Four Dead Queens(68)

She let out an exhausted sigh, barely able to focus her eyes on her advisor. “The map above my desk—” The map she ran her fingers along each evening before retiring to bed. Her body shuddered, her chest pressing upon her lungs. “Turn it over.” With her last exertion, she pinned Jenri with her gaze—hoping to convey every emotion and thought tumbling in her heart. “It will show you where to find my daughter.”





PART THREE





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





Keralie



I can do this. I can do the right thing. No one here knows who I am. Or what I’ve done.

Varin gave me a small encouraging smile before the guard closed the partition door behind me, blocking him from view. I took a steadying breath.

“How can I assist you, Ms. Corrington?” a woman asked.

That voice . . . A voice I’d heard on many Torian announcements. On New Year’s Day. On Quadrant Day. The voice declaring the end of the Jetée. The voice I thought I’d never hear again.

I turned to face the throne. There sat a woman with pale skin, brown eyes and an ornate crown upon her graying auburn hair.

I stumbled in shock, my knee crashing into the marble floor.

“Queen Marguerite!” I gasped, righting myself. “It’s you!”

Alive! How?

“That is the general idea of court. You come to speak with your queen.” Concern lit her brown eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course.” I pulled myself to my feet.

I shook my head slowly. How was she not dead?

Her brow knitted. “You look faint. Shall I call the doctor?”

Now that I was at the dais, I could see the other thrones. Next to Queen Marguerite sat a dark-skinned woman in a gold dermasuit, her braided black hair twisted high above her head.

Queen Corra.

On the other side sat a younger girl, closer to my age. She wore a lurid pink-and-orange-striped gown reminiscent of my stolen Ludist dress. Her black hair was short and spiky around her bejeweled crown.

Queen Stessa.

And beside her sat a small pale woman with the fairest hair I’d ever seen. A scowl on her face contrasted her pixie-like features. She glanced briefly at me, as though she detected my gaze. Her eyes were bright green.

Queen Iris.

My mouth popped open. I nearly fell to the floor again.

Alive. All of them.

Queen Marguerite looked alarmed. “Shall I get you a chair?”

Not possible. Not possible.

I had seen Queen Marguerite die. I’d seen them all die. I’d watched the life leach from their eyes as though I’d taken it with my own hands. And yet I was certain these women were not imposters. They were the rightful queens of the quadrants.

Which meant what? I’d been fooled? The comm chips were a lie? Another of Mackiel’s games?

No. Varin had seen the memories as well. Which could only mean that . . . that what I’d seen wasn’t a recording of their murders.

I’d seen the plan to murder the queens.



* * *



—

    MY STEPS BACK to the palace processing room were buoyant, as though I wasn’t quite touching the floor. Alive. The queens were alive.

“Is everything okay?” Varin asked, rushing toward me as soon as I entered the room. “You were gone for around half an hour. I thought something had happened. Did they believe you? They had to believe you, with all the queens dead and you knowing exactly how they died—but I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see how they reacted. What did they say? Will they grant us a reward? Who was upon the throne?”

It was the most I’d heard him say perhaps the whole time I’d been with him. His eyes were wide, his cheeks dark, his brows pinched together, and his slicked-back hair stuck up in odd directions as though he’d been running a hand through it. And while it had only felt like minutes since I spoke with Marguerite, the processing room’s clock confirmed half an hour had passed. It must’ve been the shock, distorting my perception of time.

“They’re alive,” I whispered.

He leaned in, as though he’d misheard me. “The queens?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, the queens. Queen Marguerite was on the throne; she was the one I spoke to.”

“How? You saw the chips twice, and I saw the rerecording.” A muscle flicked in his neck. “I know what I saw.” I didn’t know why he was getting defensive.

“Comm chips record memories, right?”

“Yes, the recorder pulls images from your mind as you recall them.”

“But what if the person had thought about the details of the murders over and over, until it became a part of them, like a memory?”

He nodded slowly. “It’s possible that could be recorded onto comm chips.”

“Don’t you see?” I fisted a handful of his Torian vest. “The chips weren’t recordings of their deaths, but a plan for their deaths. None of it has happened!”

Something like relief washed over him; his shoulders straightened a little. “Did you tell Queen Marguerite about what we’ve seen?”

I shook my head. “Why would I? She’s alive! They all are. I only told her about Mackiel and how he runs the black market.”