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

  “You’d do that?” I ask, incredulous. “Blackmail me? Torture me? All just to get what you want?”

  Will’s jaw clenches.

  God, he would. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; this is the role he’s trained for. To be a general, one has to make hard choices, to set one’s feelings aside for the good of the people. Still, I can’t wrap my mind around this side of him. This is not the Will I remember.

  “What happened to you?” I ask, peering at him.

  “What happened to me? What happened to you?” he retorts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were in love with the king.”

  I fist my hands. “Fuck you, Will,” I whisper. “You don’t have to lie with your parents’ killer every night. You don’t have to live with the guilt and disgust that comes with trying to make that situation work, because as queen you have the opportunity to benefit the world.”

  There’s a flicker of remorse in his eyes, but I’m not done.

  “I’ve given every ounce of myself,” I say. “How dare you question my motives.”

  Will reaches up and touches a lock of hair. “I love you Serenity, you know that,” he says. “But this is larger than us—we’re talking about millions of lives here. Millions of lives that we can save.”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do right now?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Whatever it is, it’s not good enough.”

  I lift my chin. “What happens if the king dies? Who leads the world then?”

  “You would, Serenity, along with whoever you appointed.”

  My breath catches. The Resistance’s plans are all so painfully simple. If I came into power, I’d push the agenda I’d been raised with, and I’d likely employ those trusted few people I’d worked and fought alongside. Will would be one of them. Hell, he and the Resistance might’ve taken this a step further and assumed Will would replace the king.

  A little piece of me dies; it’s been dying since the moment I realized my friend allowed me to get shot.

  I’m surrounded by bad men.

  “You are blinded by power, Will.” When had this happened, and how had I never noticed this metamorphosis?

  Will raises his eyebrows and barks out a disbelieving laugh. “You think I am blinded by power?” He leans in, his lip curling. From his expression, I can see that my lack of cooperation has fermented into some more poisonous emotion. “The king has you under his thumb, just where he wants you. Who knew all it took was a little romance and a little dick?”

  In one smooth motion I cock my fist back and slam it into his face. I can feel the agonizing movement across my entire body, and I bite the inside of my cheek to smother my cry. Still, hitting him is incredibly satisfying.

  Will reels back, holding his nose, but I know it’s not broken. I’m too weak at the moment to put much force behind the punch.

  A moment later the door to my cell opens up, and a Resistance soldier steps a foot into the room. Will waves him away. “I’m fine,” he says.

  The man’s eyes dart between us, but he steps back and closes the door, leaving us alone once more.

  I step in close to him. “You and the rest of the WUN traded me for peace,” I say, my voice rising. “If the king brainwashed me, that is your fault. If I’m falling for the king, it’s only because you forced me to marry him.” I’m shaking I’m so angry. “You don’t have the right to use me anymore. You already gave me away.”

  Will reels back, and I see genuine emotion in his eyes. Remorse. Regret.

  I square my jaw. “I won’t do what you ask,” I say, my body still burning with fury. “You will have to torture me.”

  “Serenity.” Will’s voice drops low. “Please.”

  “Screw you, asshole. No.”

  Will exhales. “Fine.” He looks over his shoulder at the one-way mirror beyond. “Omar, can we run that clip of the queen?”

  A few seconds later the screen in the interrogation room winks on. It glows white for a moment, and then footage appears. I suck in a breath at the sight.

  I watch myself step into the doorway of a jet. The short dress I wear is in tatters, and it flaps in the breeze. But it’s not what flares my nostrils as I watch myself descend the stairs to the ground. Maroon blood is caked all over my body, and strange dark flecks of what must have once been flesh are splattered across me. I want to puke at the sight of myself.

  “That’s what will hit the Internet,” Will says. “The king won’t be able to sweep that under the rug—and if he does, we’ll start posting the recordings and emails from the Resistance meetings that incriminate you until he is forced to do something about it. He will kill you. And he’ll enjoy it. Still want to refuse my offer?”

  I close my eyes and swallow. “I never thought you’d be the one to betray me, Will,” I say.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  I open my eyes. “If you want to sentence me to death, so be it. You already received my answer.”

  Will’s nostrils flare. He strides to the table, grasps a chair, and flings it at the one-way mirror. “Goddamnit Serenity, stop being an idiot!”

  I watch him. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

  His chest heaves. “You will be imprisoned, tortured, killed if you don’t agree to do this. Do you care so little for your life?”

  “I live with the devil. I’ve already died and gone to hell. So no, I don’t care.” The truth is, I don’t want to die, and torture scares the shit out of me. But I’ve already bent to the will of too many men. I’m done compromising.

  Will stands motionless. I can tell he doesn’t know what to do. He probably assumed that I’d willingly agree to his plan, and that if I didn’t, pain would sway me. He hadn’t counted on me folding out altogether.

  An alarm in the corner of the room sounds, and then someone radios Will. “The king’s men have found us. The warehouse has been infiltrated.”

  For a split second, Will’s distracted. This is my chance to escape. I don’t want to be the Resistance’s pawn anymore than I’d wanted to be the WUN’s or the king’s. I lunge at him, my hand reaching for his weapon.

  In one smooth move I flick open his holster and pull the gun out. I see a flash of betrayal in Will’s eyes when I point the weapon at him, but I feel no remorse.

  “So what, you’re going to shoot me?” he asks.

  “I’m seriously considering it, you fucker.” My words burn like acid.

  Will tilts his head. “You really are a traitor queen.”

  I pull my arm back and slam the gun into his temple. He crumples to the ground in front of me, unmoving.

  I crouch next to him and avoid looking at his face. It’s hard to reconcile this discontent man with the strong, kind friend I grew up alongside. Of all the ways I thought war would affect me, this is one I hadn’t predicted. I never imagined that I could lose one of my closest companions.

  Beneath my fingers I can feel Will’s pulse. It’s a little sluggish, but he’ll be fine. For now.

  Shots ring out somewhere around me, and I can’t help feeling like a sitting duck in this room, even though the king’s men have come for me. They’ve come for me.

  I search Will’s pockets for a key or a card—something that will get me out of this room. But he has nothing on him, and judging by the look of the door handle, there isn’t a keyhole nor is there a keypad. It seems the interrogation room has been designed to only unlock from the outside. Just my luck.

  Five minutes later the door bursts open. I already have Will’s gun trained on the door, ready to blow away anyone who considers using me as their ticket out of the warehouse. But instead of a Resistance soldier, one of the king’s men surges into the room.

  We make eye contact and I can see the relief soften the expression on his face and lo
osen his taut muscles. I drop the gun in my hand and kick it away.

  The guard grabs a radio from his belt and calls in. “The queen is alive and secure. Repeat, the queen is alive and secure.”

  Will moans on the floor at my feet, and the guard’s eyes snap to him. The guard glances down at my bloodied hospital gown and sucks in a breath. He cocks his gun and points it at Will.

  “It wasn’t him,” I say. “This wound was from when I was shot outside the hospital.”

  The guard radios in a second time. “The queen is injured. Repeat, the queen is injured. Requesting a stretcher.”

  “I am not leaving this building on a stretcher,” I growl out.

  Over my dead body would that happen.

  I glare up at the hallway’s florescent bulbs as I’m wheeled out. Around me several guards push the gurney, and I swear they’re suppressing smiles. Pricks.

  Somewhere ahead of me, one of the king’s soldiers leads a handcuffed Will. But most of them surround me.

  From the brief glimpses I get as I’m rolled out, I see bodies littering the floor, most lying in pools of their own blood. One of them is Nadia, the nurse that stitched up my gunshot wound, her eyes glazed and empty. The Resistance members here have been massacred.

  My throat works. I shouldn’t feel anything for them—not after they were so willing to hurt me. But these were once people I worked with. People whose courage I admired. Sorrow wells within me. Wrong is right, and right is wrong.

  Somewhere ahead of me doors open, and early morning light pours in. I squint at the sunlight shining down on me.

  Above me several helicopters circle the warehouse. I can’t see my surroundings well, but by the looks of it, the king has brought most of his army here.

  I hear a cheer rise through the air, but I can’t tell who’s watching.

  Suddenly a head eclipses the light, and I make out the dark eyes of the king. My stretcher stops as the guards halt. The king cups my face and bends over me.

  I feel a drop of water against my cheek. A tear—the king is crying. Over me.

  He presses his lips to mine, and I feel the brush of his wet eyelashes against me. I’ve never seen the king cry—no footage has ever captured this side of him.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he says, his voice choked.

  My heart thumps painfully in my chest. It should never have been this way. My comrades turning on me, my enemies saving me. But worst of all, I should never have felt anything other than hatred for this man, the king. Definitely not this, this warmth that thaws my soul.

  I stare into the king’s eyes. I am Isolde, I am Juliet, I am Guinevere.

  I am every one of those idiots because I’ve fallen for the king.

  Chapter 23

  The King

  I will murder every last one of them. I will rip every last survivor from limb to limb, I will torture them for days for what they did to Serenity. For what they tried to do to me.

  I can feel small pricks of pain behind my eyes, but I hold back my tears. She’s safe now.

  I thread my hands behind my head and pace outside Serenity’s hospital room, where she’s been resting since she returned.

  Henry, the lead investigator of my secret service unit, approaches me. “Your Majesty, the prisoner who was found with Serenity in the interrogation room—we have reason to believe that he’s the leader of the western division of the Resistance.”

  This is news. What is the leader of the western division doing here? And why was he the one in Serenity’s room?

  Cold dread settles in my stomach, but I keep my resolve steely.

  “We’re trying to figure that out at the moment.” Henry’s lips thin. “That’s not all, Your Majesty.”

  I wait for him to go on.

  “The prisoner is William Kline, the son of the former general of the WUN, Chris Kline.”

  He knew her. He knew her. He knew her.

  And he betrayed her. He betrayed me. Hell, he probably betrayed his father.

  There’s nothing I hate worse than a traitor.

  I watch him through the one-way mirrors as he’s being tortured for information. Funny how quickly he’s gone from being interrogator to interrogated.

  Usually I stay far away from these sessions. They’re a little too gruesome for my taste. But while Serenity is still sleeping off her latest surgery to undo the mediocre medical attention her bullet wound received, I’m savoring justice in its most savage form.

  “Why did you kidnap Queen Serenity Lazuli?” the interrogator asks.

  The general’s son is silent.

  “Still not going to talk?” the interrogator asks.

  When William, the general’s son, doesn’t reply, the interrogator grabs the metal pliers and moves it over to an untouched finger. The table he sits in front of is already slick with blood.

  “Stop!” William shrieks as another fingernail goes. This isn’t even the worst part yet.

  “Do you want to talk?” the interrogator asks calmly. Civilly.

  William is sobbing, and sweat drips down his pale face.

  “Perhaps I should move to chopping off fingers … or other things,” the interrogator says.

  The Resistance leader’s jaw clenches.

  “No? Then perhaps we’ll just have to drag your father into it.”

  William’s face pales further. “I—I’ll talk.” I can hear the defeat in his voice.

  What the boy doesn’t know is that my men are already on their way to execute his father. It’s long overdue.

  Serenity

  When I wake up, my golden hair fanned out around me, I’m alone in the hospital room. The monitors beep and whirr.

  I throw my legs over the side of the bed, the pads of my feet touching the cool linoleum. Not surprisingly, I feel like I’ve been rolled over by a tank. It doesn’t matter. I can’t take it in here. Not one second more. I’ve been either injured or recovering for the last few weeks in the hospital; I’m done being sick.

  I rip out the IV drip taped to my wrist, only wincing slightly when I feel the momentary pain. A monitor next to me goes off.

  Out of curiosity I lift up my hospital gown to look at my wound. Unlike the last time I was here, my body shows evidence of surgery. Clean bandages wrap around my torso. Relief floods me at the sight of it; it means that I haven’t lost days or weeks.

  I pull the cloth gown back down and exit my room.

  In the hallway a swarm of guards keep watch outside my door. I guess the king didn’t want to chance an attack again. As soon as they see me leaving, they try to coerce me back into the room.

  “My queen, you need to—”

  “The first person who tells me to rest will find themselves castrated,” I say, piercing each guard with a glare.

  The guards go silent, and I smile. “I want to see the king,” I say.

  “But—”

  I narrow my eyes on the guard who spoke and whatever he was going to say dies in his throat. “Take me to him—that’s an order.”

  I finger my spare clothes as I follow the guards through the secret service building. My arms shake; they’ve been doing that since I was told the king was extracting information from Will.

  The guards glance nervously at one another. “You have my word you will not get in trouble for this,” I promise.

  I can tell which interrogation room Montes is in by the cluster of officials standing around it.

  A couple of them see me and try to cut me off. “My queen, you can’t—”

  “I am fucking tired of hearing I can’t do things today,” I say. “Let me through or I will force my way through.”

  One tries to grab me. My fist snaps out, but he blocks it with his forearm. Another closes in, pressing a finger to
his ear and speaking in low tones. I know what this is—containment.

  “Montes!” I shriek.

  Hands are on me, and the guards that led me here are nowhere to be seen. Pansies.

  “Let me go,” I snap, yanking at my arms. They won’t release me. My anger spikes; there is nothing so infuriating as being physically helpless against another human being.

  The door opens and Montes walks out. “What is going on?” The moment he processes that I’m being detained against my will, his face hardens. “Let the queen go.” His voice is steel.

  Hands release me, and I glare at the guards.

  “Serenity, what are you doing out of bed?”

  “I want to see Will.”

  The king’s jaw works. “You can’t.”

  There’s that command again. That I can’t. And now I’ve heard it one time too many.

  I push past the king and dart for the door he’s come out of. I’ve barely managed to open the door when arms wrap around my midsection and pry me away. But not before I catch a glimpse of the viewing room, and beyond it, the interrogation.

  All I see is crimson blood and all I hear are Will’s screams. The outer walls must be thick to silence such agonized cries. The king’s wrath is just as frightening as I’d always feared.

  My mouth parts as I’m dragged away. “Oh God.” My words croak out. “Stop,” I whisper.

  “Serenity—” The king’s voice comes from behind me. He’s the one restraining me.

  “Stop!” I scream.

  The king’s hand rubs my skin, as if I am a child needing soothing from a nightmare. “We need information from him,” he says.

  “I don’t care.” I’m shaking all over. I’ve seen and done many horrifying things, but it’s this one that undoes me. “This needs to stop.” I’m no longer just talking about Will’s interrogation. I’m talking about war—about being a woman raised on a diet of pain and punishment. Where evil is avenged with more evil. It will never be enough to remedy the world.