I’d only attended one other memorial. My grandfather’s when I was six. I didn’t remember much, except how everyone spoke of my grandfather as though he were still alive. When we got home from the service, I asked my parents when we would see him again. My father broke down. I’d never seen him in that much pain. Until the day I shattered his boat, his business and his life.
“Come on,” Varin said, pulling me to the side with the rest of the palace staff. “Stand still and be quiet.”
“I can’t promise anything.” I attempted levity, but the words felt sticky in my mouth. I didn’t want to see Queen Iris again. I didn’t want to be reminded of how I’d failed her.
But it was too late.
Her face was peaceful in death, more peaceful than the scowl I’d seen hours earlier in court. While I couldn’t see the gash across her neck, I remembered it vividly. From both the comm chips and seeing her in the garden.
I hated that the last, lingering memory I would have of her would be her grisly murder. Was that all we were reduced to in death? A broken body? What about everything that came before? Mere memories that would one day fade altogether.
And though I tried not to, I thought of my father. Would I fail him again? Without HIDRA, he would pass to the quadrant without borders before summer warmed Toria’s coast. He’d be lost to me. I doubted my mother would want anything to do with me once he was dead.
In a few years, what would I remember of him? Would I forget the sound of his voice? Would I forget him calling me a landlubber, someone unfamiliar with the ways of the ocean, while playfully tousling my hair? Would those bloody memories inside that horrid cave be all that remained of him?
My hands started to shake.
“It’s all right,” Varin whispered. He must’ve thought I was thinking of poor Queen Iris, but as always, I was thinking of myself.
Something touched my fingers, and I started. But it was Varin. He squeezed my hand in his.
But the scene was too close to Mackiel’s parents’ memorial, with Varin now taking the role of the consoler. I pulled away. I wasn’t ready to trust Varin.
After Mackiel’s betrayal, I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone.
* * *
—
WE KNEW WE were heading in the direction of the infirmary when the murmur of voices drew us forward. A gathering of guards and staff blocked the entrance to a room. We glimpsed someone moving through the doorway dressed in a gray dermasuit.
“The inspector,” Varin whispered.
“How do you know?” I whispered back.
“Gray dermasuits are only worn by inspectors.”
I pulled Varin to the side. “We can’t go in there now.”
“Why not?”
“There are too many people. We need to watch the inspector without him knowing we’re watching. Only then will he drop any pretense.”
“You never steal from someone without knowing more about the situation and person.” He recited my earlier words back at me.
I nodded. “We need to wait till he’s alone.”
“We can’t stand here till then. It’s too suspicious.”
He was right. We’d been lucky up to this point, but any more skulking around the palace, and someone was bound to realize we weren’t doing anything official.
I examined our surroundings. I could fit in the vent and continue to move around the palace unseen, but Varin was too broad.
“Come on,” I said, pulling him down the corridor.
I began twisting the doorknobs of all the doors on either side of the hallway.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Only locked doors hide something important. I’m looking for—” A door swung in easily. “Aha!”
Varin stuck his head inside the dim doorway. “A utility room?”
Luckily, the room was quite large; my chest didn’t compress at the sight of it.
“Get in.” I pushed him through the opening. “We’ll have to wait for the infirmary to clear out.”
The utility room was filled with mops and various cleaning products. Bleach pricked at my nose and eyes. I squatted, pulling my knees to my chest. There was no pinch—my knee had been almost completely healed by the dermasuit. I rested my head on a shelf.
Varin closed the door and squatted beside me. “You’re exhausted,” he remarked. “You should rest.”
I shook my head. Fatigue was beginning to feel like a heavy blanket across my shoulders, but I needed to stay awake. I needed to uncover the assassin, or assassins, and earn access to HIDRA. I needed to save the queens.
“What if we can’t uncover anything about the assassin?” I asked, studying his genetically perfect face in the low light. “What if you can’t get access to HIDRA?” What if this was all for nothing, and we both left the palace empty-handed? And that wasn’t even the worst outcome.
We could be uncovered as liars, posing as Queen Marguerite’s guards. Or Mackiel and his henchmen could catch us, adding two more deaths to the body count. Or perhaps the inspector would find us and pull us apart with his Eonist implements.
“We’ll find evidence on the assassin, Keralie,” Varin said, his voice unwavering. “I’m sure of it.”
“Because you hope so?” I waved my hands about. “That means nothing. We have nothing!”
“I know.” He studied his feet.
Queens above. Why did I always have to be so rude?
“Hey.” I linked his arm with mine—he didn’t flinch. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” He lifted his face to mine. “You mean everything you say.”
I mulled that over for a moment, considering my past jibes. Did I really mean them? A part of me did—the part that wanted to push Varin away to ensure he couldn’t hurt me. Or so I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t hurt Varin like I’d hurt my father, or Mackiel. I didn’t want to lose him too.
I needed to control my feelings around him, be more Eonist. But the more I looked into his pale eyes, the more that control slipped away.
“I’m sorry I’m such a horrid person,” I said with a half smile. I spun my dipper bracelet around, the silver lockets tinkling together.
His brow furrowed. “You’re not horrid, Keralie. You’re . . .” A million words flashed through my mind as he hesitated. None of them were good. “Protective.”
That wasn’t one of them.
“Protective?” I repeated.
“Of yourself.” His guarded eyes darted away. I didn’t release his arm, as I normally would have. He glanced back after a moment. “I understand. You’ve been in Mackiel’s employ for seven years, but you’ve really been alone that entire time. He didn’t care about you. And you think you’re to blame for this terrible accident with your father, but—”
“I am to blame.”
“You may not be horrid,” he said, “but you sure like the sound of your own voice.”
I fluttered a gloved hand at him. “Go on, then. The floor’s yours.”
“This isn’t a joke.” He twisted to face me. “You need to forgive yourself. We all make mistakes. We must move on.”
“No,” I said. “Not until I fix it.” Fix everything.
“How can you fix it?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Now was the time to tell him how I wanted HIDRA for my father.
“I don’t know,” I said instead. “But I need to make things better. I need to right my wrongs. Start a new life.” One far from Mackiel and the girl I used to be.
He took my hand, and my breath, with one gentle grasp. This time I didn’t pull away. I trembled beneath his touch, shocked by it—it was different from the way Mackiel touched me. He was different. Varin wasn’t using me, he wasn’t playing a game, twisting me into something else. And even though there was no warmth, due to our suits, it meant more than anything
I’d experienced in the last seven years.
The back of my eyes prickled. I swallowed down tears.
“You will, Keralie,” he said softly.
I took a shuddering breath. “And you?” I asked. “What will you do if we fail?”
He tilted his head back and looked upward. “I’ll have to make the most of the time I have left.”
No matter what happened, I would make sure Varin wouldn’t spend that time alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Keralie
I awoke with my head resting on Varin’s shoulder, his arm around my waist. I didn’t want to move, unless it was to shift closer, seeking his touch. For the first time in a long time, I was content.
Until I remembered where I was.
Something had been knocked over while I’d slept fitfully. I’d been unable to escape the palace, even in my dreams. The liquid had spilled onto my clothes and into my hair. The room now smelled of perfume, or chemicals, or both.
“Varin,” I said, shaking his shoulder. “Wake up.”
His lids flickered before he opened them. His pupils dilated and contracted. My heart rattled in my chest as he focused on me.
“What happened?” he asked.
I pulled my arm from around him. “We fell asleep.”
He glanced around the room; the glass ceiling revealed the palace dome above. It was still light out. “We needed to rest,” he said.
I let out a sigh. I didn’t disagree, but it felt careless and callous to fall asleep while a killer planned to knock off the queens one by one.
Varin stretched, his muscles shifting against mine. “What should we do now?”
“We should—” My reply was cut short by a sound—a melodic whistling—something that contrasted with the gloom that hung heavy in the palace.
I cracked the door ajar, peeking through the opening as footsteps neared. The whistling grew louder, almost piercing, as a figure in gray walked past.
“The inspector,” Varin mouthed.
We slipped out of the room, maintaining a safe distance as we followed the inspector back to the infirmary. The corridor was deathly quiet. The inspector pressed his palm to the door, his fingers extended like spider legs. So that was his tweaking.
The inspector stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him.
I nodded to Varin and whispered, “Follow me and stay low.”
We slunk around the corner and into the adjoining room, crouching behind a cabinet, our dermasuits giving nothing of our movements away. I should’ve stolen a dermasuit years ago.
The inspector continued whistling as he pulled out sharp implements, each one deadlier than the next, and placed them on the table. Next to the table was a gurney draped in a white sheet; Queen Iris lay upon it, her wound exposed to the chill and medical tang of the room.
It had been bad enough seeing Queen Iris’s blood coat the garden, but seeing her lifeless body displayed like some discarded thing made my stomach clench. Her blood appeared to have been drained: her lips were white, her skin a light blue, and the bloody gash now a thick flap of skin—as if she wore a mask and would sit up at any moment to tear off her face.
I pressed my fist to my mouth and forced myself not to flee.
The inspector stopped whistling and attached a comm line around his ear and pointed the microphone toward his mouth.
“A sharp blade killed Queen Iris,” he said. I startled, thinking he was speaking to us, but he continued without pause. I shuddered as he pulled the skin at Queen Iris’s throat apart with his gloved hands. “A very sharp blade.” Now I understood his tweaking. His fingers were perfectly designed for this job.
I pressed my hand to my mouth harder, wanting to return to the processing room. The smell of piss and body odor sounded pretty good right now compared to this alien place. Varin squeezed my shoulder, although his face was also pale. He nodded once. We needed to find out more about this mysterious inspector and why he’d been here before Queen Iris was murdered.
“I doubt it was any of the other queens,” the inspector said. “I’ve looked into their background, and none have any history of violence or training in weaponry. The only curiosity is Queen Corra.” But the comm chips showed that Queen Corra was on the assassin’s list. She couldn’t be involved.
“I can find no information about her adoptive parents, merely a name. This could mean she has something to hide—perhaps she was raised by a family who opposes Queenly Law?” He pulled out a silver cutting saw. “And she is unemotional, and some would argue that’s what is required to be a successful killer.”
It was strange to hear an Eonist speak of his queen with a matching unemotional tone. I glanced at Varin, but his eyes were locked on the odd man before us.
“But,” he continued, “it has been my experience that one kills for passion, for attainment, and what would Queen Corra have to attain by killing her sister queen?” He gestured to the body on the table as though he had an audience. “And yet the meticulousness of this kill does not display the crimes of passion I’ve seen when investigating other murders. This was a professional kill.”
What did that mean?
He pressed a panel on the wall and another gurney rolled out. He pulled back a sheet and a strange aroma filled the room. “The second body also reveals no prints, although it’s clear force was involved. Her drowning was no accident.”
Queen Stessa dead? No! And when? Varin’s wide eyes mirrored mine. We’d spent nearly all day searching for the assassin, and yet he hadn’t broken his stride, murdering the queens as planned.
The inspector used his fingers to pull something from Queen Stessa’s dress. “A hair,” he remarked. “The color doesn’t appear to belong to the queen; it could belong to our killer. I’ll run further tests.” He placed the implements on the table.
With that, he left the room, passing right by our hiding place. We waited a few moments before standing.
I looked at Queen Stessa’s blue-tinged body. “When did this happen?”
Varin stood, shaking his head. “She must’ve been killed while we were sleeping.”
“We’re failing, Varin.”
He brushed my hand with his, before moving into the room to study the inspector’s implements. “I don’t believe the inspector’s involved.”
“He’s no closer to the truth than we are.”
“No. It appears only the assassin knows the truth. And they—” He paused, his attention on the machines and implements hanging on the wall.
“What is it?” Dare I hope he’d found HIDRA? What if it was only one dose? Was I willing to condemn Varin for my father’s health? Would I snatch it from his hands and run from this room? How would I leave the palace?
How would I live with myself?
He picked up a small silver tube, a sharp tip rising from the middle. “Nothing important,” he said, but his voice was almost a whisper.
I scurried over to him to see what had him so transfixed. “Varin?”
“It’s a gene test. The test that determines your death date.” He stared at it for a long moment, his eyes closing briefly. He covered it with his hands, as though he wished it would disappear. How could something that small and insignificant cause such pain? “It determines everything.” When he opened his eyes, they were unfocused. “I wish I could be something other than a messenger. I wish it were as easy as being good at my job, like you said to Christon.”
“I’m sorry, Varin.” I stepped closer to him. “The test must be here for when the queens give birth.”
“What if we can’t stop the assassin?” he asked, staring at his clenched hand. “What if we find nothing to bargain with?”
“But before you said—”
“What if I’m wrong?” That despair had returned to his features. I wanted to erase it from his face, from his life. But I didn’t know h
ow.
My hand hovered near his shoulder. “Varin, what’s your—”
“We should split up,” he said, interrupting me.
“What?”
He spun around, still holding the gene test, his face hard. “I’ll go after the inspector, see what else I can uncover. You should go warn Queen Corra and Queen Marguerite.”
“Now you want to split up? What happened to being in this together? To having each other’s back?”
“We’re running out of time.” Clearly he wasn’t only referring to the remaining queens. He placed the gene test back where he’d found it. “We don’t know which queen is next. We need to cover more ground. You were right the first time.” His expression softened.
“Can I get that recorded on a comm chip?”
He grinned. “Go, Keralie. I’ll find you later.”
“We’ll get through this.” I wasn’t only referring to finding the assassin. “We’ll make things right. There will be a way.”
His grin drooped a little. “Thank you.”
I gave his arm a quick squeeze before bolting from the room.
I would stop this.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
There was to be no further communication until the deed was done. Until they were dead.
All of them.
Still, that didn’t stop her from pacing the room, wishing and wanting and waiting to hear something—anything. She longed to be in the palace when it happened. As though she could see the transference of power—to her.
She tuned the old house radio to the latest Queenly Report, preparing for the announcement. All queens dead.
Then they would come for her. Or that was the plan. But only if her mother caved and gave away her location. She would, though, wouldn’t she? If she were pushed to the edge. Everyone caved at that critical moment, the moment before the end.
She couldn’t wait. She’d had enough of playing peasant. Enough hiding. Enough pretending. Enough scheming. Enough dreaming. Soon she would be called forth to stake her claim to the Torian throne. She would not only replace her mother, Marguerite, but all the queens.
Four Dead Queens Page 24