The Queen of Traitors (The Fallen World Book 2) by Laura Thalassa Page A
Authors: Laura Thalassa
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lethal, it won’t readily spread. This only strengthens the argument that someone deliberately infected my wife.
And Serenity, who’s never encountered the plague before, has no defenses against it. The pills that should’ve protected her from this pathogen, the pills that prevent me from aging, she hasn’t taken since the bombing on the palace, which was a month ago. Any she took before then have long since been purged from her system.
I watch her toss and turn in the hospital bed.
I brought one of the victims of my war into my house, and she’s brought the world’s blights in with her.
I run my hand over hers. Scars mar her knuckles; it’s the same hand that wears my rings. Love and war—they battle it out across her skin. I thread my fingers between hers and bring them to my mouth.
Serenity doesn’t react to the touch, but I do. My hand trembles, and I can’t be sure whether fear or fury are responsible for the palsy.
Even as I sit here, my researchers are being interrogated and punished.
It’s not enough to slack my need for vengeance. Not nearly.
Serenity lets out a moan and tugs against my grip. Only then do I realize I’ve been squeezing her hand so tightly my knuckles have whitened.
That night in Geneva, when I first held her under the stars, I told her all the ways she was unexceptional—how she wasn’t the prettiest, or the smartest, or the funniest person I’d encountered. I didn’t bother to tell her that she was the most ferocious woman I’d ever met, or the most tragic. I didn’t tell her that whatever combination of pain and hardship she’d endured, it enthralled me completely.
She’s not dying. She can’t. Serenity’s final act is not succumbing to fever in a hospital bed.
Serenity will live—she must. I rely upon it, and humanity relies upon it. Otherwise, I won’t rest until the world burns.
Chapter 12
Serenity
They say it took me five days to beat this thing.
They say that it was the most lethal strain of plague they’d yet seen. They tell me that four out of every five people die from it. That my compromised immune system saved me from death by a virus that primarily kills the healthy.
They say that someone planted the virus on or near me.
They say it was the Resistance.
I believe everything but the last.
“Trust me when I tell you that if the Resistance knew about your super virus, they would’ve taken advantage of it long ago,” I say to the king’s council.
I’m pacing inside one of the palace’s conference rooms as Montes and his advisors go over the attack.
“It’s been months since you were part of the Resistance,” one of his men says—a former West African ruler. “How would you know that?”
The king’s lounging back in his chair, his calculating eyes moving between me and the advisor. He’s been quiet, and that’s probably for the best. Usually when he talks someone ends up with a bullet between their eyes.
“You were the one that suggested that Resistance members are planted everywhere,” the man continues. “Now we’re missing a driver and an official car; one matching its description has been found near a suspected Resistance stronghold.
“Correlation is not the same as causation,” I say.
The man guffaws, and I thin my eyes. The derision these men have for me is almost palpable. I know what they see: a young, pretty girl from a backwards nation who wishes to talk to them as equals. They can barely stand it. And while I enjoy their silent seething, I’m never going to make inroads with these men if they don’t respect my opinion.
I place my hands on the table and stare him down, letting the civility bleed from my expression. I’m no delicate flower. I’ve seen more of war’s atrocities first hand than most—if not all—of these men have.
“It’s reasoning like that that’s set the world back decades and dropped the global lifespan from the high sixties to the mid-thirties,” I say.
He stares back at me with
And Serenity, who’s never encountered the plague before, has no defenses against it. The pills that should’ve protected her from this pathogen, the pills that prevent me from aging, she hasn’t taken since the bombing on the palace, which was a month ago. Any she took before then have long since been purged from her system.
I watch her toss and turn in the hospital bed.
I brought one of the victims of my war into my house, and she’s brought the world’s blights in with her.
I run my hand over hers. Scars mar her knuckles; it’s the same hand that wears my rings. Love and war—they battle it out across her skin. I thread my fingers between hers and bring them to my mouth.
Serenity doesn’t react to the touch, but I do. My hand trembles, and I can’t be sure whether fear or fury are responsible for the palsy.
Even as I sit here, my researchers are being interrogated and punished.
It’s not enough to slack my need for vengeance. Not nearly.
Serenity lets out a moan and tugs against my grip. Only then do I realize I’ve been squeezing her hand so tightly my knuckles have whitened.
That night in Geneva, when I first held her under the stars, I told her all the ways she was unexceptional—how she wasn’t the prettiest, or the smartest, or the funniest person I’d encountered. I didn’t bother to tell her that she was the most ferocious woman I’d ever met, or the most tragic. I didn’t tell her that whatever combination of pain and hardship she’d endured, it enthralled me completely.
She’s not dying. She can’t. Serenity’s final act is not succumbing to fever in a hospital bed.
Serenity will live—she must. I rely upon it, and humanity relies upon it. Otherwise, I won’t rest until the world burns.
Chapter 12
Serenity
They say it took me five days to beat this thing.
They say that it was the most lethal strain of plague they’d yet seen. They tell me that four out of every five people die from it. That my compromised immune system saved me from death by a virus that primarily kills the healthy.
They say that someone planted the virus on or near me.
They say it was the Resistance.
I believe everything but the last.
“Trust me when I tell you that if the Resistance knew about your super virus, they would’ve taken advantage of it long ago,” I say to the king’s council.
I’m pacing inside one of the palace’s conference rooms as Montes and his advisors go over the attack.
“It’s been months since you were part of the Resistance,” one of his men says—a former West African ruler. “How would you know that?”
The king’s lounging back in his chair, his calculating eyes moving between me and the advisor. He’s been quiet, and that’s probably for the best. Usually when he talks someone ends up with a bullet between their eyes.
“You were the one that suggested that Resistance members are planted everywhere,” the man continues. “Now we’re missing a driver and an official car; one matching its description has been found near a suspected Resistance stronghold.
“Correlation is not the same as causation,” I say.
The man guffaws, and I thin my eyes. The derision these men have for me is almost palpable. I know what they see: a young, pretty girl from a backwards nation who wishes to talk to them as equals. They can barely stand it. And while I enjoy their silent seething, I’m never going to make inroads with these men if they don’t respect my opinion.
I place my hands on the table and stare him down, letting the civility bleed from my expression. I’m no delicate flower. I’ve seen more of war’s atrocities first hand than most—if not all—of these men have.
“It’s reasoning like that that’s set the world back decades and dropped the global lifespan from the high sixties to the mid-thirties,” I say.
He stares back at me with
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