The Queen of Traitors
Page 2

A chill slithers up my spine. Perhaps I already have a concussion, and that’s why I can’t remember anything about myself.
Standing guard next to the door of my cell is another soldier, a military-grade rifle in his hand. His finger loosely cradles the trigger. I can read nothing from his face. That, more than anything, convinces me that if I so much as flinch the wrong way, he’ll shoot me.
Looks like my situation just went from bad to worse.
“I’m Lieutenant Begbie. Do you know why you’re here?” The man across from me wears dark fatigues, and he has a gristly look about him, like he’s held together mostly by sinew and anger.
“You want answers from me,” I say.
“Yes, ma’am.” He settles a bit more into his chair. “And you’re going to give them to us.”
“And if I don’t?” But it’s not if, it’s when.
Begbie studies me, sucking on his teeth while he does so. “We’re going to try this the civilized way first. If you answer our questions, we won’t use force to get them out of you.”
I raise an eyebrow, even though my heart pounds like mad. Torture.
“We’ll start off easy. Tell me your full name.”
I can feel the burn of the cuffs on my wrist, rubbing my skin raw. My body is a mass of wounds, and my head feels as though it’s ready to split open. These are all injuries this man and his people gave me. Perhaps this little tasting of their wares is supposed to scare me.
I don’t feel scared. And I don’t feel very talkative.
But I am angry. I’m very angry.
“What’s your name?” he repeats.
I lean to the side and spit out blood. Answer enough.
My interrogator’s scowl only deepens.
The door to my cell opens, and angry voices from the hall trickle in.
“—I don’t give a damn. I need to see her for myself.”
My eyes flick to the man that enters.
Old, strong, his hair cropped close to his head. His features are hard, even his eyes. A man used to making tough decisions. I can already tell he’ll show me no more kindness than the rest of them.
“Serenity,” he says to me, “what happened to him?”
Serenity—is this my name? It doesn’t sound like a name.
I stare at him curiously. Does this man know me?
“Kline.” Begbie says the word—another name perhaps—like a warning.
The older man stalks across the room and leans over me. An intense pair of blue eyes fix on mine, and I see a mixture of anger and grief in them. “What did you and the king do to him?”
He rests his hands on the metal backing of my chair and shakes it to emphasize his point.
Air hisses out of me as the movement jostles my already screaming gunshot wound. The headache that’s been pounding behind my temple pulsates with pain.
“For the love of Christ, Serenity, what did you do to my son? I want to hear you say it.”
This man might know me, but he’s no friend of mine.
“General,” Begbie rounds the table and grabs the man’s upper arm, “that’s enough. We’re in the middle of an interrogation.”
The general—I assume this is a title—shrugs off Begbie’s grip and gives a jerky nod, his gaze trained on my face.
“Get her to talk,” he says. And then he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.
I stare at the space he took up. Whoever that man was, I did something to his son—me and this king they keep asking about—something that broke a hardened man.
I search the empty halls of my mind for a memory—even just a fragment of one. Nothing comes to mind. And now I have the general’s cryptic words to add to my already addled state. The whole thing makes me weary.
I’m injured, locked up like the world’s deadliest criminal, and being questioned about a past I can’t remember. They’re going to torture me, then kill me, and at the end of it all I’ll have no idea why. It seems so pointless.
My interviewer runs a hand over his cropped hair. “Why don’t we start where we left off?”
“What do you really want to know?” I ask, leaning back into my seat.
There’s no use in me stalling. Torture’s coming, either way.
“Where is the king?” the man across from me asks.
This mysterious king whom I can’t recall. I must work for him. It makes sense.
“I don’t know,” I say, still distracted by my own thoughts.
My interviewer leans forward. “Surely you know where he would go.”
“Maybe,” I hedge, shifting my weight as the injury on my calf begins to burn. The movement causes the pain in my arm to flare up.
Would it be wise to reveal how little I know?
Begbie must read my expression because he says, “If you’re not going to cooperate, Serenity, then we’ll force the answers out of you.”
Serenity must be my name.
“That I’m well aware of,” I say.
My reflection catches my attention once more, and I shift my eyes away from Begbie. Aside from the bruises that cover my face, and I have a deep scar that runs from the corner of my eye down my cheek.
I look … sinister. And hardened. Oddly enough, that gives me courage.
Begbie tries again. “What do you believe you’re worth to the king?”
“I don’t know.”
The Lieutenant leans back in his seat and studies me. “Alright,” he finally drawls, coming to some sort of decision, “what locations in the WUN do you believe the king will select for his armories?”
“I don’t know.”
Begbie touches his lips with two fingers; he taps one of them against his mouth as he watches me. I know he’s trying to figure out the best way to crack me.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Serenity,” he says, “I really don’t, but you have to give me information for this to work.”
Contrary to his words, this man wants to hurt me very, very badly.
We stare each other down. I’m going to be killed either way, and that knowledge settles on my shoulders like a cloak. Whatever else happens, my words won’t get me out of here.
He leans forward in his chair, his hand coming to rest on the table. “What do you know?”
This is one question I can answer.
“That my name is Serenity, and my memory is gone.”