The entire time my father sits in the corner of the room, peace treaty on his lap, his hands threaded through his hair. He hasn’t turned the page since the knocking began.
Marco bangs on the door once more, and my father stands suddenly. Throwing the document on a nearby table, he strides towards the door.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I say, standing up from my own seat.
“I’m going to tell Marco that you will not see the king.”
Crap. I hadn’t meant for this.
“Wait, no.” I cut him off, and stop him with a hand. “Dad, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, and I can’t watch this.”
If my father intercedes now, it could be game over. Scenarios dance through my mind, none of them good. The ripple effects could be disastrous. I can’t let that happen.
“Please, Dad. Sit down. I’ll answer the door.”
“I can’t ask this of you,” he says. “None of us can.”
My throat works at his admission. “It’s alright. This arrangement isn’t forever. Just please, go sit back down.”
My father stares at me for a long time, his nostrils flaring. For a man who’s good at masking his emotions, he’s not doing so well at the moment.
Finally he nods and walks back to his seat, his movements mechanical.
Hurrying to the door, I grab the handle and fling it open before I can reconsider my actions.
“Evening Marco,” I say when I step out into the hallway.
“The king requests—”
“I know,” I say, pushing past him.
“He wants you to wear your gift,” Marco says to my back.
“And I want to live in a world where I don’t have to worry about radiation poisoning, but neither is going to happen anytime soon.”
I can hear Marco’s huff, but he’s smart enough to realize a lost cause when he sees one.
This evening Marco leads me to a different area of the mansion. We stop in front of a solid wood door and Marco knocks twice.
“Come in Marco.” I can hear the king’s muffled voice on the other side of the door.
Marco twists the handle and ushers me inside. The king’s back is to me and he’s staring at the walls of the room.
I suck in a breath of air. The walls are covered with maps of every nation on earth. Strings crisscross the images, connecting one section of land to another. Pins hold the strings down, and beneath a few of these pins are images. Most are of people whose faces have been crossed out; only a precious few remain unscathed. My earlier nausea rises.
“Feeling better, Serenity?”
“Fuck off.”
The king turns to face me, his expression unreadable. “You’re not wearing my gift.”
“You can’t bribe me into liking you.”
The king’s eyes flick to Marco. “You can go.”
Behind me Marco’s footfalls fade, and a moment later the door clicks shut. There’s no one else in this room but the two of us. No guards, no servants. Like the pool last night, it’s just the two of us.
“I can’t have you clouding my judgment during negotiations,” he explains without me asking.
My hands fist. “Right. Because how awful would it be to compromise for once in your life?”
“I haven’t spent the last decade waging war with your country to finally compromise.”
“No,” I agree, “you haven’t.”
The king glances away from me at the maps that line the walls. “I’m not an idiot,” he says, not looking at me. “I know the WUN sent you here to seduce me.”
My body goes rigid. I have no idea why his confession shocks me; it doesn’t take a scientist to put two and two together.
He laughs, the sound hollow. “The problem is, it worked.” His eyes move over me, and something in them softens for a moment before he shutters the expression.
“Uh huh.”
His lips curl into a smirk. “You find that hard to believe?” he asks. I’d say that he was mocking me, except his eyes are too serious.
I fold my arms over my chest. Of course I do. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
“To warn you.”
“Warn me about what?”
“I get what I want. Always.”
“You keep telling me that, yet I haven’t seen any proof.”
“You want proof?” he says. His eyes are calculating, and the smile dancing on his lips is sly. He’s no longer the man I talked to yesterday; he’s the man who’s been taking over the world for the last three decades.
I take a step back. I shouldn’t have spoken just now; my words were careless, and around the king, careless words could mean the difference between life and death.
I shake my head and close my eyes. “No, I don’t want proof. I just want this to end.” I open my eyes. “I don’t want to see any more crossed out faces on those maps of yours.” I jut my chin to the wall behind him. “I don’t want to be hungry all the time. I don’t want to see the hollow-eyed looks of the people I live alongside.”
“I can give you that,” he says, slowly walking towards me, not stopping until the two of us are dangerously close.
“Of course you can—but you won’t.”
“That’s because no one’s offered me the correct price yet.” He says it like this is a simple matter of haggling.
I throw my arms up. “You can’t expect the WUN to willingly cripple our future economy for you.”
The king eliminates the last bit of space between us and fingers a lock of my hair. “That’s not the price I was referring to.” Almost lackadaisically, his eyes move from my hair and land on my face.
And now I get it. I take a step back, then another. I furrow my eyebrows; I think I’m going to be sick. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Even if I believed that was a legitimate trade—which we both know it isn’t—no.”
“You could end this all now, and you refuse to agree to it?”
“You’re asking me to make a deal with the devil.”
“You and I both know you already signed your soul away a long time ago, Serenity.”
“Because of you and your stupid war. I already told you last night, you don’t get to have me.”
The king prowls towards me, closing the distance between us once more. “I’m not just talking about sex,” he says.
But sex would be included in the arrangement. “I’d rather die than do anything with you.”
“If it’s death you wish, we can arrange that.”
The king reaches out to touch my arm, and I slap his hand away. “Don’t. Touch. Me.” I’m shaking; this was never supposed to happen. I’m getting played by the king, and I don’t know how to get myself out of this situation.
King Lazuli sticks his hands in his pockets and leans in conspiratorially. “You know the thing about strategy? It takes knowing when to act and when to be patient.”
I take a good look at him. King Lazuli’s been waging this war for almost thirty years, yet he looks to be little older than thirty himself. I’ve seen footage of him shot, blown-up, and stabbed, yet he hasn’t died. He’s unnatural in more ways than one.
“If you try to force me into this plan of yours, I will find out your secrets,” I say, “and once I do, I will kill you.” I stare at him long enough for him to see the vehemence behind my words. And then I turn and walk away from the king and the sick tapestry that hangs along the walls of the room.
I’m almost to the door when he speaks. “I plan on making you love me before that happens.”
Chapter 8
Serenity
Three years ago I saw combat for the first time.
I was allowed to fight despite being underage.
Many of us were. The war had raged on long enough that the military would take almost all willing and able-bodied soldiers—even underage ones, so long as they were over the age of fourteen and their guardian agreed to it. My father had consented—albeit, reluctantly—and so had Will’s.
Will and I, members of the same platoon, had been stationed in New York, near where New York City once stood. The two of us hunkered down outside the skeletons of former buildings, our breaths clouding in the chilly night air. Our battalion had reappropriated the ruins and turned them into makeshift barracks.
“We’re missing all the action,” Will complained, picking up a pebble and chucking it at an abandoned car across the street.
Because we were younger. Our military might recruit minors, but they tended to shelter them from action if they could.
Several minutes later one of the other members of our company whistled from a block away. “The king’s men are dropping out of the sky!”
I glanced above me and sure enough, the dim outline of parachutes obscured the patches of the sky. There looked to be dozens of them.
“Oh shit,” Will said.
My heart slammed inside my ribcage. We were being ambushed. I grabbed my mother’s necklace and kissed it for good luck. I’d killed before, but never under such treacherous circumstances.
Shots pinged in the distance—likely other soldiers from our company trying to shoot the king’s men out of the air. From what I could tell, it had no effect.
Will raised his weapon.
“Don’t shoot,” I said, staring up at the sky.
“Why not?” He lined up his gun’s sights.
“We don’t have enough bullets to waste.” Not when our targets were too far away to aim with accuracy.
“So you think we should wait?” He sounded incredulous.
“Mmhm.” My hands trembled.
Will shook his head but lowered his gun. “This better be a good idea, ’cause I feel like we’re missing a perfect opportunity.”
“Just wait for them to get within range.”
He huffed, his way of agreeing without conceding his point.
It took an agonizing five minutes for the enemy to get close enough to shoot. When a man managed to land on our block, Will and I jogged over to him as the soldier extricated himself from his harness.
“I got this one,” Will said, aiming his weapon.
I nodded next to him, my gun also trained on the enemy soldier.
Will hesitated, readjusted his grip, then hesitated some more.
“What are you waiting for?” I whispered.
“Nothing.”
I cast a look over at Will. His hands fidgeted, his eyes were wild.
He’d never killed a man. I’d assumed he had. We lived in the kind of world where violence was inevitable.
The soldier was now glancing up at us as he frantically fiddled with the straps of his parachute. In several more seconds we’d lose the advantage we now had.
Next to me Will shifted his weight, his hands adjusting and readjusting their grip on his weapon. He wasn’t going to finish the enemy in time.
Steadying my breath, I aimed my weapon and fired.
The bullet took the soldier right between the eyes—a quick, painless death. That was as compassionate as I was going to get out here, given the circumstances.
For ten long seconds neither of us moved.
Will finally lowered his gun. “I froze up.” I could hear the embarrassment in his voice.
“Nothing to be ashamed of.”
I pushed down my nausea. By now I’d learned that it wasn’t physical. It was more of a soul-sickness. Another piece of my humanity chipped away.
“You were able to kill him,” Will said.
You, a girl. That’s what he meant. Like owning a vagina made me inferior in some fundamental way.
I gave Will a long look, then shook my head and began walking towards the body. I expected most of the teen boys in my platoon to be sexist, but not Will.
“I’m sorry,” he said to my back.
I waved him off. “You’ll get another chance to kill tonight. I’m sure it’ll help your wounded ego recover.”
Will did in fact kill for the first time that evening. And when he saw the woman’s lifeless eyes, he vomited all over my shoes. The machismo act fell away after that. It didn’t stop either of us from continuing to slaughter enemy soldiers, but by the end of the night, Will was no longer so eager to take lives.
Once upon a time, we were innocent. And then we were not.
The next few days at the king’s estate are strangely quiet. Our time here is almost up. Not much progress has been made between my father and the king as far as negotiations go. My father enters our suite each day weary and beaten down. The WUN is not in a position to make an advantageous agreement, and the king is making that clearer now more than ever.
If we can’t reach an agreement in the next two days, when our flight is scheduled to leave, the king will continue to wage war on us until we’re forced to surrender, and then the WUN will have to agree with whatever demands he asks.
The twisted king hasn’t tried to see me since our brief interaction in his map room, yet our last visit managed to spook me. I can’t tell how much of what he said was true and how much of it was a lie. The king is a tactical mastermind, that much I know. So I can trust that whatever he decides will be solely in his best interest. I’ll get used, and so will the WUN.
And now I have to see him in less than an hour. King Lazuli’s hosting some bigwig dinner, and we’re the guests of honor. It’ll be the first time I’m in front of the cameras again since I was banned from the peace talks.
I carefully apply the makeup I was packed with. I’ve probably spent more time on this trip poking myself in the eye with the eyeliner pen than I have learning the ins and outs of the king’s proposed peace treaty. And I’ve spent hours poring over that thing.
I turn away from the mirror and glance at the far corner of my room where I shoved the king’s gifts. I don’t want to put the gown or the jewelry on; to me it symbolizes all the broken families and defeated nations he’s claimed.
But so close to when we have to leave, my mind is haunted by the possibility that I could do something for the WUN. Tonight.
I retrieve the king’s gifts from the corner. I give the pale yellow dress a dirty look. Somehow the king managed to spoil my favorite color. I remove the towel wrapped around my torso and pull the gown on.
Once I do, I frown. My entire back is exposed. The rest of the dress falls suggestively over my curves. It fits me perfectly.
I grab the diamond necklace that goes along with the dress, and before I can think too much about it, I clasp it around my neck. It feels like a manacle.
I finish applying makeup and arrange my hair so that it lies in loose curls over my shoulders, and then I leave my room. I look nothing like the elegant women I’ve seen here, with their perfectly coiffed hair and painted faces, and for that I’m glad. I can still recognize myself in the mirror.
Outside my room, my father speaks animatedly with one of our guards. Gone is the devastated man who considered defying orders for me.
A wry smile passes over his face when he catches sight of me. “You almost pull off the sweet and innocent look,” he says. “Almost.”
“What ruins it? My scar?” I ask. I grin back at him.
“Nope—it’s all in the eyes and the jaw. And that smile doesn’t help. You look like you want to gut someone.” Now my dad’s grinning.
“You can dress up a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
My dad comes over to me and grasps my hand. “Not a pig,” he says, staring me in the eye, “a soldier.”
My father and I follow Marcus to the banquet hall, our gua
rds shadowing our procession. Inside, people haven’t yet sat down to eat. Instead they mill about the room, sipping on champagne and chatting with one another.
The room stirs as we enter. You’d think that the king’s stuck-up friends would get used to the sight of us, but they haven’t. Nor have the camera crews. I notice that most of their lenses zoom in on me. I guess their audiences are more interested in my (lack of) involvement in the peace talks than they are of my father’s or the king’s.
My father leans into me. “You need to interact with these people tonight. Talk, be friendly, and try not to scare anyone too much. I’m leaving you to mingle.”
He must see the fear in my eyes as he pulls away because he pats my shoulder. “Make me proud.”
I give him a look that tells him what I think about that statement. He grins at me and winks before moving away from me to talk with an elderly man—the former prime minister of what used to be England.
My skin prickles; I can sense the king watching me. I turn and lock eyes with him. He swirls the wine in his glass as he assesses me. His eyes meander down my body and back up, and as he does so, an approving smile spreads across his face.
I suppress a shiver at his gaze. I imagine this is how he looks at unconquered territories.
The camera crews crowd me, despite the WUN soldiers standing guard. I keep my expression bland so the world doesn’t see the terror coursing through me. The king has always been my boogeyman, but boogeymen aren’t supposed to be real. They’re the things of nightmares, the things your parents kiss away.
But he’s real. And he wants me. And the entire western hemisphere might benefit if I simply face my fears.
The plan I’ve toyed with for the last several days comes to fruition. I will do this, even if it’s as scary as running headlong into battle.
I roll my neck like I do before I work out and push my shoulders back. I’m going to give the cameramen one hell of a show.
I stride towards the king, who stands on the other side of the room. I let my body sway a little more than usual, just to pull eyes to me.
The Queen of All that Dies (The Fallen World Book 1) Page 8
