He returned to the empty common room. A total of four rooms branched off from the main common area, two occupied by Evan and Eva and the other two meant for family or honored guests. They had each remained empty for as long as he could remember. He opened the door closest to him and found that it was empty and lacking any customization. The lights brightened in his presence, casting a sterile glow on the glass panels that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. To his right he found the familiar control panel that calibrated individual settings in the room. He touched his palm to the corner and recalled the rooftop pool at the Canary Hotel: a sea of terra-cotta roofs and spiky palm tree leaves set against a crystal blue sky; the smell of the nearby ocean thick with salt; a trellis covered in bougainvillea propped against a thick plastered wall; Spanish tile spaced sporadically along the soft concrete ground; a seagull cawing distantly.
When he opened his eyes it was as though he was back on Earth, Santa Barbara laid out around him in such detail he could let himself think he was actually there. Satisfied, he removed his hand and walked to the wooden poster bed; a white down comforter stretched out along high thread count sheets and topped with thick pillows. Every detail was perfect. He stripped his clothes off and left them discarded on the floor before climbing in. He fell asleep quickly, his mind and body slipping back into comfortable silence.
He was well-rested and relaxed the next time his eyes opened. The artificial sky had grown dark during his sleep, but brightened once again as he sat up. The common room was still empty when he emerged. Over the course of a few trips back and forth he moved his belongings from the room he was familiar with to the spare room. He couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in the same bed he had shared with the Queen.
The entryway opened and Eva burst through, out of breath as though she had been running. “Something has happened to the King.”
Together they ran to the Straton’s residence, finding the Queen surrounded by half a dozen Crown Soldiers. They were frenzied, talking amongst themselves while the she stood calm and composed between them, trying to make sense of what they were saying.
“Everyone calm down!” she commanded. The room fell silent in an instant, the soldiers coming to attention at once. “Hector and Alcander will stay with me and the Nero’s. The rest of you return to the Military Complex at once and await further instruction.” All but two of the soldiers left immediately, leaving the five of them behind. The Queen sat at the head of a long narrow table and motioned for the rest to follow suit, Evan and Eva sitting to her right, Hector and Alcander to her left.
“Where is the King, Alcander?” she asked calmly, her eyes narrowed on the two soldiers.
“In Last City, Your Highness. They have him and the book,” the first man answered. He had the appearance of a very strong and proud man, but his face suggested anger and failure.
“Why have they taken him?” Her voice remained cold but collected, her face stern. Alcander and the other, Hector, exchanged a quick look.
“They say they don’t want to hurt him. It’s you they want, Your Highness.”
The Queen’s eyes darkened, shadowed beneath the deepening crease of her brows. “Why?”
Alcander swallowed. “They’re claiming you’re not the rightful Queen.”
Chapter 10: The Queen
The room imploded into stunned silence. The soldiers didn’t dare raise their eyes to the Queen, surely afraid that by doing so they would be signing their death warrants. ‘They’re claiming you’re not the rightful Queen.’
Evan looked to Kyra, his heart beating like thunder in his chest, and found her composure unchanged. If there was so much as an inch of fury or anger in her she hid it well.
“I want you to tell me exactly what happened,” she commanded. Her stony gaze was set on Alcander, who must have wanted to be anywhere else in the universe but at her table explaining why her husband was missing.
“It wasn’t difficult to find the book,” he began. “We were told by a resident that it was being guarded in the City Center by a woman. An Elder. We found her alone in the nave with the book in her lap. Not only had she been expecting us, but she somehow knew the King would be with us. She requested a private audience with him.”
“A courtesy you did not grant her, I hope,” the Queen remarked. Her eyes moved to Hector, who had so far said nothing but whose fear mirrored Alcander’s.
“No, Your Highness,” Hector answered.
“What did she want with the book?” the Queen asked.
“She claimed it contained forgotten truths about the monarchy. Proof that you and your mother before you - the Queen Mother,” he corrected, “had no legitimate claim to the Crown.”
“And she said this with all of you present?” The piercing tone in her voice was subtle, but nonetheless cold.
Hector looked to Alcander, looking as though he hoped his fellow soldier would relieve him of some pressure. A brief moment of clear silence passed before he dared look at the Queen again. “Yes.”
“How did one Elder woman take the King prisoner?” she asked. She looked expectantly to Alcander for an explanation.
“There were armed residents hiding in wait, Your Highness,” Alcander answered. “We had come unarmed at the King’s request and were unprepared for the situation. The King offered her leniency in exchange for the book, but she refused. As the residents took the King away, the Elder woman demanded we pass on a message to you.”
The Queen remained unmoved. Evan looked from her to the confused faces of the Soldiers. “Well?” he asked. “What is the message?”
Alcander bristled noticeably. “She said, ‘My name is Thea of the original family whose time has long since been forgotten. It will be forgotten no more.’”
The words were like a paralytic, stopping Evan’s blood cold. Every member of the original family had died nearly a generation ago, their stories lost in time. The Elder had to have been lying.
The Queen stood from the table without a word and retreated towards her private residence. Evan looked to Eva at his side and saw that she was lost in her thoughts, trying to make a connection in the senselessness of the situation. The two Soldiers looked to each other nervously.
“You three stay here,” Evan instructed as he stood. “Do not leave until the Queen returns.” Alcander and Hector nodded obediently at him. He knew Eva would stay put.
The doors to the Queen’s residence opened in his hands, welcoming him back into her private world. She stood some distance in the room with her back to the door.
“Your Highness?” he called. She didn’t acknowledge him. Evan closed the distance between them. “Kyra,” he spoke softly.
Her head lifted and turned to him, her body following suit until she was facing him. He could tell that she was struggling to maintain her composure, fighting whatever emotion dared rise to the surface and the public eye. Her eyes searched his as though they contained some answer she was looking for. She looked not like his Queen, but like a woman who didn’t know what to do next.
“Tell me what I can do to help,” he offered. He cupped her left elbow in his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She used his grip on her arm to bring herself closer to him before reaching up and touching her lips to his.
To his surprise she didn’t close her eyes, but instead kept them trained on his as her mouth moved against his. His lips parted, accepting hers between them. He kissed her back and felt her need quicken, her eyes finally closing as he reciprocated the intimacy. Her arms looped around his waist, fingers picking up the hem of his shirt. His eyes closed at the touch of her fingertips on his skin, moving up underneath his shirt until her palms were pressed against his lower back.
He felt a familiar wanting inside him, one he both enjoyed and hated. A part of him liked the thrill of the affair, not caring for Owyn’s feelings. He suspected the King already knew and that there may be have even been others the Queen had wanted and taken. She had a bewitching way about her, able to command love and respect
in tandem with obedience and loyalty.
Then he thought of Zoe. He saw the smile he knew was difficult for her to manage, the way she overreacted to inanimate objects that looked nothing like spiders, her humor and her sadness. He thought that if he’d kissed her he would feel absolved of the guilt about his affair with the Queen. There would have been no twisted sense of obligation or punitive desire. The decision to kiss her would have been his and may have even provided him an out with the Queen, a reason to stop.
The Queen’s kiss was a tempest. When at last she pulled away her eyes were heavy and lidded, a burning in them he knew went beyond just her lust. There was a fury in her. Her hands moved from his back to his hands, grabbing his in each of hers.
“Bring me back the King, the book, and the damn woman who took them from me. Take their whole city if you have to.”
Evadine watched as her brother and the Queen emerged. She had been under the impression that no one but the King was allowed such a private audience with the Queen, let alone entrance to her bedroom. She knew it hadn’t been the first time her brother stepped beyond the threshold and had often witnessed her leaving Evan’s room when everyone else had already gone to sleep. She had long ago accepted their affair and never once spoke about it, not even to her brother.
She noticed that Evan’s face was fraught with tension. Had the Queen had instructed him to do something he was against? She listened as he addressed the room, his instructions to the two soldiers brusque as the Queen watched from behind. Both Alcander and Hector looked to her for confirmation as Evan concluded and then the three of them were off.
Eva didn’t like being alone with the Queen. She always felt as though there was an unspoken expectation of her that she was never quite able to reach.
“Perhaps I should have sent you to bring back the book,” the Queen mused, though her frustration was evident. She stood behind her seat at the head of the table and placed her hands around the back of it like a podium.
“I don’t understand, Your Highness,” Eva replied.
“You’re very good at finding things,” the Queen complimented. “I asked you to bring your brother home and no one managed to be kidnapped in the process.”
“My brother is very cooperative, Your Highness,” she acknowledged. She watched as the Queen’s face tightened inquisitively. “Besides,” she added, “he wanted to come home.”
“Did he?” The Queen’s demeanor retracted. She pulled the chair out from the table and sat in it, her hands folding effortlessly in her lap. “What is your impression of this Elder woman’s story?”
Eva knew she would have to select her words carefully and take great care to not say anything to upset her. They weren’t particularly close, and despite her knowledge of the affair with Evan she didn’t dare presume to be friendly with the Queen.
“The original family is gone, Your Highness. Even if one of them had survived, why would they wait until now to make their presence known? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Indeed,” the Queen replied. “Do you remember anything about them?” she asked.
The question surprised Eva; The Queen never asked her personal questions. It was strange for her to even care what anyone else thought.
She searched her mind, trying to place the name Thea with any long-lost memories. There was the faintest flicker of recognition but no memory resurfaced. She remembered little before the death of her parents, shortly before going in to Crown custody.
“No. I know the stories,” she admitted. “The original family ruled for generations. They’re credited for our advancement. Other than that I don’t really remember anything. I doubt anyone else does either.” It helped that they had all been forced to forget by the first Straton Queen.
The Queen nodded. Eva wondered what else she would be asked. She was naturally talented at keeping confidences private but didn’t exactly trust herself around the Queen.
The doorway opened and a Crown Soldier walked briskly through, stopping just short of the Queen before bowing his head.
“Your Highness, Evander Nero has left with eighteen soldiers. They should be arriving shortly,” he announced.
“Thank you, Adeipho,” she replied, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. When the soldier didn’t leave she looked to him again, irritation lining her face. “Is there something else?”
“Yes, Your Highness. We ran a cybernated subterranean scan of Last City and found an anomaly. They’ve built a gate.”
Eva watched as the Queen straightened in her seat, the illusion of her composure slipping. The only gates on Terra were controlled by the Crown Soldiers - several at the Royal Transport Station and one used privately, the one she and Evan arrived in from Earth. The technology to build them belonged exclusively to the Crown and no gate had ever been built by anyone other than the monarchy.
“How is that possible?” the Queen asked, her voice growing in volume.
“We have no idea, Your Highness. Based on the outputs we detected the gate is powered and fully functioning. There was a trace biological signature so it is likely a resident has used it.”
“Where is it programmed for?”
“The signal indicates Gaia.”
Eva had to keep herself from gasping out loud. Gaia was so named because of its unique likeness to Terra, a universe where only one planet was known to contain human life: Earth.
“Shut it down!” the Queen commanded. Eva was ripped from her thoughts at the sound of the Queen’s voice searing through the room. “I want all residents outside of Terra brought back immediately. Hold them in the Military Complex and then suspend all gates programmed for Gaia.”
Eva felt her heart leap in her chest. If the Queen de-programmed the gates for Gaia there would be no way to ever return, no possibility of going back to Earth. She thought immediately of Evan. If he found out he could never go back... She had to do something before that happened.
Adeipho looked positively frightened by the Queen. “It will take some time to find everyone, Your Highness,” he stammered.
“Then send everyone we have to get them. You,” she pointed at Eva. “Find out if someone from Last City is in Gaia and bring them back at once. Go!” she yelled at both of them.
Eva felt a ripple of fear in her chest. The Queen would expect her to return with only one person from Gaia: a resident.
Chapter 11: The Elder
The inhabited cities of Terra spread out like a chain of steel and glass islands, each one connected to the other by long corridors of transport stations. The Royal City was the pinnacle, situated the farthest from Last City with private transport stations that allowed the Crown Soldiers to travel twice as fast.
Evan had never been to Last City. Many of the cities were built during his childhood when the first Straton Queen and King held him and Evadine captive. The Queen and King kept a very tight rein on them, and always insisted on knowing their whereabouts and keeping them close by.
I shouldn’t even be here. He never had an interest in the Crown Soldiers or their work. Before the Stratons took possession of the Crown the same soldiers had belonged to them, owned and controlled as a source of power. Terra never had an army before the Crown Soldiers; there was never any need.
Evan watched as Alcander addressed them, his demeanor having changed significantly since their debriefing with the Queen. Each soldier was armed; they looked frighteningly like the guns, small and potentially lethal. He had no taste for violence. From the way Alcander and Hector described their encounter with the Elder and the residents of Last City, there was no need for such force. The King’s involvement, however, made the presence of weapons a necessity.
One of the soldiers stood abruptly and pointed beyond the walls of the transport. “Sir, look!” he demanded.
The transport was decreasing in speed as it approached the entryway of the Last City Transport Station. Evan looked in the direction the solder pointed in and saw a large crowd gathered on the platform. The King stood in th
e middle surrounded by residents.
Evan looked to Alcander and Hector. “Do you remember the faces of the residents who took the King?”
“Yes,” Hector replied.
“Good. Have the others take them. You two take the King and check him for injuries. Secure him in a private car away from the other prisoners. I’ll take custody of the Elder woman and the book.
Alcander exchanged looks with Hector. “It’s our job to protect the Queen and her assets, Evan, even dusty old history books,” he scowled.
“And if you were meant to so much as breathe on it then it wouldn’t be locked away to begin with, would it?” Evan argued. “I will take the book and you can explain to the Queen how you failed to protect her assets in the first place.”
Alcander’s face turned bright red. He adjusted the armed device he carried and turned his attention to the crowd of residents and the King.
The transport doors opened to silence. Each resident stood in silence, their facial expressions neutral at the sight of Evan and the armed Crown Soldiers. The King did not appear to be hurt. In fact, he didn’t look the least bit concerned with his circumstances.
Ten of the soldiers dispersed around the large crowd while another six took possession of the presumed kidnappers. Hector and Alcander went straight for the King with Evan following behind.
“Have you joined up with the Crown Soldiers, Evander?” asked the King, a cocky smirk on his face. His charms were lost on Evan, who didn’t appreciate the King’s humor in light of the circumstances.
“The Queen asked me to come get you, Your Highness,” he retorted. Owyn’s chin lifted and Evan thought he saw a faint smile of defiance. “Which one is the Elder?”
“I am her,” a woman spoke. She did not have the face of an Elder.
Evan was not convinced. “Your Highness is she woman who stole the book and held you captive?” he asked.
“She is,” the King replied. “She has given her word that no resident will act in violence against us. Let’s show her the same courtesy.” His eyes were on Hector and Alcander, his words a command they heeded without question.
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