Queen

by Aimee Carter

  The guards led me down the grand staircase and into the wing that had, until this moment, been completely off-limits to me: the master-suite wing, where Daxton had spent all his time holed up away from us, scheming and plotting and doing whatever it was he did each day. Coming up with more ways to destroy the lives of innocent people, I supposed. He wasn’t good for much else.

  His wing was double the size of my suite, Greyson’s, and Knox’s put together, and it was decorated in the same warm woods and colors as the rest of the house. But the deeper we went down the hallway, the colder the air seemed to grow, until at last the guards opened a door near the end of the corridor.

  It was a plain room with white walls, but the stench of human waste, blood, and fear punched me in the gut, making my stomach heave. “I’m not going in there,” I said, nearly choking on the putrid air.

  “Oh, yes, you are,” said a voice inside. Daxton appeared from behind the door, wearing a black apron over his suit and holding what looked like a curved saw. The blade dripped with fresh blood. “Surprised to see me, Lila?”

  I gaped at Daxton, my mouth dry and the edges of my vision going dark. I searched for any sign that he was a replacement, but no one could mimic the coldness in his voice and the sadistic glint in his eye. I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t killed him.

  Failure and shame and pure self-loathing washed over me, squeezing me in a vise grip from which there was no escape. That was twice now I’d failed to murder the man known as Daxton Hart. At least this time, it wasn’t from lack of trying.

  “I’m thrilled you’re still alive,” I said through a clenched jaw, my mind racing. Whose blood was that? I glanced into the room, but most of my view was blocked by Daxton and the door. Who else was at the manor with—

  All the air left my lungs, and suddenly it was all I could do to remain standing. I’d been so busy worrying about Greyson that I hadn’t given Benjy’s safety a second thought.

  No. I couldn’t lose control. I couldn’t forget who I was supposed to be. Benjy was nothing to Lila. Daxton would have no reason to hurt him for my sake. And if I asked about him—if I gave even the slightest hint he was my top priority—

  “Where’s Greyson?” I managed, forcing the words out. “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Greyson is quite safe,” he said, and he stepped aside, giving me room to enter. “He doesn’t have the courage to pull the trigger anyway, does he? No, no—once I reviewed the footage from the incident, it became crystal clear who the perpetrator was.”

  My head buzzed with fear and pure adrenaline, and I staggered forward, hardly daring to let myself think it. It couldn’t be Benjy. It couldn’t be Benjy. It couldn’t be Benjy.

  I exhaled sharply when I saw the body lying prone on a steel table. Or at least I thought it was a body—the skin was nearly all gone, revealing the angry red muscles below, and the hands and arms lay in pieces on nearby trays, clearly sawed off bit by bit. The massive belly was sliced open, and another bowl of organs had been placed beside several fingers.

  I turned away and was sick on the floor, heaving up what felt like everything I’d eaten in days. I’d been right. It wasn’t Benjy. Even though it was nearly unrecognizable, the body was too big to be him. But I did recognize the handlebar mustache attached to what was left of the face.

  Minister Bradley.

  “Is he—?” I managed once there was nothing left to come up. For once, I hoped the answer was yes.

  “No, not yet. He will be soon, though, don’t worry. To his credit, it did take several days to break him,” said Daxton, setting aside the saw and moving to admire his handiwork. I’d seen evidence of it before, I realized—in the basement of Mercer Manor. At the time, I’d assumed it was only Jonathan Mercer. But of course his brother had enjoyed himself, too.

  “You think—you think Minister Bradley tried to kill you?” I said, gagging again as the smell of vomit mixed with the rest of it.

  “Oh, no. The public does, of course—it’s easy to spin the footage from the event to make it seem like that’s the truth—but I know exactly what happened.” Daxton selected a particularly long knife from his collection of tools, testing his thumb on the tip. “Even without Bradley’s confession, Greyson doesn’t have the courage, and Benjamin would have done it privately, no doubt. Or at the very least, he’s competent enough to recognize a bulletproof vest underneath a suit when he sees one.”

  But he hadn’t. None of us had. In the dead of winter, with the bulky coats we were all wearing, it would have been impossible to tell a vest from an extra sweater. I cursed myself again and again for not considering that possibility. I should have aimed for his head.

  “So you think it was me,” I said, too shaken to fake Lila’s usual haughtiness. I wanted to believe that, faced with the torture Minister Bradley had spent the past five days enduring, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it up, either.

  “I know it was you, Lila. Bradley admitted he gave you the gun. My guards are searching your room now. I have no doubt they will find it soon.”

  There was no point in denying it. He knew Lila had wanted to kill him; he knew we all did. And whether I admitted it or not, my sentence would still be the same. “Is that why you brought me here? To execute me?”

  Daxton laughed as he traced the tip of the knife over Bradley’s exposed chest. Though he had been still and silent until now, the former Minister suddenly trembled, and a soft moan escaped. My stomach contracted again, but there was nothing left to purge.

  “Execute you? My dear Lila, why on earth would I do something so foolish? No, no. Your allegiance, feigned or not, is far too precious. I only wish to demonstrate to you exactly what will happen to Greyson and anyone else alive you love should you ever attempt something this heinous again.”

  He shoved the blade into Bradley’s chest, right where his heart must have been. At once, Bradley’s moans stopped, and grim relief filled me. Five days. It had taken him five days to break and betray me. No one could blame him for that, and if Daxton hadn’t put him out of his misery, I would have found a way to do so before leaving the room.

  “You are mine, Lila. Do you understand? You and Greyson—you are my pets, to sit and stay and roll over as I please,” snarled Daxton. “Dogs do not bite their master unless they want to be euthanized. Is that what you want?”

  “The dogs wouldn’t bite at all if their master didn’t abuse them.” My voice trembled, but at least I’d found some drop of courage. “The master is always at fault.”

  “Maybe. But the master is the one who holds the leash, so in the end, does it really matter?” He pulled the knife from Bradley’s body with a sickening, wet sound. “Let this be a warning to you, Lila. There is no escape, and the harder you try, the direr your circumstances will become. You are dismissed.”

  I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. With my hands still cuffed behind my back, I lurched back through the doorway, and the guards caught me by the elbows, steadying me so I didn’t fall over.

  “Oh, and Lila?” called Daxton through the doorway. I didn’t turn around. “I expect to see you at dinner tonight.”

  Over my dead body, if I’d had any choice, but I didn’t. This was it. This was going to be my life from here on out—existing merely to give legitimacy to Daxton’s rule and to buy him the sympathy of the people. And if he ever did decide to kill me, there were a million ways to do it that wouldn’t lose him either of those things. Hire someone else to murder me in front of an audience, for instance, the way I’d tried to do to him. Poison me until I was so weak that my heart gave out. Stage some sort of accident that couldn’t be traced back to him. My life was at his mercy, but then again, that’s exactly how it had been since my seventeenth birthday. This wasn’t anything new. The noose around my neck had only tightened, and now Daxton wasn’t bothering to feign civility anymo
re. It should have been refreshing to know precisely where we stood, with no pretenses between us. But when I was the one directly underneath his boot, that wasn’t much of a silver lining.

  When the guards finally led me back to my room, it had been ransacked so completely that nothing was where it should have been. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to discover they’d found my hollowed-out book, but if Daxton was going to kill me for the assassination attempt, he would have already done it. He didn’t need the proof, and my punishment was continuing to live under his rule.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up, taking my time returning books to the shelves and clothes to the closet. It was busywork, but I was grateful for something to do. Still, no matter how many trinkets I picked up and returned to their original spots, I couldn’t shake the image of Bradley’s mutilated body, and I couldn’t stop hearing that single pathetic moan. I could have lived a hundred more years, and I would never forget those few minutes I’d spent with Daxton in that room of horrors.

  My picture frame was, thankfully, unbroken, and I set it back on the nightstand. It was almost a form of torture in and of itself now, having those memories so readily at my fingertips. But I needed something to keep me sane, and if Daxton was going to deny me everything else, then those few pictures were all I had left.

  At dinnertime, a knock sounded on my door. I was sitting on the sofa once more, staring at the wall of bookshelves. I couldn’t read any of them, but I’d thought about opening one up and pretending. “Come in,” I called, expecting the guards. To my surprise, it was Benjy who opened the door.

  “Hey,” he said with a tight smile, and I scrambled to my feet. He didn’t step inside the room, however, and I stayed put, too. Seeing him alive and well was a balm I hadn’t known I’d needed, but now that he was standing in front of me without a scratch on him, everything inside me seemed to deflate.

  “Is it time for dinner?” I said, and he nodded, pressing his lips together.

  “The Prime Minister asked me to escort you.” A flicker of uncertainty passed over his face, and I knew without a doubt that something else was going on.

  “Very well,” I said with a sniff, another image of Bradley flashing in my mind. No matter how much perfume I sprayed, the stench of that room still lingered in my nose. “Will Greyson be joining us?”

  “Not tonight.” He must have sensed my silent question, because he added, “Daxton and I visit him regularly, and he’s all right. Bored, and he asks about you every time we see him, but he’s okay.”

  Relieved, I took Benjy’s arm and let him lead me into the hallway. The fact that they hadn’t insisted on handcuffs this time surprised me, but I doubted Daxton would ever let me get close enough to him again for that to be a problem.

  When we arrived, two servants opened the doors to the dining room for us, and I stopped when I saw the spread laid out on the table. Whole hams and chickens, a mountain of colorful fruit, and a maze of vegetables and soups. More kinds of bread than I’d known existed. And along the edges of the room, waiting to be served, sat tray after tray full of decadent desserts.

  “What...?” Never before had I seen such an opulent display of food, not even at the endless stream of parties I’d attended as Lila before the war.

  “Lila!” Daxton clapped his hands on the other side of the room, where he stood examining a roast pig. “How lovely it is to have you join us.”

  “Is it somebody’s birthday and I missed the memo?” I said warily. Benjy left me at the foot of the table while he took a seat toward the center, between Daxton and me.

  “Oh, no, but we do have a special guest.” He gestured, and another door opened.

  Her wrists were shackled to her ankles, her clothes were dirty, and her tangled black hair hung in her face, but as she entered the dining room, she looked up, and our eyes met.

  Celia.

  XV

  Gilded Cage

  “Mom?” I croaked. It had been a long time since I’d had to pretend Celia was my mother, but now even she had no idea I wasn’t her daughter.

  Her expression crumpled, and for a second, I thought she was going to cry. “Lila,” she said in a choked voice. “You’re okay. I’ve missed you, honey.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said. I wanted to go to her, to hug her and tell her everything was okay, but I could feel Daxton’s beady eyes on me, and I didn’t dare show an ounce of weakness.

  “Family reunions always make me so happy,” he said. “Please, everyone, sit—this feast won’t eat itself.”

  Between the horrors I’d witnessed that afternoon and seeing Celia in such awful shape, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be hungry again, but any insubordination on my part would only make things worse for her. Obediently I sat and let the servers fill my plate with a variety of foods, but none of it looked appetizing. Instead I stared at the woman who had helped me impersonate her dead daughter from the beginning. She had been through more than any of the rest of us, first losing her husband to the brutality of her family, and then not only losing her daughter, but being forced to train her replacement only days later. In the middle of it all, she had formed a rebel group to fight her family, and never, not once, had I seen her wallow in her grief at the expense of what needed to be done. That kind of strength and bravery couldn’t be learned. It was something innate inside her, something irreplaceable. She was the reason I had survived this long. Together, she and Knox had made sure I’d been as safe as possible, and now there was nothing I could do to return the favor.

  “So.” Her voice was hoarse, and her hands shook as she picked up a fork with fingers that didn’t bend properly. A chill ran through me as I pictured the things they must have done to her, but despite her condition, she wore a mask of indifference. “How long will you play with your food before putting me out of my misery, Victor?”

  “It’s Daxton. One would think you would recognize your own brother,” he said with a wave of his knife.

  “One would think,” said Celia mildly. He sniffed.

  “I’ve already made plans to have you executed in the morning. It should be a good show.”

  “I thought the war was over,” I said hollowly, stabbing a piece of lettuce. “Won’t another execution stir up discontent all over again?”

  “Hardly,” he said. “The people deserve closure, and Celia is the missing link. Once her body is burned and there’s nothing left of her, then and only then can we have peace.”

  My insides seized, and despite her hard shell, even Celia paled at that. “Burning at the stake? Isn’t that a bit medieval?”

  “Rather suitable for a witch, wouldn’t you say?” he said. “Or would you rather be drawn and quartered?”

  “I would have thought family would show each other mercy,” she countered.

  “You’ve made it painfully clear, dear sister, in your multiple attempts to kill me, that you have never had any intention of showing me mercy,” he said. “Why should I return the favor?”

  “Because it would make you look benevolent in front of the entire country,” I said with as much strength as I dared. “You don’t want the people to see you as sadistic, especially when Celia has never been pinned as directly responsible for any specific murders.”

  “She’s responsible for the whole damn rebellion.” Daxton slammed his fist into the table. “I will not show mercy when she deserves none.”

  “Then you’re going to make half a billion people sympathize with her and hate you,” I said, refusing to be rattled by his outburst. “Either way, she’s going to die. You don’t want to make yourself look like the monster you really are in the meantime.”

  The dining room fell deathly silent. Daxton sat at the head of the table, shaking with rage and turning a strange shade of purple. I could only hope he gave himself a stroke, or better yet, a heart attack; instead, as the
seconds passed, he began to calm down, and his face returned to a normal color.

  “You’re right, Lila,” he said all too calmly. “You’re absolutely right. Very well. A merciful execution it is. A hanging, or death by firing squad—I’ll let you know in the morning, Celia.”

  Of course he would. That would give her all night to worry about it. “I’d like to stay with her,” I said. “She’s my mother, after all. I have a right to say goodbye.”

  “I was just about to suggest the very same thing myself,” said Daxton in a dangerously cheerful voice. Whatever he had planned, it couldn’t be good, but I would deal with it when it happened. “Now enjoy yourselves, both of you. This is, after all, a celebration.”

  If I had been in Celia’s position, I wouldn’t have been able to eat a bite. As it was, I could barely keep my dinner down, but she feasted on everything in sight. Plate after plate, entrée after entrée, as if she hadn’t eaten in a month and never would again.

  But she wouldn’t, I realized. This was her last meal.

  After that, I didn’t touch the rest of my plate, even avoiding the desserts that the servers brought around for us to sample. Daxton seemed abnormally happy throughout the rest of the meal, and he continued to chat about the execution as if it were some party we were all looking forward to. Celia focused on eating, while Benjy also stared at his plate, barely touching a thing. As much as I hated knowing he had to see this, too, at least this time I wasn’t the only witness to Daxton’s depravity.

  At last, once even Celia couldn’t eat another bite, Daxton stood. “Make sure Celia is comfortable,” he said to Benjy. “It is, after all, her last night.”

  “She can stay in my room,” I said, trying to give my voice as much authority as I could muster. Daxton tilted his head, considering.