He stands, looking reluctant to leave.
“The sooner you leave, the sooner I’ll be out of this godforsaken place,” I say. The shudder that ripples through me is very real. My skin crawls even now at the smell of disinfectants and sickness that lingers in the room. An epidemic tore through this land years ago. I’m sure many people filed through these doors only to perish.
The king bends down and kisses my forehead. “Promise me you won’t shoot anyone until I get back,” he says.
My lips waver before they tug up at the corners. “I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”
The King
It’s not until the door to Serenity’s room clicks shut that I let the fa?ade slip. I run a hand over my mouth and jaw, feeling my age even if I don’t look it. If my guards notice, they don’t say anything. Not if they want to continue getting their cushy paychecks.
She’s dying. The phrase repeats over and over in my head. That’s what the doctors here seem to think. They aren’t the only ones to think this, either. The royal physician had also pulled me aside, shook his head, and murmured his fears. Nothing official—it was a concern, not a diagnosis.
But several of the world’s best doctors sharing the same fears? I’d be a damn fool not to take their words seriously.
I grapple with emotions I’ve never fully experienced before. I hadn’t realized the depth of them—hadn’t realized I even could feel this way about someone.
I’d wanted Serenity’s affection, her fire, even her love—I just hadn’t realized I’d give anything back in the process.
I rub the skin over my heart. The thought of losing her after I’ve only just gotten her makes it twinge.
Marco meets me at the end of the hall. “Your Majesty,” he says in Basque, as he often does when he wants privacy, “how’s the queen doing?”
“Fine.”
Marco peers at me. We’ve known each other—trusted each other—since we were kids. The man can read me like a book.
“You talked to the doctor then?” Marco guesses.
Of course Marco would piece it together. I nod.
“And?”
I rub my eyes. “Doctor said the cancer had spread. The Sleeper reversed the damage, but …” I take a deep breath. My hands tremble slightly, “we don’t have the knowledge to stop the mutated cells from continuing to replicate.” Which means the cancer is still, at this moment, producing more malignant tissue inside Serenity.
The Sleeper can fend it off so long as it doesn’t move to her brain. But it inevitably will, and as soon as it does, it was game over. Not even the Sleeper has the ability to replicate the intricacies of the mind.
“So she’s … ?”
“Yes, I believe so,” I say, before Marco can finish his thought. We’d bought Serenity time, but not much.
“Have you considered keeping our queen in the Sleeper until a cure’s been discovered?”
I hiss in a breath. That’s months—maybe even years—away.
My gaze snaps to him. “Of course I have. That’s a last resort.”
I’ve spent all this time pouring money into destroying healthy bodies and perfecting a body that isn’t broken. Scant few of my efforts have focused on fixing sick ones.
“Hasn’t it gotten to that point?” Marco asks. “She’s dying. This could halt the damage.”
Something thick lodges itself in my throat. It comes down to the Sleeper or death, and either option still takes her away from me. It’s been hard enough waiting out her recovery during the last few weeks.
“Since when do you care?” I give Marco a sharp look.
“Since you started to.”
Just like that, his words deflate my rising anger. I rub a hand over my mouth. “She might spend years asleep in it before we have the technology to remove the cancer forever.” My voice comes out strong and smooth; I can’t let even Marco, my oldest, closest friend, see how vulnerable I feel.
“Your Majesty,” Marco pauses, picking his words carefully, “if you want her to live for as long as you will, this might be the only way. ”
Serenity
I watch the door for several minutes after the king leaves, making sure that he’s not going to double back to my room. When nothing happens, I fling the hospital sheets off of me, more than a little surprised that my body doesn’t scream at the movement. In fact, I feel fine—not at all like I’ve just woken from an operation.
I’m right in the middle of an Eastern Empire hospital, one of the most coveted and secretive places under the king’s control. It’s where cutting edge medical research takes place.
Now is my chance to find out what exactly that research is.
Before I leave my bed to go explore, I gather up my gown to take a look at the extent of my surgery. I don’t want to accidently reopen the wound and find myself a patient here for longer than absolutely necessary.
I lift the thin cotton fabric and reveal inch after inch of skin. I unveil my stomach, and a strange sort of disbelief twists inside my core. Just to be sure I’m seeing correctly, I run a hand over the smooth skin.
There are no surgical marks, no scars. Nothing. The only indication that something’s happened to me is that a dark freckle that should’ve lingered near my bellybutton has now vanished as though it never existed in the first place.
So what did they do?
I peer out the door of my room.
“What are you doing, my queen?”
I yelp at the sound of the voice. A guard stands off to the side of the door. Of course the king left a guard outside my room. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to shake him.
“I need to talk to a nurse,” I say, slipping out the door and walking past him. Now that I’m up and about, I can feel my exhaustion after all. I’m not quite as fine as I assumed I was.
“Wait—my queen!” the guard calls from behind me. “You should not be out of bed.”