by M. Dalto
Alex had to wonder if Reylor had known—if that was the reason he decided to let her go when he did. That he knew he wouldn’t have survived the attack should the Empire invade the Borderlands, and instead decided to give them back what they wanted.
“And the babies,” he went on, looking away, “that was my own desperation.”
“Why?” she asked quietly, holding herself a little tighter.
“Because I didn’t know what to do,” he admitted. “I still don’t. All the Councillor can tell me is that whatever happened was a dark curse—a magical infiltration that is somehow, some way, affecting my children. And we won’t know the true effects until they’re born, so I thought—”
“You thought that if you could keep them from being born, whatever Reylor may have cast would be undone.”
He nodded once.
“What Reylor did goes beyond these children,” she whispered.
“I’m not trying to belittle what happened to you, Alex.”
She knew that. Physical or not, there was still a violation of her body that happened without her consent. He had still taken her from her bed, held her as a prisoner, assaulted her…
She shuddered, and Treyan looked to her with concern in his eyes.
“I’m not going to ask you to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me, but I want you to know that whenever you are ready, I am here. And I won't be anywhere else, I promise.”
She bit her lip and realized she was easier to read than she thought. The details of what happened to her while in the Borderlands still remained a mystery to all except her, though the knowledge about the dark magic she wasn’t able to deny.
“I'm not going to ask to return to your bed,” he continued. “I will ask nothing of you that will make you uneasy. But you are my wife, and I am your husband, and it shall remain as such until the suns set on our last days, regardless of how many remain.”
“Don't talk like that!”
He shrugged. “You should know better than I. You are the one who has come the closest.”
She looked away from him. She didn't enjoy thinking about the wedding, which was bittersweet in so many ways. She still refrained from explaining the extent of the conversation she had with his mother, save for the placement of the burn mark on her forehead. But he was right—their days were numbered. One or one thousand, neither of them knew for sure, especially with each new threat from the Borderlands.
“Stay with me,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“You're right,” she conceded. “The days are too short, and the nights are too long.”
“I'm not telling you this to make you do something you're not ready to do.”
“And I’m not saying we’re going to do anything,” she countered. “Unless I should be concerned about you threatening my well-being?” She perked her eyebrow.
“Never,” he assured her, his tone serious. He leaned over and took her hands in his while his blue eyes pierced her, as though trying to look into her very soul. “Are you sure you're ready for this?”
“No.” She smiled. “But it's time. And I miss you stealing the blankets.”
Treyan snorted at her attempted humor. “As the Empress wishes.” He stood and helped her from the chair, her hands remaining in his. “I've a few more items to attend before I retire, but I will return.”
“You better,” she threatened playfully.
He leaned over as though to give her a kiss, but hesitated at her lips, and instead pecked her cheek. He left the room silently, closing the door behind him, while an uncertain Empress watched him leave.
Treyan was more than happy to abide by Alex’s wishes, and did all he could to keep from skipping down the palace hallways. Just being able to sleep in the same bed with her again was more than enough for him, and he would give her all the time in the world to thank her for it.
36
Alex sat in front of her dresser mirror, pushing her hair away from her forehead. She lightly touched the scar-like mark left behind on her forehead. It was always warm to the touch; never in a feverish way, but more like comforting warmth. The placement was too coincidental to ignore, still remembering the feel of Saratanya’s lips upon her brow while she lingered in the limbo between life and death.
“You know, if you keep touching it, you’re only going to make it worse.”
Treyan was leaning in the door of the bedroom, handsome as always.
She glared at his reflection in the mirror and returned her attention to inspecting the scar.
“It’s not going away.” She rubbed at it again.
“It probably won’t, if the story you told me is true enough.”
She turned her eyes back to him. “Oh yes, because making up stories about your mother on my deathbed was exactly what I had in mind.”
“I’ve heard crazier.”
“Well, believe what you will.” She rubbed it a little more and felt nothing more than the pulsating warmth. “What does it even mean?”
“Funny you should ask.” He walked into the room, holding a book in his arms.
“Researching without me?” she chided. “Treyan, I’m offended!”
“Enough, Empress” he mused. “One can only walk into the library so many times and not be compelled to open a book or two on his own.”
She turned from the mirror to face where he sat on the bench at the end of her bed. “So?”
“So.” He opened the book to the marked page and flipped it around for her to see. “You now possess the Mark of the Empress.”
Alex got up and sat next to him to get a closer look, taking the book in her own hands.
“The Mark of the Empress,” she began to read, “shaped like a starburst…only bestowed from one Queen Empress to another…every two thousand years? What does that even mean?”
Treyan shrugged. “Keep reading.”
“To the Empress who possesses the mark shall be bestowed the Gifts of the Empire upon the birth of the twin Princes.” She looked to Treyan. “What Gifts?”
“I have no idea.”
“You’re kidding me. You brought me this book and you don’t even know the context?”
“I didn’t say that. Anything that happened two thousand years ago might as well have been wiped from existence. Unless you can remember something that I don’t that you’ve come across in our searching.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or the resources to begin another project at the moment.” Sighing, Alex closed the book and put it aside. “I suppose we can conduct research another time. As for now, we’re still no closer to apprehending Reylor and that should be our priority.” She stood up, heading over to her own pile of books that had accumulated within her room.
“Alex, it is our priority, but don’t you think something like this could be the key to finding our answer? Perhaps there’s something here.”
Alex had stopped in her tracks, her back still to him. “What did you just say?”
“That this is our priority?”
“No, you said the key to finding the answer…”
Treyan raised an eyebrow. “Yes?
“Treyan, the Key!”
She looked back to her books and hurriedly found one that was sitting at the bottom of five others. Allowing the tomes to tumble to the floor, she brought the text over to Treyan.
Taking it from her, he looked it over, extremely unamused. “Alex, ‘The Complete Manual of Key Construction’? This is the most boring book in that whole damn library. Do you know how many times I chose not to read this book?”
Her annoyance was starting to show through. “Treyan, you said it yourself. Keys!” She pointed to the cover for added effect. “Keys are going to get us into the Borderlands!”
He peered at her oddly, but his eyes widened when he understood. “Wait. The only way Keys work is if two are planted. You need an entrance and an exit. Planting an in here is not the problem, but you need an out—somewhere to go—otherwise you’re damning
yourself to an eternity in limbo.”
“So, we plant an out,” she concluded matter-of-factly.
“Planting an out means we have to actually get ourselves into the Borderlands, and that’s our issue in the first place. Not to mention, an army could never travel through a Key—the magic isn’t strong enough to send more than one to two through at a time, and by the time we send through a whole armada, we’d be discovered. It would be too risky.”
She considered it a moment. “Unless we’re thinking too big.”
“What?”
Alex started pacing. “All this time we’ve been trying to figure out how we’re going to get our forces into the Borderlands, but what if instead of hundreds, we only need to send one?”
Treyan stood. “Alex?”
“The goal in this is to apprehend Reylor and make him confess to his crimes against the Empire, correct?”
“Yes, to say the least, but…”
“Why put hundreds of lives in danger just for him?”
He watched her carefully. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“We only need one person to cross into the Borderlands,” she continued. “One person who we know will suffer little-to-no harm.”
“Don’t, Alex,” he protested.
“Someone who’s been there.” She stopped her pacing and turned to face him. “I need to go.”
Sighing, Treyan hung his head.
“It makes the most sense, and we both know it,” she added.
“It doesn’t mean I have to agree to it.”
“I don’t see any other way for it to work.”
“It’s too risky. For you, for the twins, for the Empire.”
She started to feel her anger rise. “Well, it’s not like more damage could be done.”
He looked sternly at her. “That is not funny.”
“I know.” She sighed, “but in the greater scheme of things, it’s true. You know it as well as I.”
He started walking to her. “It doesn’t have to be you. It should be me. I should be the one to go—”
“Something tells me I’ll last a hell of a lot longer over there than you will. Reylor would have you killed in an instant.”
“He could try,” he countered. “You’re not going alone. It’s too dangerous.”
“I won’t go unprepared.” He was standing in front of her now, and she put a reassuring hand on his cheek. “This is going to be the only way to put an end to this, once and for all.”
“Unless there’s another way—”
“I am not going to have you put yourself in harm’s way for this,” she reminded him. “Not when we know he’ll be waiting for you. And you can’t tell me he wouldn’t use you crossing the line as an excuse to make sure you never make it back.”
He closed his eyes and rested his cheek in her palm. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Better start getting used to it.”
He wrapped her up in a hug and held her tight, as if already terrified of having to let her go.
37
With their plan’s focus shifted, Alex and Treyan would not allow themselves to go unprepared. From that point forward, they spent their time within the library, plotting out their attack, both against Reylor and the Councillor.
The only one within the Empire with the ability to construct Keys was the Councillor. If the plan was going to work, they would need to convince him that infiltration was going to be the best chance they would have.
Alex knew the most difficult task upon her would be convincing Treyan to remain with her through this endeavor. He still needed to be persuaded as much as the Councillor. He continued to be very vocal about his objections and vowed that he would find another way to keep her from putting herself in danger, especially without him by her side. She knew deep down that though they were working together for a mutual cause, Treyan had his own agenda about how they were going to get there. So she vowed to keep him as close as possible until their task was done, otherwise she knew he would have a mind to venture off on his own and end his brother’s existence once and for all, if only out of spite to keep her safe within the palace’s walls.
On the night before they were scheduled to propose the plan to the Council, they sat together in the library, lazily flipping through a few more volumes of interest.
Or at least Alex was. Treyan had his legs upon a nearby table while leaning back in his chair, floating a blue power orb back and forth between his hands.
She glanced up at him as if to reprimand him for his current lack of purpose, when the sight of the orb grasped her attention.
“What are you doing?”
“Floating an orb between my hands,” he responded nonchalantly. He appeared to have concluded his researching efforts, but Alex was in awe.
“It was you.”
“What was?” he asked, his attention still on his hands.
“You led me here that day. It was your orb.”
The blue ball dissipated as he smiled, finally looked over to her. “I wondered if you ever figured that out.”
“You were there?”
He nodded, swinging his legs down to the ground and standing from his chair. “I followed you from the room but didn’t want to give you further reason to run. When I saw you heading towards the library, I figured I’d try guiding you to help you understand.”
“You saw me fall?” A flush of embarrassment grew on her cheeks.
He smirked at her while he sat on the edge of her desk. “I made sure you were going to be okay, but you should have known better than to run on that foot.”
She jabbed him playfully in the thigh on her desk, and he chuckled at her attempt, easily grabbing her hand in his and holding it. His thumb ran over her knuckles as he looked down at her, and she couldn’t resist meeting his stare.
She rested her head on her other hand as she looked up at him. “And here we are.”
“Here we are,” he returned, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her fingers.
Suddenly, an idea came to Alex that hadn’t been there before, and without a word, she stood and walked over to the pedestal that held the Annals.
Treyan watched her from where he sat. “What are you doing?”
“Have you ever read our Prophecy?” She glanced back over her shoulder.
He rolled his eyes and looked down to a book on her desk. “I’ve read plenty. I don’t need to read my own.”
“Fine, then tell me about the ones you have read,” she inquired as she walked around the pedestal.
“The last time I did that, you wanted to murder me.”
She perked a brow. “Tell me anyway.”
He looked up at her, skeptical.
“I promise I won’t murder you,” she assured him.
Sighing, he stood. “Fine, but I warned you.”
He walked over to where she stood by the Annals, and using both hands, attempted to open the book. The manuscript, however, had another plan, for the moment he touched the cover, a powerful shock hit him, making him withdraw, holding his injured palms.
“Fisc! Damn book.”
Before he could continue to curse, the tome began to glow a light red and flipped itself open, stopping at a passage all on its own.
Treyan stared as he had seen this happen before, but Alex slowly stepped up to the book, cautious yet intrigued, and immediately began reading.
“Treyan, this is from two thousand years ago.”
He looked up from his injured hands and hissed. “Rhaid.”
She glared at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“We were just talking about the Mark of the Empress,” she went on, ignoring Treyan’s unease. “It happened every two thousand years, and now this? They have to be connected.” She turned back to the book.
He walked away, leaning against a nearby pillar, as she read out loud.
“But should the Crown Prince perish before his time, the Lord Steward shall relinquish h
is position and reclaim the title of Crown Prince as his own. It will then be his sole responsibility to continue on the Empire’s royal line.”
She immediately looked up at him.
“Am I reading this right?”
“You mean the part that says if I die, Reylor had the right to take my place? Most likely, yes.” He was not amused.
“So, you knew about this.”
He shrugged slightly.
“Does he know about this?”
“Probably not, seeing as I’m still alive. Something tells me he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be banished if that was the case.”
“You still think you have a chance of setting the Key in the Borderlands, knowing well that your own existence is on the line?”
He avoided her stare.
“No. You are staying here. I’ll make the Council lock you in your quarters if I have to.”
He turned to her. “Did you keep reading?”
“What?” she blinked.
He motioned to the Annals. “There’s more.”
She returned her attention to the book.
“Should, however, either or both of the unborn twins perish before being born to the Empire, it will be the responsibility of the Crown Prince to ensure the royal line continues on. This is the same for the Lord Steward should he need to take his place as Crown Prince.”
“Does Reylor know about this?” Her heart caught in her throat as she looked to Treyan, but he was already watching her, his gaze serious.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.” He walked back over to her. “He may think he has his own agenda in that demented head of his, but there’s something bigger here that even I don’t think he knows about.”
“So, there’s no winning here.”
“Depends on how you define ‘winning’. Now do you understand my reservations? You may be concerned for my well-being, but nothing says you’re safe either, Alex. You may have the benefit of his affection, but if he plays his hand right, he could get everything he wanted, and more, at his door without having to lift a finger.”
“So, we’re back to square one.” She had to step away from the Annals, unable to read any further.