The Queen of All that Lives
Page 44

A week goes by in a blur as I prepare for my tour of the East. A tour that begins tomorrow, when we leave for Giza, the first of nearly two dozen cities I’ll be visiting.
Most of my time has been spent locked up in meetings. And when I’m not listening to other people discuss world affairs, I’m locking myself away to study them.
The king, being who he is, has decided to hole himself up along with me. He’s fashioned himself into my personal mentor.
I pity the world; under his instructions, it will undoubtedly burn.
“So there are thirteen representatives,” I say, leaning back in my office chair. Spread out in front of me are photos of a dozen men, each with their name neatly typed beneath.
“Correct,” Montes says, “thirteen representatives, but we only know the identities of twelve.”
Montes sits on the desk itself, his legs splayed wide, his shirt sleeves rolled up. After being here for over a week, I’ve noticed he alternates between fatigues and suits. Today is a suit day.
I pull my attention back to the matter at hand. Thirteen representatives, but only twelve identities. That’s more than a little odd. “Why don’t we know the identity of the thirteenth representative?”
Montes reaches forward and hooks his hand underneath my seat. With surprisingly little effort, he drags my chair forward until I’m sitting between those splayed legs of his.
My eyes are level with his crotch.
“Forcing me to look at your dick is not going to help me learn who the representatives are,” I say.
“You could always sit on my lap,” he offers.
“Pass,” I say absently, my gaze drifting back to the photos. I stand to get a closer look at them.
As I do so, Montes’s arms go around my waist. I’m now trapped in his embrace.
“Had I realized how fun diplomacy was,” he says, his lips brushing against my hair, “I would’ve taken it up much sooner.”
“No you wouldn’t have,” I murmur, my attention still locked on the photos. I move them around, reading the various names, and trying to memorize the faces that go with each. “You’re an asshole, and assholes don’t give a shit about peace.”
One of his hands falls heavily over mine, trapping it to the desk.
“You think that what I’ve done is bad?” he says, his voice deadly quiet.
I don’t have to look at him to know I’ve offended him.
“I will tell you a story about what I’ve seen in the West,” he says. “Girls sold as slaves—some younger than ten. Those went for the highest price. Women taken from their families, raped and sold then raped some more.”
Now he has my attention.
“Don’t blame me for being hesitant to forge peace between my land and theirs,” he finishes.
I feel a muscle jump in my cheek.
I search his eyes. “Is that true? What you just said?”
He frowns, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “It is.”
Women and children enslaved? Raped? This is not the West I knew. This is every one of my nightmares made flesh.
“Why?” I know Montes can see the horror on my face.
“You’ve asked me the same thing,” he says. “Power can twist people.”
He wraps his hand around mine and begins moving my fingers over the photos. “Gregory Mercer, Ara Istanbulian, Alan Lee, Jeremy Mansfield, Tito Petros, …” He lists off all twelve of them.
“Each has his own brand of evil. Alan—” Montes moves our hands over the photo of a man with dark hair and beady eyes, “coordinates disappearances. People of importance he doesn’t want alive—sometimes he has them killed outright, sometimes he detains them for torture, and sometimes he sends them to state-funded concentration camps.”
A lock of hair falls into his eyes as the king speaks.
“Jeremy—” Our hands travel to a photo of a man with pale, blotchy skin and a weak chin, “was the mind behind the development of these concentration camps. All that radiation has led to widespread disease and genetic mutations. He decided some WUN citizens were too sick or unsightly to be left amongst the regular population, so they were moved. It’s a great place to send anyone who doesn’t fall into line as they should. It also incentivizes violent individuals to join the West’s military. If they’re stationed at one of these camps, well, anything really goes.”
I’m about to ask him why he hasn’t taken action sooner. Why evil like this hasn’t been stamped out. But before I can, he moves on.
“Tito.” Our hands trail to a man I recognize, the Eastern politician who always reminded me of a walrus. He was one of the king’s former advisors. “This man knew exactly where all my research laboratories were, as well as my military outposts and warehouses. The WUN had them bombed almost immediately after I placed you in the Sleeper. Then they hit the East’s hospitals.”
I can understand bombing military outposts and warehouses. I can even understand wiping out laboratories.
But hospitals?
The West has thrown any sort of code of ethics out the window if they’re hitting hospitals.
“Ronaldo,” the king continues, moving our hands again. “You remember him, don’t you?”
God help me, I do.
Once upon a time I’d saved him from death only to find out he was the advisor who’d sanctioned the atomic bombs dropped on the WUN.
I nod.
“As soon as he traded alliances, he was back to his old tricks. He dropped a handful of bombs on the biggest, most successful cities in the East. The damage was so disastrous that many of the cities have not been rebuilt.”