Zoe Thanatos (31 page)

“Just a
minute,” the Queen Mother interjected. She stood at Evan’s left while the Queen
moved to his right. “You are Evadine?”

“Yes,”
Eva answered. “I’m sorry I had no idea what was going on or...” she stopped to
look at her surroundings and noticed both Thea and Owyn bound beside her, held
as prisoners. “Clearly I’ve trespassed.”

“Yes, and
how exactly?” The Queen asked. “How did you get in here?”

Eva’s
eyes locked on Evan’s and he could tell she hardly knew the real answer enough
to give an explanation. If she was there then where was Zoe? What had happened
in the Forgotten Gardens? He had so many questions he wanted to ask but knew
there was no possible way she could answer without creating a world of trouble.
From the corner of his eye he could see Thea looking at her, searching for any
answers to the same questions he had.

“She just
appeared out of nowhere, Your Highness,” spoke one of the soldiers. Everyone’s
eyes moved to him and his face flamed.

“What do
you mean
out of nowhere
?” the Queen asked.

The
soldier looked around for others to support his claim. Five others came to his
rescue, confirming that Eva had literally appeared before their very eyes.

“Well,
tell us, Eva. How did you get here and where did you come from?” asked the
Queen.

Eva
looked to Evan for support, her eyes still wide and filled with fear. How could
she possibly explain herself to the satisfaction of the Queen and Queen Mother?
Her silence was stretching out too long and Evan could sense both Kyra and her
mother were becoming impatient.

“Speak,
Eva!” The Queen looked at Eva expectantly.

“She’s
coming, isn’t she?” Thea cried. Everyone’s attention changed to Thea, who was
smiling through a look of tremendous relief. “She’s coming!” Warning bells went
off in Evan’s head and he wished more than anything that he could silence her
before she said anything further. She had already revealed too much.

A gang of
soldiers formed a barrier around Thea and held onto her limbs, holding her in
place as she dropped to the floor laughing and smiling.

“What the
hell is
she
going on about?” spat the Queen Mother. “Throw her back in a
locked room. We can resume once she’s calmed down.” The soldiers picked Thea up
from the ground and had to prop her up from beneath the arms so she would stand
up straight.

“No,
stop!” the Queen commanded. She moved to stand in front of Thea and leaned in
to look at her closely. “Who’s coming?”

Thea looked past Kyra to Eva and
smiled. “It worked, didn’t it? You saw Zopyros and he explained everything to
you, didn’t he?”

Kyra looked to Evan and Eva and
then at the Queen Mother. “Who is Zopyros?”

The Queen Mother looked completely
disinterested, shaking her head at Thea’s babbling. “Her dead husband.”

Kyra turned back to Eva and stared
at her for a long moment, confusion on her face. “Why does she think her dead
husband spoke to you, Eva?”

“Please,” was all Eva could manage.
Evan could see she was struggling under the pressure of Thea’s ill-timed
admissions and the Queen’s subsequent questions.

“Maybe this isn’t the best time for
this,” Evan interjected.

“I agree,” declared the Queen
Mother. “Let’s first deal with the matters at hand and go from there.”

Kyra ignored their pleas and turned
her attention back to Thea. “Do you know this girl?” She pointed to Eva and
Evan’s heart just about stopped beating in his chest. His hands tightened
around his sister’s arms and pulled her close, terrified that any moment they
were going to take her into custody. If only Thea had the sense to keep her mouth
shut.

“Of course I know her. I witnessed
her birth, celebrated her birthdays and watched her play with my children.”

Kyra nodded. “Just like you knew Owyn
Straton, right?”

“I was the Queen. Of course I knew
them. I was a friend to all the original families.”

“So it isn’t out of the realm of
possibility that you would enlist her to help to carry out your plan, is it?”
She was met with silence. “Where did you send her, Thea?”

Eva stepped out of Evan’s grasp and
moved towards the Queen. “To the Forgotten Gardens.”

Evan grabbed her shoulders and
turned her until she was inches from him, her face still wide but no longer
with fear. “What do you think you are doing?” he hissed at her, hoping no one
else could hear his words.

“We all have a part to play,
remember?” she whispered before turning back to the Queen. “That’s how I got
here the way that I did. There was a program called Zopyros who took the form
of her husband. When he touched my shoulder it sent me through a gate and
brought me here. I was thinking of my brother. You know, since I’m so good at
finding him,” she explained.

He didn’t think his heart or mind
could take much more. Where the hell was Zoe?

Kyra’s smile faded. She stared at
Eva for what felt like a generation, her lips pursed, her eyes wide and
fixated. Finally, gaze still on Eva, she spoke. “How far back does your
alliance with Thea go, Eva?”

“Not far. The King recruited me and
I left soon thereafter. No one else knew I was going, not even my brother.”
Every head in the room turned towards Evan. “I knew he would never let me go so
I went behind his back.”

“Evan, is that true?” the Queen
asked.

A second commotion at the entryway
of the room saved him from having to answer. Hector ran at full speed until he
was at the feet of the Queen, frantic and out of breath.

“Begging your pardon, Your
Highness.”

“Can’t this wait?” she asked,
clearly irritated by the interruption.

“This is a matter of grave
importance, Your Highness. You asked me to track down who the last Resident to
use the Transport was. We can confirm it was,” he stopped suddenly, his eyes
catching on Eva from behind the Queen. “
Her
. Evadine Straton. They used
the gate in Last City.”

“We had just established that
before you came barging in here, Hector,” Kyra reprimanded. “Do you have anything
of significance to add or are you just wasting my time?”

Hector did not relent. “She wasn’t
alone, Your Highness.”

A vile knot curled in Evan’s
stomach, the sensation to vomit nearly overpowering his senses. All he could
think of was Zoe.

Hector continued. “We tracked them
to the Forgotten Gardens but by the time we arrived all we found was her
companion slumped to the ground in a meadow, nearly dead. We collected the body
and brought her to a Reproduction Unit.”

Someone gasped, grief-stricken and
horrified. He couldn’t tell who it was. Maybe Thea or Eva, possibly the King.
For all he knew it was him. They found Zoe. Nearly dead. It took every measure
of strength he had left to stop himself from crying. He fought past the dread,
the nausea, and concern for Eva, but still his eyes began to moisten with
tears.
No! It can’t be!

“Did you identify the Resident?”
the Queen demanded, her tone impatient and excitable.

From behind them a woman chuckled.
Thea Thanatos was doubled over, her head bouncing up and down from the fit of
laughter that poured out of her. She was maniacal. Her torso shifted backwards
until her head was tilted, the laughter reverberating around the room.

“Your paid thugs are awfully
stupid,” she roared through her laughter. “But then again you were never the
smartest when your ambition was greater than your perception, Zara.”

The Crown Soldiers’ silence was
broken, a low grumble erupting as they turned to each other, talking amongst
themselves.

“Get her out of here!” the Queen
Mother screamed at the Soldiers, her face bright red with fury as she pushed
them towards the Elder.

“Who else could it be, Zara?” Thea
yelled at Kyra, her voice still filled with the sound of her crazy laughter. A
dozen Crown Soldiers descended on her, forcefully bowing her head forward and
grabbing on to her restraints before dragging her out of the room.

“Take them, too,” the Queen Mother
demanded, pointing at Owyn and Eva. A Soldier put his hands on Eva’s shoulders
and forced her out of Evan’s grip. Somewhere behind him another Soldier grabbed
his arms and held them tight behind his back, preventing him from going after
her.

“No!” he screamed, watching in
horror as his sister was dragged from the room, Owyn being pushed from behind
her.

“Evan!” Eva screamed. “Evan!
Please!”

How things had changed over the
course of so little time. It was as though the entire world as he knew it had
been flipped upside down, and he was merely trying to keep up. Evander Nero was
stuck in the middle with no hope of coming out of the situation in any better
condition.

Thea Thanatos was going to be
executed. It was only a matter of time. Somewhere along the way the stress of
losing her family and planning to restore her beloved daughter to her
birthright had become insurmountable. She was a broken woman.

Owyn Straton was stripped of his
title as King and imprisoned pending official deportation to the outlying
cities. There was no telling what would become of him. His days in Royal City
were over and he would likely be stripped from the memories of Terra’s Residents,
much like the Queen he had given up his life to help had.

Every Resident who tried to help
them restore the Thanatos name had been severely punished. Most were sentenced
to imprisonment for the rest of their lives, their identities stripped of their
family names, each of them effectively erased from the collective memory of
Terra.

It seemed to be a common theme in
the Straton regime to erase the names of those who dared stand up to their
rule. Even the mighty Thanatos family, the very founders of the royal cities
and Terra itself, were not immune to the punishing unkindness of the Straton
Queens.

He had to keep faith that they
would not do to his sister what they had done to the others. He knew in his
heart he would do anything to save Eva from the punishing fate the Queen would
likely bestow on her if he didn’t cooperate. Perhaps it was his intimate
relationship with the Queen that was keeping his sister alive and him free of
suspicion. He knew the Queen did not doubt his fidelity to her. Rather, she had
him in quite a unique position. With great sacrifice he could save Eva’s life
and keep her close to him, but at a tremendous cost. Without a doubt she was
worth it, but he knew she wouldn’t want him to sacrifice his own life for hers.

Then there was Zoe, unconscious
inside of a chamber in a Reproduction Unit, her health being repaired from the
nearly dead state she was found in. Evan couldn’t even imagine what would
happen to her once she was awake. In the ruckus of Thea’s last outburst she, Owyn
and Evadine were taken into immediate custody without further questioning. The
Queen’s desire to know the identity of the mystery woman found in the Forgotten
Gardens was not matched by her need to see those who plotted against her locked
up behind closed doors. Subsequently, Zoe retained the temporary fortune of
being anonymous.

He doubted there would be much
deliberation about what to do with the life of Zoe Thanatos. The Queen would
see it simply: Thea Thanatos spent her life preparing for the return of her
long-lost daughter and, with the help of the former King, orchestrated her
return to Terra with the intention of retaking the Crown. It didn’t matter that
only most of it was true. It was the narrative he knew Kyra would employ and
reason enough for her to dispose of Zoe once and for all. Unless he could save
her. Again.

There were any number of paths
along the way Evan could have taken to avoid the decision before him. He could
have bypassed the Ventura Harbor and Santa Cruz Island all together that day
and never met Zoe. Eva may have still come for him, passing along the message
from the Queen and King that his presence was required, but it wouldn’t have
been because of a stolen book. Thea Thanatos would not be enacting a plan to
throw the Stratons off the throne, Owyn would still be King, and he would
likely continue to be the Queen’s lover, having no reason to be freed from his
technical imprisonment.

But there would be no Zoe.

If he never told her who he was or
where he came from, she would be safe. Although, catching her and subsequently
revealing his identity was how he started the path to knowing her in the first
place. If he had never caught her, she would have succeeded in killing herself.

He could have insisted she never go
to the Forgotten Gardens and instead taken her home. But it wasn’t his choice
to make and he couldn’t very well deny her the chance to reclaim something that
was fundamentally hers.

Regardless of if he had never met
her, her path would always lead to Terra. She was, after all, as much of it as
he was. The fact of the matter was that even if he had not taken that boat
ride, saved her life, or even met her all, she was still a part of him. They
had grown up together, were linked through their families, and always destined
to be in each other’s lives one way or another.

Maybe all paths did lead to one
place: stuck in the middle of a war between two families. His own family had
already suffered greatly because of a war for the Crown of Terra. He couldn’t
handle the death of anyone he loved. And yet, without tremendous sacrifice, the
very lives of those he loved would be over.

“I always hated your mother. When
we were younger, about the same age as you and Kyra, we were in love with the
same man: Damon Nero. He was just as handsome as Evander is today. Strong chin,
green eyes, a very passionate man with whom I shared many wonderful memories. I
never particularly liked her before we were in love with the same man, so you
can imagine how much we mutually despised each other after. Eventually we all
grew up and apart. Damon fell in love with and married Calla, Thea married
Zopyros, and I met my husband.”