“Some of these representatives are Montes’s old advisors.” This comes from the stern-looking officer that was the first to show affiliation to me in the map room. Heinrich Weber is his name, Montes’s grand marshal of arms.

I’m surprised by how quickly he’s taken a shining to me, considering how much of a threat I am to the king.

Or maybe he just doesn’t yet know my true relationship with Montes.

“I believe you’ve personally met them,” Heinrich adds.

A chill races up my spine.

Wait, those old advisors?

Some of them are still alive?

I shoot a glance at Montes, who sits in the chair next to mine. He lounges back in his seat, his thumb running absently over his lower lip, those sinister eyes of his narrowed like he’s trying to figure me out. It was never me that was the enigma.

“So there’s more than just one of you now?” I ask.

More men that can’t be killed, each one more rotten than the last. Of course it’s the worst ones that have managed to cheat death.

The corner of Montes’s mouth lifts up. “My queen, there has only ever been one of me.”

“Thank God for that.”

The officers in the room stiffen slightly. It’s not like before, when Montes’s subjects scuttled about, perpetually in fear of his wrath. However, the king still appears to command their respect, and I’m not very respectful.

Now the other corner of Montes’s lips lifts as well. He always did enjoy my insults. And just as always, he seems more captivated by me than the matters at hand.

To be fair, everything I’ve been learning he’s known about for decades. If roles were reversed, I can’t say I wouldn’t be sickly fascinated with him as well.

I return my attention to some of the papers spread out on the table and the men and women seated around me. “Just what kind of people are these representatives as a whole?”

“The worst kind,” Montes says.

I raise my eyebrow and flash him a sardonic look. “Refresh me again on what the worst kind of leaders are.”

Tell me how they are different from you, I challenge him with my eyes.

I swear the air thickens as we stare each other down.

“The representatives have a long history of neglecting their people. From our best estimates, there haven’t been significant efforts to clean out the radiation from the ground, so radiation-related medical issues are a big problem in the West. It doesn’t help that their hospitals are critically understaffed and understocked.

“Food and clean water are also serious issues for them. And I haven’t even gotten into the ethics of their leadership.”

The more he says, the deeper my frown becomes. I don’t know who I’m angrier at—the representatives, who abuse their power more egregiously than even the king, or Montes, who forced me to lay in stasis right when I was on the cusp of helping my people.

“And what about you?” I ask.

“What about me, Serenity?” He lifts an eyebrow.

“How are you any better than the enemy across the sea?”

“Within the last century, over ninety percent of the radiation has been removed from the Eastern Empire,” one of the officers says, coming to Montes’s rescue.

“Radiation that the king put there,” I respond.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but that’s just not true,” the officer says.

I furrow my brows and tear my gaze away from Montes. “What do you mean?”

“The WUN has dropped several bombs since you last ruled.”

Sickly sensation runs through my body. “They dropped … more bombs?” When I worked with the WUN, that kind of warfare had always been off the table. When you start playing with nukes, you flirt with global extinction.

The officer nods. “They hit a few major city centers in the East.”

This is my land all over again, only everything about this story is wrong. My former enemies are the victims, and my homeland is the great evil.

Shock and something like despair fill me. I can’t catch my breath. Is there no one decent left? Haven’t the innocent suffered enough?

“What did you do to retaliate?” I ask.

“A peace treaty was formed in light of the loss, so that we could redistribute our resources,” the officer says.

A peace treaty?

When I meet Montes’s eyes this time, I don’t like what I see there. It’s not haughty, or selfish, or wicked. Finally, finally I see what I’d always hoped to in those eyes of his—repentance, sorrow, loss—and I can’t bear it. The years should’ve made Montes more apathetic, not less.

“Is that true?” I ask.

“I have changed,” is all he says.

I wait for him to say more. I find I’m desperate to know the secret to climbing out of the abyss our souls have fallen into. I’m even more desperate to know whether this is what happened to the king. He’s already admitted his wisdom grew, not his conscience.

But Montes doesn’t speak, and I’m left with one horrible question.

“How many have died?” I ask.

No one in the room answers right away.

Eventually, someone clears their throat. “Since you’ve been gone, the war has claimed over a billion casualties from the East, and about three hundred million from the West.”

It’s all hitting me at once. Over a billion lives—parents, children, spouses, siblings. Friends, lovers, comrades. Over a billion of them cut down because bad men decided they wanted to have it all. When that many people are gone, what is the point?