me. He sweeps me against him, then smiles broadly at the small crowd that has gathered to greet him.
“You’re looking ravishing,” he growls in my ear, and I pretend to preen. His fingers burn like fire on my arm, and I swallow hard as I simper up at him. I’m pleased he thinks I look well—I’ve been up until the blush hours of dawn, coding and programming, for days, and the foundation hiding the circles beneath my eyes is probably thicker than my skin. But I’m only going to get one chance, and when it arrives, I’d better be ready.
“Did you miss me?” I whisper.
“Miss you? I burned for you.”
Evil, Lord Aaron said. Lord Aaron is always right. My hands quiver and I grip the lapels of the King’s velvet jacket to still them, hoping he doesn’t notice. I play my role as devoted Queen to the hilt, as much to hide from Justin as anything. The King waves at the assembled crowd, then reaches around my back to pull me closer.
Oh dear. I’m going to have to kiss him, aren’t I?
And then his lips are pressed to mine, his tongue snaking past my teeth, making it quite apparent that this is a kiss I’m meant to very fully participate in. I close my eyes and think of England. Or Canada. Or Spain. Any place except the square of marble on which I’m standing.
When at last he pulls away, my face is flushed, and I’m certain the audience thinks I’m pleasantly blushing rather than surging with fury.
“Did you have a nice week?” Justin asks, smooth and quiet.
“I did, yes,” I answer, wondering if I’m supposed to object that any week in which we’re separated cannot possibly hold much enjoyment. But such a lie is so gaping I can’t force it out of my throat.
“Good, good. Enjoying your new assignment, Lady Senior Vice President?”
“Luckily, I had little cause to consider it.” If I were wearing pants, they would be aflame. I’ve lurked in so many high-security rooms this week that I could never have had access to before.
It’s only when the welcoming crowd begins to thin that I realize a bot is trailing after Justin. Catching my glance, the King grins and leans close to my ear. “One of the new-wave ones. A little personal testing. All dressed up, I doubt anyone will notice the difference.”
I steal another glance at what looks like an utterly harmless bit of machinery. Even a few weeks ago I’d have simply seen it as the tool Sonoma and Amalgamated will use to enrich themselves and impoverish others.
Now? After discovering how ruthless Justin’s great-grandfather was—knowing a hundred years later how devastating and far-reaching the consequences of his greed would prove—I feel this new threat as keenly as Lord Aaron. It seems so urgent suddenly, in a way Lord Aaron never could quite convey, much as he tried. How ignorant he must have thought me. Unfeeling.
I understand now.
“I was in Washington, DC, three days ago,” the King says, oblivious to my dismay. “The United States government has signed a contract with Sonoma and Amalgamated for one million of these, to be delivered in batches over the next five years.”
“Congratulations,” I say, my heart sinking at the thought of how many human jobs those bots will replace. “That’s wonderful.” Government work remains one of the few stable industries in many nations around the world. If the United States replaces their federal workers with bots, the rest of the world will be eager to follow.
“It’s more than wonderful,” he says. “It’s…revolutionary!”
I successfully keep myself from cringing at his choice of words. Sometimes one must be content with the small victories.
“Consider the implications, Danica,” he crows. “Manufacturing, retail, law enforcement—even military operations, if we can get a few of the peskier treaties amended. Ridiculous, isn’t it, to insist that countries defend themselves by shedding human blood? Think of the lives we’ll save selling these little mechanical surrogates. It takes twenty years to grow a soldier—but we can manufacture a new bot in less than a week.”
That’s what he’ll emphasize, of course—to put it in Justin’s own terms, that’s his plausible explanation, his bait. What he won’t emphasize is that we’ll be selling bots to both sides. Meanwhile the hundreds of soldiers these bots might spare—thousands, even—will be unemployed. How many children will go hungry? How grateful can a soldier be t
o escape the front lines when he and his family are starving to death?
To say nothing of what a despot could do with an army of unfailingly loyal robotic servants. Even history’s greatest tyrants had to have some way to ensure the loyalty of the men and women who supported their rule. The unfaltering devotion of Justin’s new bots can be had for, what? A monthly subscription fee? It’s terrifying.
My brain tells me this is a slippery slope, a situation hardly likely to happen within my lifetime—to be banned by some new treaty or other intervention—but in light of the fact that this man’s great-grandfather personally engineered the most traumatic agricultural disaster in recorded history, nothing seems far-fetched.
* * *
—
“IT’S HARD TO even look at him,” I confess to Saber after a long and sweaty core workout. I’m exhausted, but the ache makes me feel good. Strong. “Harder than before I knew about the Blight. Knowing what I know, I couldn’t stay, even if nothing else had happened. I can’t even passively condone such a thing. I can’t. All those people,” I finish in a whisper.
“I don’t blame you,” Saber says. “Just don’t get yourself killed in the process, okay?”
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close without saying a word. It’s not a promise I can make with a clear conscience.
He’s not stupid. He knows I didn’t say the words and he sighs long and loud and then shakes me theatrically. “You’re impossible.”
“You think I’m hard to deal with? You won’t even let me dream.”
But my joking words sober us both. “I’m sorry about that,” he says.
“I know.”
“I saw Reginald this morning,” Saber says.
I look up sharply, eyes wide. “Reginald himself?” I shake off a shiver when I realize Saber’s countdown must have been low. Still—it’s been hours and he didn’t tell me. “You didn’t say anything. Did you give him my message?”
He shrugs with one shoulder. “He says no.”
“What do you mean, ‘he says no’?”
“He says no, Danica,” Saber snaps. I’m not sure he’s ever raised his voice to me. Not like this. “You can’t just demand his presence. He’s not a courtier. Despite everything I’ve told you, and shown you, and that you’ve found out on your own, you have no idea who you’re actually dealing with. He doesn’t come when you call. And if he doesn’t want to see you, he’s not going to see you.”
“He’s seen me before,” I say weakly. I need this meeting. And I need it soon. I can’t live with Justin. Not with what I know. What I’ve done.
“Yeah, when there was something he wanted from you,” Saber yells, flinging a hand out toward me. “He has no reason to meet with you anymore. It gains him nothing. You think he’s doing you a favor? You think you’re really business partners? He respects no one. He’s an insane, hate-filled, power-hungry—”
I see the moment Saber realizes he’s shouting and watch him shut down entirely. He closes his mouth, slumps his shoulders forward, shoves his fists in his pockets as though he wishes he could turn invisible. It makes my heart cry out in agony to watch him close down everything that makes him my Saber, and to transform into a lowly slave instead.
I can’t let this stand. I have to get him out, whatever it takes. I never want to see this side of Saber again—but that’s a goal I can’t reach without making use of the very subservience I hope to banish. With guilt stabbing at my heart, I say sharply, “Well, then, I guess I need to do something to make it worth his while.”
Before he can stop me I’m tearing down the hallway and into my private office. After yanking supplies out of drawers, I scribble on a piece of parchment, then fold it up small and retrieve a stick of sealing wax.
“What are you doing?” Saber asks, sounding scared as he lingers just outside my doorway.
I hate that shiver of fear in his voice, but I have to do this with or without his approval. As soon as I press my royal seal into the warm wax I rise from my desk and approach my damsel—so to speak—in distress.
Someday, I’ll stop being a source of that distress.
“Danica, don’t,” Saber pleads, spreading his arms across the doorway to block my way. “Leave this alone. Don’t antagonize him. I’ve never, ever seen anyone rebel against Reginald and live to tell about it.” He implores me with haunted eyes. “I’d rather see you live than have both of us die.”
I pause at that. But only for a second. “And I would rather die than see you remain in slavery to that man for one more day, so I guess we’re both going to be disappointed.”
His eyes widen in surprise, but he takes a step back and drops his arms in surrender. I step through beside him and close the door. Not even Saber can be allowed to stand in my way. Not anymore. “M.A.R.I.E., change of access to my private office. Accessible to no one but the Queen, Danica Wyndham: fingerprint and facial scan required.”
“You’re barring me from your office?” Saber whispers.
“I’m barring you from the room where the money is,” I say softly, choosing my words with care. “So when his man comes and asks where the payment is, you can honestly tell him you have no access to it. Instead, you will give him this note: it says that he gets paid when he agrees to meet me, and not sooner. He can grant me a face-to-face or stop selling in Versailles altogether. Now he has something to gain.”
I hold out the note, but when Saber doesn’t take it, I shove it into the top of his waistcoat and push past him on my way back to my bedchamber.
“Danica, wait—”
“No!” I shout, turning back around to face him. Now I’m the one yelling. “I’m doing this with or without your permission, and you’re going to have to trust me.”
Saber is quiet for a long time. When he looks up at me, there isn’t sadness blazing in his eyes, but anger. I take a step backward. I’ve never seen him angry with me. Not like this. “I am a slave,” he says, the words cutting like a blade to my heart. “But don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking that I’m your slave.”
SABER DOESN’T COME BACK.
For three days.
Every single night, I sit on the edge of my bed, unable to sleep, watching until sunrise is a blush on the horizon and my eyes drop closed without my permission.
Reginald has never not sent him back.
The money, I tell myself. This must be about the money. I made it about the money. In the end, Reginald is a businessman, and his dealings with me have always been about his greed. He’s holding Saber as collateral. He’s sending me a message.
I’m so weary I scarcely have the energy to put one foot in front of the other as I walk through the door, into my bedchamber, alone, dreading yet another night of fear-driven insomnia. I slide through the door before it opens fully, then push it closed, leaning against it and throwing the bolt.
“Danica.”
Startled, I open my eyes to see a tall, slim figure emerge from the shadowed doorway of my wardrobe.
“Saber.” His name escapes my lips in a whisper. My heart leaps and drops at the same time and I cling to the golden doorknob, trying to stay upright as fear and relief war for space in my heart.
He’s here. He’s alive! At the moment that’s all that can possibly matter.
But he approaches me with eyes so dark I have to suppress a shiver. Then my head snaps to the side, face burning with pain, the force of Saber’s blow sending me reeling. With a strangled cry, he dives to cushion my fall as I collapse to the floor. His hands are on the sides of my face, and his lips cover my stinging skin with soft, gentle kisses. I hiss and pull away when he kisses the side of my mouth; when his face comes back into view, there’s blood on his bottom lip.
My blood.
I touch my face, and my fingers come away bloody. I look between my hand and his mouth. “You hit me.”
His chest spasms, and a horrible sound
bursts from his throat for a moment before he stifles it. “I’m so sorry. I had to. It’s like he told you: if I don’t do as he says, he’ll do it himself—and worse.” Saber’s arms are shaking, his teeth chattering, horror darkening his eyes. “T-t-tonight. He said he’ll meet you tonight, at midnight, but don’t you ever threaten him again. He—I left a mark. I had to leave a mark. Dani, you’ve got to run. I know you don’t want to leave me behind, but I don’t know what he’ll do—”
“Reginald told you to make sure I got the message,” I say flatly.
“He said if you showed up unharmed, he’d—he said he’d make sure I’d wish I’d just killed you. I had to do something. You need a mark, and you need to look defeated. If you show up with a split lip and that look in your eyes, he’ll believe I did my whole job, but you shouldn’t show up at all, he’s so angry—”
“Your whole job…?” So he was supposed to do more. Reginald believed he would do more. It’s nearly killed him to do this much—and honestly, I’ll be fine.
“I’m sorry,” he says, on hands and knees, shaking so hard he can barely hold himself up. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m fine,” I say, though my heart is pounding. “It’ll heal.”
Saber shakes his head.
“Saber.” I’m the one with my hands on either side of his face now, comforting him. “I’m fine; we’re fine. It’ll all be over after tonight.” But I can’t say more than that. For a few more hours, I still have to keep it a secret from him—he’ll only try to stop me.
Gingerly he sits back on his haunches, looking utterly defeated. When I put a hand on his back, he flinches, and I don’t think it’s only from guilt.
“Saber, what did he do to you?” I ask, fury building in my chest. I reach for the untucked tail of his shirt, but he swats my hand away.
“No,” he says. “It’ll only make you angry. And if you go there angry, I don’t think you’ll make it back.” He smiles sadly. “You’ve never been good at hiding anger. But if you don’t go there looking at least a little afraid, he won’t talk to you until he’s made you afraid.”