Four Dead Queens(64)

Corra held back tears, thinking how she had misjudged the youngest queen. She had hopes and dreams for her reign, and they were cut short, as were Iris’s.

“Stessa would be proud of you,” she said.

“Thank you, Queen Corra.”

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“I’d like some water for my throat.”

“I’m sorry I—”

“You’ve apologized already.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I need water now, not apologies.”

He met her eyes. “You sound like Queen Iris.”

Corra smiled widely. “I do, don’t I?”



* * *



—

AN HOUR AFTER Lyker had left, Corra woke to an excruciatingly raw throat, as though someone had run a blade back and forth across it. Her eyes were sealed shut from stale tears and sorrow. She’d fallen asleep in her gold dermasuit. Her crown was glowing hot.

She bolted upright, but Lyker was gone.

Her room was a haze of smoke.

She gagged, rolled off the bed and hit the floor. Beside her lay the glass of water Lyker had given her before she’d climbed under the blankets. She’d asked him to stay until she had fallen asleep.

“Lyker!” she cried, then coughed. “Are you here?”

She was met with silence and a strange crackling sound.

Fire.

“Guards!” she cried out. But her voice wouldn’t carry. The damage to her throat courtesy of Lyker’s grip and the smoke clogging her windpipe was too much; her voice was a whisper. She couldn’t see where the fire had started, but she could feel it. Her dermasuit began puckering and blistering from the intense heat. It was coming from her bathroom.

“Guards!” Again, no response.

She pulled a strip of cloth from her blanket and mopped up the spilled water by her bed. Placing the wet cloth over her mouth, she skittered across the floor, finding her way by memory. Her senses were full of smoke: her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The tiled floor was hot. The crackling grew louder.

But she would fight. As Iris would have. Should have. She wouldn’t be the next in the list of dead queens.

A small sliver of light caught her eye. The gap under the door! She swallowed a few times to wet her throat—it was like swallowing acid—then she pressed her mouth to the gap and screamed, “Help! Fire!”

Shadows moved on the other side of the door. Her guards. Thank the queens above! They’d heard her.

The door handle jiggled somewhere above her head. She scrambled away, allowing them to open the door inward. The fire roared behind her. Something exploded and showered her hair in splinters. Her headboard. Her room was collapsing around her.

“Queen Corra! We can’t open the door,” a guard yelled above the roar. “Is something blocking it?”

Corra took a deep breath and stood, feeling around for the blockage.

She fell back to the floor. “There’s nothing there.”

The guards began throwing their bodies against it.

“It’s locked!” someone shouted.

But she couldn’t remember locking it. And although she wished she hadn’t, she thought of Lyker. Had he changed his mind and locked the door again? Then how had he left?

“Can you unlock it from your side, Queen Corra?” a guard asked.

She launched herself upright once more and felt around for the lock. In the past, she’d only ever locked it when Iris visited.

Her gloved fingers scraped on something rough. There was no lock—the handle had been twisted clean off.

“I can’t open it,” she shouted. She moved to the window and banged on the glass. She could see silhouettes on the other side through the smoky haze. “Break the window!”

“Stay clear, Queen Corra,” the guards yelled.

Corra fell back to the floor. “Hurry.” The smoke took residence inside her chest, filling every hole, every cell, until her body felt like smoke and ash. “Hurry!” Her dermasuit tried to maintain her body temperature, but it couldn’t fight fire.

A booming crack sounded from behind her, and though her vision was blurry, she could now make out the angry red flames.

She pressed herself into the far corner of her room, the rag over her mouth. It wasn’t wet any longer, and her dermasuit began to melt off in pieces. She covered her face with her hands.

This is the end. She’d be reunited with Iris sooner than she thought. She would see her mother again. I’m sorry, Mother.

And now she understood what Lyker had meant when he’d said, “You won’t see her there.” He didn’t want to kill Corra, as he didn’t want her reunited with his lost love when he was still in the land of the living. Then who had set the fire?

An object collided into the bedroom window as the guards attempted to shatter it. The glass groaned, soon to break, but Corra couldn’t lift her head. Heat encased her body and mind, and she was reminded of Iris’s embrace.

I’m coming, she thought, her hand at the watch around her neck, above her broken dermasuit. But she wasn’t scared.

Soon they would be together, no longer apart.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR





Keralie