Chapter 12
Serenity
They say it took me five days to beat this thing.
They say that it was the most lethal strain of plague they’d yet seen. They tell me that four out of every five people die from it. That my compromised immune system saved me from death by a virus that primarily kills the healthy.
They say that someone planted the virus on or near me.
They say it was the Resistance.
I believe everything but the last.
“Trust me when I tell you that if the Resistance knew about your super virus, they would’ve taken advantage of it long ago,” I say to the king’s council.
I’m pacing inside one of the palace’s conference rooms as Montes and his advisors go over the attack.
“It’s been months since you were part of the Resistance,” one of his men says—a former West African ruler. “How would you know that?”
The king’s lounging back in his chair, his calculating eyes moving between me and the advisor. He’s been quiet, and that’s probably for the best. Usually when he talks someone ends up with a bullet between their eyes.
“You were the one that suggested that Resistance members are planted everywhere,” the man continues. “Now we’re missing a driver and an official car; one matching its description has been found near a suspected Resistance stronghold.
“Correlation is not the same as causation,” I say.
The man guffaws, and I thin my eyes. The derision these men have for me is almost palpable. I know what they see: a young, pretty girl from a backwards nation who wishes to talk to them as equals. They can barely stand it. And while I enjoy their silent seething, I’m never going to make inroads with these men if they don’t respect my opinion.
I place my hands on the table and stare him down, letting the civility bleed from my expression. I’m no delicate flower. I’ve seen more of war’s atrocities first hand than most—if not all—of these men have.
“It’s reasoning like that that’s set the world back decades and dropped the global lifespan from the high sixties to the mid-thirties,” I say.
He stares back at me with flinty eyes. “It’s reasoning like yours, my queen, that’s nearly gotten you killed multiple times.”
“Efe.” Montes rises from his chair, his expression ominous. The threat is clear—an insult to me is an insult to him.
“They’re both right.” This comes from Alexander Gorev—or Alexei, as he prefers. I know him better as the Beast of the East. Everyone in the WUN’s heard tales of the former general’s penchant for torture and rape. He’s the man who replaced Marco’s seat. Now he’s trying to be everyone’s best friend to make up for the fact that he’s new to this council. I’m having trouble not stealing one of the guards’ guns and putting a bullet in his belly, right where I know death will come only after an agonizing ten minutes.
My gaze flicks to him, and whatever he was going to say dies on his lips. He must sense how close to death he is. Him I will kill eventually.
I don’t understand why Montes has chosen this group of despots as his advisors, but I now understand why he uses fear to get them to cooperate. It’s the only mechanism that they react to.
“I didn’t come here to discuss my mortality,” I say.
“Mmm, but I did.” Montes’s voice coils around us all. He’d barely let me out of bed this morning, despite being cleared for activity by Dr. Goldstein. Only my expert opinion on the Resistance and his own thirst for vengeance swayed him.
“We’ve been working on this for a week,” he continues, “and we’ve made no progress. Who do I have to kill to make things happen?”
If only the psycho were joking.
His men pale. Already the whispers I’ve heard suggest that the king’s killed off several people he suspected of facilitating my assassination.
“Perhaps we could start with you, Efe.”
The man’s eyes widen, but before he has a chance to plead with the king, Montes’s eyes move to Alexei. “Or you.”
I swear the Beast stops breathing. He hasn’t become accustomed to the king’s threats.
“Hmmm, no,” Montes continues, “I believe the blame must lie with all of you. You have another day. Bring me something tomorrow, or I’ll find myself new advisors.”
People nod and murmur, some shuffle papers. Just another day in the life of a demagogue’s advisor.
Someone clears his throat. “We should discuss the former WUN.”
My hackles rise at the mention of my homeland. These men are predators ready to tear into their newest kill.
My eyes land on the speaker. Ronaldo. He was the one that orchestrated the nuclear blasts that wiped my country apart, the one whose life I saved in one of these last meetings.
“No.” The word is out before I can censor myself.
Montes swivels in his chair, an eyebrow raised.
“I will be dealing with the WUN,” I say. Not Ronaldo, who played a key role in destroying it. Not any of these other men that hold no love for the scarred land I once called home.
Montes’s advisors look aghast. Their gazes move from me to the king and back.
“Your Majesty?” It’s Walrus Man from our wedding who pipes up, the man with the bulging eyes and belly. I don’t remember his name and I don’t particularly care.
The king focuses all that disturbing intensity of his onto the advisor. “Yes?”
Walrus glances to either side of him, his face beginning to redden when no one else speaks up. Had he thought to dispute me? Was it his hope that breaking the silence would herald in more complaints from his colleagues? No one else seems interested in disputing the king’s wife, despite the fact that many of them appear angry.
Such loyal comrades, these men.
“Nothing,” Walrus says.
Weak, weak man.
“Good.” Montes’s eyes twinkle when they meet mine. He keeps me around because I’m still amusing to him. “Your queen’s spoken,” he says to the room. “All dealings with the western hemisphere will go through her from this day forward.”
There’s a collective exhale as twelve men hand over their balls to a woman. I can’t help the satisfied smile that stretches across my face. I made a promise to myself that I’d help my homeland.
Today I’ve begun to in earnest.
“You defied me,” the king says after the meeting.
The last of his men have left, and by the time we leave the conference room, there’s no sign in the hallways that over a dozen of the world’s wickedest men had convened here ten minutes ago.
“Taking control away from those men is not defiance.”
The king’s hand falls to the back of my neck, his fingers caressing the pulse points on either side of it. It’s oddly sensual, but it’s also an innate threat. Power flows from the king; for all my posturing I’m just his puppet.
He pulls the side of my head to his lips. “It is if I say it is,” he said, his breath tickling my ear.
Even his words are some combination of sensuality and threat. My mouth usually gets me into trouble, I decide for once to muzzle it.
“How are you feeling?” Montes asks. He still holds my neck hostage, and he’s using the grip to keep me even closer.
“Healthy.”
Healthy is the last thing I’m feeling. The king doesn’t know that half my bathroom breaks consist of me hugging the toilet rather than sitting on it, or that blood continues to speckle the evidence of my sickness. Up until today I’ve been on forced bedrest. I’m not about to blow my first taste of freedom.
“I was hoping you’d say so. Tonight we’re hosting a very important dinner party; if you’re feeling better, you’ll be there by my side.”
I’ve been cornered by a master manipulator. It’s either attend the stuffy dinner party or languish in bed.
“This is revenge for speaking up today, isn’t it?”
This twisted man.
“No, Serenity,” the king says. He removes his thumb from my pulse point to stroke it down the back of my neck. “That, I will collect on later.”
The dinner party we walk into is identical to the ones I went to during the peace talks with the king. The only things missing are the camera crews and my father.
I swallow down the lump in my throat. Had I felt objectified then? It’s nothing compared to now. The room’s collective gaze fixes on me. I can feel their eyes studying my hair, my makeup, my jewelry, and my outfit. If only they knew that when I walked into my room several hours earlier, someone else had laid it all out for me. The woman they see is a stranger. Maybe one day I’ll get just as used to wearing dresses as I do fatigues, but not today.
“Relax your features, my queen,” Montes says, his voice pitched low for only me to hear, “you look ready to massacre the room.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Montes’s smile.
Ahead of me, thirty odd people lounge in whatever this room is—a sitting room? A standing room? Does it even matter? Most of these rooms look identical to my untrained eyes.
The people here are just as interchangeable, and I have to study their features closely to distinguish them. What I find surprises me.
Some of the younger women wear their hair loosely curled. Just like mine.
Another sports a jewel just below the corner of her eye. It’s on the same side as my scar. Several women wear pale yellow dresses. Another wears a gold dress eerily similar to the one I wore at my engagement announcement.
They’re emulating me.
I work my jaw. I hate it. What’s worse, I’m fueling this.
I don’t think I can be civil tonight. Not here, not with these people.
I have to remind myself of all the lessons my father taught me. Not everything needs to be a confrontation.
Shortly after they catch sight of us, Montes’s guests begin to approach. Many of the men are his advisors, but not all of them. The bejeweled, bright-eyed women join them, smiles fixed on their faces.
I’m glaring at all of them while Montes charms the group.
“Montes, can I steal your wife away?” This comes from the woman with the jewel at the corner of her eye.
“I’m right here,” I say. “You can ask me.”
She reels back slightly. “Of course, Your Majesty. Would you care to meet the wives of the king’s advisors?”
I would care very much. But this is the world of politics and diplomacy, a world my father schooled me on. Study your enemies.
“It would be a pleasure.” The words come out clipped. It’s my one lie of the night. I’m tapping out after this.
The king flashes me a look. He knows exactly how deceptive I’m being at the moment.
I’m dragged away from the king towards the far left side of the room, where most of the women are grouped.
“I’m Helen,” the woman says as she leads me. “I met you briefly at the wedding, but there were so many people.”
She’s apologizing for me, like I need or want an out for not remembering her name.
I stare at the rubies that drip from her ears. So this is how the rich bleed—elegantly.
“We’re so excited to see the king finally settling down. We thought that he would never,” she says as we join the group.
“Your Majesty,” the women echo, dipping their heads.
“This is Beatrice, Anouk, Isabel, Katarina, …” Helen introduces. I forget each name the moment my eyes move on to the next. Some are old; most are young.
They can’t all be the advisors’ wives. The way some of them are looking at me … if I had to guess, I’d say that the king’s mixed business and pleasure plenty of times in the past.
Jealousy lances through me before I can stop it. To think that any of them might’ve also experienced the king as I have …
The thought is followed by a good dose of self-loathing. For me to be jealous of the affections of the king—it’s unconscionable.
I square my jaw, forcing my emotions down. I swear the group notices my anger. They shift a little restlessly. I’m a predator among prey.
Someone breaks the silence that follows the introductions.
“Beautiful dress, and—” she gasps, “are those heels from Vesuvio’s summer collection?”
I glance down at my toes. Vesuvio?
“They are!” she exclaims. “I adore his entire summer collection. I would kill for a pair.”
My jaw tightens. “Would you?” I say, looking back up.
The woman falls silent, and the rest of the group tensely watches the exchange, some clutching their jewel-encrusted necklaces. They must sense how offensive I find it to even jest about killing over pretty shoes.
Finally, someone breaks the silence and asks the woman next to me about some recent trip she took. As the group gets swept up in the newest conversation, I withdraw further inside myself.
These women are nothing like the ones I’m used to. They care about the length of their skirts and the color of their face paint and the weave of their clothes. They have no idea what goes on outside these walls.
The women I lived with sharpened knives and oiled guns. I saw one fight through a bullet wound to the stomach, even though it eventually killed her. Another performed CPR on an unresponsive boy lying in the streets we patrolled while we were being attacked by local gangs. They were some of the hardest women I ever met, but they would die for you.
And they’d never give a shit what you wore.
Remembering is all it takes.
I leave right in the middle of the conversation. At my back I hear a chorus of soft-spoken protests. I ignore them. Some people you can’t change, and the effort of trying would be wasted.
My eyes sweep the room as I walk. The genders are divided. Men to one side of the room, ladies to the other. The women gossip and preen like all those exotic birds that died off first when war struck. They’re just like them—pretty and soft and so unenduring. The men swirl amber liquid, their faces ruddy. They look so damn proud of themselves. I want to shout at them that anyone can destroy a city.
And, amongst them all, there’s Montes. I never glance his way, but I feel his eyes on me the entire way out.
As soon as I leave the room, the king’s guards fall into step behind me. I come close to threatening them, but even if I promised them death, they still wouldn’t leave me. Say what you will about Montes, he has some loyal guards.
I storm through the palace, heading for the gardens. I feel a great deal of disgust. This is what the new world order does while its citizens starve. I can’t be a part of it.
Once I push open the palace doors and the cool evening air hits my skin, I give into the impulse riding me since I entered that dinner party. I kick my shoes off and wipe my lipstick away with the back of my hand. I pull out the few pins in my hair and shake my locks loose. I pass through the gardens and bypass the giant hedge maze.
I break the delicate clasp of first my bracelet and then my necklace, and let them fall to the ground. Only then do I feel like myself again. I’m still in my dress, and my hands itch to tear into the fabric, but I hold myself back.
I walk across the palace grounds until the back fence comes into view. I head straight for it, my mind replaying the last time I ran towards one of the king’s fences. Odd how something as bland as a wall can conjure such memories.
My chest tightens. All my friends are ghosts, and all my memories are dust in the wind. Out here, beneath the stars, I can’t help but remember that I am hopelessly, achingly alone.
I stare up at the wrought iron fence. It took losing all that I held dear for me to learn a valuable lesson: only when everything is gone are you truly free.