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

  “That’s the beauty of being with you,” he says. “I never quite know.”

  A week goes by in a blur as I prepare for my tour of the East. A tour that begins tomorrow, when we leave for Giza, the first of nearly two dozen cities I’ll be visiting.

  Most of my time has been spent locked up in meetings. And when I’m not listening to other people discuss world affairs, I’m locking myself away to study them.

  The king, being who he is, has decided to hole himself up along with me. He’s fashioned himself into my personal mentor.

  I pity the world; under his instructions, it will undoubtedly burn.

  “So there are thirteen representatives,” I say, leaning back in my office chair. Spread out in front of me are photos of a dozen men, each with their name neatly typed beneath.

  “Correct,” Montes says, “thirteen representatives, but we only know the identities of twelve.”

  Montes sits on the desk itself, his legs splayed wide, his shirt sleeves rolled up. After being here for over a week, I’ve noticed he alternates between fatigues and suits. Today is a suit day.

  I pull my attention back to the matter at hand. Thirteen representatives, but only twelve identities. That’s more than a little odd. “Why don’t we know the identity of the thirteenth representative?”

  Montes reaches forward and hooks his hand underneath my seat. With surprisingly little effort, he drags my chair forward until I’m sitting between those splayed legs of his.

  My eyes are level with his crotch.

  “Forcing me to look at your dick is not going to help me learn who the representatives are,” I say.

  “You could always sit on my lap,” he offers.

  “Pass,” I say absently, my gaze drifting back to the photos. I stand to get a closer look at them.

  As I do so, Montes’s arms go around my waist. I’m now trapped in his embrace.

  “Had I realized how fun diplomacy was,” he says, his lips brushing against my hair, “I would’ve taken it up much sooner.”

  “No you wouldn’t have,” I murmur, my attention still locked on the photos. I move them around, reading the various names, and trying to memorize the faces that go with each. “You’re an asshole, and assholes don’t give a shit about peace.”

  One of his hands falls heavily over mine, trapping it to the desk.

  “You think that what I’ve done is bad?” he says, his voice deadly quiet.

  I don’t have to look at him to know I’ve offended him.

  “I will tell you a story about what I’ve seen in the West,” he says. “Girls sold as slaves—some younger than ten. Those went for the highest price. Women taken from their families, raped and sold then raped some more.”

  Now he has my attention.

  “Don’t blame me for being hesitant to forge peace between my land and theirs,” he finishes.

  I feel a muscle jump in my cheek.

  I search his eyes. “Is that true? What you just said?”

  He frowns, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “It is.”

  Women and children enslaved? Raped? This is not the West I knew. This is every one of my nightmares made flesh.

  “Why?” I know Montes can see the horror on my face.

  “You’ve asked me the same thing,” he says. “Power can twist people.”

  He wraps his hand around mine and begins moving my fingers over the photos. “Gregory Mercer, Ara Istanbulian, Alan Lee, Jeremy Mansfield, Tito Petros, …” He lists off all twelve of them.

  “Each has his own brand of evil. Alan—” Montes moves our hands over the photo of a man with dark hair and beady eyes, “coordinates disappearances. People of importance he doesn’t want alive—sometimes he has them killed outright, sometimes he detains them for torture, and sometimes he sends them to state-funded concentration camps.”

  A lock of hair falls into his eyes as the king speaks.

  “Jeremy—” Our hands travel to a photo of a man with pale, blotchy skin and a weak chin, “was the mind behind the development of these concentration camps. All that radiation has led to widespread disease and genetic mutations. He decided some WUN citizens were too sick or unsightly to be left amongst the regular population, so they were moved. It’s a great place to send anyone who doesn’t fall into line as they should. It also incentivizes violent individuals to join the West’s military. If they’re stationed at one of these camps, well, anything really goes.”

  I’m about to ask him why he hasn’t taken action sooner. Why evil like this hasn’t been stamped out. But before I can, he moves on.

  “Tito.” Our hands trail to a man I recognize, the Eastern politician who always reminded me of a walrus. He was one of the king’s former advisors. “This man knew exactly where all my research laboratories were, as well as my military outposts and warehouses. The WUN had them bombed almost immediately after I placed you in the Sleeper. Then they hit the East’s hospitals.”

  I can understand bombing military outposts and warehouses. I can even understand wiping out laboratories.

  But hospitals?

  The West has thrown any sort of code of ethics out the window if they’re hitting hospitals.

  “Ronaldo,” the king continues, moving our hands again. “You remember him, don’t you?”

  God help me, I do.

  Once upon a time I’d saved him from death only to find out he was the advisor who’d sanctioned the atomic bombs dropped on the WUN.

  I nod.

  “As soon as he traded alliances, he was back to his old tricks. He dropped a handful of bombs on the biggest, most successful cities in the East. The damage was so disastrous that many of the cities have not been rebuilt.”

  His hand moves on. “Gregory sanctioned human trafficking, and he personally has close to a hundred slaves—”

  “Enough,” I say, pulling my hand from the king’s.

  I’m going to be sick. How does evil get concentrated like this?

  Bombed hospitals, slavery, concentration camps—this is ghastly even by my standards.

  Beyond my horror is that roaring monster inside me. The one that loves the taste of blood and vengeance.

  Already I can feel my hands aching for necks to squeeze and my knuckles for skin to split. I will get my day, I vow it to myself.

  Montes turns me in his arms so that we’re staring at each other. “You asked me why the thirteenth representative doesn’t show himself. The truth is, I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because he’s either hiding from his enemies—or lying amongst them.”

  I take that in.

  “How haven’t you managed to kill them yet?” I ask. That’s what the king was good at, after all. Slaughter. And he had so many decades to eliminate these men.

  Montes absently plays with a strand of my hair. “You kill one, they elect another.” He smooths my hair back in place. “This wouldn’t be a problem if all thirteen representatives gathered together—I could wipe them out all at once. But they don’t. And if you can’t kill them simultaneously, it’s not worth the effort.”

  I return my attention to the photos.

  “What would cause them all to gather?” I muse aloud, my fingers tilting one of the images to better see the representative.

  My hand stills as the answer comes to me.

  Slowly my eyes return to the king.

  He already knows, I can tell. I say it anyway.

  “Victory.”

  Chapter 26

  Serenity

  That evening, the officers gather in the large dining room for a goodbye dinner. The atmosphere feels celebratory, like they already know I’ll accomplish what I set out to do.

  I’m not so certain.

  I lean back in my chair and finger the velvet tablec
loth. It’s worn. I don’t know how long it takes to age material, but I would guess years, maybe decades if it’s well cared for. It makes me wonder about that dress I wore when I so carelessly ran into the sea. It makes me wonder about every grand detail of the king’s lifestyle.

  I’ve made a lot of assumptions, about Montes and everyone else. In the past, they’ve been founded, but I no longer know whether they are or not.

  My eyes move across the table I sit at. It’s round, which means I get a good view of everyone. And they are all watching me, though some are more discrete than others. There’s an energy to the room, and excitement, and I know I’m responsible for it. The dead queen’s come back to end war once and for all.

  They believe in me far more than I do.

  There’s no magic to this. In fact, chances are, someone will bury a knife in my back before I’m even halfway through visiting countries. That’s what happens to powerful, dangerous people. They lead very short lives.

  A heavy arm brushes my back. I glance first at the hand draped over my seatback, then its owner.

  Montes is casually talking to Marco, who’s seated on his other side.

  The soft lighting gentles the king’s features. I find my breath catches as I look at him.

  He breaks conversation to turn to me. “My queen is quiet,” he says softly so that only I hear. “Never a good thing.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  Montes contemplates me. Beyond him I feel Marco’s eyes on me as well.

  The king stands, his chair scraping behind him. He reaches a hand to me.

  I inhale sharply as I stare at Montes’s hand.

  I am a stranger to this world, this future I must live in. I don’t know what to talk about, because I know nothing of this world. And I want to save it, I do, but I don’t know how to be a part of it.

  Montes figured that out all with a single look, and he’s giving me an out.

  The entire room’s attention focuses on us.

  I take the king’s hand and I stand.

  I can leave. Montes is willing to cut this dinner short. I can see as much in his expression. But I’m not going to run from these people just because I find these types of gatherings uncomfortable and I feel a little lost.

  So instead I squeeze the king’s hand and then turn to the officers seated around the table. “Tomorrow we begin what will hopefully be the end of this war.” That earns a few claps and a couple of whoops from the dinner guests.

  I can feel the king’s assessing eyes on me; I sense his curiosity. He likes my spontaneity.

  “Many of you are used to fighting,” I say. “I know that I am.”

  The king squeezes the hand he still holds.

  “But I don’t want to spend the rest of my days watching young men die.”

  The evening’s lightness dries up in the room.

  “I want to see them grow old, and fat—I want to see men fat because there is so much food to go around.”

  Several officers nod at that. As I gaze out at their somber faces, I realize that these are my people. A hundred years ago I couldn’t relate to the men and women the king surrounded himself with. These men and women I can.

  Change is possible.

  I pick up my wine glass. “A toast to peace.”

  I meet the king’s mesmerized gaze. A small smile creeps along his face.

  People raise their glasses. “To peace!”

  After dinner, while people are moving into the adjoining room to drink and chat, I slip away. I’m sure my exit gains some attention. Once I made my toast and sat back down, I had more interested guests eager to talk to me than I knew what to do with.

  It’s for that very reason that I take my leave early.

  At the end of the day, I am a solitary thing. I’m not sure if this is the result of circumstance, or if I would’ve been this way had war never altered my life.

  As soon as the dining room doors close behind me, the tinkling glasses and jovial conversations cut off.

  I head through the cavernous palace, my steps echoing. I pass the massive entry hall, with its long entryway and towering columns, and keep going.

  Down the corridors, all those sheets still cover most of the royal paintings. It’s vaguely irritating. Why put a picture up at all if it’s just going to get covered?

  I don’t know where I’m headed; I have no place in mind. I just want to keep moving. And the more I walk, the more I notice how much of the walls are covered up.

  Whether it’s curiosity or irritation that halts my steps, I can’t be sure, but I stop in front of a section of wall partially covered by velvet drop cloths.

  I reach out, towards the material.

  It only seems like a bad idea at the very last second, when I’ve already bunched the velvet up into my fist. By then, gravity has taken over. The fabric slides off the frame.

  A young Marco stares back at me from inside the frame. It’s a formal photo, one where he’s posed rigidly in a uniform. He can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen years old. He has a wispy mustache boys at that age get.

  I take a step back. It’s hard to look at Marco as a boy. I don’t associate his cruelty with this version of him.

  I glance down the corridor, noticing over half a dozen similarly covered frames.

  Surely they are not all photos of Marco? Not that I would put it past the king. He’s obsessive with his affection.

  I move to another covered frame and tug the cloth off of it. It’s another of Marco, this one when he’s older. In it, he and the king are clasping shoulders, laughing at something together.

  I move on. My heels click against the floor as I stride down the hall.

  This time when I pull down the velvet covering, I’m not prepared.

  What lies beneath it has me recoiling.

  The person I’m staring at is me.

  Only, it’s not.

  It can’t be. For one thing, I’m posing in a huge fucker of a dress. I’d knock someone out sooner than I would put that thing on. And I would’ve remembered it if I’d worn it. I mean, the thing’s practically as big as a tank.

  For another thing, my scar is gone.

  I walk several paces down the hall and pull off another sheet of material.

  There I am again, this time as a young teenager. I can’t be older than thirteen or fourteen.

  And I’m not alone in the photo either.

  My arm is slung around the neck of an equally young boy.

  But not just any boy. A cloned one.

  Marco.

  Chapter 27

  Serenity

  I take a shaky step back.

  Oh God, what is this?

  “Her name was Trinity.”

  I startle at the voice. When I swing around, Marco is watching me. His eyes drift to the wall.

  My pulse is in my ears. I can hear my own blood whooshing through my veins.

  I place a hand to my temple. “Are you saying—?”

  “He couldn’t bear waking you, so he cloned you,” Marco finishes for me.

  It takes several seconds to process his words.

  “Montes cloned … me?” The proof is hanging on the wall, but I don’t want to believe it.

  Marco steps up to the photo.

  My chest is rising and falling faster and faster. “Why would he do that?” I ask.

  “Marco. Serenity.” That powerful, ageless voice. It’s wiped out cities, ordered countless deaths, whispered sweet platitudes in my ear. It’s fooled me into loving it.

  I stiffen when I hear it.

  He cloned me.

  It doesn’t take long for shock to slide to anger.

  I spin to face the king. “You did this?”

  T
he king strides towards us, his eyes taking in the framed photos.

  The bastard wouldn’t wake me up, but he’d make a copy of me.

  I back up when I realize he wants to eliminate the distance between us. “Stay away from me,” I warn.

  “Marco, leave us,” he says as he continues to stride forward.

  Marco hesitates, earning an arched brow from Montes. With one last, long look at me, the king’s right-hand turns on his heel and leaves.

  Montes steps into my personal space, and even when I cock my arm, he doesn’t stand down. Instead he lets me throw my punch, but only so that he can catch my fist.

  I growl my frustration, trying to tug my hand out of his grasp. “Let me go, you bastard.”

  “Not until I explain.”

  I keep yanking on my arm. “I’m tired of your explanations,” I say between gritted teeth.

  What I don’t say is that something in me is broken and bleeding. Something that no Sleeper can heal. I force back a sob.

  When he still doesn’t let go, I bring my knee up to his crotch. He swivels out of the way.

  Now he’s mad, his features taut with his anger. He thrusts my body back up against the wall, the force of it making the frames shiver. His hand is at my throat. “Listen to me,” he growls.

  “Fuck. You.” I don’t want to listen. I want to bathe in the horror of this moment because this is the Montes that I remember.

  “That was forty years ago,” he says as though he can read my mind.

  “And let me guess,” I say. “You’re a changed man.”

  His vein throbs.

  Hit the nail right on the head with that one.

  “Where is she now?” I ask.

  The king’s face closes down.

  Dead.

  I can read that much off of him. For however long she lived, she no longer does.

  Goosebumps break out along my skin. It’s equally disturbing to think that my clone both lived and died while I slept. And for all the king’s unnatural technology, he wasn’t able to save her.