The Dark Queen

by M. Dalto

  “Have what?” Jamison asked curiously.

  “The Keys. Is that not why you’re here? To finish what we had started?”

  “I’m sorry but…what Keys?”

  The bright presence of Leminol’s form seemed to glow brighter, hotter, and its voice pounded inside Jamison’s head.

  “You must have them, you have to have them,” Leminol boomed, almost panicked. “Tell me—tell me you have the lockets.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Brynaxia decided it was time to introduce Treyan to his grandchild.

  She had Treyan moved from her room back to the dungeon as soon as the child was born, and that was where she found him now, huddled in the corner of his cell. She ignited a source of purple power above her shoulder to give her enough light to see the degraded prince, and even in the dank dungeon, beneath the dirt and the blood, he retained the appeal of his bloodline.

  “I’ve decided to bring you a visitor,” she purred as she stood before the cell door with the baby in her arms, but he didn’t look at her, not even to see if she was telling the truth. She supposed she had only herself to blame for that—she never offered him anything without a price.

  She stood on the other side of the cell door, watching the prince even as the all too familiar pounding of her mind thrummed. She cocked her head to the side as flashes of memory threatened to bombard her psyche. “You’re so much like him. Leminol. Loyal to a fault, stubborn to the end. Or at least…my end.

  “I remember you, however,” she continued. “Or, at least, she does. Her memories of you were the strongest, though also conflicting. Every time I look at you, it’s like she’s pounding on the inside of my skull, begging me to leave you alone.”

  Mention of his Empress seemed to cause a shift in him, just enough to let Brynaxia know he was listening, so she continued.

  “I know that you never saw your child grow. That you never knew what it truly was to have a child, to raise her as your own—you had that taken away from you. Twice. It’s a shame Crystalia and Razen will never know either. Or Lexan, for that matter. It’s almost poetic justice. After having him taken from you, now his child will be taken from him. That is, if he is even the father. Maybe he was more like his father—” She turned to look at the prince. “Do you ever stop to wonder if your children were truly yours?”

  The implication was enough for Treyan. He charged the bars of his cell, arms outstretched as if to grab for her. Brynaxia had hoped that would be enough to finally receive a response from the prince and had the forethought to ensure she stood far enough away from the bars to keep herself and the baby out of reach.

  “Temper, temper Prince,” she hummed.

  “Fisc,” he swore at her, his voice sounding dry. She’d send someone down to make sure he was properly watered. Maybe. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, stay out of her head, and leave us alone.”

  She smiled at him sweetly. “I assure you, Prince, I am here to stay, so you have two choices. Accept it or die with it. Before you do either, we’re going to make sure you tell us where the rest of your Empireborn are hiding. Though first, I would like to introduce you to—”

  Brynaxia stopped short as his abrupt movements caused something golden to fall from his shirt, and for a moment Bryn was shocked to stillness.

  Her free arm lashed out at breakneck speed, grabbing ahold of the necklace’s golden chain, pulling Treyan close until he was flush against the cell bars. He struggled, but she pulled harder, and he stalled in his efforts.

  “What is this?” she hissed.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Treyan breathed, but she knew a lie when she heard one and she pulled him tighter against the bars. He cried out in protest, but she could only stare at what she held in her hand.

  She had seen him often enough to know he had not been wearing it earlier. How long had it been in his possession? Had someone else given it to him? How?

  She felt faint as all color drained from her face. Prying her gaze from the golden pendant in her palm, she glared at the struggling prince who wore it.

  There was no sweetness, no feigned kindness in her words when she spoke. “Who has the other locket?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sarayna was beside herself as she trudged back to Tanya’s apartment. She didn’t care if they followed her or not—hell, she didn’t care if she saw either of them ever again.

  Lexan caught up to her first. Her anger flared when her brother approached, and all she could picture in her mind were scenes of her brother and Jared together in the precarious positions that matched the sounds she heard from the bedroom. Before she realized what she was doing, she stopped walking to let him catch up…

  “Sara—”

  And punched her brother in the face.

  Even as he staggered back, holding his jaw, she resumed walking. She hoped she broke it.

  “Okay, fine, I know I probably deserved that,” he managed to get out as he caught up with her, still nursing his sore face, “and now that you have that out of your system, will you at least allow me to explain?”

  “Talk fast before I punch you again,” she warned through gritted teeth, her fists already clenching at her sides.

  “I’m not going to deny what’s happened—but there’s an explanation for it all. A reason behind it that you need to understand.”

  “Other than the fact that you’re fucking my boyfriend—fiancé—hell, my gods-damned Emperor, Lexan!”

  “He’s not your Emperor,” he blurted out, and Sarayna spun to face him.

  “What the hell? That’s your excuse? Some existential ploy about how we’re human beings and don’t belong to anyone but ourselves? Save me the speech, I’m not in the mood.”

  She turned to walk away again, but her brother reached out and grabbed her arm. “It’s more than that, Sara.”

  Rage ignited in her, hotter than the fury she was already feeling. “You have five seconds to let go of my arm,” she warned.

  He released her but continued talking. “He’s not your Emperor…because he’s mine.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? That’s impossible. Of course, he’s my Emperor—I dreamt about him—”

  “Only because I planted the dream.”

  She blinked in disbelief; uncertain she was hearing any of this correctly. Shaking her head, she started storming down the sidewalk again. “I'm sure there are some horrible excuses out there, Lexan, but that one might be the worst.”

  “It’s true,” he insisted, catching up. “The night you dreamed of him…I was watching you.”

  “That’s creepy and unnecessary.”

  “I was only trying to warn you that you were on a fool’s errand, waiting for a dream to find your Emperor that would never come!”

  “So, in order to save my pride, you decided to plant your own? That’s the worst idea I think you’ve ever concocted.”

  “No. When I saw you dreaming of him, because you had met him already…I panicked. In my panic, my thoughts and impressions affected your dream. The dream you had of Jared, and what took place in that dream…those thoughts were mine, infecting your subconscious.”

  “You could have just left it well enough alone—let him and me live whatever lie you created and suffered with your mistake on your own time,” she hissed with venom.

  “I tried,” he assured her. “I warned you not to come back with him, didn’t I? Yes, it was to save his life, but it was also to keep you from having to accept the truth that what you thought you were living was a lie.”

  “That you created!”

  “One that you would have been happy to remain in! When you brought him back, Sara—when I saw him…”

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “For once in your life, just shut up and listen, dammit!”

  She scowled at him.

  “Nothing happened until we returned here, but I assure you this isn’t all on me, either. He knows it to be true—h
e feels the connection between the two of us just as much as I do. I am the one who’s supposed to be with him. I’m sorry…”

  It was almost believable, knowing the powers of dream magic and what it had done to her family already. But Sarayna still couldn’t wrap her head around the most obvious detail.

  “There’s no way he can be your Emperor,” she said out loud, stopping to face him.

  “How do you figure?” Lexan asked with a perked brow.

  Only then did she notice someone approaching them in the distance. No—Jared was the last person she wanted to see right now. She knew she was on borrowed time while she spoke to her brother.

  “Other than the fact that you’re a fucking bastard who needs to figure out where his allegiances lie, if you haven’t noticed, you’re both male.”

  “Oh, I assure you, of that I am well aware.” He dared grin at her, and she wanted to punch him again. But she reminded herself—borrowed time.

  “Why don’t you tell me how you expect to continue the royal line if the two of you are physically incapable of producing a child?”

  “Maybe it’s supposed to end with us. Maybe, since you are the Golden Child, and my mate destined to be another male—maybe this is the course correcting we’ve heard so much about.”

  She threw her hands up in the air, just as Jared caught up to them. It was too much. Too, too much. Upon seeing him—with his disheveled hair and flushed cheeks—no, she was not ready for that conversation yet.

  Instead of saying anything in response when he greeted her by name, she flipped him off and continued walking without looking back.

  Let them find their own way. They could both go to hell.

  “I suspect that went well then?” Jared asked Lexan as they watched Sarayna walk away.

  The prince rubbed at the sore spot on his face. “About as well as can be expected.”

  “Thank you…for doing that.”

  “Oh, I didn’t do anything. You’re still not off the hook.”

  “I know…”

  Lexan gave him a glance and, because he truly couldn’t control himself, wrapped an arm around Jared’s shoulders as they began to amble down the sidewalk.

  “She’ll be okay,” Lexan assured the Emperor.

  “Perhaps…but will we?”

  Lexan didn’t have an answer for that.

  Sarayna returned to Saratanya’s apartment alone, slamming the door behind her, and Reylor gave her a quizzical look.

  “I thought you went to the library to retrieve them?”

  “They weren’t there,” she snapped.

  “Well, where are they?”

  “Ask them yourself whenever they get here,” she said as she fell onto the couch. Reylor gave her a glance, but she didn’t look at him. It wasn’t his business, anyway.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “You. And them,” Alara announced as she emerged from the bedroom. “You truly are the Golden Child.”

  “Who told you?”

  “No one needed to, but Reylor and I have been discussing the events that transpired in the Empire, and the fate that brought you all here. I remember you from when you were here before with Saratanya. Where is the Emperor then?”

  “With his prince,” she snarled.

  “Ahh,” Reylor said from where he stood behind Tanya’s desk, and she whipped her head around to face him.

  “You knew?” she hissed.

  “I suspected,” he said as he continued to rummage.

  “You didn’t say anything?” she countered incredulously.

  He glanced to her. “Dearest Sarayna, let us think for a moment about our track record.”

  “No, this is different.”

  “No. It’s really not.”

  Alara sighed from where she stood by the door. “While you two continue to argue your mortality away, we really need to get going. Seyth will be here any moment.”

  “Fine—we’re done here anyway,” Reylor said, slamming the desk drawer shut. “We can wait for the others outside. How far away is your home?”

  “Not far.”

  “We can walk. They’ll meet us.”

  “What are we going to do with the apartment?” Sarayna asked. “Since Saratanya will never be coming back…”

  “We’re going to leave it exactly how we found it,” Alara assured her. “Just as she left it when Treyan found it.”

  Not asking how Alara maintained the magic to create such a glamour after being away from the Empire for so long, she silently watched her as she cast the magic on the apartment that would make anyone believe it was condemned and unable to be entered. Sara felt the sizzle of magic over her skin and it made her homesick.

  Soon.

  Sure enough, as the three of them emerged from the apartment building, Lexan and Jared had arrived to meet them just in time. Sarayna refused to look at them, remaining cold and silent to both as they walked the few blocks to Alara and Seyth’s apartment.

  “Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” Lexan asked as he fell in step with his father ahead of where Jared walked next to Sarayna.

  “Lexan, allow me to introduce you to Alara, the First of her Name, and daughter of Leminol and Brynaxia of the Empire.”

  Her brother looked like he saw both a ghost and his favorite celebrity all at once.

  “Alara is taking us to meet with her brother Seyth—” another surprised gasp from Lexan “—and together we will make a plan how to get back to the Empire while also figuring out the best way to bring down Xavon.”

  “Were you able to find anything about Saratanya’s family at the library?” Alara asked from Reylor’s other side.

  “Yes, please tell us what you discovered at the library,” Sarayna mumbled, but if anyone other than Jared heard her, they didn’t acknowledge it.

  For once, Lexan remained silent.

  “Sara, please, can we talk? Just give me a moment to explain,” Jared quietly pleaded as they walked.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, unable to look at him.

  “Fine, don’t talk then. Just listen.”

  She pursed her lips but still refused to look in his direction.

  “What happened with Lexan—I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. It happened and I’m…I’m okay that it did, which is why I owe you an explanation, an apology, and the truth.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but she told him that she’d let him talk, so she remained silent.

  “I know I haven’t been the best to you, especially since we’ve returned, and none of that was your fault. There was just so much that had happened and so much I’m still trying to figure out that the only way I could get through it was to distance myself from you to keep from hurting you even more.”

  Sara felt a pain in her heart, a searing in her chest.

  “I miss what we had, whatever it was. I miss that connection between us because regardless of what has happened between me and Lexan, there was something there with us and I don’t want to lose that, even if it’s just a close friendship while we figure everything out.”

  Sarayna was going to respond, but the pain in her heart was more than just an emotional reaction. And her chest…it burned. It burned like metal melting away her skin. She gasped, holding herself.

  “Sara? What’s wrong?” Jared asked, stopping beside her.

  “We’re here,” Alara announced, at the same time Sarayna let out a glass-shattering scream.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “How did someone like him get a locket?” Brynaxia asked as she barged into Xavon’s study.

  “Aren’t you missing the child you’re not responsible for?” he asked without looking up from the parchment in his hands he was reading.

  “She’s currently being cared for by a servant who knows that if any harm comes to that child, she’d better wish she put herself in harm’s way first
should I come to find out otherwise. Now—my question is far more important than the whereabouts of that child. Tell me how that prince got a locket.”

  “You always were far too sentimental about such menial things.”

  “The locket, Xavon. I know what it was—whose it was. How did he get it?”

  Sighing, Xavon put aside his documents and met her gaze.

  “Your children were far more resourceful than I ever gave them credit for, I’ll tell you that. Only once I understood what they had done and were continuing to do did I realize what became of those damn lockets.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  Xavon shook his head. “Alara and Seyth involved themselves in an extremely dangerous game, monitoring the potential Empresses, allowing them the freedom to return to the Otherrealm if they wanted, as if it was a choice that they were never offered. I almost gave up, uncertain how I would again have the upper hand until I discovered how open Razen was to my plans.”

  “Razen is now dead and will no longer be able to assist you in any more plans.”

  “No thanks to you, if I recall correctly. Be that as it may, he was an integral part of my plans for quite some time. You’re fortunate that his usefulness was waning, otherwise a similar fate would have awaited you.”

  “You lie.”

  “Do I? Either way, Razen helped us achieve what we have today. When it was time for Axell to retrieve Saratanya, Razen kept me informed, and I sent him ahead to the Otherrealm, unbeknownst to his brother, to confront your children. While Axell kept Saratanya distracted, Razen waited for them to arrive, just as they always did, and fought against their futile efforts. That they thought they would be able to continue with their charade, to give her the illusion of choice they so believed in…”

  Xavon chuckled to himself. “When Razen was finished with them, the damage was done, and the lockets were mine, leaving Axell and his empress none the wiser. The lockets were never going to be used for their intended purpose ever again. Razen never told Axell the truth behind them when he offered them to him, when he gave one to Saratanya as a wedding present. It was ironic, her wearing it without knowing it was her easiest way home. When Axell wore his to the Borderlands like the fool he was, I assumed they would be lost with him. Then again…”