Without waiting for further direction, I nod and leave the room. Behind me the guards scurry to catch up. My heels click as I cross the halls. I should be wondering what the king thinks about my behavior, or what will happen if the footage of me leaks.

Instead I think of my dwindling health. I’ve never coughed up blood before, but I’ve known people who have. This is the moment of truth, the one I’ve ignored for so long.

It’s starting. The beginning of the end.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Serenity

A hand glides through my hair, and I blink my eyes open. Montes sits on the edge of the bed. He’s fully dressed, while I’m only clad in skimpy lingerie. I pull the sheets a little tighter around me before I realize that he’s already seen it all, touched it all.

His lips quirk when he sees what I’m doing. “You have an appointment,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, edging away from him. Outside the sky is dark. I can’t imagine any appointment occurring this late in the day.

Instead of answering, Montes crosses the room, opens a drawer in a nearby dresser, and pulls out a pair of stretchy-looking pants and a cotton shirt. I almost cry out with joy when I see that the outfit is, one, not a dress, and two, made out of something that’s neither too soft nor too itchy.

“I need a shower,” I say. I already took one, but between Montes’s news, and the determined set of his jaw, I’m pretty sure I want to avoid whatever it is he’s arranged.

“It’s going to have to wait,” he says. “We need to go right now.”

This can’t be good.

I shake my head. “No. No, no—”

“Yes,” Montes says to the doctor that’s trying to hand me a hospital gown.

I fold my arms. “You’re going to have to force that thing on me.”

A doctor’s appointment, that’s what Montes had in mind this evening. The king was right not to say anything earlier. I’m practically shaking from nervousness. Most people don’t fear the doctor; they have no reason to. I do. War has given me plenty of reasons to.

“If I must.” Montes casts a lazy glance at the two guards who stand on either side of the doorway. “Guards, why don’t you help your queen remove her clothing?”

I flash them a heated look. “You touch me, you die.”

Five minutes later, I’m screaming as Montes and his guards hold me down. The doctor has a pair of scissors poised over the thin cotton of my shirt.

“Fine, fine! I’ll put on the goddamn robe, just get your hands off of me!”

I will say this for Montes, his methods may be inhumane, but they are effective.