The Queen of All that Dies (The Fallen World Book 1) (9 page)

“Mind if I steal the king for a moment?” I ask the crowd.

The group shakes their heads and shrugs. “Thanks—I promise I’ll only be a moment.” I drag the king away from the crowd, not that he seems to mind it in the least. The camera crews start to follow us, so I turn and give them all a death glare. It’s enough for them to keep their distance. For now. I know I’ve caused too much of a scene for them to stay away long.

Once I get the king a safe distance away from the crowd, I drop the act. “I’ll do it.”

“Oh? And what exactly is it that you’ll do?” the king asks.

I narrow my eyes. “Whatever it is you want with me.”

I can see the king’s breath catch. He’s getting exactly what he wants, just like he promised me he would.

“But—” I say, “I have a condition.”

The king raises his eyebrows and waits for me to continue.

“You need to compromise with the WUN—don’t cripple their economy, don’t withhold needed funds. Give my homeland enough benefits to get them back on their feet.”

“You do realize that’s incredibly vague,” the king says. What he doesn’t say is that in his world, ambiguity is an exploitable weakness.

I touch his arm; I’m going to have to get used to his touch if I go through with this. He glances down at where my hand rests, then back to my face. His eyes are vulnerable.

“I’m asking you to be honorable,” I say. I give him a long look, and I see some of his humanity seep into those bright eyes. “Please, you don’t need to blackmail me or the western hemisphere to get what you want. I’m coming to you freely.”

The king cups my chin, and I see real tenderness there. “I’ll come up with a final agreement, but your father will have to approve of it for us to have a deal.”

A deal. That’s what this is. I nod.

He bows his head and steals a kiss from me. “Good. Then I look forward to a long and prosperous future for all parties involved.”

I did it. I just sacrificed myself for my nation.

Chapter 9

Serenity

Two years ago
I became my father’s apprentice.

He hadn’t always been our land’s only emissary. I hear we used to have many. Men and women appointed by the government to engage in diplomacy with foreign nations.

When the Western United Nations was formed, this branch of the government was refashioned. A single position—that of WUN emissary—was created. It proved to be a fatal one. Half a dozen men and women died before my father, who’d once served as the Secretary of State, had been elected into the role.

He managed to hold onto the position and his life, mostly because he hadn’t set foot onto the Eastern Hemisphere.

There should’ve been another round of elections since my father took the title of emissary. He should’ve abdicated the role to another official, along with all the other representatives that lived in the bunker. But once the western hemisphere went dark, our electoral system disintegrated almost overnight. In it’s absence we had to revert to an archaic system of power: bequeathing titles from parent to child. And now my father was passing the position onto me.

I knew all of this the evening he called me into his office. I’d seen and lived so much that this shouldn’t have scared me. But it did.

Once I shut the door behind me, my father glanced up from his papers. “Do you know why you’re here?”

I gave him a sharp nod. “You want to teach me how to be an emissary.”

My father scrubbed his face. “I don’t want to do this—that you’ve got wrong. But neither of us have much of a choice.”

“Dad, I’m no good at diplomacy.”

He cracked a smile. “You’re my daughter. You’re good at everything.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a little biased.”

“And you’re a little humble.”

His words were proof I’d never have his sharp tongue. He always knew the right thing to say to diffuse a situation. I was more likely to punch someone in the face than I was reasoning with them.

That first lesson was brief, unlike the hundreds to come. By the end of it, my father left me with one final bit of information. “Serenity?”

My hand was already on the door. I turned back to face him.

The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deepened. “As an emissary, if an accord is ever to be reached between us and the Eastern Empire, you will likely be a key player in it.”

I swallowed and nodded. I now carried a heavy responsibility.

“Do you know what that means?”

I waited for him to finish.

His gaze lingered on me a long time before he finally answered his own question. “One day you’ll meet the king.”

That day had come.

The room is
quiet as my father contacts the representatives. I barely made eye contact with him after my kiss with the king. I couldn’t. The whole situation still gives me the heebie jeebies.

My dad, for his part, seems to be at a loss for words. So we wait in silence, until the representatives flash onto the screen. We do the usual greeting, and then there’s a pause.

“Serenity,” General Kline says, “you gave the world quite the show. The Internet’s blowing up with it.”

What he doesn’t say is that everyone’s calling me a traitor, a whore—whatever unoriginal names they can come up with. There will be no honor to my sacrifice. Women who have filled the role of temptress have always been looked down upon.

“I got King Lazuli to make another agreement,” I snap, my voice bitter.

My father turns to me, surprised.

“Tomorrow,” I say to the general, “if there’s a semi-decent bone in the king’s body, the WUN should have a fair and equitable peace treaty.”

All’s quiet for a moment, and then my father speaks. “What did you agree to, Serenity?” he asks, worry tingeing his voice. The rest of the representatives wait for my answer.

I glance down at my hands. “I don’t exactly know.”

I’m not surprised
when I hear knocking on the suite door. I glance at my father’s closed off room. He’s locked himself away in there since our talk with the representatives. His excuse is that he’s relaying updates to those nations who couldn’t send their own emissaries. I know better. I heard his muffled weeps. He can’t stand the situation, so he’s hiding from it.

Now the room’s ominously quiet. My father knows what waits for me in the hallway, just as I do, and he’s decided to ignore it.

If only I had that luxury.

Be brave, Serenity,
I tell myself, because no one else is here to comfort me in this moment.

I rise from my seat, setting aside the WUN’s proposal, and answer the door.

Marco stands outside. “The king requests—”

“Yeah, yeah.” I could go the rest of my life without hearing these official missives. Particularly when they involve illicit business. I step out of my room and follow Marco through the palace. We pass the king’s private dining room and continue on, eventually stopping in front of an ornately carved door.

Marco opens it. “This is where I leave you.”

If I speak, he’ll surely hear my fright, so I nod instead and step inside the room. I glance behind me in time to see the door close and Marco’s form vanish from sight. It might as well have been the iron bars of a cell slamming shut.

I am trapped.

I turn my attention to my surroundings. I’m inside the king’s richly decorated sitting room. It’s beautiful and lacks for nothing, save the king.

I step up to a window. Below me, lamps cast the king’s estate in shades of amber and orange. The city beyond lies in darkness. My hands slide along the windowsill. The greatest irony here is that the king lives in the light, the innocents in the dark. The king belongs to those shadows that lurk outside the light. As do I.

“You’re still in my dress.”

I swivel around, startled to find the man himself leaning against an open doorway, hands tucked in his pockets. He still wears his dinner attire, only now his suit jacket is gone, and the cuffs of his sleeves have been rolled up past his elbows. Aside from his swimsuit, this is the most casual I’ve ever seen him.

“I knew you’d come for me,” I respond, touching my sternum in a poorly masked attempt to hide my cleavage. It only serves to draw the king’s attention to my chest.

There they linger. Seconds tick by, and neither of us moves. I don’t know what’s passing through his mind, but terror and excitement consume mine. I’m incapable of moving, even if I tried.

The king’s gaze flicks back up to mine, his dark eyes intense in the low lighting. Pushing away from the wall, he prowls forward. The trance is broken. Something’s changed, and things I know nothing of are about to happen. With each step the king takes, I can see a little more of that fire burning in his eyes.

What have I agreed to?

Taking my hand, Montes leads me to a fainting couch. I allow him to guide my body onto it. The entire time I watch him like he might tear my throat out if I look away or move too quickly.

The king kneels next to me, a hand dropping to one of my ankles. It slips under the silky seam of my skirt and glides up my calf. Over my knee.

My heart’s in my throat; I can feel it pounding there, cutting off my breath.

Up his hand delves, over my thigh. Then stops.

“You’re shaking.”

I close my eyes. His words carry no inflection, so I can’t tell whether he considers this a good or bad thing. I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to be doing either, but chances are, if I take an active role in whatever’s going on, I will end up attacking him, the Undying King. That can’t happen.

That won’t happen.

I lick my dry lips. “I’ve never … done this.”

“This?” the king repeats like he’s confused. His fingers brush between my legs.

The small burst of pleasure tightens my stomach, and I glare at him. “Yes,
that
.”

His hands slide out from under my skirt. “What
have
you done?” Curiosity smolders in his eyes.

“I’ve been kissed.”

“That’s it?” Again, his words are inflectionless. He lays a hand on my hipbone

“That’s it.”

He swears under his breath, his grip tightening. I can tell conflicting desires war within him because he’s looking through me more than at me. I also know the moment they resolve themselves.

He hesitates, then rises to his feet. “Leave.”

I don’t move. This is not how it’s supposed to play out.

“Move, Serenity, before I change my mind.”

Slowly I stand. The fear is fading, replaced by confusion. I consider the man in front of me. Logic is telling me that he’s letting me go because of some moral compass he carries. My emotions are telling me any moral compass he possesses is so warped and eroded he wouldn’t know a good deed from a bad one.

“I’m giving you tonight,” he says, not looking at me. “Enjoy the company of your father. Tomorrow, you’ll be at my side, not his.”

Chapter 10

Serenity

A year ago
I discovered I was dying.

First my appetite diminished. I’d skip breakfast because in the morning I couldn’t keep even the tasteless oatmeal down. Better to leave the food for people whose bodies wouldn’t reject it.

Life continued that way for a couple months—long enough for people to notice. Long enough for them to assume I was pregnant despite the fact that I’d never even been kissed. Will took a lot of heat for that. But when months passed and no baby came, people forgot.

All save for me.

The nausea fled as quickly as it came. For a while I could pretend my health issues away, until one morning when my nausea returned. I made it to the bathroom in time, only what I retched up wasn’t simply food and bile. Blood tinted my vomit red.

I breathed heavily as I stared down at the irrefutable evidence that I was sick. I never told my father. I never told Will.

The sickness never fully went away.

The next morning
, I watch my father leave the room, worry creasing my brows. I hardly slept last night, I was so worried about what today’s outcome would be. I half waited for the knock of the king; I’d assumed that he’d change his mind and collect on my side of the deal before he approached my father today.

But the knock never comes. Strange enough, my worries morph from what the king will do with me once the treaty’s signed to what will happen if the king decides that whatever I have to offer isn’t good enough.

The WUN soldiers watch me as I pace. When their stares become too disconcerting, I move to my bedroom and begin to organize my dresses by color, then make my bed. It takes twenty minutes in all, and it does nothing to calm my nerves, so I stretch and do several sets of pushups and sit-ups.

Once I have a nice sheen of sweat along my body, I hop into the shower, letting the water calm me. But even that can’t relax me, not when I start to feel guilty about wasting clean water while my friends in the bunker share a dismal basin’s worth each day.

I dry off and change, pulling on one of the more bearable dresses I’ve been packed. Today I was supposed to board a flight with my father. Now, in between fretting over what waits me after the sun sets, I wonder how I will possibly let the man who raised me go.

I’ve just finished applying mascara when the door to our suite is thrown open and my father storms in. “Grab your things, Serenity.”

“What?”

“We need to go,
now
.”

I switch to soldier mode. “What do I need?”

“Shoes you can run in and anything you can’t live without. You have three minutes.”

I don’t waste another second. I grab the gun my father gave me long ago and load it before turning the safety on and shoving it down the bodice of my dress. It’s not the safest place to carry a loaded gun, but my guess is that being unarmed in the king’s palace at the moment is even less safe.

I pull on my combat boots, wondering just what words were exchanged between my father and the king. Clearly, the king hadn’t made good on his promise to be honorable. Otherwise, my father wouldn’t be acting this way.

I don’t have time to change out of the ridiculous dress I’m wearing, but I rip off most of the skirt so that I can run better. The sound of tearing fabric is unbelievably satisfying.

As I finish getting ready, I can hear the WUN soldiers gearing up around me. There’s a buzzing excitement in the air, the thrill that comes before battle.

“We’re going out the rear windows,” my father says, “and then we’re going to cross the gardens and exit through the back of the estate, where a car will be waiting to take us to our jet.”

My eyes widen. I hope I’m one day half as good as my father at these things. He’s had our escape plan prepared way ahead of time.

My father glances at his watch. “Okay soldiers, your three minutes are up. Let’s move to the back of the room.”

The words are barely out of his mouth when there’s a pounding on the door. I glance at my father.

“Don’t answer that,” he says, his voice deadly serious.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

The pounding gets louder, and then I hear a key inserted into the lock. My eyes go wide as I look at my father. The soldiers fan out around us, covering us just as the door opens and Marco comes in with a dozen palace guards.

What could’ve possibly gone on during negotiations?

“Ambassador Freeman,” Marco says, “the king has ordered me to retrieve your daughter.”

My heart pounds at the mention of my name.

“I did not agree to the terms of the revised peace treaty, so he does not have that kind of authority over her,” my father says.

I glance between Marco and my father. He didn’t agree to the king’s proposal. Why?

“You can agree to the peace treaty or not,” Marco says. “Either way, the king is not going to let Serenity leave here.”

I hone my attention on Marco. The king thinks he can keep me around despite the negotiations. Of course, this is his back up strategy to make sure he gets what he wants.

“Dad, what were the terms of the peace agreement?” This is the question I’ve been dying to know.

My father doesn’t answer, but Marco does. “Money, medical relief, a series of programs to revitalize your hemisphere’s shithole economy.” I hear the acid in Marco’s voice. I always had the feeling that below Marco’s smooth exterior there was a dick of epic proportions. Now I’m finally meeting him. “The king would freely give all of this so long as you stayed here with him.”

My gaze moves from Marco to my father. “Is that true?” I ask.

My father’s focus is on Marco, but he nods in answer.

“Dad, if it’s true, then why didn’t you agree to the king’s terms?”

Now my father looks at me. “I won’t sign away your life, Serenity. I’ve already made too many personal sacrifices; I will not make this one.”

What my father says brings tears to my eyes. He’s choosing me over a nation—over an entire hemisphere. It’s the most foolish decision he’s ever made, but it’s also the moment I feel the sheer force of my father’s love for me. He won’t let the boogeyman touch me.

“That’s your official decision?” Marco asks.

“It is.”

“We have to take Serenity,” Marco says. “And we will use force.” At his words, the WUN soldiers cluster around my father and me, but it doesn’t make me feel safe. The king’s soldiers outnumber ours, and they’re better equipped. Not to mention that I no longer have a clean shot with them blocking me.

My father grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. Unlike me, my father’s tall stature doesn’t shield him from our enemies. Not completely.

“Dad—” I whisper.

“You’re going to have to go through me,” my father says to Marco, ignoring me.

My hand twitches and I barely breathe. Something’s about to happen, and now I can’t see anything beyond the cocoon of bodies surrounding me. Around us WUN soldiers are casting my father sideways glances. Right now he’s the commanding officer, and they’re waiting for him to make the call. I already know he won’t be the first one to spill blood.

“So be it,” Marco says.

Before I can so much as grab for my gun, someone fires a shot, and then another. Blood and bone spray down on me, and then my father is falling, my father who’s now missing the back of his head.

I can’t hear anything, the shots are still ringing in my ears. But I know I’m screaming, and now I’ve crumpled to the ground, holding my father’s broken body to me.

My father, who taught me how to ride a bike, how to shoot a gun, how to be a diplomat and a decent human being. My father, my last remaining family.

My father.

My father. Murdered in front of my eyes.

Around me, I can sense movement, and I hear more gunshots go off. I stand, letting my father’s slick body slide off my arms.

I’ve heard stories before about how grief can turn into bloodlust, but I’ve never experienced it before. Not until this moment. It builds like poison in my veins, converting my expanding grief into something violent.

Now I am a force of nature; I am the embodiment of rage. Enemy soldiers are coming at me, and I force my elbow into the neck of one and the solar plexus of another. I grab the gun from my bodice, and I begin shooting the enemy alongside my guards. Headshots. All of them.

I’m still screaming, and I can feel blood and tears dripping down my face. I know I look ferocious, and this gives me pleasure. Their fear and their pain give me pleasure.

I keep firing, even as more guards rush in. Amidst the chaos I see Marco run for the door.

I lift my gun, aim, and fire at him. The bullet grazes his arm, and then he’s gone. I’ve missed my opportunity.

The king’s soldiers, who are streaming into the suite, aren’t shooting at me. They should be. They’re not going to take me alive. I’m leaving this place one way or another. If it’s in a casket, so be it.

“Soldiers!” I yell to what’s left of my men. Five are still standing. That’s all that’s left. “Get to the window. We’re getting out of here!” I can barely hear my own voice from all the gunfire. I signal to the back of the room just in case their hearing is as bad as mine.

The WUN soldiers move to the window, and I’m taking out the king’s men one at a time. I back up to the rear of the room, shoving my now-empty gun back into my bodice and snagging another two from the bodies at my feet.

I throw a leg over the open window. I’m the last one out. We’re on the second story, so I have to jump. I glance down and see one of the WUN soldiers waiting to catch me, the other four guarding the soldier’s back. Beyond them I can see to the end of the king’s property and the road beyond. That’s where the car my father spoke of should be waiting.

A hand wraps around my arm. I don’t think; I bring my arm up and shoot to kill. The king’s soldier falls away, but more come after me. They’ll shoot my guards if I don’t do something first.

I aim and fire. One, two, three, four go down before the gun clicks. I drop it and grab another from the carnage. I shoot three more men and drop the weapon. I pick up two more guns before I’m able to focus on jumping down. This is all the ammunition I’ll have between here and scheduled pick up, so I’ll have to restrain myself from shooting anything that moves.

I make eye contact with the soldier waiting for me below, and then I jump, my arms pointing to the sky since I’m carrying two loaded weapons. He catches me, easing my impact.

“Let’s go!” I shout.

The soldiers surround me, and we sprint through the king’s stupid gardens. I pass the alcove he pushed me into, and I have to suppress the desire to shoot the balls off the marble statue that rests within it.

The quiet is eerie, and I know not to be deceived by it. The king’s guards are regrouping, setting something up. I pray to any god willing to listen that our ride will still be waiting for us, that we’ll get past the king’s people, and that we can get the hell off this godforsaken land.

The gardens taper off, and beyond them is open grass. The trees and hedges have hidden us from view until now, but that’s about to change.

I don’t need to tell the soldiers this; they’ve noticed. Our collective speed picks up. We exit the gardens, and I spot the wrought iron fence running along the back of the king’s estate.

A shot rings out and blood sprays as a soldier ahead of me takes a bullet to the head. What remains of his body collapses, and I have to jump over him to keep from tripping. There’s nothing we can do for him at this point.

“Sniper!” I shout. The remaining soldiers and I scatter, running wildly left and right. I’ve trained with these people; we work soundlessly as a unit. Only now I’m their commander. Because my father …

My eyes move over the fence, until I spot a car waiting about a hundred yards down to my left. I whistle and point to my men. Their movements are still wild, but they’re moving towards it. I hear the sound of another gunshot, and the soldier running ahead of me falls.

I snarl and glance over at the mansion. It’s impossible to see a sniper from here, so I can’t do anything about it. But someone does catch my eye.

The king, standing on his back balcony. He’s too far away to shoot as well, otherwise I would. He’s also too far away for me to make out his expression. I hope he’s hurting, I hope he knows I slaughtered his men, and I hope today causes him unending grief, like it will for me.

I know it won’t.

I turn away from him and focus on the fence and the car, some heavy SUV with tinted windows. Another shot rings out, and I hear it ping against the car’s armor. At this point, I can only hope it didn’t destroy anything vital, or else we’re out of an escape.

Ahead of me, someone—probably our ride—has cut away two of the wrought iron fence posts, leaving an opening wide enough for a person to slip through. The soldiers exit through it and jump into the car.

I’m the last out, and I follow my soldiers into the back of the SUV.

Our driver, a burly, bearded man, guns the engine and peels down the road, constantly checking his rearview and side view mirrors.

We skid around the corner, the car fishtailing, then we’re accelerating until my surroundings blur. Three official-looking cars pull onto the road behind us. I glance at our driver. He doesn’t look nervous. No, he smiles when he notices the vehicles. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s just as bloodthirsty as I am.

I hear a distant, high-pitched whine, and then the first car behind us explodes in a burst of flame. The sound of crumbling metal follows a second later, presumably as the two cars following the first crash into it. Someone laid in wait for those cars. And someone shot them with a grenade launcher.

Our driver whoops and slams his palm triumphantly on the driving wheel. “That’s how it’s fucking done!”

Rather than join in, I feel myself weaken as I release the last of my adrenaline. I lean back in my seat. “Who are you?” I ask.

The man pauses a beat. “I am a part of the Resistance.”

He eyes me in the rearview mirror. “And judging by the fact that you have more blood on you than a butcher, I’m guessing that you aren’t as traitorous as everyone’s making you out to be.”

I look out the window. My hands are shaking. Soon the rest of my body will follow suit, and then I’ll have to truly feel again. Once that happens I’m going to wish I were dead. As it is, my head pounds as it tries to disassociate itself from all that just happened.

My father’s dead.

His body lies in enemy territory.

I bury the emotion that’s rising. Just because I’m not running and shooting at the moment doesn’t mean I’m safe. I can’t allow myself to fall apart now, not when I have three WUN soldiers whose lives I can still save.

I digest this. “Thank you,” I finally say, “for risking your life to get us out of there.”

The man grunts in response. “Did you kill him?”

I don’t need any clarification to know whom he’s asking about. “No,” I say darkly.

Silence falls over the car, and for several minutes there’s a strange kind of calm. It’s not real, not when the blood of a dozen different men drips down my body and I tightly clench two guns in my hands, safeties off. Not when the car we’re in is careening through the city of Geneva, zipping around other vehicles and pedestrians.

The sound of blades slicing the air catches our attention, and our driver swears. “That was faster than I expected,” he says, looking up at the sky. I follow his gaze, and I see a helicopter heading our way.