“I won’t leave you again,” he vowed. “Besides, they’re doing just fine on their own.”

A guard holding a sword to Claude’s throat was disarmed effortlessly when Zafir lunged behind him and wrapped a thick arm around his neck. After about twenty seconds, the man dropped to the ground like a sack of flour.

It was then that I saw Xander. He was assaulted by two men at once, caught offguard when one of the men pulled a dagger from his belt and sliced Xander’s arm. Blood oozed from the wound, and Xander dropped his blade, instinctively Jo

g qively Jclosing his fingers around the injury. The guard with the knife sneered, positioning his weapon at Xander’s neck.

I saw the muscles in Max’s jaw clench.

“Go!” I urged in a rough whisper, and that was all it took.

Max sprang forward, crashing into the armed guard and knocking him to the ground. The sound of the man’s skull hitting the solid floor rippled through the air, echoing off the walls. His eyes rolled backward in his head.

Before Max was all the way to his feet again, his elbow was already smashing into the face of the other man, the second attacker who threatened his brother. The man tried to remain upright, but he wobbled, and then crumpled, his legs failing him.

“Enough!” The commander’s voice bellowed against my ear, as he grabbed me from behind, and I wondered where he’d come from, how he’d managed to sneak up on me. But before I could react—move or even breathe—the steel of his blade found the hammering pulse hidden within my throat.

Xander was the first to turn, followed quickly by Zafir and Claude, and then Max, who looked so furious—his entire body quivering with rage—that I worried for the commander myself.

“Now, we’re all going to move calmly and orderly,” the man stated, wrapping his arm tightly around my chest as he prompted me to take a step forward. “The queen is waiting for us.”

XXII

There were now at least thirty of the queen’s guards in all, although only one of them was armed with a combat rifle like those carried by the soldiers and guards who were stationed throughout the Capitol. Even the resistance fighters favored guns over blades. Yet here, in the queen’s palace, I saw mostly hand-to-hand weapons, like knives, daggers, bows, and double-edged broadswords; it was an antiquated way to fight.

I glanced around at all four of the men who’d come to escort me. They were covered in blood—although mostly it wasn’t their own. All were being held at knifepoint.

The steel edge pressed deeper into my flesh. “Eyes ahead,” the commander hissed.

I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but mine wasn’t the only neck on the line.

My heart leaped into my throat as we approached the huge gilded doors in a hallway that was wider than any room I’d ever been in, and taller than my entire home.

I was finally going to meet the queen.

The doors were opened by footmen who bent low at the waist as we passed. And despite the blood rushing noisily through my ears, my eyes swept the enormous room, taking in the high ceilings, the rich tapestries, and an ornate fireplace that took up nearly an entire wall. Royalty, it seemed, spared itself no luxury.

Even though summer approached, a fire blazed in a massive hearth that was framed by an enormous carved mantelpiece.

But my heart plummeted once more as my eyes fell upon the throne, and I wondered if this was yet another distraction, a new place to keep us captive. There was no one awai Ks n>

I couldn’t stop myself from wondering where my parents were at this moment, how close they were to the place in which I now stood. I clung to the hope that their prison was as lavish as mine had been, but I worried that the fate they’d suffered had been less than extravagant.

The thought that they’d been used, pawns in the queen’s game, made my stomach ache and made me all the more apprehensive about meeting her.

But we didn’t have to wait long, and Her Majesty’s arrival came with all the fanfare I would have expected of a queen. However, if I’d expected a regal woman who could storm the room and exert dominance by her very presence, I’d been sorely mistaken. The queen could no more storm the room than she could walk into it of her own accord.

I certainly hadn’t expected to see an old woman being wheeled to her place at the throne.

She looked shriveled and frail, this woman who commanded a queendom, the body she wore betraying her, withering around her.

At her arrival, all the guards restraining us took a step back, yet not one of us moved. I was astonished, then, when everyone in the room, including Xander—leader of the revolutionaries, grandson to the queen—and Max bowed down in her presence, despite the fact that she’d just taken them both as prisoners. I followed suit, and remained there until I was told otherwise.

Xander had warned me not to be fooled by her outward appearance, but it was difficult not to overlook her weakness. The queen was an elderly woman who could no longer carry her own weight from one place to another. It was nearly impossible to believe that she was as merciless as I had been led to believe.

Until the sound of her voice cut through the room, and the crystal clarity of it belied her delicate physical state. “Rise,” she commanded, not a quiver to be heard. Her opaque eyes fixed on me as I lifted my head. I counted silently as I drew in air, exhaling to quell my trembling nerves. “Come closer, Charlaina Di Heyse.”

The surname she spoke meant nothing to me, just a name from a history book. It felt strange to hear it leaving her lips and finding its place beside the name my parents had given me.