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

Chapter Seventeen: The General & the Queen

An hour earlier

Her world was a broken record, an endless tape of the last few seconds of an innocent man's life. It had been hours since he had died. Sometimes it seemed like it had been eternity. Other times it felt like it was still happening, that it had never ended at all.

The moment the sword cut through his neck—so easily, as though it was a knife cutting through soft cheese—and his head rolled on the ground. The moment he stopped screaming and blood poured out of his mouth instead of prayers to the goddesses that had abandoned him.

That was the moment that played again and again and again, over and over in Layla's head. Screams. Sword. Red blood. Rolling head.

The moment was as surreal as it was gruesome. Everything merged together, like the man's blood and her vomit, the twin screams they shared.

Again, and again and again.

She had done this. She had, in that stupid, stupid, reckless moment, gave her people one last look. And she hadn't done it to show them that she didn't mean any of the words that poured from her lips like that man's blood poured from his mouth. She hadn't done it to fight back, or to give her people hope or any of the half dozen things Myra and the others with some fighting spirit believed she had.

No, Layla had done it for one last look. One last glimpse. One last chance to see the people that she loved so dearly. One last chance to see the cities that had raised, the cities that her mother and her father had loved so, so dearly. Enough to die for them, as Layla had been willing to do.

But that thirteen-year-old brave, hopeful girl was gone, extinguished like the bold and beautiful Song that she had carried within her.

The girl had died not with her parents or the betrayal of her not-so-aunt. The girl had died with hope, extinguished like a candle flame without oxygen. And now all that was left was this broken, hopeless girl with blood on her hands and a world on repeat.

Again, and again and again, the man died. It was a loop she would never escape from. She would watch him scream and the sword slice through his neck and the blood flood out his mouth and his head roll on the floor for the rest of her days.

This—this endless torture was grey and cold like Silence, and red like the man's blood and tasted of the bile that had spewed from her mouth—

Then a hand slid into hers and the loop broke, if just for a moment.

"I killed my mother." Myra's voice rang out through the silence as she and Layla sat in the rocking boat. The splash of waves was the only thing that could be heard.

Layla blinked, suddenly brought into reality. The valkyrie had been silent ever since Lysandra had whispered something in her ear.

"I killed my mother." Myra repeated. "I killed her. I wasn't under any spell. I knew what I was doing. I loved her and I killed her."

The silence returned. Layla knew to wait; any more questions and the general would close up again. Five years in Dorgon had taught her that.

"It was one of that worst points of the God-Born War. One of the best for you, I suppose. We were falling back, so close to the mountains. Vicky...Vicky had the plague. Half our camp had the plague." Layla was startled at Myra's casual use of Vicky. The elves had either called her the War Queen or the Enemy.

"Caelia was wounded. My wyvern. I wasn't nearly as good with anybody else, but the front needed me. So, I grabbed one of the spare wyverns and went to fight anyway.

"My mother was a Unit General. General of the Calvary." Diaz's predecessor." We rode together, leading the front forwards. But I wasn't good enough, not on a strange wyvern. I made one mistake. That was all it took."