The Queen of All that Lives
Page 70

“If you agree to it, I will take you to them straightaway,” he continues.
I narrow my eyes. “And if I refuse?”
He hesitates. “If you refuse, you will be transferred from this military hospital to a work camp.” His face softens and his voice lowers, “You don’t want that. It’s not a good way to go.”
I never did well with ultimatums, and I don’t want to go along with this one. I’m tired of bad men getting their way.
I’m tired of being used.
“From what I’ve seen,” Collins says, “all you want is peace.”
I lean forward, my arms pulled taut against the handcuffs. “Men like the representatives will never give you peace. They will only ever give you tyranny.”
I lean back against the metal headboard. “But, you’re right. What I most want is the war to end.” I draw in a deep breath and try to recall all the tricks my father used as an emissary. I’m going to need them. “So long as what they ask of me is reasonable, I will work with them.”
What can only be a handful of hours later, I’m being escorted out of the hospital room, my hands bound behind my back.
Collins is by my side, along with several guards that look like they’d have no problem killing me if I so much as moved wrong.
I’m escorted out of the building. The sky above us is a hazy white, like the air has been sapped of its vibrancy.
A swarm of people, most wearing dirty rags, press against the chain-link fence that runs around the perimeter of the property. The moment they see me, they begin to shout and reach for me. I can’t tell if their excitement is borne from love or hate.
The guards posted on my side of the fence train their firearms on the civilians. One person out of the crowd, a young man, begins to climb the fence.
The soldiers shout at the civilian, but he’s not listening. He’s staring at me, yelling something. I never get the chance to find out what he’s saying.
A gunshot goes off, and the man is blasted back.
My body jerks at the sight. Now people are screaming for an entirely different reason, and they look angry.
“Come, Serenity,” Collins says, pressing me forward. I hadn’t realized I stopped to begin with.
I let him lead me forward, tasting bile at the back of my throat.
An armored car waits for us. Collins shoves my head down and into the vehicle before following me inside.
I adjust myself, letting him strap me in, my eyes drifting back to the crowd. They are all so skinny, so malnourished.
God, how they are suffering.
I lean my head back against the seat rests. “The West has a problem on its hands,” I say.
For all the king’s terrible qualities—and there are many, even now—his people never looked that close to death.
I want to weep. Those are my people. They might be several generations removed, but they opened their eyes and drew their first breaths in the same land I did.
They deserve more than what they’ve been given.
“We do,” Collins says, his eyes lingering on the people swarming the vehicle. “But you can help us fix it.”
I fully intend to.
It doesn’t take long to get away from the crowds. Once we do, the land opens up, stretching out for miles in every direction. Every so often, we pass relics of old cities. Judging by the size of the buildings, they were nothing grand to begin with. The West’s biggest metropolises were leveled by the king long ago.
These are just remnants of the land this used to be.
Eventually, those too fall away, and then there’s nothing left but long stretches of dead, wild grass.
“Where in the WUN are we?” I ask.
“Northern hemisphere. West Coast.”
I can’t decide if I’m relieved that we are far away from my hometown or disappointed. I want to see it again, desperately so, but I fear it would look nothing like what I remember. And then I’d have to face the reality that there really is no place for me in this new world.
We drive for a long time. Much longer than I expected. Long enough to leave the grasslands behind and enter a mountain range. As our elevation increases, scraggly brush gives way to trees.
As the car ride passes, I toy with the grand plan I settled on back in the military hospital, a plan I’d been forming even before then. I use the hours to alter it, now that the king likely lives. It puts me in a darker and darker mood.
What I must do might break me.
I forget about my macabre plan the moment the mountains part. The deep blue Pacific stretches across the horizon, and my eyelids flutter as I take it in. Nothing that men can do to one another will ever make this sight less beautiful.
Breathtaking as it is, the ocean captures my attention for only a moment.
Directly ahead of us is a gigantic wall made out of cement and stone. I can see nothing beyond it.
Our vehicle drives up to a heavily guarded gate—a checkpoint of sorts. We’re waved through, and then I’m inside.
On the other side of the gates is a city like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Built into the mountainside overlooking the water, this place doesn’t look like a city of the future. It looks like the city of the past. Each structure is made of stone and adobe and plaster—every one beautifully crafted, but all with a handmade look to them.
In spite of the wealth of information I learned since I woke, I never read about this place. I don’t even know the name of it.
At the center of the walled city a giant glass dome rises above most other buildings, reminding me of the greenhouse Montes took me to a long time ago.