The Queen of Traitors (The Fallen World Book 2)

  He gestures for me to stand. I do so, and the two of us lock eyes. I think for a moment we are wondering what kind of person the other one is. What kind of woman marries a tyrant ruler? What kind of religious man ordains a killer as queen? Staring at him, I realize we might both simply be decent people cornered into powerful roles. Everyone can be bought, but the price is not always power. I wonder what his was.

  He speaks again in Latin, makes the sign of the cross again, and then indicates for me to face the crowd.

  I swivel and find hundreds of faces staring back at me. But there’s one face my eyes seek out. He’s the only other person besides me and the man behind me who remains standing. His dark eyes gleam with approval.

  For the first time since I entered the Cathedral, the man behind me speaks in English. “I present to you, Her Majesty Serenity Lazuli, High Consort of the King, Queen Regent of the East and the West.

  “Long live the queen!”

  Chapter 26

  Serenity

  I’m staring out the window of my room at Geneva’s broken city. It presses up against the edge of the palace grounds and fans out to what I can see of the horizon.

  I don’t like this place; it holds too many bad memories. I keep wanting to hunt down the suite my father and I stayed in. It’s macabre, but I feel like if I went there, I’d run into him—or at least see the stain his blood left on the carpet.

  I touch my crown and prick myself on one of its points. They might as well be thorns. They look like thorns, they feel like thorns, the only difference is that these thorns are golden and shine in the light.

  I pull the thing off and stare at it.

  “It’s not going to bite you.”

  I don’t turn around when I hear Montes’s voice. He’ll demand attention soon enough—he always does—but I won’t give him any immediate gratification. I’ve been whittled down to petty acts of rebellion.

  “How long have you been planning that?” I ask.

  “The coronation? Since we returned,” he answers.

  “I’m actually impressed,” I say, running my thumb over the spires of my crown. “You coordinated an entire ceremony, a feat you managed to keep me in the dark about, and you executed it all without making me look like a fool.”

  I think he recognizes what I’m not saying.

  You deceived me.

  You made me vulnerable in a room full of wolves.

  You forced my hand.

  “Our enemies already recognize your position as my wife; it’s time the people recognize it as well.”

  I rotate to face him. His eyes glint as he watches me. He wears a crown of his own, and the sight of it brings back all those months and years when he was just an evil so unnatural that he defied the very laws of nature. He seems just as inhuman now—just as dark, just as beautiful, just as untouchable.

  I should renew that old vow and kill the king where he stands. My gun is holstered against my inner thigh. It would take seconds to pull it out, aim, and fire a lethal shot. Hit that terrible mind of his and destroy all chances of him ever being revived.

  I won’t act on the fantasy. This evil man has awoken my heart. I don’t understand why or how, but he has, and even my ironclad will doesn’t stand a chance against it.

  Montes strides across the room and takes the crown out of my hand. He studies it.

  “Whether you like it or not,” he says, “you were always a queen. You were this morning before you woke up, you were the day I slid my ring onto your finger. You were the first time I laid eyes on you. You were queen the first time you drew blood, and the first moment you drew breath.” Very deliberately, he places the crown on my head. “The coronation makes no difference because here,” he touches my temple, “and here,” he touches my heart, “you’ve always been this way.”

  He has no idea that while he waxes on about queenship, I’ve been debating whether or not I could kill him.

  “I’m calling bullshit,” I say.

  He laughs and extends his arm. “Come, Queen Regent, you have a coronation banquet to attend, and our child needs to eat.”

  And there it is, the final nail in the coffin: he has compassion, and now we share more than just bloody, deadly love between us. We share life.

  We head down the hall, towards the ballroom where I first met the king. The doors leading to it are closed, but muffled conversation and laughter still filter out. I’m hit with a powerful wave of déjà vu. Not so long ago I walked down this hall with my hand tucked into the crook of another man’s arm and together we faced the same pair of closed doors. But then it was my father, and the dreaded meeting was with the king.

  Now the very monster I feared is the one lending support at my side. I breathe in deeply.

  “All you have to do is eat a little and nod to people you don’t know,” Montes says, misreading me. “Oh, and don’t stab anyone in the eye with the utensils.”

  “Montes, I’m not going to stab anyone with anything.” That’s what my gun’s for.

  We stop at the doors and wait for the guards to open them. “It’ll take an hour,” he says, “and then we’ll leave.”

  The doors swing open. The moment the room comes into view, the guests fall silent even as they rise to their feet. I wonder what they see when they look at me and the king. Their nightmares swathed in silk and crowned in gold? Or are we more benign in their eyes than that? I know what I see. This place is the bastion of extravagance and corruption.

  “May I now present you with Your Majesties the King and Queen Montes Lazuli, Sovereigns of the East and the West.”

  Applause erupts and amidst the noise I hear shouts of “Long live the king! Long live the queen!”

  Montes leads me down the stairs. As I pass by our guests, they bow.

  The whole thing is more than a little unnerving.

  The ballroom is now an expansive dining room. Everything that’s not gilded at least gleams. The clothing, the jewels, the candlelight, even the guests’ eyes and smiles.

  There’s a table at the far end of the room and at its center are two empty seats. I just need to make it there and then converse with people I despise.

  It’s times like these that I’m almost positive I somehow already died and this is my hell.

  When we get to our designated table, the king pulls out my seat, just as he always insists on doing. I sit—and just about scream when I realize who is across from me.

  I have died. This is hell.

  “Congratulations, Your Majesty,” the Beast of the East says.

  I don’t see him; I see a string of broken women.

  This monster is going to die before the dinner is over.

  I glare at the Beast—Alexei is far too innocent a name for this thing—until he looks away. Even that’s not good enough. I begin tracing the serrated edge of my steak knife with my finger.

  I don’t care at this point that nearly a dozen cameras are capturing every second of this dinner. I’ll kill this monster where he sits, and then I will stand on his corpse and laugh.

  Not five minutes after we’ve taken our seats, the waiters begin bringing out dinner. The sight and smell of all that red meat …

  I think of the grenades tossed at Estes’s estate. The smell of charred humans that drifted in the air. The sight of those bodies ripped open, their innards exposed.

  My nausea is climbing up my throat. I press the back of my hand to my mouth. I thought morning sickness behaved its damn self and stuck to mornings.

  “Are you alright?” the Beast asks.

  I ignore him while Montes drapes his arm over the back of my chair and rubs my neck. He leans in. “Do you want me to send back the food?” he asks quietly, reading my reaction.

  I look over at him. Is he seriously considering wasting every sin
gle plate of food all because of me? It’s horrifying, this power I wield, this power the king seems happy to bestow upon me.

  I rear back as I assess him.

  The psycho is serious.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Very well.” Montes still flags down a waiter and discusses something with him. The waiter’s eyes focus on the Beast as he listens. Finally, he nods to Montes and leaves. A short while later a bowl of soup and a basket of bread are set in front of me.

  I glance over at the king. He goes on talking to the men on his left, but the hand still resting on my neck gives a light squeeze.

  He ordered me soup so I wouldn’t have to eat the meat. It’s just one more considerate thing the king’s done on my behalf.

  I break the bread and dip it into the soup. This I can palate.

  I’m halfway through it when the king’s lips brush against my ear. “Better?” he asks.

  I turn into him, my lips brushing his. “Much.”

  This might be the first time I’ve been genuinely affectionate with the king in public.

  “Good,” he says, his voice roughening.

  Someone begins clinking a knife against their glass.

  When Montes smiles, I feel it low in my belly.

  “Do you remember what that means?” he asks.

  I do. They want us to kiss.

  I lean in the remaining distance and press my lips against his. I can feel his surprise in the way he returns the kiss and the slow smile that gets incorporated into it. Our audience begins to clap, and though my skin prickles uncomfortably from the attention, I don’t pull away until the kiss is done.

  We break apart slowly. Montes is gazing at me, his brows slightly pinched, his mouth curved with amusement. He leans in and steals another brief kiss. Then he lounges back in his chair and reaches for his wine glass. Lifting it, he surveys the room, but it’s me he looks at when he takes a lazy sip from it.

  I grab my glass of water with a shaky hand. Either it’s all the eyes on us, or my own actions, but I’m not nearly as composed as the king.

  “How does it feel to be the queen regent?” the Beast asks, drawing my attention to him. He cuts into his steak as he speaks. Blood seeps out of the nearly raw interior.

  My eyes drift from his plate to my own. I take a sip of my soup and pretend he doesn’t exist.

  Only he won’t let me.

  “I mean,” he continues, “technically you were queen since you married our king, but today he handed over part of his empire to you.” He shakes his head. “I never thought I’d see the day he shared his power with anyone. You must be something.” His knife scrapes against the porcelain as he cuts into the meat again.

  I can’t take it anymore. The smell of the meat, the sight of this abomination, the stifling civility of these people. We’re all barbarians here, and we know it.

  I’m done pretending.

  I lean forward. Somewhere along the way, I released the soup spoon and exchanged it for something a little sharper. I’m now gripping the steak knife in my hand and not wholly sure how it got there.

  “I’m going to tell you this just once,” I say. “If you so much as look at me wrong, I will castrate you with the nearest object.” My voice is low and angry. “Then I will throw you into the worst prison I can think of. One of the ones where they’ll have fun with you—and I’ll make sure they do. And if I ever catch wind that you’ve raped”—I hear a gasp from one of our nearest guests, and feel Montes’s eyes immediately on me—“anyone else, I will do all that and worse.”

  Other than looking a little pale, the Beast appears unruffled. Either he’s schooling his features well, or he can’t bother to be intimidated by me. It’s probably some mixture of both.

  He stares at me for a long second then inclines his head. “Understood.”

  “Good.” I release the knife and return to my soup.

  Conversation, which had quieted for a moment, picks back up.

  My left hand rests on the table, and I feel the king cover it with his own. He leans in close. “I’d been almost positive I’d have to dig a knife out of Gorev’s skull,” he says quietly, eyeing the Beast, who is now in a conversation with the person to his left.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  The king’s hand tightens around mine. “No, it isn’t. Save the killing for when the cameras aren’t around.”

  I give him an exasperated look, but I relent. The Beast is safe.

  For now.

  I wake up in the middle of the night to terrible, throbbing pain. At first it simply stirred me from sleep. I’d roll, reposition myself, and go back to bed.

  But now my eyes snap open as the pain rips through my abdomen like a knife wound to the gut. My skin is slick with sweat, and the sheets stick to it.

  My hand drops my lower stomach, where it hurts the worst. Several seconds later another wave hits. I let out a groan and fist the comforter as it cramps up my muscles.

  “Serenity?” Montes’s voice is thick with sleep.

  When he tries to pull me to him, I let out a gasp.

  “What’s wrong?” Now he sounds wide awake. He clicks on the bedside lamp and turns back to me.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  A healthy body shouldn’t be doing this. Montes and his doctors have been swearing up and down that I’m alright, but right now I don’t feel alright. I feel wrong.

  Very, very wrong.

  My pelvis cramps so sharply that I release a strangled sound. I’m being wounded from the inside out.

  One of Montes’s arms slides behind my back. The other touches my cheek and tilts my head to face him. “Do you need a doctor?”

  I shake my head, then nod. I don’t know. I grip Montes’s upper arm as the cramps intensify.

  Oh God, dear God, I think I know what’s happening.

  I squeeze his arm. “Montes,” I say. “Our child …” This is the first time I’ve openly acknowledged the baby as ours.

  His expression doesn’t exactly change, but I see it—fear.

  I choke on a silent cry as the pain somehow gets worse. Warm, wet fluid seeps out between my thighs. I can’t look away from him as it’s happening.

  Montes’s eyes search mine, and there’s such desolation in them.

  He begins to pull away.

  I latch onto his upper arm. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Serenity, I need to call a doctor.” He’s pleading.

  A tear slips out before I can help it. “I think it’s already too late,” I whisper.

  Chapter 27

  Serenity

  Some days I want to live, and other days, like today, I want to die.

  I shouldn’t feel this sadness, this overwhelming grief. I hadn’t even thought I wanted a child. Especially not this one. Only once it was too late do I find out I did. Now I can actually admit that I might’ve even been excited.

  But just like everything else in my life, all roads lead back to death.

  I lean against the pillows propped up behind me like I’m some kind of invalid. The sheets have already been changed, the bloodstains removed like they never existed. I’ve now lost two family members within these walls.

  This place is cursed.

  “… These things just sometimes happen,” the doctor is saying to Montes.

  The king paces, one of his hands squeezing his lower jaw almost painfully. Other than that single tear I shed, neither of us has cried. We bottle up our emotions because to dwell on them might just destroy us, and the king and I, we won’t let anything consume what’s left of us.

  I stare at the far wall, study the gilded edges of the molding. The impersonal art painted by an expert hand that hangs just below it.

  “Serenity … Seren
ity.”

  I blink and refocus my attention on the king.

  He takes my hand. I don’t realize that I’ve been fisting it until he smooths the fingers out. Each nail has left bloody, crescent-shaped wounds in the pads of my palm. “You’re going to need to get into the Sleeper so that everything’s been properly flushed out—”

  “I’m not getting in your fucking machine ever again.”

  That’s probably a lie. I’m speaking from my heart right now. The weight of this terrible existence is pressing down on me, and I can barely breathe through it.

  I don’t want more of this.

  Montes’s hand squeezes mine. “I’m not giving you a choice.” He sounds as close to losing it as I’ve ever heard him. “Either you get into the Sleeper on your own free will, or it happens by force.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. He’s not the only one close to the edge. But anger lifts the fog I’ve been under for the last couple hours.

  What’s happened to me today can’t happen again. I won’t let it.

  Montes will force me into the Sleeper, that I don’t doubt. But if I go willingly …

  I run my tongue over my teeth. “I’ll do it—on one condition.”

  Montes and the doctor wait for me to finish.

  “I don’t want to get pregnant again.”

  The King

  They give her a birth control shot. It won’t last forever like she wants it to, but it will keep her sterile for a while. Long enough for both of us to grieve and move on.

  My hand covers my mouth as they sedate her and place her in the Sleeper.

  Now I’ve lost two people in mere hours. Serenity will be fine in a few days, once her body has purged the last of the fetus and the Sleeper has expunged the most recent flare-ups of her cancer.