Zoe Thanatos(95)

A feeling of dread rippled through his stomach and he felt suddenly queasy. A movement in the crowd of residents caught his eye. Someone was weaving their way through the assemblage towards the front. He watched as they snaked in and out between people before emerging at the front line. His heart nearly stopped beating in his chest when he saw her face.

Her eyes were locked on his, all manner of happiness gone from her beautiful face. Zoe looked fierce, intent, and furious. It was no longer a question in his mind what had become of Thea Thanatos. The look on Zoe’s face was all he needed to know. The former Queen was dead.

Zoe’s attention shifted to the Queen, her lips forming in a resolute line as she stared. “If she was no one of great importance than why was she executed?” she called out. Around her the crowd murmured, most of them in shock, others in outrage at the accusation. Evan looked to the Queen and found her staring down at Zoe, dumbstruck confusion paralyzing her face.

At the Queen’s inaction the Queen Mother stood, taking a place beside her daughter on the throne. “Young lady why don’t you step aside with Alcander and someone from the Queen’s residence will address your questions accordingly.” She extended her arm and motioned for Alcander and several other Crown Soldiers to take her. Evan put his hands on the arms of the chair and began to rise, but stopped, remembering his place. As King there was nothing he could do to help her, and it immobilized him.

“Why? So you can try to have me killed again, Korina?” A series of gasps erupted around the room, the murmuring of the crowd growing louder as they each trained their heads to get a look at the female resident who dared speak to the royal family. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Anyone who gets in your way you get rid of. Only you don’t actually do the killing yourself, do you? No, you let paid thugs do it for you so your hands remain clean. Just like you did with our mother.”

Several Crown Soldiers descended on Zoe, each taking a stronghold of her arms to render her motionless. The crowd around her stepped backwards, some shrieking at the violent intrusion they were witnessing. Zoe maneuvered her right foot around the legs of one Soldier and kicked the back of his knees until he fell to the ground, losing his grip on her. With her free hand she punched up on another Soldier’s nose, breaking the cartilage into his skull before sending a second blow to his sternum. He fell to the ground and she was free, running toward the throne and climbing up the pedestal until she had the Queen Mother’s chest gripped tightly in one arm, her other hand going behind her back to imprison her arms from movement.

“Tell them who the Elder woman was,” Zoe demanded, her voice booming from the throne. “Or better yet, tell her.” She shoved the Queen Mother’s body so they were facing the Queen, who looked on in horror at the scene before her. Evan stood so quickly that the elaborate chair he’d been sitting in tipped over backwards with a loud bang. Eva was at his side in an instant. He took her hand in his and squeezed, holding her close to him.

“Kyra help me,” Korina whispered hoarsely.

“Why don’t you tell her the story you told me before you ordered my execution?” Zoe looked from Korina to Kyra, and suddenly the similarity of their features was no longer a strange coincidence to Evan. “You’re not Kyra Straton,” Zoe continued, her attention on the Queen. “You’re Zara Thanatos. The Elder woman you captured from Last City was our mother, and now she is dead.”

There were no gasps from the crowd, only silence. Even the Crown Soldiers themselves were rendered silent at the admission. Evan felt his sister’s attention on him, but he could not move his eyes from the two women standing before him.

“Our mother,” the Queen dumbly replied.

“After the first attempt on our mother’s life she took you and our brother Zarek. When her own daughter died she replaced her with you, changing your identity until you truly believed you were Kyra Straton. Everyone else she could find she had killed, including the Nero’s and even her own brother and sister, just because they were loyal to the Thanatos family.”

“Kyra please!” the Queen Mother cried. “Alcander! Hector!” she screamed. Eva removed one arm from around Korina’s torso and reached around to her back, pulling a syringe from the inside of her waistband. She quickly uncapped the needle and plunged it into the Queen Mother’s neck, her thumb ready to depress the green liquid straight into her blood stream.

The Queen seemed to finally come to her senses. With a flick of her head she motioned a gang of Crown Soldiers to descend upon the throne, surrounding Zoe as she held the Queen Mother prisoner in her arms, her finger ready to inject the syringe into her body. Several residents screamed as they collectively backed up, pushing themselves up against the walls, some bottlenecking at the exits as they tried to escape from the room.