The Queen of All that Lives
Page 34

I brush past him as I step into the corridor. Around us, dim lights flicker to life. I press my palm against one of the walls and turn my head, following the line of the surface until it disappears into darkness. I squint as my eyes make out …
Windows. Windows that look into the palace’s rooms.
“What is this place?” I ask.
Montes’s voice comes from behind me. “A king always has secrets. Secrets and enemies. This is where I used come to be alone with you.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“Come.” He places a hand against my back and leads me once more.
As we walk, more lights flicker on.
“There’s another entrance to this passageway through my office. We believe that’s the one your abductors used.”
I’m not paying much attention to him, too busy staring in horror at room after room that we pass. He spies on people.
“This is wrong,” I murmur.
“It’s saved my life several times.”
I come to a stop as a thought hits me. “These are one-sided mirrors, aren’t they?”
“They are.”
There was a mirror in the room I stayed in. Twice I had heard a thump on the other side of it. Twice its surface vibrated.
“You watched me.” Horror bleeds to anger.
He appears amused. “When I wanted to see you, I visited.” The light glints off his dark eyes. “I did not watch you from behind glass.”
I search his face, looking for the lie in his words. I see only honesty. I believe him, and yet …
“Who else has access to these passageways?”
“No one. I alone come and go through them.”
I try not to think about the fact that Montes was the only company I kept while I slept.
“Well,” I say, “we know at least half a dozen other men know of this place.”
“Knew,” he corrects. “I believe you took care of that situation.”
It’s an unwelcome reminder. I now have their faces to add to the ghosts that haunt me.
“Someone else was back here. I heard them while I was in my room.”
Montes glances down at me, his brows knitted. He searches my face. He must see that I’m not lying because a frown forms. “I will look into it.”
I appreciate this about the king. He takes my concerns seriously.
We walk for a while, the passageway twisting every so often as it maneuvers around rooms. The corridor widens as we get to a set of thick double doors.
The king leans away from me to scan his thumb once more. I hear the latch click as it unlocks, and then Montes is opening one of the doors.
My earlier skittishness returns as I stare down at the massive marble staircase that descends away from me and the giant pylons that hold up the roof high above. I lived under the earth for years when the bunker was my home. I should have no qualms about entering this room. But my blood and my bones know this place and they recoil from it.
My curiosity overrides superstition. I take the steps one at a time. My gaze moves up to the domed ceiling that arcs high overhead. Embedded into it, seemingly at random are indigo and gold tiles. Our colors.
The pattern of tiles is not random, I realize after a moment. The fresco has been made to reflect the night sky, and each gold tile represents a star, every cluster a constellation.
The sight makes me press my lips together. He gave me the sky.
The columns that rise around me seem even larger the farther down I descend. They look luminescent under the dim glow of lights.
I can feel the king watching me, this man who attended to me while I was down here. Here he could control me, here he could have me to himself. Here I could be whatever he needed me to be, and I didn’t have the agency to defy him.
I glance back up at him.
Those eyes of his are wary, like I am the dangerous one.
I return my attention to the room as I reach the bottom of the stairs. I take in more marble and tile features. A small pool captures my attention. It gleams under the light of this place.
And then my eyes fall on the Sleeper.
Only, it doesn’t look like a Sleeper. It looks like a sarcophagus, something rich people used to be buried in long before my time or the king’s. Sheathed in gold, intricate flowering designs cover it. A marble bench rests before it, presumably where the king sat when he visited.
I’m drawn towards it, both horrified and mesmerized.
The place is an ode to me, to us. Even the pool of water and the way it dances along the walls reminds me of the first time Montes held me in his arms.
Montes did this all for me. My gaze sweeps over our opulent surroundings.
No, not for me. All of this is much too grand. He did this for himself.
“It’s a temple,” I say. A temple made to honor me.
But this place does me no honor, and I deserve none. I’m a soldier, a killer, a captive queen. But not a god.
His shoes begin to click as he walks down the stairs, the noise echoing throughout the chamber.
“Are you frightened?” he asks.
I don’t bother answering.
Instead I reach out a hand and run it along the surface of the Sleeper. This is where I stayed in a state of stasis for lifetime upon lifetime, years stacked one on top of the other. People were borne from the earth and drawn back into it, and still I remained.
Montes’s footfalls draw closer, and I’m so very aware of him. My muscles tense when he stops only a handful of feet away.
“Tell me something that makes this better,” I say.