Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)

Chapter Eleven: The Return of the Queen

Cramped inside the carriage with a half-mad elf and an entourage of guards, Myra Isidore was wondering how best to kill Medea.

It certainly wouldn't be easy-she understood that. Especially with the gods-cursed crown on her head, controlling her every movement. But there had to be some way. The sliver couldn't be impenetrable.

Over her hundred and eight years, she had learnt that nothing was impenetrable.

But how to do it? Even Lyra—for the Mother still watched over her, even now Dorgon was behind her—remained silent on that front. The crown wouldn't allow her to rip it off. Of course, even if she could, she had no doubt that the sliver would remain. Medea wouldn't risk her control for something as mere as a crown.

So, it was likely that only the Empress could remove the sliver from her brain. With her sons dead, she was the only one left with shadow magic. Neither the daughter nor the alchemist had the gift.

"Can you work against the enchantment?" She whispered to Layla so the guards couldn't hear.

"Oh, I'm sure I could," she said confidently. "If, of course, the crown would let me actually start Singing. The magic comes in after the first note or so. I have to actually sing for the magic to work. And right now, the sliver won't let me open my mouth if it knows I'm going to try to do just that."

"Great," she grumbled.

"There's nothing we can do," Layla said softly. "Nothing."

"There is always something," she growled at her. "There is always something. I will find something, gods damn it, because I will never give up on my people!"

The look that Layla gave her was so mournful, so devoid of hope that she wondered what had happened to the Elfin Queen to make her look at the world that way.

"What happened to you?" Myra asked her. "What happened, to make you so hopeless?"

"I lost everything, once," Layla said. "But that didn't break me. I destroyed my cities to save my peoples. I sacrificed everything for them to have a chance to get away. But that wasn't what broke me."

There was an unearthly silence as the carriage rolled across the barren hills.

"My aunt betrayed me. That wasn't what broke me. I spent five years in Dorgon. That wasn't what broke me." There was a single tear sliding down the Elfin Queen's pale-as-porcelain cheek.

"Do you know what broke me, in the end? It was that it was all for nothing, in the end. My parents died, my cities were destroyed, I was sent to Dorgon. I suffered it all, was willing to suffer it all. What broke me was that it was all for nothing. My not-aunt went and squandered it.

So, don't say I am betraying my people. Don't say I am giving up. I fought like you did, sacrificed like you did, gave everything and never gave up like you did. And do you know what my eighteen years have taught me? They taught me it was all for nothing.

"The Empress asked me five years ago if I would surrender and serve her. I said no. You did the same, I'm sure. And where does it leave us? Five years deep in that gods-cursed place with nothing to show for it. On the same path, despite everything we sacrificed.

"So, don't ask me to get involved in whatever hopeless plan you come up with. I wish you well with it, I truly do-but don't ask me to hope again."

A silence fell over them, and Myra stared at out at the window. Hopeless as Layla might be, she would not give up. Over her one hundred and eight years, she had learnt that not everything was for naught. She had fought with her fellow warriors for decades and earned her people those precious decades of freedom.