The Pledge

They would have to be out of there by daybreak.

Eden checked the small arms cache they kept on hand, using the key that only she and Xander had access to.

Finally he asked, “Did you see who was with them tonight?”

Her gaze shot back to him, and at first he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Her black eyes were filled with worry, fear, alarm. She picked up a handh Bght woreld grenade launcher, cradling it like a baby.

“It was Max, wasn’t it?”

MAX

He approached his queen in the same manner he always did, with suspicion and great care.

The room was warm, overly so, as it always was now that the queen had grown old and her body was increasingly frail. But it wasn’t her body he worried about. Her mind was still sharp, her moods turbulent.

She was not a woman to underestimate.

“Your Majesty,” he purred, speaking in the language of the royals and hearing his two companions repeat his words as they all three bowed to the ground before her.

They waited milliseconds before she snapped at them, her intolerance apparent. “Get up! I don’t have time for your nonsense. Just get to it.” She leveled her gaze on the dark-skinned man in front of her. “What’s your report?”

Since she wasn’t addressing him, Max stepped aside, clasping his hands behind his back, waiting until he was spoken to directly.

“We believe we’ve found their latest command center, Your Majesty. Another club in the city. We’re checking intel now, and once we have confirmation, we’ll go in.”

The queen mulled the information over before speaking again, staring at the giant before her. A lesser man would have cowered beneath her withering gaze, but Zafir could hold his own against his regent. All the royal guards were handpicked for their fearlessness.

“Anything else to add?” She looked to the other guard, the second monster-sized man before her.

“No, Your Majesty.” Claude’s answer was brief, to the point.

At last she turned her stare to Max, the third uniformed man in the room, addressing him for the first time. “What about the girl? Any news of the girl?”

He looked at his queen, studying her shriveled gray skin and her ghostlike eyes, wondering how she could even see through the haze that coated them. He knew, however, that nothing escaped her. Except, perhaps, this: “No, Your Majesty. We know nothing of the girl.”

The lie felt easy rolling from his tongue, and he wondered if that was how his head would feel when the guillotine separated it from his body were she to discover the truth.

He wondered, also, why he hadn’t told her, why he’d decided to keep the information to himself. She was his queen, it was his duty to divulge any and all information she demanded of him.

He pictured the pale girl with the silvery blond hair whom he’d seen twice now at the club, and he justified to himself that he wasn’t actually lying. He didn’t know who she was. He had no way of k

nowing if this was the girl for whom they’d been searching.

The queen scrutinized him, her milky gaze raking him from head to toe, and—he knew from the antipathy on her face—finding him lacking. But not, he rea Bght 821lized, discerning the inaccuracy of his statement.

“Leave,” she commanded, releasing them, at last, from the cruel heat.

VI

I stayed awake well into the night, replaying the moment that Max had walked into the club—and then deliberately ignored me—over and over again in my mind. When I awoke, I was frustrated to find that I’d overslept and my parents had gone ahead without me. Since there was no school today, I thought about pulling the covers over my head and just staying there, avoiding the real world and pretending that last night had never happened at all. Unfortunately, my parents still needed me, and I couldn’t let them down.

I dressed quickly, binding my hair away from my face and rushing out the door, into streets that were already crowded and sun-scorched.

Morning in the marketplace had always been one of my favorite times. I’d loved the bustle of activity, the rush of the Serving class as they attended to the needs of their assigned households. It was when the first loaves of bread were being pulled from the ovens and fresh tea leaves were being brewed. When Englaise was the only language spoken, as shopkeepers were forced to trade in the universal language.

But now the streets were choked, and the new refugees suffocated me as I was propelled forward by the swell of bodies.

I stopped once, as did nearly everyone around me, to notice that the flags in the plaza had been changed overnight. The white flags of Ludania no longer flew—spotless and crisp—above the square. In their place, the queen’s flags had been raised, a golden profile of the queen herself set atop a bloodred field.

Yet another reminder that queen came before country, and I could feel her grip tightening like a noose as I wondered where this would end.

I was glad to be swallowed again by the claustrophobic mass.

When I reached my parents’ restaurant and saw who awaited me, I suddenly wished that I had stayed home in bed, and I hesitated midstep, nearly stumbling as the urge to run away overwhelmed me.

There was Max, sitting at one of the small sidewalk tables out front, his long legs stretched casually before him. I quelled the sudden rush of embarrassment I felt as I remembered how easily he’d disregarded me the night before, without hesitation. And no matter how hard I tried to push it down, the memory stayed with me, just as it had throughout the night.

I could still leave, I realized. He had yet to notice my approach.