“We want peace,” Tito says, training his bulging eyes on me. “You and I know that will never happen while the king lives.”

My jaw tightens. I know what these men want. I’ve been preparing for it. Planning for it.

I take a deep breath. “I will kill Montes Lazuli for you,” I say, carefully looking each of them in the eye.

My stomach churns sickeningly. I have become the traitor queen I was once accused of being.

The room goes dead silent. Around me, the representatives look surprised, suspicious even. I bet they didn’t imagine the women who’s spoken out against them would state their terms then agree to them.

“How do we know your word is good?” Gregory lazily asks.

I can’t stop the ironic twist of my lips. It’s real rich of them to ask me that like they weren’t trying to convince me to work for them only seconds ago.

“Your options are limited here,” Gregory continues, “but as soon as you board a plane and see your pretty life again, what will stop you from going back on your word?”

What would my father do?

Convince.

I look around. “Do any of you know about my history?” The king’s former advisors do. Way back when, they had to watch the king parade around the sullen girl from the West.

I take a step forward. “Let me tell you all a story.” I let my eyes rove over them. “Once there was a girl who lived in a city that no longer exists. She had a mother and a father and friends. And then a strange king came and took each one away from her, one by one. But it wasn’t enough. He forced her to marry him. And then, when she was planning on betraying him to his councilmembers, he found out.”

The lie slips in easily enough.

I see Montes’s old advisors sit up a little straighter. They betrayed the king a century ago. They still might remember the bloodbath that occurred in the conference room when the king learned of his councilmembers’ disloyalty. I’m hoping they do.

“Yes,” I say. “Why do you think you and your brethren were spared? There are things the Beast of the East and I plotted, things he never got the chance to tell you all. We gave Montes the wrong names that day the councilors were shot dead.”

My father, bless his soul, would be proud of me in this moment. Lying is a terrible thing, but it is better than violence, and when it has the power to end a war, it can even be admirable.

“So the king found out his wife had betrayed him. But he couldn’t kill her.” My gaze moves over the representatives. “No, the evil king had fallen for his wife. So he kept her locked away in a machine, asleep indefinitely. And he never intended to wake her.”

I go quiet, letting this alternate history sink in.

“Why would I help him?” I finally ask. “With every fiber of my being, I hate him.” I glance down at my boots. “I always have,” I say quietly.

The silence that follows this is pensive.

Finally, “We will deliberate,” Ronaldo says. “Collins, take the queen to the prison quarters.”

Collins hesitates, and it’s plain to see that this decision shocks him. He’d been so sure the representatives would treat me well if only I agreed to their demands.

I don’t bother telling Collins it’s better this way. The king’s silk sheets and his sweet words made me forget several times what he was.

There will be no forgetting this.

The King

My eyes blink open.

I stare at the ceiling and breathe in deeply. I’ve been in the Sleeper enough times to know that when I wake up in this manner, it’s because I’ve come from one.

Several officers surround my bed.

Something’s wrong.

I push myself up, my brows furrowing. I look for Serenity. She’s not here.

I almost choke when I remember.

She took a bullet to the gut. She fell, and she never rose.

I saw her death upon her.

“Tell me,” I order my men.

If she’s dead, I will not rest until every last Western leader is obliterated.

“The queen is alive,” Heinrich says, his face grim. “The representatives have her.”

Some things are worse than death—being a prisoner of the West is one of them.

I rise then, heedless of the fact that I’m essentially wearing thin cotton pants and nothing else. World’s should end for all the anguish I feel.

My men hurriedly stand, trailing after me as I storm through the palace.

“Montes, you should rest,” Marco says.

I overturn a nearby table and spin on him. “Fuck resting.” He of all people should know. “Get the goddamn West on the phone. We’re getting her back.”

Serenity

Apparently the representatives like to eat where they shit. That’s the only explanation for why their prison sits directly below their domed building.

I can tell from the stairwell I’m dragged down that there are floors upon floors of cells down here. Between the West’s decimated population and their work camps, I have no idea why they’d ever need so many.

Then again … bad men have endless enemies.

We move so far below the surface of the earth, that I feel all memory of the sun has been erased from this place. I don’t want to be underground so soon after I was released from the Sleeper. It’s damp down here. And cold. The chill of the place worms its way into my bones in a matter of minutes.

“Are the East’s regional leaders imprisoned here?” I ask Collins.