The Last Queen Book Five Read online

  Spencer appears to take several seconds to compose himself, then finally pushes up. He looks right at Matrexia. “I underestimated your power.”

  “I do not see how you could do that. I am your shadow queen. My power is your power.”

  Spencer likes that answer. I can see it as his lips curl. He stands, and though Michael is beside him, locking a supportive hand on his shoulder so his boss doesn’t fall, Spencer quickly shrugs it off.

  He latches his hands on his jacket, smooths it, and wipes away the rock dust that’s covering his shoulders.

  Then he tips his head down. His eyes open. Even from here – though I’m several meters away – I can still see the emotion in his eyes. I swear his pupils practically shudder.

  Is it covetous greed? You betcha.

  Is it the twisted hope of someone who realizes they’ll never have to fear again, because they will hold all the cards and they will be able to control everybody? Absolutely.

  Is it more? Yes.

  And what is that more?

  The game.

  You see, I’m not the only person who’s had to fight the imprinting process. I’m not the only person who’s had to fight the way the game wants to play me. Spencer’s presumably had to fight it his whole life. And unlike me, he was born into this thing. He was never free.

  And now I can see it. It’s almost as if the game is recognizing itself. That part of Spencer that has to play by the rules and embodies the force of the game is staring down at the board, and it is smiling.

  For it appreciates what will come next.

  Spencer lets out a long, slow breath, nods at Matrexia, then turns his full attention to me. “Are you ready?” He reaches a hand out to me.

  This time Matrexia does not save me. I can feel her attention on me, though. Slowly, I walk over to him.

  I do not accept his hand. Instead, standing at his side, I stare down at the floor, then up at the ceiling. It has changed, too, and it reminds me of the carved ceiling down in the tunnels under the city. In fact, the whole room reminds me of that place, except for the fact the stairs leading up to the mezzanine level haven’t changed.

  “This is insane,” I comment softly under my breath.

  “It is not insane. It is perfectly sane, in fact. For we have made it so. With my knowledge and your power, we have created this,” he says as he takes a tight step in, grasps up my hand, and practically throws his fingers around mine. There are so much force and desperation behind the move, it’s as if he’s catching onto a life vest in a choppy sea.

  He’s scared, isn’t he? I would’ve told myself before that would be impossible. Spencer has given himself entirely over to this process. But maybe that scared little boy I so often speak of is still in there, wrapped deep within his soul, shuddering as it waits to witness the horrors that will soon come.

  Speaking of those horrors, Michael takes a growling cough as he takes a step forward. “I will arrange for John to be delivered. Do you require the other players yet?”

  Spencer is looking at me.

  So I don’t react.

  It’s goddamn hard. It’s not just that I have to keep my expression even – it’s that I can’t even let my hands curl, and boy do they want to curl. I want to dig my fingers into my palms until they gouge up the flesh, all to stop the horror of what they’re about to do to John from undermining me.

  “Leave them. We have to turn him into an eater first. There is a critical fact that I still do not know. The final piece of this spell that will allow me to use the original board and take hold of it.”

  “Very well. I will bring him here,” Michael says. He goes to turn on his foot, then he stops. He stares at me. I can tell he’s trying to come to a decision – whether to leave his boss alone with me, or whether to stay.

  He chooses the former.

  He shoves a hand into his pocket, pulls out his phone, and makes a call. How he could conceivably get a signal in this twisted, warped space, I don’t know. He does, though. He makes several snapped commands, hangs up, and shoves his phone into his pocket.

  Spencer is looking at him curiously, but with an undercurrent of anger. “I expected that you would bring him yourself.”

  “It is best for me to stay by your side,” he states plainly.

  “I’m quite safe,” Spencer says through a smile as he turns his attention back to me. Just before he does, I can tell his gaze flicks over Matrexia.

  It’s clear that he’s once again questioning her power.

  I don’t know how long it will take to bring John here, but in that time, I need to come to my decision. Once and for all. The same moral decision I was grappling with earlier. The same moral decision that I really only have one answer to.

  Do I save him and risk everyone else?

  No.

  But can I honestly stand there idly and watch him die? Can I help him to die? Can I give Spencer my power to perform the last rite, to kill him, and to turn the man I love into an eater?

  Spencer still has hold of my hand.

  There’s nothing I can do as a cold sweat starts to slick through my fingers.

  He turns to me, his smile widening, his focus deepening, too, as he stares right into my eyes.

  At first I won’t look at him, then he clears his throat, and I arch my neck his way.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of,” he says, his tone careful.

  There, I can see it, can’t I? Suspicion. Suspicion that I’m acting this way not because I’m scared, but because John’s coming and I regret ever leaving him.

  “I’m not scared.” I make the mistake of swallowing. I swear the sound echoes through the suddenly quiet room.

  Michael shifts toward me. I’m once more aware of the sound of his knees creaking. They are honestly like a man holding an ax above my head.

  An ax that’s about to strike, apparently. Because just as Michael teeters back, he then takes a decisive step forward. “Sir, I need to speak to you.”

  “What is it?” Spencer asks, his tone trying.

  Michael locks his gaze on me. “I don’t think this is safe. I think you should lock her down,” he adds with a growl.

  “She’s quite loyal to me. She’s my queen,” he says, his tone doing the exact same thing on the word queen as it always does. It’s tight and yet powerful, unsure, and yet filled with all the certainty of a foolish man.

  It threatens to make my tracking symbol react, but I push that sensation away as I focus on the fact John is coming in chains and that I will either help him break free from those chains, or I will watch him die in them.

  My free hand twitches, and it’s a sufficient move that it sees my shoulders shake.

  Spencer has just opened his mouth, obviously to rebuke Michael, but he stops, and he looks at me. “My Queen?” he asks, and his question hangs in the air.

  I look up at him. I need to end this conversation.

  So I shift forward to kiss him. That’s when he presses a hand onto my shoulder and forces me back. “I know I shouldn’t need to ask you this, and I must apologize for doing so. But tell me once more. Tell me that you’re loyal. Tell me that you share my vision.”

  I swallow. “I share your vision. I’m loyal. You’re the only king for me,” I force myself to add.

  Spencer doesn’t suddenly melt in my grip, kiss me, and forget everything.

  No, the suspicion is still deep in his eyes as he watches me, as he stares at me with almost the same force that Matrexia uses when she assesses her surroundings.

  That’s the unfortunate thing about Spencer, isn’t it? The thing I’ve allowed myself to forget. Though most of the time he seems to be an idiot, about 10 percent of the time, he’s a genius.

  He sharpens his intelligence now just like a hunter sharpening their spear. “Tell me,” he says, another slow smile spreading his lips, but not a smile of mirth; a smile of intense concentration. “That you are loyal to me. That you share my vision. That you will do what is necessary.”

>   Michael is making no attempt whatsoever to hide his suspicion anymore. It marks and crumples his brow, making it look as if invisible hands are holding his face in a position of perfect consternation.

  I take a breath.

  I realize that all of the tricks I usually use to get Spencer on-side aren’t going to work.

  Now, when it matters most, he’s finally found his brain.

  Matrexia is watching me keenly, but she’s not pressing forward and distracting Spencer.

  So it will be up to me.

  Just before I freak out completely and realize that the game is up, I remember something.

  I bring up a hand and place it on the remnants of the tracking spell.

  “I will admit that it took me a while, but I finally realize you were right.”

  “Right about what?” Spencer asks keenly.

  I look right at him. I don’t have to hide my expression; what I’m about to say is the truth. Or at least, part of the truth. “You activate the imprinting process far more than John ever did. I was with him for a long time,” I admit, “but we were never close. I never felt the sheer passion that I do for you.” I hate revealing this. I hate saying it. Yet I say it with open genuineness. I don’t lie. It’s a repetition of the conclusion I made earlier. And it fills my expression and tone with the one thing I need right now – sincerity.

  Though if you’d asked me before, I would’ve told you that Spencer was not the kind of idiot to be able to pick up whether someone’s lying, now I swear he’d be able to replace a polygraph.

  I keep my hand locked on the tracking symbol, my fingers curled in. “You remember what you told me up on that roof?” I ask.

  He nods, his expression giving nothing away.

  “It took me a long time to appreciate, but you are right. I’ve been imprinted to you more than to anyone else. And that means,” I look at him directly, “that the game wants me with you.”

  “And what do you want?” he asks, his voice gravelly.

  What do I want?

  I keep asking myself that. Between saving John and saving the world, between gathering power and hiding from it, what do I really want? I cast my mind back to the months I spent before I even knew what the game was. When I would run around the city, protecting people at night.

  I’d thought I was some form of glorified superhero. I’d thought I was some chosen godlike creature who’d been sent to bring peace.

  Back then, I’d been going through hell not knowing what I was and what kind of world I’d wandered into it, but it had been nothing, nothing compared to this. I would never have been able to imagine this.

  The horror, the torture, the everything.

  Back then all I’d wanted were answers. I had my answers now.

  So what did I want?

  Freedom.

  In every form. Freedom from the game, freedom from magic, freedom from the imprinting process. The freedom to choose the destiny that awaits me and not to have it written in the rules of this stupid game.

  But that’s not the answer that Spencer wants.

  He wants me to tell him that I want him.

  Though I’ve been able to tell the truth until now, this is not a lie I’ll be able to easily pull off.

  “What do you want?” he asks once more, and anger infiltrates his tone.

  It’s sharp and biting, and it’s fully directed at me.

  I can see a satisfied expression starting to spill over Michael’s face. It’s the expression of a man who realizes his king has come back to his senses.

  What do I want?

  To no longer be in a position where my wants and desires dictate other people’s destinies.

  Think that’s crazy? Because at the heart of every human is the desire to control their circumstances completely.

  At the heart of every human is the wish to ascend to a realm where you live your life however you choose to, and where you will never feel fear or lack again.

  I want the opposite.

  I want my life and the decisions I make to no longer affect everyone and everything.

  I want freedom.

  Not from fear, because one can never be free of fear. But from destiny – from the unchanging path that others have crafted for me.

  “I want power,” I say simply.

  It’s true. Because if I want to break free from my destiny, that is what I will need.

  My voice doesn’t shake. This isn’t a lie.

  Spencer stares right at me.

  I know this is where I should tell him that I love him, that I want him, not John.

  I don’t.

  So Michael takes another resounding, ringing step forward, his rubber-soled boots pounding against the black-and-white board beneath us. “I told you,” he spits. “She’s not loyal to you. You need to absorb her as a piece.”

  Spencer doesn’t do anything. He stares at me. “You want power?”

  “Yes. And you’re the only person who can give it to me. The game chose me to be with you,” I repeat.

  “And what would you have chosen if you were free?” he asks.

  I look at him. “I am not free,” I say simply. “And that is why I choose power. I’m not an idiot. I understand the only way to survive in this world is to gather force. And I understand,” I look down at my arm, “that the only way for me to be as powerful as I can is with you.”

  Michael hisses once more, taking my poorly argued point as a concession that I’m loyal to John.

  Spencer doesn’t move. Then he nods once. “Good.”

  “Sir, you can’t be serious. She’s all but said—”

  “She’s all but said what I would have wanted her to. She has recognized the truth of this game, and for that, I commend her. It took me a long time,” he reveals, as he does, he slices his gaze to the side. He shakes his head once, then looks back up at me. “A long time to understand that, the most fundamental rule. You are not free, neither am I. We are stuck in this game just as others are stuck in life. And there are rules to both. You either work within them, or you fruitlessly rail against them. If you do the former, you will die. If you do the latter, you will live. You want to live, don’t you?”

  I nod. “Just as much as you.”

  “So you are willing to sacrifice just as much as me? You are willing to do just as much as I have to do?” Spencer has changed. From his tone to what he’s saying. He’s like a completely different man. He’s like some kind of mix between John’s regality and Senator Rogers’ power. It’s a force to be reckoned with, and it almost, almost ignites my imprinting process again. It promises me that I underestimated Spencer. That I only ever saw what I wanted to, and beyond my faulty vision, the true man lay.

  And though… it’s ridiculously tempting to believe that, I don’t rush forward and kiss him.

  I stare right into his eyes and realize, strangely, he’s just like me. A king, not a queen, maybe, but deep down, a man of determination.

  But unlike me, his determination will see him play the game until the end.

  Me?

  I finally make my decision. This conversation has done it for me.

  Will I save John or will I save the world?

  I’ll save the world.

  Because I choose to.

  Chapter 8

  John is brought in.

  I can feel his presence just before he arrives. It seems to push out toward me like an invisible hand. And though all I want to do is clutch hold of that hand and draw him close, I don’t.

  I slowly turn alongside Spencer as a door on the opposite side of the room opens.

  There’s the grating sound of stone giving way as the door literally has to carve itself into the wall.

  Seconds later, John is dragged in.

  Two of Spencer’s senior pieces are accompanying him. They are not, however, dragging him in. A spell is doing that.

  John has his arms tied around a steel pole. It is digging into his shoulders, and his wrists are chained to it.

&
nbsp; The steel pole has two chains – one on either side. And they are attached to nothing but air.

  Or at least what looks at first glance like air.

  As I narrow my eyes, I see there are faint wisps of smoke shifting around it, and it is to that smoke that he is chained.

  The smoke drags him forward.

  John has no shoes and no shirt on, and his pants are torn.

  He is bloodied and beaten. Massive blue-purple bruises cover his entire body.

  His head is limp, banging softly against his chest as the smoke drags him into the center of the room.

  Does my heart explode? It wants to.

  It wants to explode from my chest. It never wants to beat again. Because at the sight of John tortured like this, it feels as if I’ve been tortured.

  I desperately want to reach a hand out to him. My fingers ache as my knuckles fill with tension, as they beg me to reach forward.

  But just before I can, and I give into that desire completely, Matrexia shifts in front of me, blocking me from Michael and Spencer.

  Spencer finally wrenches his gaze off John and shifts it to Matrexia. “What is it?”

  “I am merely taking up a defensive position in front of my king,” she explains.

  No. She is protecting me and my crushed expression from Spencer.

  She’s saving my ass again.… Which means what, exactly?

  She’s on my side? Or am I ultimately right, and she’s on her own side?

  I think I get my answer as she tugs her gaze back to John.

  I can feel the cold hatred from here. But has it changed slightly? Though I did an admittedly pathetic job of trying to make her believe in me, of trying to convince her not to attack John, maybe she trusts me after all.

  Or maybe she’s simply biding her time.

  I finally grab hold of my nerve as John stops several meters away from Spencer.

  Blood is trickling down his lips, trailing over his chin, and splashing against the game board. As soon as it strikes one of the white or black squares, they greedily lap it up, tearing apart every droplet to get to the magic within.

  The scent of the blood as it evaporates is easily one of the most spine-tingling smells I’ve ever experienced.

  It’s like shoving your head into a recently exhumed coffin.