Immediately after Serenity discovered the bombs, we were evacuated, along with the rest of the surviving guests, leaving only the dead behind.
I lean back in my seat, ignoring the view of Shanghai as it begins to blur past us. If I look back now, I’d still be able to see the tiled roof of the shikumen-style building we were in not five minutes ago.
But I don’t glance back; I look at Serenity, really look at her.
Her jaw’s tight as she stares out the window. She looks tired, angry—desolate. I can hardly bear it.
I reach out, my thumb rubbing against her cheekbone. She leans into the touch, closing her eyes briefly. There are smears of blood and dust all over her.
I’m so tired of seeing her wear this war paint.
I have only myself to blame. She’s a monster I created long before I had her in my clutches. This is the karmic reckoning I’ve put off for so long.
I want her eyes on me, her eyes and her bloodied, bruised skin.
Without a second’s more thought, I drag her onto my lap, refusing to fight the impulse.
“Montes, stop.” She pushes halfheartedly against my chest as I reel her in. I’m surprised she’s still going through the motions of keeping me away. We both know she no longer wants to. “Let me go.”
“No,” I whisper harshly.
And then, all at once, Serenity gives in. Her body sags into mine, and she leans her forehead into my chest. I feel her body quake, and automatically I begin to stroke her back, like I’m some caring, good guy and not a heartless son of a bitch. And Serenity clutches me tighter, like she’s a fragile, docile thing and not the killing machine she is.
She breathes in a ragged gasp, pulling herself together. Slowly she draws her head away from my chest. The look she gives me … men have lived and died and never seen that look.
BOOM—BOOM-BOOM!
The explosions go off at our backs, one right after another. Serenity’s eyes widen.
A second later the car skids from the force of the shockwave.
Shit.
The two of us are thrown forward, and I hear our driver curse.
Out the back windows a fireball lights up the night.
The undying king and his mythical queen were nearly killed as they ate dinner from dainty china. The West would’ve loved that story.
Next to me, Serenity is transfixed by the explosions, and her expression makes my blood run cold.
Whatever soft emotions overtook her a moment ago, they’re gone.
I wish she feared more and lived through less because right now, I don’t see desolation—or even anger—on her pretty face.
Just ruthless resolve.
Serenity
Tonight we sleep inside one of the king’s garrisons, located just outside Shanghai proper.
Montes is taking no risks.
The two of us lie together in a windowless cement block that’s buried dozens of feet below the earth.
Once again, I’m back in the fucking ground.
The subterranean structure is the closest I’ve ever felt to my bunker. And I hate it. I hate the very thing that’s made me me. I can’t decide whether the king’s lavish lifestyle has rubbed off on me, or whether it’s simply the knowledge that I’ve spent lifetimes belowground—it doesn’t honestly matter. I’m devastated anyway.
First to find the king is no longer evil, then to find I can no longer passively endure what I once readily accepted.
Who am I?
“A queen.”
I startle at the king’s voice. Only then do I realize I spoke out loud.
“My wife,” he continues. “The woman that’s going to change the world—the woman that already has.”
I roll over in bed and gaze at Montes.
He brushes my hair off my face, his fingers lingering. When did he get so achingly sweet?
He must sense my inner turmoil because he says, “This is right. What you’re doing is right.”
Color me shocked. I assumed the king was only going along with my peace campaign because of our deal. But to hear him admit that he essentially believes in me and my cause … it’s doing strange things to my heart.
His eyes move above us, around the room. “Was this what it was like, living in that bunker?”
I nod, not bothering to look away from him.
His gaze returns to mine. “I should hate this,” he says, “but I would take a lifetime of living underground if it meant you’d be by my side.”
I swallow.
I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to feel this. But only because I do—I really, really do, and I can’t fathom this vision breaking my heart. Montes, in his infinite cruelty, did this very thing to me a hundred years ago. He convinced me of all the ways he couldn’t live without me. And I fell for him, even if I never admitted it, and I paid for that terrible love with my life.
Now, this wise, decent Montes is demanding more than just my body all over again.
I knew this would happen, but oh, how I’m—
“You’re afraid.” The mind reader says this like it’s some great revelation.
I open my mouth, fully prepared to lie. “I’m not—”
“Oh,” he interrupts, tilting my chin up, “but you are.”
My nostril flare as our gazes hold. And hold. And hold.
And then he sees something he shouldn’t.
“My God,” he utters. His chest expands as he takes in air. And then his mouth descends on mine.
And now I have to deal with the very real possibility that I lost my last bit of power, because the king, I think he knows.
He knows that I love him.
I wake in the middle of the night to an empty bed. I lay there for several seconds staring up at the cement ceiling before I realize what woke me.
Light.
Just like the bunker I spent many years in, there is no natural light in this subterranean fortress. When the lights are out, you can literally see nothing. But I can see the cement ceiling dimly.
I sit up and search for the source of the light. It comes from the edges of the door, which isn’t fully closed. I can hear voices in the distance.
What’s happened now? And why wasn’t I woken?
Getting out of bed, I hastily pull on a pair of fatigues, wincing when my feet touch the chilly cement floor. I shove on my boots, then leave our room.
Out in the hall, a single sentry stands guard. I nod to him, then head down the corridor toward the sound of voices.
Ahead of me, the hallway bends sharply to the right. I’m almost around the corner when I make out who’s speaking.
“How could you not tell me?” I hear the king hiss.
“They never told me,” Marco replies.
I hadn’t seen or heard from the king’s right-hand since before we left for the dinner.
“Do you realize how badly that could’ve gone?”
“How could I not? You forget that I care for her too,” Marco says, his voice heated.
“No,” Montes’s voice is low and lethal, “let’s be clear about this: she is not Trinity. She is not yours. Serenity is mine.”
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes. I’ve already heard too much. Before either man knows I’m there, I return to our room and slip back in bed.
If I had heard that all correctly, then Marco had loved my clone.
Can this world get any more fucked-up?
Turns out, it can.
Chapter 38
Serenity
Seoul. Our next stop.
This is no longer the same tour we started the trip believing it was. The meetings with regional leaders have been cut out completely, our stay in each local has been drastically shortened to just
the speeches, and our immediate surroundings are now safe rather than luxurious.
The military aircraft we sit in is a far cry from the king’s royal plane. I can see the structure’s exposed metal framework as well as the insulated wires that run along the walls and ceiling, and we sway in our seats with every subtle movement the aircraft makes.
This new king. I assess him while he’s not watching me. His head dips towards the sheet of papers he reads, one of his legs jiggling like he can’t possibly sit still.
He’s still a workaholic. Still vain. Still controlling. Still scarily powerful.
Montes glances up, and his eyes heat instantly.
Still in love with me.
“What is my vicious little queen thinking about?” he asks over the drone of the engines.
A hundred years for a man to become whatever it is he wants.
I cock my head. “I think you’re afraid of getting everything you ever wanted,” I say. “I think you know that once you do, you’ll be forced to realize how empty it all was in the end.”
He lowers the papers in his hands. I have his full attention now. His eyes are alight with an emotion I can’t quite put my finger on. I don’t know if it’s just his usual intensity or something else.
“My queen came back to me a psychoanalyst.”
“You wanted to know my thoughts,” I counter.
He watches me for a beat longer, then unbuckles his harness.
“Your Majesty,” one of his guards is quick to intervene, “you need to—”
The king raises a hand and quiets his officer. Now we do have some attention drawn our way. And among those eyes are Marco’s. I meet his gaze briefly, just long enough for him to look away. And then my attention returns to the king.
Montes crosses over to my seat and kneels before me, his hands resting on my thighs. The gesture is casual, but like anything that has to do with Montes, my mind moves to more intimate things. Stripping off clothes, hot breath against my skin, and more caresses from those hands.
“I don’t know,” he says softly.
I furrow my brows. “You don’t know what?”
His thumb absently strokes my leg. “Whether you are right or not. I’ve wondered the same thing myself. Whether I could’ve stopped the war from being drawn out this long.”
I search his face.
“But I’m not sure I could have,” he adds, “not without staying the same man I was.”
It’s still there; I see a flash in the back of his eyes even now. The urge to be cruel.
Montes leans forward, and I get to see that face of his up close and personal. If I thought he was intense far away, it’s nothing to this—having this man’s complete and utter attention.
And then he kisses me, his captive queen.
The entire production draws out. Montes won’t release my lips, not even when I try to move away. We have an audience, after all, an audience that only moments ago I was all too willing to entertain. The king has manipulated me yet again.
It’s only once he feels me give into the kiss that it sweetens. Eventually I manage to rip my face away from his.
I’m breathing heavily. This man that lays waste to all sorts of things, his head is still close to mine. At some point during our kiss, his hold on my legs tightened. It’s almost bruising, but I only now notice it.
My voice is low when I speak. “It doesn’t matter what you say, or what you do now, Montes. You’re still always going to be the man that ruined the world in the first place.”
He draws away, his eyes lingering on my mouth. “I am. And if it meant getting more time with you, I would’ve ruined it sooner.”
As soon as we arrive in Seoul, I sense it. The day feels ominous, like a storm about to break.
My new gun is holstered at my hip. No one’s asked me to remove it, but I wouldn’t anyway. The West’s violence has only increased throughout this trip.
We’re taken straight from the airfield to the stadium where I’ll be giving my speech. By the end of the day I will be back on that aircraft, heading towards the next location. Trying to stay one move ahead of the West.
Like the other cities I visited, Seoul show signs of the toils of war. Half the buildings are nothing more than rubble. And on many of them I see more posters and wall art depicting my image with the words Freedom or Death scrawled beneath. In one instance, I even see two assault rifles crossed beneath my image, like a skull and cross bones.
I’ve become a freedom fighter.
As our vehicle pulls up to our destination, I catch sight of the stage I’ll be speaking from. It’s nothing more than a temporary construction set up at the end of one of Seoul’s city streets. Some stadium seating appears to have been brought in, but other than that, the people use the topography itself to get a view of the stage.
And the people! I expected a low turnout. We had to change the time of the speech to fit into our rushed itinerary. But, if anything, the place looks overcrowded.
The street in front of the stage is packed with hundreds, if not thousands of bodies. Large skyscrapers border the road on either side, and judging from the people camped out just inside the broken windows of many of them, I can tell that this is the city’s improvised seating plan.
The armored vehicle comes to a stop at the fenced-off back of the stage.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Montes asks, casting a speculative look at our surroundings. He doesn’t let on, but I know he’s worried. Maybe even downright panicked.
He still hasn’t insisted I leave. And now he wants my input.
I reach out and take his hand, drawing his attention to me. Very deliberately, I brush a kiss along his knuckles. “Yes,” I say softly.
He stares at our hands for several seconds, then his eyes flick up to me.
I don’t thank him for being reasonable, but I know he can see my gratitude.
He nods, but his expression turns grim. “Very well.”
He exits the car, holding the door open for me to follow. Almost immediately, a crew of men and women close in on us.
“Your Majesties,” one of them says, crowding me and Montes, “we’re so very happy to have you here. Please follow me. We have your wardrobes waiting for you in the dressing room.”
Wardrobes?
I raise an eyebrow at the king, but he’s too busy scowling at anyone that gets too close to me.
We’re lead to a makeshift room, which is really not much more than four temporary walls.
Inside it, a stylized black uniform and a tuxedo wait for us.
I remove my outfit from the wall. The uniform looks half paramilitary and half high-fashion. I can’t help but grimace when I notice the shoulder and upper arms of the fitted top glitter.
Whatever. At least it’s not a dress.
I change, making sure to strap my new gun to my outfit. My father’s gun is packed with my things, which are Lord knows where.
That unsettling feeling still lingers in the air. It stays with me even after the king and I are ushered from the room.
We stand together behind a red velvet curtain, the two of us waiting to be introduced to the world.
I glance over at him.
The devil never looked so good. He wears a suit, his hair swept back from his face. And his eyes—a person could lose their soul in their dark depths. He appears just as he did when he waited for me at the base of those steps in Geneva. The monster who’d come in and ruined my life. And now, a hundred years later, I stand at his side, determined to fix everything he’s broken.
“Thirty seconds,” someone calls out to us.
Montes turns to me. “Are you ready?” Today we’re walking out together and facing the crowd as a unified front.
I nod.
He doesn’t say anything, just takes me in, looking at me like I’m his own personal apparition before he bows his head and faces forward again.
The people around us begin counting down with their fingers, like this whole production must be executed down to the very second.
Their fingers run out, and then the king and I are walking onto the stage.
Large screens have been set up in between the buildings. I see our faces projected onto them as we step forward. For the first time, I realize that it’s not just the king who appears inhuman.
I do too.
The ferocity of the scar that runs down my cheek, the tightness of my jaw, the look in my eye—I’m no natural thing. Murder and violence have made me this way. Loss and war have made me this way.
I look like a savage.
A savage queen. One who doesn’t need a crown or even a weapon to appear powerful.
I see it now—this world’s faith in me. It’s not just that I am an anachronism; the harshness of my face speaks to these people who have only ever known war.
No wonder the West wants me gone.
A century has gone by, and yet even after all that time I am still something to fear.
Chapter 39
Serenity
Our enemies wait until the king and I are separated.
Until I’m vulnerable.
“I did not choose this fate willingly,” I say, right in the heat of my speech.
My eyes briefly flick to the wings of the stage, where Montes watches me. He said his piece and then left me win the crowd over.
“Just as many of you did not choose yours,” I continue. “But these lives are still ours, and they matter.”
The people need to know that whatever dream they held tightly onto, it can happen. Dead queens can be resurrected. Peace can follow war. Good can vanquish evil.
The back of my neck prickles, and my voice wavers.
Something … is amiss.
I swear I hear the quiet drone of an aircraft, but when I look up to the cloudless blue sky, it’s utterly empty.