Chapter 28
Serenity
Long after Montes and I finish, I lay in bed awake.
Outside our windows, the night is dark. The city gives off no light, and for once it feels like the darkness is pressing in on me, rather than beckoning me away.
Next to me the king’s breaths are deep and even.
My throat works as I gaze at the ceiling.
Event one—the king’s palace comes under siege. I lose my memory in the process. Event two—I catch a strain of plague concocted in one of the king’s laboratories, a laboratory nations away. A strain of plague no one else catches. Event three—the stabbing. Again meant solely for me. Event four—an ambush meant to end my life and the king’s.
Four events spread over a couple months. All of them took place in areas the king deemed safe. All around people the king trusted.
There’s a traitor amongst us.
My heart beats faster. The more I mull over it, the surer I am. No average Resistance member could know where the king’s blast door was, the door Marco and I never made it inside. Nor could an average Resistance member know our movements enough to try to stab me or ambush me and the king. And to acquire and transfer a super virus like the plague—for that, one would need a scientist or, perhaps, a doctor …
I bolt upright in bed.
Dr. Goldstein? Is it possible?
A terrible, terrible thought clutches me. On the evening of my coronation, I had a miscarriage.
Panic seizes up my lungs.
What if … ?
The king reaches for me in his sleep, murmuring something. I move out from under his hand.
I need to know.
I slip out of bed, dress, and leave our room.
My boots click against the marble floors as I stride down the hall.
I touch the gun I holstered to my side. If what I fear is true, there is no place my enemies can hide where I won’t find them.
It takes me almost ten minutes to reach the royal medical facilities, which are housed belowground. Even here guards are stationed along the hallways. They look on, impassive, as I pass them.
Ahead of me are two double doors. When I reach them, they’re locked shut, but next to the door is a fingerprint scanner. I place my thumb against the surface. In theory, being queen essentially grants me access to anywhere I want to go, but this is the first time I’m actually testing that power.
A light next to the scanner blinks green and the door unlocks.
I don’t question my luck.
I flip the lights on, and a moment later the fluorescent bulbs flicker to life.
The royal medical facilities are some strange hybrid of hospital and palace. The walls have gilded molding and the floors are made of marble, but the smell of the place is exactly what you’d find in any hospital.
The soles of my boots sound deafening against the floor, but there’s no one here to startle.
I’m looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The chances of finding anything are slim, but I won’t fall back asleep again until I know for sure whether the doctor has been compromised.
I move through the first set of sterile rooms towards the labs, using another thumbprint scanner to make my way into another room.
I hear the hum before I see the Sleeper. This machine holds none of the answers I seek. Still, I feel compelled to approach the hated device.
Over the last several months, I’d been in one of these things longer than I’d been out of it. At the end of this particular Sleeper is a window, similar to a porthole on a ship.
I hesitate. The machine’s on; I have no idea what I’ll see if I peer through that glass pane, and I’m not here to sightsee. But curiosity gets the better of me. Who else is important enough to incubate in one of these coffins?
My shoes click as I near it, I tilt my head and peer down.
I inhale sharply.
Dear God.
I recognize the dark, close-cropped hair and that hateful face that’s so serene at the moment. I watched that very face kill my father, and then, later, himself.
Marco, the king’s former right hand.
He’s supposed to be dead.
But apparently he’s not.
My hands began to tremble. First the king’s immortality, now this—resurrecting a dead man from his grave. Where I come from, things are simple: you live, you age, and then you die—in that order.
I back away.
This is unnatural. More than that, it’s wrong.
“I see you found Marco.”
I’m reaching for my gun before I fully recognize the king’s voice.
When I turn, he’s carefully watching me. His hair is swept back; he wears slacks and another button-down, the sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s ready to get his hands dirty.
Had he watched me as I dressed? Waited for me to leave before he dared to follow? I keep forgetting that no one can even sneeze in this place without the king learning of it. And when it comes to me, he always wants to learn.
“You sick bastard,” I whisper. “What have you done?”
The king steps up to my side, but his eyes are focused on the Sleeper. “He was my oldest, most loyal friend.” He touches the glass fondly, his eyes sad. “When you and Marco were sealed off—and then I found out that at least one of you was dead—” he shakes his head, “I wasn’t willing to lose either of you.”
“You can’t change these things,” I say.
Montes is shaking his head. “Do you remember what I told you?”
I furrow my brows.
“So long as the brain survives, the Sleeper can save him.”
“Marco put a bullet in his brain. I saw him do it. By your own logic, Montes, the Sleeper can’t revive him.”
“You’re right,” the king says, leaning against the machine. “The man you’re staring at is a vegetable. My friend is gone.”
I shouldn’t be affected by how desolate his voice is. Not after witnessing this.
I don’t bother asking how Montes secured Marco’s body. The king has his ways; if he wants something badly enough, he’ll get it. I’m firsthand proof of that.
“Would you do this to me?” I nod to the Sleeper. “Leave me in one of these things rather than letting me die?”
This is an important question because I am dying.
The king doesn’t say anything, just continues to gaze down at his fallen friend.
“Montes, would you do this to me?” I repeat.
His eyes flick to mine. And then very deliberately, he turns on his heel and walks away.
I stand there for several seconds, processing that. I hear the far doors open and close. My husband left me with his silence. And in that silence, I have my answer.
Heaven help me, that was a yes.
He’d shove me into one of these coffins and prevent my body from dying.
Now I’m faced with the very real prospect that at some point in the near future, I’m going to need to take matters into my own hands. I rub my eyes. My heart’s heavy.
After every sacrifice I’ve made, must I make this one too? Is it wrong to not want immortality? That the price I’d have to pay would be too steep?
My hand drops. I stare down at Marco as unease settles low in my belly. Had he known the king would do this? Had he rejected the idea as well? Was that why he took the bullet instead of the serum?
I force myself away from the device. I didn’t come here to ponder Montes’s plans. I wanted answers.
I begin rifling through everything. No one comes back for me—not Montes, not the guards. I’m sure someone’s got eyes on me, but I don’t much care.
I move out of the lab and deeper inside the facility. Back here the doors have bronze name plates fastened to them. I stop when I come to Goldstein’s.
Using the thumb scanner, I enter his office.
Stacks of charts sit in piles around the doctor’s desk. But it’s the one sitting right in front of his computer that captures my attention.
It’s mine. I read my name clearly along the tab.
Serenity F. Lazuli
On the front, a note’s been paper clipped to it. I pick up the folder and begin to flip through it. The first page appears to be a form for a prescription. The only thing that’s written in at the bottom of it are two drugs I can barely pronounce.
Behind this page are the latest readouts from the Sleeper, mostly x-rays of my brain and body. The doctor’s gone through and circled certain sections. Malignant tumors, by the looks of them. Not that I know anything about this. I was trained to kill, not to heal.
As I flip through the x-rays, they appear time lapsed. Each gets smaller, but then, the dates get older. My eyebrows pinch together.
That can’t be right. I spent weeks upon fucking weeks in the Sleeper in an attempt to reduce these. The machine might not be able to cure cancer, but it can remove a tumor.
I recheck the dates. My eyes aren’t deceiving me; my cancer hasn’t been treated.
If anything, it’s been expedited.