A black cloud of smoke rises to my left, where a third of the palace lies in smoldering ruins.
I sprint towards the entrance of the palace, shielded by a cluster of guards. Behind us I can hear gunfire. The soldier next to me grunts and grabs his arm. A man to my left goes down.
This all has an eerie sense of déjà vu to it. There’s even a good possibility that those shooting at us will avoid hitting me. Political figures tend to have higher currency alive rather than dead.
Though I doubt it’ll do me any good surviving this if the enemy captures me. Torture, humiliation, and a slow death likely wait at their hands.
We burst through the front door. Inside, plumes of smoke and dust hover in the air.
At our backs a car screeches to a halt and car doors slam. They’re practically nipping at our heels.
I still have the guard’s gun, and I can’t help swinging around and firing off a shot. My bullet hits a Resistance fighter square in the chest.
Finally made one goddamn mark.
“Come on, my queen.” Hands are on me, dragging me back.
I rotate around and begin running again. “Where to?” I shout.
“Montes’s map room.”
“Is the king still alive?” I ask. I hate the way my pulse jumps when I ask the question. I’ve been trying to shove him out of my mind. Worrying can sabotage a soldier so quickly. In my experience, the harder you think about your fears, the likelier they are to manifest themselves.
“Aye,” one of them says.
Relief courses through me. I’ve gone from wanting the man to die in the worst possible way to fearing for his safety. I’m sure there’s some unhealthy explanation for this, but I am also far beyond caring. I’m a recovering monster that cares about another soulless creature.
Behind us I hear shouts, gunshots, and the sound of shattering objects. Anything that the king once held sacred is likely getting desecrated.
“There she is! I see the queen!” someone yells on the other end of the hall.
The soldiers tighten their guard around me. “Keep moving!” one of them shouts even as bullets begin to spray. “We’re almost there!” I sense rather than see the soldier at my back go down. The tight circle around me shifts to close the space.
We take a sharp turn and the firing stops. The silence is a welcome relief until I hear the sickeningly familiar sound of an object clattering against the floor behind us.
“Grenade!” I shout.
My men shove me to the ground. I split my lip at the impact, but I don’t register the pain before the grenade goes off. I feel the heat on my back, hear the yells and groans of the men who’ve taken the hit, breathe in the smoldering air.
My leg burns, but that’s it.
The Resistance soldiers are already moving—I can hear their footfalls—and most of the soldiers that surround me are still.
I can tell the men above me are dead. I roll their bloodied bodies off me. Something sharp lodges itself in my throat at their instantaneous decision to cover me; they surely knew they were sacrificing themselves.
“Anyone alive?” I shout.
“Aye,” comes a pained voice beside me. Someone else grunts.
The survivors—two currently—are working their way out of the dog pile. None of us have any hope of escape unless we can get to that launch pad.
Pulling a gun out of one of the unquestionably dead men, I rise to a knee.
The Resistance fighters are already closing in on me, but all I see are targets—heads, hearts. I aim, fire, and move on to the next target. Rinse and repeat.
I’m in my element. Anger and aggression flood through my veins. I hit four soldiers before they get wise to my ways, and one shoots my arm. I scream as the bullet rips through skin and muscle.
Fuck that hurts.
I fire back before the shooter can clip me again. My aim’s off, and the slug buries itself into the wall instead of his heart. Behind me I hear another gun go off and a Resistance soldier falls.
I can’t turn, but I know it’s one of my surviving guards. I rise to my feet and back up towards him. Before I reach him, his head whips back. I see blood and bone spray onto the walls and floor around him. He’s gone.
I empty my gun and two of the three remaining men go down. The final man left standing reaches for his radio as I grope around for another weapon.
I feel like a grave robber as I lift a gun off a dead body. People who’ve never seen action think there’s something honorable in this—giving your life for a higher cause. This moment is proof that the human spirit is capable of nothing baser than war. The indignity of death. The desperation and apathy. I’ve been raised on it, but even I grasp the horror of it all.
I swivel and point the gun, but the Resistance member is gone, likely getting backup before he comes at me again. I push myself to my feet, hissing in a breath as I put weight on my scorched leg.
“Anyone alive?” I call out.
No one answers back. The second soldier who’d called out to me earlier must’ve died during the shootout.
I waste several seconds grabbing another gun and shoving it down the small of my back.
Move, I command my broken body. I have no idea where the king’s map room is in this palace of his. I only saw the one in Geneva. And without a clear destination, I’m essentially a fly caught in the spider’s web.
I limp down the hall, towards the first door I see. I doubt it leads to some promising destination, but I open it anyway and peek inside. Guest room. Not promising. I continue on.
I can hear shouting in the distance and those damn footfalls that herald another wave of Resistance fighters.
Hitting the end of the hall, I glance to my left and to my right. The walls have caved in one direction. I’ve hit the edge of the destruction. In the other direction dust is still settling from the blast.
One of the soldiers had said we were close, and this hall looks vaguely familiar. I might be able to find the exit on my own.
A moment later as I move down the remaining corridor, I spot the door to the king’s conference room. The king’s map room must be close by. Hope flares up in me. I hurry down the hall until I come across a door that looks like it leads to an important room. I try the door. Locked.
The footsteps are getting closer. No time to waste at this point. This is my only option. As soon as I step back to gun down the door, I hear voices on the other side.
I think I’ve found the map room. And here I thought I had the world’s worst luck.
“Help!” I scream and begin to pound on the door. “It’s the queen!”
I’ve got seconds left to get inside; otherwise, I’m as good as dead.
The door opens just as Resistance fighters turn down onto the hall. I level my gun and begin firing at them.
“Your Majesty!”
“Serenity!” The king’s voice rises above the fray. What is he still doing in the palace? He should be gone by now.
Someone grabs me around the waist and drags me inside the room, and I suck in air through my teeth as my injured arm is jostled. The door slams shut, and I’m surrounded by the king’s soldiers.
“Can you walk?” one asks.
I groan. “Yeah, but not quickly.”
The king pushes through his men and comes to my side. His hands don’t know where to touch me, so he settles on my face.
No words are exchanged. They’re not needed. I can see relief mingling with panic. And then he kisses me.
It’s cut short by banging on the door. The door shudders. Several of the king’s soldiers hang back to watch the room’s entrance. It won’t hold for long now that the Resistance saw me enter.
I’m assisted to a blast door propped open at the back of the room. I’ve seen thes
e before, I know that once this door closes, there will be no getting it back open. Beyond it I can see a sleek passageway; I’m sure this is the escape route the soldier mentioned earlier.
Outside the room, the muffled pounding of footsteps lessens. Not a good sign.
The king’s men lead him through the escape passage first. Marco stands to the side, waiting to follow us in. I notice something in his hand, but I never get a good look at it. Behind me I hear a muffled clink of a heavy object out in the hallway.
“Grena—!” My words are cut off by the explosion.
My body’s thrown forward, right into Marco. The two of us fall in a tangle of limbs just outside the passage entrance. A plume of ash and dust obscures the room, but I can hear the tread of feet.
“Close the door!” Marco shouts.
The king roars something in response, but it’s cut off by the slam of the blast door. The sound is a death knell; there will be no escaping now. Once again, the king’s been shuffled away while I remain in the fray, this time with Marco, one of the men I revile most in the world.
I scramble to get up when Marco’s hand presses me back down into the floor.
My gaze flicks to his. “Get the fuck off of—”
The side of Marco’s fist slams down against my chest, and I choke on my words. A sharp, burning pain punctures my heart. I can’t make sense of it until Marco withdraws his fist, and with it, an empty syringe.
“What’ve you done?” I ask, drawing in a ragged breath and touching my chest.
Shots are fired on the other end of the room, and I have no idea who’s killing whom.
“It’s a serum to make you forget.”
My eyes widen in surprise. Those dazed technicians, that article on memory suppression—I’m staring down the terrible invention behind it all.
“The king’s told you his secrets,” Marco explains. “They’ll torture them out of you unless they’re not there.”
“You bastard,” I whisper. My memory is all I have left. I’ll forget who I am, where I came from. I’ll forget my father, my mother, my entire life.
I want to scratch the liquid out of me.
“The king possesses an antidote. It’s reversible.”
I huff at that. “Like that’s going to do me a lot of good if I can’t remember the king.”
The sounds of gunfire are getting closer.
“He’ll find you. Trust me, he will.”
Marco rolls off me and pulls out a gun.
My breath catches. “What are you doing?” I ask, scrambling to sit up.
He clicks off the safety. “I only had one vial.”
Marco doesn’t hesitate. He places the gun barrel against his temple and fires. Blood and viscous things hit me.
And that is the end of Marco. For only a moment I find it strangely poetic that my father and my father’s killer both died from the same wound. Then the thought is whisked away from me.
I try to snatch it again, but it’s somewhere beyond my reach.
The serum is already working.
I press the back of my bloodied hand to my mouth. Whatever he gave me, it’s puncturing holes in my memory almost at random. I remember entering this room, but not how I got here.
In the next breath I can’t remember the name of the dead man in front of me, only that I hated him. The memory should scare me, but it just serves to piss me off.
I grab the dead man’s gun and the one shoved down the small of my back and begin to shoot the encroaching militants. I’m not even positive who they are, or what they want, but they’re approaching me like an enemy would.
My guns click empty, and I throw them as hard as I can at some of my attackers. I clip one and miss another.
Now I’m weaponless and I can’t remember how I got here.
A handful of guns are trained on me, but they’re not shooting. Death is better than whatever they have in store. I know this on some deep, instinctual level.
As soon as they come within range, I kick out at one and slam my fist into another. A man tackles me to the ground and yanks my wrists behind me. The movement tugs at my injuries and I scream out.
“Shut up,” he growls.
“Fuck you.”
He takes a fistful of my hair and smashes my head into the ground.
Once my wrists are bound, a black bag is dragged over my head, and the world goes dark.
I’m pulled up to my feet and led out of the room, and the men who’ve captured me start barking out questions I don’t have answers for. Questions they expect answers to.
“Where is the king?”
“Why did you betray your country?”
“How do you kill the king?”
When I don’t respond, they begin hitting my injuries until my body simply gives out and they have to drag me away.
I’m bound and blinded, but those are not nearly so constricting as the confusion running rampant in my head.
There are only a handful of things I understand with complete clarity at the moment: I’m a woman without a past, and these people need to access it. And if I can’t remember it soon, I’m going to die a very painful death.
I know I’m someone powerful, someone dangerous. A grim smile tugs at my lips despite my current circumstances. I know I’m not afraid of pain or death. And these men and women? They should be afraid of me. Because whoever I am, I am violent, and I will be having my revenge.
Keep a lookout for the sequel:
The Queen of Traitors
Coming January 2016
Be sure to check out the Laura Thalassa’s new adult science fiction series
The Vanishing Girl
Out now!
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Be sure to check out the Laura Thalassa’s young adult paranormal romance series
The Unearthly
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Acknowledgements
Dan Rix, you will always hold the place of honor in every one of my novels because, simply speaking, they wouldn’t exist without you. Thank you for always encouraging me to write, for our ridiculous discussions on books, for designing my beautiful covers and formatting my manuscripts. But more than anything else, thank you for your unconditional love and unfailing support through thick and thin.
A huge thank you to Sunniva Dee, who edited this novel while juggling the release of not one, but three books of her own. Your comments and edits were, as usual, not only helpful, but also insightful and warmhearted.
To all the writer friends I’ve made along this journey, thank you for the laughs and encouragement. I’m ridiculously lucky to call you all my friends and colleagues.
I’m not sure what the fate of this book would be without the support of some of my most dedicated readers. Your emails, tweets, Facebook and Goodreads messages made me realize that Serenity’s story was one that you wanted to read. Your excitement and your patience truly touched me.
Lastly, this book is dedicated to my mother, one of the strongest women I know. Mom, I hope that one day you’ll truly grasp just how intensely I love you and how much I look up to you. Your life hasn’t always been easy, and there were some times that were downright awful, but you braved on. Thank you for being such a light in my life and for being not just an amazing parent but also my best friend.
Laura Thalassa lives in Santa Barbara, California with her fiancé, Dan Rix. When not writing, you can find her at www.laurathalassa.blogspot.com
The Queen of All that Dies (The Fallen World Book 1) Page 24