It doesn’t matter how much the king has changed; if he didn’t care about losing me, these soldiers wouldn’t be fleeing from him. They know that, I know that, and, unfortunately for them, the king knows that as well.

I fold my hands over my stomach and settle in. Hunting season has begun, and the only creatures that are sure to die are the six surrounding me.

The car falls into silence after that. I have plenty of questions, but I want to sort them out before I voice them.

A hundred and four years went by, and during that time the world still warred, the king still ruled, and while I slept, some portion of the people turned me into a mascot, if the crumpled sheet of paper I saw was anything to go by.

Even now, after all these decades—decades I can’t fully wrap my mind around—people know of me, which means the king has likely spoken about me.

No—more than just spoken. He’s commodified me, turned me into someone larger than life. Someone people can rally behind.

This is pure conjecture, but I know enough about politics and the king to assume my theory is true.

God, when I see that man, I’m going to gut him, navel to collarbone.

“So the world’s still at war?” I ask.

“Off and on for the last century,” one of the other men says. “The West and the East make flimsy treaties every once in a while, but they usually disintegrate after several years. A bad bout of plague swept through both hemispheres at the turn-of-the-century—that also led to a temporary cease-fire.”

War, plague, vigilante organizations—these are things I’m familiar with. Perhaps this world isn’t as different as I assumed it would be. I find that possibility unsettling. I don’t want to fit into this world if it means that everyone that lives here is suffering.

I run a hand through my hair. It might be slightly longer than I remembered, but it’s by no means as long as it should be. Nor are my nails, now that I look at them.

I squeeze my hand into a fist. I’ve been groomed, my body meticulously taking care of. And now I have to wonder: is my cancer gone? After all this time, has the king not found a cure? Or has he abandoned the quest altogether? Have my muscles atrophied?

I don’t feel weak; I feel strong and ruthless.

I won’t get the answers, regardless. These men don’t have them, and the man who does … I don’t want words with him.

Just revenge.

I’m getting restless.

Propped up in the hospital bed as I am, these men don’t see me as a threat. Dangerous, yes, but not a threat.

That’s good for me. It means that when I’m ready to act, I’ll have an extra several seconds to catch them off guard.

Now I just have to wait, and I hate laying here like an invalid. My legs are getting jittery. I haven’t walked in a hundred years. I need to feel the ground beneath my feet.

That’s not even my biggest concern, though. My anger has come calling. It causes me to focus on the soldiers’ guns and the knives a couple of them carry. It’ll be easy enough to divest them of their weapons. They haven’t locked me up, which was probably their biggest mistake. Once I make my move, I won’t give them the same concessions they’ve given me.

I squeeze my hands together and rein my rage in. Long ago the king taught me something important about strategy: often not acting when you want to is more effective than the alternative. I’ll wait for my opening, and then I’ll strike.

There are still things I want to know, questions I won’t dare ask these men.

What is the king like?

Does he have a new wife?

Children?

Is he still made of nightmares and lost dreams?

“How, exactly, did you want me to end this war?” I ask.

These men aren’t going to let me go. That much is obvious.

“The people love you. All you have to do is convince them to get behind us.”

These men think they can use me for their own selfish motives. They need me to win over people for them.

My earlier rage simmers.

“And I’m supposed to go along with this,” I say.

They’re not even asking for my permission.

You don’t ask a prisoner for permission.

“It’s what the people want,” Jace says.

Spoken like a true conqueror. People who want power convince themselves of the most implausible things. I don’t doubt the world wants an end to war, but I do doubt they see the First Free Men as the godsend Jace seems to think they are.

“And what happens when you and the West take over the world?” I ask.

“We intend to work together to rebuild it,” Jace answers.

Surprise, surprise, the First Free Men don’t want to abdicate the old rulers nearly so much as they want to become ones.

“And how do you intend to do that?” I ask. I work to control my voice.

“Serenity, I’m a soldier, not a politician,” Jace says.

And therein lies the problem.

“So you want to use me to help the First Free Men and the WUN achieve world domination, even though you and I don’t know what policies either will push once they take over?”

“They won’t abuse it the way—”

“Everyone abuses power,” I say.

I feel it again. That crushing weight on my chest. Greed and power, power and greed—they’re the most constant of companions. Once you get a taste of one, you must have the other.

“I’ll never do it.” I stare him in the eye as I speak. I have been used by everyone—the WUN, the king, the Resistance. And I’m so damn tired of it.