The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3) (8 page)

Chapter 14

Serenity

“I have something
to show you,” the king says that evening.

I’m not a particularly big fan of Montes’s surprises.

He leads me through the palace, and I catch another glimpse of his covered pictures. Our footsteps echo, along with those of our guards. What sort of madness must’ve overtaken the king for him to sequester himself in this lonely place?

We enter what looks like a small library. Montes presses a button embedded in the wall to our right. At the far end of the room, a screen descends from the ceiling. My eyes flick to him, but he gives me no clue as to what’s going on in his twisted mind.

Montes begins to roll up his shirtsleeves with those deft fingers of his. I feel my heart break a little more, watching the careless action. He still does it.

His eyes lift to mine, and whatever he sees makes him pause. His gaze moves to his hands, then up again.

“
Nire
bihotza
…”

Whatever he’s about to say, I don’t let him finish. I stride over to the screen, trying hard to ignore his presence.

It’s impossible. It always has been. But it’s worse now that the gulf between us is larger than it ever has been.

“You will want to sit for this,” he says from behind me.

There’s a couch at my back, but I make no move towards it.

“I’m fine.”

I hear him cross the room. I badly want to swivel around and watch him, both because I don’t trust him and because my eyes can’t help but be pulled to every pleasing feature of his. But I keep my gaze steady on the screen.

A moment later, it flickers to life. It looks like a computer’s home screen, though it’s slightly different than what I’m used to. Montes flips through menu after menu until a photo fills the display.

The image has me sucking in a breath.

General Kline’s hardened face stares back at me.

Only, it’s
old
.

And now I do turn to face Montes. I can feel my eyes filling, filling. I don’t want to cry.

“How?” The word is barely even a whisper.

“You’ll see.” He looks pointedly at the couch. “You really should sit.”

He presses something, and I catch movement in the corner of my eye.

It’s not a photo, I realize, dragging my attention away from the king and back to the screen as the image of the general comes to life.

It’s a video.

All the air releases from my lungs.

The sight of it, and the realization that the general lived and died all while I slept, is enough to shake my resolve. Without thinking, I sink back into the couch.

I’m not sure I want to see this. Not sure I can bear it.

Behind me I hear the king’s footfalls retreating, then the door opens and closes, and I’m alone with a ghost.

“Serenity—” The general rubs his face on the other side of the screen.

He’s far away enough from the camera that I can see his leg jiggling. Decades may separate us in time, but I can tell I am not the only one nervous about this video.

He sighs, staring down at his thick, calloused hands. They’ve seen action. I can tell by how rough they are. Even as old as the general appears to be, he clearly hasn’t stopped fighting, hasn’t stopped living.

Good for him. I hope he fought death to the bitter end.

“I don’t know where to start,” he says, frowning. “This situation is all sorts of fucked-up. I don’t know when—or if—you’ll ever see this. I hope to God the bastard unplugs that damn machine and lets you live or die the way nature intended.”

I smile sadly at that. And then his words register.

How did the general know I was in the Sleeper?

Why does Montes have this footage?

They’re enemies. Bitter enemies.

“I am going to tell you a story, Serenity, and you’re not going to like it.” He sighs again, running his thumb over his knuckles. “Two years after you were last seen, I found out that you weren’t dead. The official story had always been that you died of cancer.”

The general clenches his jaw. “No one believed it, most assumed the king had killed you himself, though there were those who believed that it was a suicide or that you met a violent end at the hands of an enemy.

“There always had been conspiracy theories that you lived, but I never believed them. Not until he showed me …” General Kline’s voice is gravelly with age, but it’s lost none of its strength, not even when he’s grasping for words.

“I don’t know how much you knew before you were … put under. Right around that time, the Southern WUN rebelled, and the Resistance was a part of that rebellion.”

I watch him in wonder. Nothing about this video makes much sense to me. Why he made it, why he’s telling me this.

“I didn’t make the call to rebel with the South Western territories, but I lived long enough to regret it anyway. The men who’ve secured control make Montes look like a decent guy, and you know how fucking hard that is to accomplish.”

The general runs a hand over his thinning buzz-cut. “The king captured me a couple years after war re-broke out. I was sure I was going to be tortured. Not much love lost between the king and me. Instead he spins me this story about wanting my help, and he shows me something—something every bit as wrong as him.”

General Kline grimaces and looks away. “You were so still.” His voice lowers. “He had you in this capsule, what I later learned was a Sleeper. And you were alive—unconscious, but alive.

“I’ll give the bastard this—he loves you. He’s mad with it. Even now. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, I believe he’s still willing to destroy anything and everything to get what he wants, and what he wants right now is a cure for that cancer of yours.

“He recruited me and the Resistance to work with him. And we have ever since.”

I bring a fist to my mouth. I can’t put my finger on what I’m feeling. Relief, definitely. Knowing that the Resistance eventually opposed the advisors that hijacked the WUN makes me feel less disoriented about my own allegiances. But I also feel something else, something that makes me mourn the general more than I already do.

Montes killed his son, and General Kline still found it within himself to work with the king because he knew it would help the greater good. When it came down to it, he was willing to make the same sacrifices he asked of me.

“The king is not a good man,” the general continues, “but he’s surrounded himself with good men, so there’s that. And he’s trying to do right. The fucker actually consults me for advice from time to time.”

Kline leans forward. “Listen to me carefully, Serenity. The king might win the war, but I don’t see him ending it. There is a distinction. That’s why the war still rages on. All he knows is violence. It’s a good skill for defeating the enemy, but it’s useless once the fighting’s over. And, Serenity, he knows nothing of peace.”

He pauses for a long moment.

“You do. That’s all your dad taught you in the bunker. As your general, I’m giving you one final task.”

My body tenses, my pulse hiking at Kline’s words. I already know whatever he tasks me with, I’ll follow the order.

“If the world you wake up to is the one I fear it will be, then you and I both know your duties aren’t over.”

I already figured this out, and yet coming from the general, the prospect has my stomach clenching.

“You need to help him. Believe me, I know how wrong it is to ask this of you.”

I’m sucking in air fast. My veins thrum as they get battle ready.

I understand him. The general and I might be more similar to one another than anyone else. Even my father. Even Montes.

“That man,” he continues, “will eventually reconquer the world, and he’s primed to ruin it over and over again.

“Serenity—” He levels his gaze on the lens, and I swear even though time and space separate us, he sees me.

“Don’t let him.”

Chapter 15

Serenity

I sit there
long after the video ends.

The general sent me a message from beyond the grave. That’s obviously what this is. The final meeting that we never had.

I rub my palms against my eyes, ignoring the wetness that seeps out from under them.

I can’t even say what I’m sad about—that the general’s gone, that I’ve been left behind, or that a burden the size of continents has fallen onto my shoulders.

When I exit the room, Montes waits for me.

It’s almost implausible, that those two worked together.

The king gives away nothing as he takes me in. I’m sure my eyes are still red.

“Why did you show me that?” I ask, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind me.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

There are so many reasons. The general wasn’t kind to the king in his video.

“You’ve watched it?”

Montes steps in close, that dark hair of his swept back from his face. His features look more regal than ever as he stares down at me.

“I have,” the king says.

So he’s heard the general’s unflattering assessment of him, and he’s also heard my final order. I’d be surprised that he showed me the video, except that it benefits Montes. The general essentially tasked me to remain close to the king.

“How long has he been dead?” I ask.

“Sixty, almost seventy years.”

I reel from that information, but of course. The general was already old when I knew him. For him to live three extra decades is extraordinary.

“He cared for you,” Montes says.

“I know that,” I say quietly.

“Does the Resistance still exist?” I ask.

Montes studies me, then slowly shakes his head. “The group splintered into several other organizations about a decade after the general died.”

And, given the king’s timeline, that happened over half a century ago.

“So they no longer exist?”

“They no longer exist,” he affirms.

Time is a spooky thing.

A world without the Resistance … it seems just as implausible as a world without the WUN or the king. They were once a great ally, and then a great enemy, but for them to no longer exist at all?

I’ve never considered the possibility.

Apparently, even deathless things can be killed.

The king leads
me back down the hall.

“Where are we going?” I ask. My voice echoes in the cavernous space.

“Dinner.”

I haven’t thought about food in hours and hours, full as I was on this new world and all of its revelations.

I catch more glimpses of abandoned halls and closed doors as we wind our way through the palace. The door we eventually stop at looks like every other, but a faint smell of smoke clings to the area.

He opens it, and I catch a glimpse of the room beyond. A series of antlers decorate the walls. A billiard table sits in front of us, and farther into the room couches surround a grand fireplace. That same smoky smell lingers like a haze in the air.

“What is the name of this room?” I ask, taking it all in.

“The game room.”

I smile at the name. “The king and his games,” I muse, stepping inside. “I’m surprised the game room and the map room aren’t the same.” Lord knows the man finds war and strategy vastly entertaining.

Montes whispers in my hair, “Now’s a good time to remember that you promised me intimacy. Keep talking as you are, and I will put that mouth to other uses.”

Hand it to the king to think of the most creative way to shut me up.

“I see you’re still fluent in threats,” I say because I can’t help myself.

“My queen,” he says, stepping away, “it’s only a threat if you don’t want it to happen.”

A part of me
does
in fact want it to happen. My heart’s deepest wishes contradict all logic.

I move farther into the room. The space is an ode to highbrow masculinity.

“This place looks nothing like you,” I say, taking in the antler chandelier high above us.

Montes heads towards a round table that looks like it was made for card games. He pulls out a chair and leans his hands heavily over the back of it. “I’m glad you think so,” he says, his voice genuine. “It was made more for the men I host than for myself.”

I run my hand over the green felt of the billiards table I pass as I drift towards him. “Why bring me here?”

“Why not?” he counters.

“I thought we were having dinner.”

“We are.” He indicates the seat he’s pulled out. “Please.”

Chivalry—it’s just another one of the king’s games.

I take a seat across from him because that’s just what we do. Montes tries to seduce me with his usual bag of tricks, and I turn him down over and over again. The king’s masochistic enough to enjoy the rejection, and I’m petty enough to enjoy dealing it out.

I look around me. This place might not be the worst room in the palace, but it leaves me feeling cold. I wonder what kind of man enjoys a room like this. I imagine he has thick fingers and a large gut. And he’d probably despise a woman like me.

The king takes the seat opposite me and leans back in it, taking in our surroundings just as I’m doing.

“My advisors used to love meeting in rooms like this,” he says. “I believe all men want the best of both worlds—to be ruthless savages as well as cultivated thinkers. And that’s what this room is, a place where those opposing desires meet.”

My eyes move to the king. “Is that what you want?”

“
Nire
bihotza
, that’s what I
am
.”

I suppress a shiver as I take in his dark beauty.

“And what do all women want?” I ask.

Montes appraises me from his seat. Abruptly, he stands and heads over to what looks like a wet bar. He extracts two tumblers and a bottle of amber liquid from beneath it, and sets them on the counter. Uncorking the lid, he begins to pour us drinks.

“It doesn’t matter what all women want,” he says, “because you are not all women.”

“Then what am I?”

His eyes flick up to me.
Mine
, they seem to say.

He returns his attention to his work. “You’re right,” he says, moving the bottle of liquor from one glass to the other, “I do play games.

He corks the bottle. “That’s all life really is—an elaborate game of luck and strategy.”

This—
life
—doesn’t feel like a game. This feels real and terrible.

He grabs the tumblers and bottle of spirits and heads back to our table. Coming to my side, he hands me one of the glasses.

I wrap my hand around it, feeling the warm brush of his fingers. He doesn’t let go.

My gaze rises to meet his. I don’t want to look at him, this man that takes up way too much space—in this room, in my head, in my heart.

Montes stares down at me like the universe begins and ends in my eyes.

Nothing can be simple with this man. Not even a drink. I feel that thick, cloying chemistry rise up out of the ether and wrap around us. It doesn’t matter that the cancer is gone. With Montes it will always feel like my life has come right up to the edge of death.

He still hasn’t given me the drink, and I look pointedly at it.

“You really have no idea what I’m capable of,” he says.

The hairs on the nape of my neck stand. I would’ve said that if anyone knew what the king was capable of, it would be me. But I’m not going to contradict a bad man saying he’s worse than I remember.

“And that has you worried,” he continues. “It shouldn’t. You know of my depravity, but I’m not talking about my evil side.”

“Are you going to give me the drink?” I ask, exasperated.

“My lap,” he says. He backs up, forcing me to release my hold on the tumbler. He settles back into his seat, his legs splayed out.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I see the challenge twinkling in his eyes.

I get up and move over to him, positioning my legs on either side of his chair. Slowly I lower myself and straddle his lap. I take the tumbler out of his hand, and staring at him the entire time, I down its contents.

I hiss out a breath at the burn of it.

“You’re wrong, you know,” I say, taking the other glass from him and handing him my now empty one. I’m going to need the alcohol. This close to the king, I end up either wanting to fight him or fuck him.

He raises an eyebrow, setting the glass and the bottle of alcohol he holds on the table behind me.

“Your depravity is not what worries me.” I’ve lived through that. That part of the king is predictable. “It’s all the other parts of you that do.”

That was, after all, what led me to sleep for a hundred years. That wicked soul of his still has a bit of goodness inside it, but when he applies it … sometimes terrible things happen.

Montes brings his knuckles up and rubs them softly against my cheekbone. “That might be one of the nicest compliments you’ve given me.”

I shake my head and take a sip of my stolen drink.

His fingers wrap around the tumbler and he pulls it from my lips. My hold on the glass is trapped beneath his as he brings it to his own lips, and together we tilt the alcohol into his mouth.

Heat burns low in my belly. I want to say it’s from the alcohol, but I can’t lie to myself. It’s anticipation I feel.

A knock on the door interrupts the moment.

“Come in!” the king calls, not looking away from me.

The door to the room opens, and the king’s soldiers come in with dinner.

I begin to get up.

The king’s free hand clamps down on my hip. “Stay here.”

“Every time you exert a little more intimacy, the interest on my end of the bargain goes up,” I say.

“I don’t care.”

And here we are, locking horns once more.

Behind me I can hear the soldiers. They make quick work of setting out our dinner. I wait until their footsteps retreat. Until the door opens and then clicks shut behind them.

Until I’m alone with my monster once more.

I yank my captive hand out of his, along with the tumbler. I down the second glass’s worth of alcohol, then set the empty cup on the table.

Readjusting my hips on the king’s lap, I place my hands on his seatback, caging him in.

A very honest smile spreads across Montes’s lips as I lean in, my hair dangling between us. “Is this what you want from me?” I ask. I’m tired of fighting every inch he takes, and I’m tired of him toying with me.

Now both of his hands grip my outer thighs, holding me in place. “No,” he says.

He closes the last of the distance between our mouths and brushes his against mine. “I want everything you have to give,” he murmurs. “And everything you don’t.”

He’s taken my memories, my mortality, my freedom, even my death. I don’t know how much more there even is to give.