The Red Queen by Meg Xuemei X Page A

asked.
    “I tried a few times,” Ziyi said with a pout. “I’ve accepted defeat by now. I guess that makes you the Siren, and me the one who works for you.”
    “I need your help.” Lucienne excused her guards and Vladimir before stepping into the satellite room with Ziyi. Vladimir gave Lucienne’s hand a gentle squeeze, ignoring Ziyi’s glare, and took off.
    When Lucienne and Ziyi were alone in the lab, Ziyi said under her breath, “Ash came to see me before he left.” She paused, waiting for Lucienne’s reaction.
    Lucienne licked her lip as dryness suddenly filled her mouth.
    “He said he must go back to the beginning,” said Ziyi.
    “What beginning?”
    “I don’t know,” Ziyi said. “He wouldn’t explain it. He asked me to tell you not to go after him. He said not even you could change his mind.”
    So she’d driven him away. Lucienne fought back the sting behind her eyes. “Why couldn’t he tell me to my face?”
    “Look at them,” said Ziyi. “Both of them. Neither can think straight when you’re around. If Ash told you that, you’d stop him, and he wouldn’t have the willpower to do what he must do.”
    Lucienne’s heart jerked. “What must he do?”
    “Leave you to find the cure. What else?”
    The last time she’d asked him not to venture out of Sphinxes to go after the scroll, he’d retorted, “I’m not a warrior, but I’m better than Blazek getting things done.”
    She’d shot back, “When will you stop this foolish comparison?”
    “When you stop having so little regard for me.”
    “You know how I feel—” she’d said furiously, then caught herself, “—think of you. I don’t want you to leave because—”
    Ashburn had waited.
    He was never secure with her. He could read every human’s memories and thoughts, but not hers. The only way for him to know how she felt was for her to tell him. But how could she promise him a future together while committed to another? She’d once given him hope and then crashed it, when she’d learned Vladimir had never betrayed her. She wouldn’t toss Ash around again.
    So Lucienne had never told him that she’d lose it if she lost him. She’d never told him how his absence affected her last time. While he’d waited for her to say how much he meant to her, she’d wished he could read her mind and know her heart.
    He couldn’t, so he’d left.
    “Oh, no, no, no,” Ziyi cried. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t look like that! You must not turn.” She then cursed herself before instructing, “Deep breaths, Lucia, deep breaths!”
    Lucienne breathed in and out. The redness receded, but coldness swept over her. “I’m fine.” She squeezed her friend’s shoulder and forced a smile. “Let’s have dinner another day.”
    Lucienne left the lab.
     
    ~
    In the first few days, Lucienne’s heart stumbled every time she rounded the corner, expecting Ash to show up. He never did. She couldn’t go after him in her volatile mental condition. She could no longer afford to act like when she was fifteen and had run off to Tibet with Vladimir. She now had a burgeoning nation on her shoulders and a people she must put before her.
    She also had Vladimir to consider.
    At seventeen, she felt old.
    In the morning, she awoke to find her pillow wet. Had she cried herself to sleep? She didn’t recall. She never expected her bond with Ash to go so deep that his absence made it difficult to draw a breath.
    She jolted up in bed. For a second, she sensed him through their bond, but then the connection stretched thin. He was gone again.
    At nights, she often wandered alone in the red forest. The guards gave her a wide berth. Vladimir watched her silently. He gave her space, but he’d become as somber as her. She knew how unfair she was to him.
    That day she went for a walk in the afternoon. Her white gown flitted across the leaves on the ground, making fluttering sound. As sunlight sifted through the leaves, she saw red. It was all red—the sky,