Zoe Thanatos (25 page)

He took a deep breath. “They caught
her attempting to escape. She was with a male Resident, one of our own. We
pursued them but the Resident attacked us, leaving us no choice but to use
force against him. By the time we were able to restrain him the Elder woman was
gone. I went after her myself but I couldn’t find her. I searched every door
and corridor but she was nowhere. She just vanished. I made my way back to the
guards and found them detaining the Resident.”

Kyra felt a curl of hot anger
rising in her throat, heating the skin beneath her face. “So the Elder woman is
gone but you have the perpetrator in custody?” It took all of her effort to
keep her voice restrained, to not let the anger boil inside her.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he whispered.
“We could not see his face! I swear to you if we had known it was him!” he
cried, his sentence falling short of completion. The man looked like he was on
the cusp of losing his sanity, just as Kyra was losing her ability to remain
calm.

“Who?!” she demanded.

“The King!” he cried. “It was the
King who freed the Elder.”

“Darling, you were born to be the
Queen. Never, ever assume otherwise.” The Queen lovingly placed her hands on
either side of her face and smiled, relaxing into a natural beauty as she did.

Kyra stared up into her golden eyes
and nodded. She was just a little girl, concerned only with playing with other
children, laughing and dancing, and being adored; Queendom was a long way off.

“Will I be as beautiful as you when
I’m the Queen?” she asked softly.

The Queen smiled infectiously and
nodded, placing a doting kiss on her small forehead before sitting down beside
Kyra on the bed in her Residence. “You’ll be more beautiful than anyone.”

“What will I do as Queen?”

“You’ll rule over all of Terra.
You’ll make sure the outlying cities are doing their necessary part to ensure
the health and well-being of every Resident. You’ll command the Crown Soldiers
to keep peace throughout the world. And most important of all you’ll bear the
next Queen of Terra.”

Kyra pulled her knees up to her
chest and rested her cheeks upon them, frowning at the thought of one day
having her own daughter. “Do I have to?”

“You must. The Queen’s daughter
always becomes the next Queen.”

“Were you the other Queen’s
daughter?” she innocently asked.

The Queen’s lips pursed as her
faced tightened. “The other Queen is gone. You’ll be the next Queen when the
day comes. It has always been your destiny to wear the Crown, and you will.”

Kyra’s young face crumpled at an
unspoken thought. “If I’m Queen will I have to have a King?”

“Yes, to have a daughter you will
need to have a King. He’ll need to be worthy enough to carry on our family
name, to act in his duties as King of Terra.”

As she grew older, Kyra received
more lessons on what it meant to be the Queen, learning from her mother the
qualities required of the position. She was to remain poised and controlled, to
be authoritative and bold, to be loved respected at the same time.

Growing up as the next Queen of
Terra had its advantages. She was educated by the most respected Elders,
dressed in finer clothes than even the wealthiest residents, and always had a
companion to play with. Her constant companion was Owyn, who as a kid was
precocious and entertaining, and one of the cutest boys in Terra. However,
there was another boy who rivaled the future King in good looks and charm.
Evander Nero.

She remembered being summoned to
the Throne Room as a young woman, the royal title not far away in her future.
The Queen sat on the throne as invited residents of Royal City gathered in the
room, each dressed in their finest attire. The walls were dark with the view of
surrounding galaxies, stars and constellations swirling about the cosmos around
them. It was her favorite view of all and one she kept for herself when she
became Queen.

She stood to the right of her
mother, her purple dress tight like a corset around her waist and fabric that
draped down to the floor where it swished against her jewel-adorned feet. The
Queen herself had never looked more radiant. She wore an antique white dress
similar to Kyra’s with a long transport that sparkled with hundreds of crystals
as she moved.

The Queen spoke to the congregated residents
in the most enigmatic fashion, their faces rapt with attention as she thanked
them for their presence and announcing that her daughter, the future Queen of
Terra, would marry Owyn. The generous applause camouflaged the dissatisfied
gasp that escaped from Kyra’s mouth. She knew better than to let her emotions
show on her face, a valuable lesson the Queen instilled in her, but there was
little she could do to control the storm of fury that picked up inside her.

She could hear nothing but her own
thoughts as the Queen brought her and Owyn together, each standing at her side.
The Queen had never once asked her what she thought about marrying him. There
was never so much a question about her willingness to marry him. Like every
matter of her life up to that point her fate had been decided for her. Her eyes
searched through the crowd and found Evander standing next to his sister, each
of them looking bored and uninterested. When his green eyes made contact with
hers he smiled kindly and clapped, more for his benefit than hers.

After the announcement was made and
everyone had dispersed back to their residences, the Queen came to Kyra’s room
carrying a glass box.

“I had this made especially for
you, Darling,” she declared. She handed the box to Kyra and watched as she
opened it, revealing an exquisite tiara made of the finest jewels she had ever
seen. Kyra turned it in her hands, watching as it refracted rainbows of light
on her hands and throughout the room. She was still stung by the news of her
impending marriage to Owyn and trying desperately to show her gratitude instead
of her temper. 

“It’s exquisite,” she admired.

“One day you’ll wear the crown of
the Queen, but this one will be just for you. After all you are a princess. Go
ahead, try it on,” the Queen encouraged.

Kyra carefully placed the headpiece
at the top of her head and smoothed the loose strands of hair down beneath it.
It fit perfectly.

“There are many more beautiful
things awaiting you in your future, Kyra. I want you to remember this day each
time you wear this.”

Kyra caught her brilliant but
unsmiling reflection in a nearby mirror. She indeed looked the part of an
adored princess, diamonds sparkling like a halo above her head. Despite the
generosity and beauty of the gift she still felt bruised about her sudden
betrothal.

“Do I have to marry him?” she asked
sullenly. The light of the Queen’s face diminished at the question, a twitch of
a forced smile on her lips. Kyra noticed her mother’s glare and cast her eyes down.
She did not dare to look at her own reflection, sure that she looked as ugly
and petulant as she sounded.

“Do you object to having these
complicated matters handled for you? Some people spend their entire lives
searching for someone to spend their time with, and I’ve done all the hard work
for you. I’ve found you a worthy partner to be your King, to stand by your side
in all matters and to help you produce the next heir to the throne. Is that not
enough for you?”

Kyra flinched at her mother’s
words, regret stabbing at her insides. “It is not my intent to come off as
ungrateful, Mother. I just wish I could have had a say in the matter. I would
have liked to pick someone for myself.”

The Queen placed her hands on
Kyra’s shoulders and stared at her reflection in the mirror. “Darling, I’ve
done you a favor. You will marry Owyn and he will be your King.”

“But I don’t particularly like
him!” she cried softly. She saw in her reflection that she looked ugly with
tears, her demeanor not worthy of the beauty placed upon her head.

“Kyra Straton, stop your crying
this instant. You are the heir to the throne of Terra; you do not cry!” She
twirled her around until they were face-to-face, the Queen’s own fingers
brushing away fallen tears from Kyra’s face. “There is never a reason for you
to cry, do you understand?”

Kyra sniffed and nodded her head,
willing her eyes to dry before any more tears could fall. “Sorry,” she
whispered.

“Do not apologize, either. Now,
without crying, tell me what has you so upset.”

“I don’t want to marry Owyn. He’s
not the boy I like.”

“So there’s someone else you have
in mind?”

“Yes,” she replied. Her mother
raised her eyebrows, silently prompting her to continue. “I like Evander Nero.”

A small, knowing smile curled the
Queen’s lips as she nodded. “Evander Nero is a very handsome young man. He
looks very much like his father,” she spoke. Her eyes looked distant for a
moment, lost in some thought she didn’t share with her daughter. Finally pulled
Kyra close to her and wrapped her arms around her tightly.

“The great advantage of being Queen
is that you can do whatever you want, and with whomever you want,” she
whispered into Kyra’s ear. “Just because you’re married to one man doesn’t mean
you can’t be with the other.”

Kyra was confused by her mother’s
admission, not knowing the full extent of her meaning. Who would want to be
with her if she was already married to someone else? Moreover, who would be
brave enough to take on that kind of relationship with her when she was Queen?

Not long after the announcement was
made, plans for her coronation were set with the wedding to follow thereafter.
In all the time leading up to the grand festivities the Queen continued to give
Kyra lessons in how to perform her job as the Queen. She learned over time that
they were relatively mundane and that there would likely never be an occasion
to act as commander of the Crown Soldiers. Life in Terra was peaceful after the
Stratons took over the Crown, and she was assured it would remain that way.

Perhaps it was the grave
misconception about lasting peace in Terra that made Kyra unsure of how to act.
The Crown Soldiers were supposed to be adept at their job, trained to keep the
peace so that her interference would not be required. She was neither a
commander-in-chief nor a warrior; she was a Queen whose duty was to serve as
the leader of Terra. The very system of defense she had come to rely on was
cracking under an unprecedented threat.

The residents from Last City had
vanished, as had the Elder woman who was quite possibly the last Thanatos
Queen. Of all the possibilities in Terra it was her very own husband, the King,
who was their suspected coconspirator and now traitor to the Crown. Everything
had unraveled under her rule and her mother was a witness to it all.

Ordinarily, Owyn would have been
detained by the Crown Soldiers and placed in a maximum security detainment
room. However, he was the King, and no one wanted to be the one to recommend
such a punishing detainment. It was the Queen Mother’s command that he be put
into solitary confinement, Kyra merely nodding her head in approval when
Alcander looked to her for confirmation.

Until the Elder’s escape she had
placed her faith in the competent hands of her Crown Soldiers, but now she
would be forced to take matters into her own hands, a notion she was not
comfortable with. She went first to the Government Complex where a contingent
of soldiers was being detained after their lapse in job performance led to the
escape of the Last City residents. One by one they explained how the King’s
presence had distracted them from their duties leading up to the escape, none
of them expressing any notion that the King had deliberately deceived them.
Despite their expressed regret at their lapse in judgment they were each
dishonorably discharged, stripped of their military statuses and deported to
the outlying cities.

On the outside she was calm and
collected, but internally Kyra was shaking with insecurity. It was at the Queen
Mother’s recommendation that sentencing be swift and punishing. She knew it was
for the best. The loss of those soldiers would do little to impact the number
of Crown Soldiers, but she at once ordered a recruitment of new Soldiers from a
pool of qualified candidates. Their training would be more vigorous and
thorough, ensuring that no one soldier ever repeated the mistakes of those whom
they were replacing.

By the time she discharged the
group she was exhausted, her mind aching with the stress of the events that had
taken place. She knew rest would be the only thing and to prepare her for what
she knew would come next.

She and the Queen Mother were
escorted back to the royal residence flanked by Crown Soldiers. As they reached
the Throne Room she ordered one to enter the city and fetch Julia, her most
trusted lady-in-waiting. When they were finally alone in the residence, guards
posted outside the door, the Queen Mother turned to Kyra and smiled proudly.

“You did a fine job today, darling,
but it will not get easier.”

“I know,” Kyra nodded. “I just
can’t think about that right now, Mother. I need rest. The King can wait in
solitary confinement.”

“I understand.” She put her hands
on Kyra’s shoulders and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “This will be
your legacy, Kyra. No one will ever again think to cross a Straton, Queen or
otherwise.”

Kyra could barely feign a smile
through her exhaustion. “Let’s just get through this situation before we start
writing my name in history books, shall we?”

Korina smiled, her chin rising up
in satisfied pride. “History is either remembered or forgotten, but a legacy is
inscribed in time itself.” With that, she bowed her head to Kyra and turned,
walking the path to the private room kept in her name and honor.