Without waiting for further direction, I nod and leave the room. Behind me the guards scurry to catch up. My heels click as I cross the halls. I should be wondering what the king thinks about my behavior, or what will happen if the footage of me leaks.

Instead I think of my dwindling health. I’ve never coughed up blood before, but I’ve known people who have. This is the moment of truth, the one I’ve ignored for so long.

It’s starting. The beginning of the end.

Chapter 18

Serenity

A hand glides through my hair, and I blink my eyes open. Montes sits on the edge of the bed. He’s fully dressed, while I’m only clad in skimpy lingerie. I pull the sheets a little tighter around me before I realize that he’s already seen it all, touched it all.

His lips quirk when he sees what I’m doing. “You have an appointment,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, edging away from him. Outside the sky is dark. I can’t imagine any appointment occurring this late in the day.

Instead of answering, Montes crosses the room, opens a drawer in a nearby dresser, and pulls out a pair of stretchy-looking pants and a cotton shirt. I almost cry out with joy when I see that the outfit is, one, not a dress, and two, made out of something that’s neither too soft nor too itchy.

“I need a shower,” I say. I already took one, but between Montes’s news, and the determined set of his jaw, I’m pretty sure I want to avoid whatever it is he’s arranged.

“It’s going to have to wait,” he says. “We need to go right now.”

This can’t be good.

I shake my head. “No. No, no—”

“Yes,” Montes says to the doctor that’s trying to hand me a hospital gown.

I fold my arms. “You’re going to have to force that thing on me.”

A doctor’s appointment, that’s what Montes had in mind this evening. The king was right not to say anything earlier. I’m practically shaking from nervousness. Most people don’t fear the doctor; they have no reason to. I do. War has given me plenty of reasons to.

“If I must.” Montes casts a lazy glance at the two guards who stand on either side of the doorway. “Guards, why don’t you help your queen remove her clothing?”

I flash them a heated look. “You touch me, you die.”

Five minutes later, I’m screaming as Montes and his guards hold me down. The doctor has a pair of scissors poised over the thin cotton of my shirt.

“Fine, fine! I’ll put on the goddamn robe, just get your hands off of me!”

I will say this for Montes, his methods may be inhumane, but they are effective.

Montes nods to his soldiers, and they back off immediately. He flashes me a victorious smile as he pushes himself off the ground and holds out a hand to help me up.

I ignore his hand and snatch the robe from the doctor. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Uh-uh, Serenity,” the king says. “It doesn’t work like that. Not after that little demonstration. You’re going to have to change right here.”

My nostrils flare as I stare him down. I’m the first to break eye contact. I shake my head and strip off my shirt. Instead of looking at the king, I smile at one of his guards while I take off my pants.

The king glances between the stoic guard and me. Just as I reach back to unclasp my bra, the king steps in front of my line of sight, his eyes narrowed. I smirk at him and finish sliding off my bra.

Montes’s eyes draw down to my breasts. For a moment his look is hungry. Then he shutters the expression. He takes the thin cotton hospital gown from me, shakes it out, and holds it open for me to step into.

I thread my arms into the gown while the king ties the strings in the back. Once Montes is done, I move to the sole hospital bed in the room and lie down. A strange device arches over it.

“This is for yesterday’s comment, isn’t it?” I ask, remembering the way Montes looked at me after I stated that I couldn’t have children.

“I want an heir … eventually,” he says, coming to stand next to me.

I snort at this. “As if you’d ever give up the throne,” I say.

“All good things must end at some point.” His fingers press against the bare skin of my leg.

“That they do,” I agree.

“More importantly,” he says, “I want to make sure you’re in good health.”

He knows. Somehow, after only spending a full day in my presence, he’s figured out what no one else has: that something other than grief has weakened me.

I’m struck that he cares. Something uncomfortable catches in my throat at the thought. Right when I assumed I was the loneliest creature in the world, I find out I might matter to someone.

The doctor comes over and starts up the machine that’s centered over my lower abdomen. I’m beginning to guess it is some type of scanner.

Montes sits in a chair next to me and takes my hand. The whole situation should be ridiculous. It’s not.

The scanner thrums to life and begins to travel over my abdomen and up my body.

Behind the doctor a wall of computer screens come to life. The main one catches my eye. On it I can see my skeleton, and fainter but no less clear, I spot my reproductive organs, then my intestines, then my heart and lungs, and lastly my head.

The doctor scrutinizes the computer screens for a long time, looking over the images and the readouts. “There are no cysts, no apparent scarring or obvious swelling. I don’t see anything that might indicate you’re infertile, Queen Lazuli.”