The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

  To think I lived without this for so long. Unfathomable.

  I see hate burning in her eyes. Time has distorted most of my memories of her, but I’m almost positive I’ve never seen this particular brand of it. This fierce thing I’ve bound to my side is dying from the inside out.

  That I can’t take.

  I don’t give her time to protest before I place both hands on either side of her face.

  Now that this fateful day has come, and I have to deal with the fallout of my choices, I find I’m eager for it. Desperate, even.

  Serenity tries to pull away, but I won’t release her.

  I shake my head. “Fight all you want, my queen, you’re not going to escape me.”

  “Fuck you, Montes. Let me go.”

  She’s about to get violent. Even if I hadn’t remembered other interactions that spiraled out of control like this, I would be able to sense it.

  This terrible angel of mine. I welcome her vengeance.

  I squeeze her face, just enough to get her attention. “Serenity, listen—”

  She renews her struggles against me. “No,” she says. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear about your suffering.”

  I nod. “I know,” I say quietly. “But you will.”

  I can tell that this pisses her off, but when I fail to let her go, she stops fighting against me. I think, deep down, she wants to hear me out.

  “There is nothing—nothing—I have ever treasured more than you. I let myself forget.” I can feel my eyes begin to water, and any other time—any other time—I would fight back the reaction. But I won’t with Serenity. Let her see her frightening king strip away his barriers for her.

  “But you need to know that no one ever made me happy the way you did, and no one ever made me feel the burdens of my war the way losing you did.”

  Humans should not be able to feel what I have for this woman. Flesh isn’t strong enough to house this much sadness. If I wasn’t so afraid of death and the reckoning that waits for me on the other side, I’d have exited this world long ago.

  She’s blinking rapidly. Despite the firm set of her jaw, my bloodthirsty wife is just about as exposed as I’ve ever seen her.

  Breathing quickly through her nose, she wraps her hands around my wrists and removes mine from her face.

  “I listened,” she says, “but now you need to listen to me: you never gave me a choice in any of this.

  “I watched my mom die when I was ten after one of your bombs exploded outside our house. I became a killer when I was twelve because your war destabilized my country. I became a soldier when I was fifteen because my people were dying, and you were winning. I had to take on my father’s job when I was sixteen because our government no longer had the ability to hold elections.”

  Her voice shakes; I can tell she’s fighting tears.

  “I was forced to seduce you,” she continues, “the single man I most hated and feared in the world so that my country could know peace. I saw my father die protecting me from you, I held his murdered body in my arms. Even then, once I escaped you, you made me marry you. And then, when you realized I was dying of cancer, you forced me to sleep in that hellish machine of yours for a hundred years. A hundred years.

  “So tell me again, Montes, what do you know of suffering?”

  The room falls to silence as I take in her pain.

  “I know that it makes you come alive, Serenity,” I say softly.

  She flinches at that.

  “I know that loneliness its own kind of loss, and I have been lonely for a long time.” I want to reach out and touch her skin again just to assure myself she’s real. It’s been so long since I’ve touched anyone. “I know that I want your suffering. I’ll cherish it, just as I do everything else about you.”

  I can see her body trembling as she frowns at me.

  The footfalls of several men interrupt us. A moment later, they pound their fists against Serenity’s door. Of all times to be interrupted, now might be one of the worst.

  I see Serenity’s face shut down. All that anger, all that pain, all that vulnerability gets sealed off. Whatever moment the two of us had, it’s now gone.

  “Come in,” I call, not glancing away from her.

  Half a dozen soldiers crowd the doorway.

  “Your Majesties,” one says, bowing, “footage of the queen has been leaked.”

  Serenity

  Montes and I stand in front of a large screen in one of his conference rooms. I try not to think about how little has changed inside these walls. The king’s conference rooms are virtually identical to the ones I remember.

  And then there’s the role I’ve slipped back into seamlessly. I didn’t even realize when I strode down the hall next to Montes that my actions were out of place until I saw him cast me several glances.

  He hadn’t had a queen to co-rule with him in over a century. Of course the situation must be strange to him. But he didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t about to relinquish power when that was my reason for staying.

  I run my tongue over my teeth now, my arms crossed, as I watch Jace and his team lift the golden lid of what appears to be a coffin.

  The camera pans in.

  Goosebumps break out along my arms.

  There I am.

  My body is still, my arms folded over my chest.

  If I still had any doubts about what happened to me, I no longer do.

  My eyes are closed, my skin startlingly pale against my golden hair. And my face is serene. It’s an expression I rarely wear.

  I’d been like that for a hundred years. Forced somewhere between death and life.

  When Jace and his men lift me out, my head rolls listlessly against one of their shoulders.

  I grimace at the sight. I was utterly helpless.

  Next to me, the king begins to pace. This shouldn’t be as terrible for him as it is for me, and yet I get the impression it is.

  Another clip directly follows this one. In it, I’m still asleep. The camera focuses on my eyes. They move rapidly beneath my closed lids. That footage cuts out, replaced by a close up of my hand as my fingers begin to twitch. That, too, cuts away.

  This time when the camera settles on me, I’m fully awake.

  “Who are you?”

  My voice doesn’t sound nearly as confused as I know I was. These men were foolish to not have their guns out and pointed the entire time I was under their care.

  “Where is Montes?”

  I glance over at the king just as he bows his head and closes his eyes.

  Remorse is a strange emotion on him, and I find it both angers and placates me. I want him to feel guilt, but then, what I really want, what I can never have, is for him to have made a different choice and us to not be where we are.

  The video ends, and the room is left in silence.

  “Take it down, along with any new instances that pop up,” Montes finally says.

  The soldier stationed near us bows and leaves. I watch him go, my eyes narrowed. Somewhere in the time that’s lapsed, Montes has gotten rid of his aides and his advisors, along with the men and women of court. Now all that’s left are military personnel.

  I turn my attention back to the screen. “This situation is bad because … ?”

  “Before this, the world didn’t know you still lived. They’re have always been rumors, but not proof,” Montes says. He nods to the screen. “Now there is.”

  The King

  I knew this was inevitable, I had just hoped to put it off a little longer. All those years ago, when I’d made Serenity a martyr, I never imagined my actions would have such ripple effects. Not until the years melted away and I had to face the reality of waking my wife up.

  The world will come for her.
Everyone on this godforsaken earth wants to be saved. What that video shows is something just as unnatural as me. From miraculous beginnings come miraculous endings.

  “Montes,” Serenity says, “I saw one of the posters.”

  I mask my surprise. So she knows to some extent that she’s famous. I barely have time to process that before she continues.

  “What, exactly, do people expect of me?” she asks.

  Serenity says this like she’s actually considering doing something to meet their expectations.

  I turn from the screen.

  “They see you as a figure who fights for freedom,” I say. “I imagine, if presented with the real woman, they’d expect you to do exactly that.”

  “They want me to end the war,” she clarifies.

  I hide my surprise once more. How much does Serenity know? And who told her? My men? Those on camera? The situation is already spiraling out of my control.

  “I think that’s safe to assume,” I say carefully.

  This is history repeating itself. The instant Serenity’s back in the game, people want to play her.

  My enemies will either try to capture her or kill her. They’ve obviously tried to do so already. And there are so many enemies.

  The prospect leaves me short of breath. All those reasons I left Serenity deep in the ground come rising up. There she was safe. Awake, she has a target on her back.

  “Well then,” she says, breaking my reverie, “that makes this simple: you and I are going to end this war.”

  Chapter 8

  Serenity

  The vein in the king’s temple begins to throb.

  It’s pretty blasé of me to just announce this like Montes hasn’t been trying to do the very thing for the last century. I also don’t mention that ending the war and winning it are two very different things.

  The bastard obviously doesn’t like my idea. But just when I think he’s going to put up some sort of fight, he nods slowly.

  Those dark eyes of his gleam, and I worry that whatever he’s agreed to is somehow different from what I’ve proposed. That terrible mouth curls up into a terrible smile the longer we lock eyes, and that terrible face I feared for so long—I’m going to have to deal with it until this is finished.

  I’m seriously concerned that I’m getting played at this very moment.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll begin,” he says, picking his words carefully.

  I stare at him a beat longer, then it’s my turn to nod. “Alright.”

  The tension between us evaporates when Montes extends an elbow. “Dinner?”

  I huff out a laugh and shake my head. I walk away from the king and his elbow. We are so far beyond chivalry.

  In a few long strides he’s caught up with me.

  He places a hand on the small my back as we exit the room.

  “You will lose that hand if you keep touching me,” I say, not looking over at him.

  “You’ve always liked my hands too much to do them any harm,” he says, but drops his hold anyway.

  “I don’t like much of anything about you right now,” I say.

  As of today, I finally, truly begin to understand my father’s lessons on diplomacy. Sometimes you have to ally with your enemies for a higher cause. That means not throttling Montes, despite the almost overwhelming urge to do so.

  “We’ll see how long you say that,” he says.

  You know what? Fuck diplomacy, and fuck this.

  Even as I swivel towards Montes my arm snaps out. My knuckles slam into his jaw, and even though they’re already ripped up and even though his face is already bruised and swollen, the hit is incredibly satisfying.

  He stumbles back, clutching his jaw.

  “You can wait another hundred and four years for me to like you, asshole. It still won’t be long enough. Just be happy I didn’t kill you when I had a chance.”

  That dangerous glint enters his eyes as he rubs his jaw. He closes the distance between us until chest brushes mine.

  “Yes, about that,” he says, his head dipping low. “You didn’t kill me when you could’ve. I wonder why that is,” he muses, his gaze searching mine.

  “One massacre was enough for the day,” I say.

  He leans in even closer, bending his head so his lips brush my ear. “You can say it or not, but you and I both know the truth.” He straightens enough to look me in the eye. “You can’t kill me, even now, even though I deserve it—and I do deserve it.”

  I pull back enough to get a good look at him.

  The king I knew took, and took, and took because he felt it was his right. And now, what he is essentially saying is that what he did wasn’t his right.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Have you grown a conscience?” It’s an almost preposterous thing to consider.

  “Age gives you wisdom, not a conscience,” he says as we wind our way through his halls.

  “And where was that wisdom when it came to me?” I ask.

  His eyes look anguished when he says, “It was wisdom that kept me from waking you, nire bihotza, not the other way around.”

  Montes leads us outside, where a small table overlooking the sea waits for us. Oil lamps hang from poles around us, already giving the area a warm glow as the sun finishes setting.

  I glance over at the king. This Montes … he isn’t exactly the same man I knew. And the change has me confused.

  Confused and intrigued.

  He pulls my chair out. I ignore the proffered seat and take the one across from it.

  He smiles at the sight, though I swear his eyes carry a touch of sadness.

  Someone’s already set out a bottle of wine.

  The setting, the table, the wine—it all harkens back to those instances when the king tried to seduce me and I was unwilling. Or maybe this is just how the king eats, beholding the sea and the sky and everything that he hasn’t managed to ruin yet.

  “Re-creating our previous dates will not win me back.”

  He grabs the wine bottle and begins to open it, appraising me as he does so. “So you admit that I can win you back?” The cork pops.

  “That’s not what I said.”

  He begins filling my glass with wine, his eyes pinched at the corners like he finds is whole thing very humorous. “It’s what you don’t say that interests me most.”

  I pick up my glass. “I’d prefer it if nothing about me interested you.” God, it’s such a lie.

  Montes meets my eyes. “Serenity, the sun would sooner fall from the sky. Even when you slept, I couldn’t stay away from you.”

  The ocean breeze stirs his hair, and I have to look away.

  Montes has had a hundred years to perfect not only being the very thing I hate, but also the very thing I love.

  I breathe in the briny air and take in the horizon. The sky is the very palest shades of orange and pink. Beneath it, the ocean looks almost metallic blue. It’s beautiful. Peaceful. Paradisiacal.

  “Is this the same island where we married?” I don’t know why I ask. Why I feel nostalgic over a memory I never wanted.

  When I face Montes again, I catch him studying me.

  “It is,” he says.

  All those people I met, they’re long dead by now. I should be too.

  I take a long drink of wine. “Is this where you kept me when I slept?”

  “It is.”

  “Did you ever regret what you did?” I ask, setting my glass down.

  He settles into his seat, his frame dwarfing the chair. Even his build hasn’t changed. I find myself looking at his deeply tanned forearms. It feels like only days ago I touched that skin like it was mine. I ache to do so again. Even though I can’t, the urge won’t disappear.

  “Every day,” he says.

 
My eyes move from his arms to his face. It’s so unlike him to admit this—to feel this. I thought hearing that would make me feel better; it doesn’t.

  I let out a breath. “And yet you never changed your mind.”

  “I am over a hundred and fifty years old, Serenity. Much about me has changed, my mind most of all.” He says this all slowly, each word weighed down by his long, long existence.

  I swallow. My anger still simmers, but it has nothing on the terrible loneliness that crushes me. I am the relic of the forgotten past.

  And I’m beginning to understand that I’m not the only one carrying a heavy burden. If the king’s demons don’t eat him up at night the way mine do, then they at least fall on those great shoulders of his throughout the day.

  The waiters come then, bearing plates. I study the men. Their shoulders are wide, their faces hard. Soldiers dressed as servants. Montes no longer employs civilians it seems.

  The food they place on the table isn’t quite like what I’m used to with the king. It’s simple—a cut of meat that rests on the bed of greens with a side of rice. The portion sizes are much smaller than what the king used to dole out.

  I stare at it, not making a move for the utensils.

  “The food is not going to bite you, Serenity,” Montes says.

  “How bad off is the world?” I ask.

  If the king eats like this, if he’s given himself a demotion, what must the common people’s lives be like?

  “What makes you think it’s the world that’s different, and not me?”

  It’s an echo of his previous statement. That he’s a changed man.

  My gaze flicks up to Montes. He takes a sip of wine, watching me over the rim. He lounges back in his seat, slowly setting his glass down on the table. Everything about him is casual. Everything but his eyes.

  I don’t want to believe what he’s suggesting. Not my narcissistic king, not the bastard who ruined my life and the lives of those I loved. He can’t have changed his ways. Because if he truly has, all my righteousness will be for nothing.