by M. Dalto
Reylor sternly scanned the room as if he were reading the thoughts of each lord in that room, having taken a step forward from where he stood at her left before speaking.
“Your Empress made a decision, and it is not for you to question her,” he addressed the crowd, almost challenging any of them to counter his statement.
None did.
He glanced back to her, nodding for her to continue.
Alex nodded once in response, turning back toward the crowd. “While you are here, I will request meetings with each of you, in a smaller group setting, where you will be able to ask your questions while we discuss our plans.”
She squared her shoulders, holding her chin high as she knew she now had the full attention of the throne room before her.
“War is coming to the Empire, and we will be prepared.”
The remainder of the gathering consisted of the introduction of the newest Council members, the status of the royal guard, and the personal offerings of condolences and well wishes from the lords and ladies in attendance. When only her Council remained, Alex all but slouched in the throne as exhaustion swept over her. Holding her head in one hand as she leaned her arm against the chair, she closed her eyes to welcome a moment of peace before having to begin the meetings she previously promised.
“You didn’t tell them about Sarayna.”
Alex opened her eyes to see Jamison standing before her, his guards long since disbursed as the Empire’s lords moved freely about the palace. The look on his face was shadowed with concern. She merely shrugged.
“I didn’t tell them about Lexan, either,” she countered, closing her eyes again. “The less they know at the moment, the better.”
“They need hope, Alex.”
She cringed at the nickname. Only Treyan had ever used it so casually. Jamison was a friend, but to be so casual about it...
“They will have hope,” Reylor cut in, having returned from dismissing the Council from their current duties.
Jamison stiffened as the Lord Steward approached, and Alex stilled in her throne as the two faced off.
“They deserve to know that their princess is searching for her Emperor,” Jamison insisted as he glowered at Reylor.
“When she returns with her Emperor, we will celebrate and coronate him with proper ceremony, but there is no point in causing any over-excitement as of yet,” Reylor informed him coolly.
“They will demand information in these meetings of yours,” the Captain argued as he turned towards Alex. “Are you prepared to tell them the truth?”
“What truth would that be, Jamison?” Alex asked softly, rubbing her temples, feeling another headache forming. “Do I tell them that I sent their princess to the Otherrealm, to protect her from her own brother?”
“She wouldn’t need protecting if it wasn’t for him,” he swore, pointing towards Reylor for emphasis.
Reylor flinched enough for Alex to notice, but gratefully stayed silent as his eyes bore into Jamison’s skull.
Alex had had enough. “I will tell them when they need to be told, Jamison, and not a moment before. Now, unless there is anything else you need...” She arched a brow and casually pointed towards the door of the throne room.
At the Empress’ dismissal, he took a threatening step towards Reylor. “This is far from over,” he promised through clenched teeth before retreating.
Reylor watched, muttering, “I don’t doubt it,” before turning to Alex.
She perked a brow at him. “What is it?”
“Did you mean what you said to them?” he asked, his tone quieter than usual. “In regard to the manipulations and magics.”
“Should I have told them otherwise?”
He looked at her for a moment. “I don’t know what you should have told them.”
“I told them what they needed to hear,” she confessed, finally standing from her throne, stretching her sore back.
“Do you believe it?”
She stopped and turned to him, stepping down from the dais to face him. “What I believe doesn’t matter. It’s what the Empire needs to believe that’s important.”
A look of pain meshed with gratitude flashed across his face. “Alex—”
She cut him off before he could finish. “Not now. Not with so many lords lingering around, just waiting for anything to use for their personal benefit.”
His jaw dropped as if to speak further, but instead he only nodded and silently walked towards the front of the hall.
She watched him from where she stood, and only then realized that as alone as she felt, he had been enduring it for much, much longer. Perhaps, when he would ask her to keep him company over his meal night after night, that it wasn't an attempt to seduce her, but instead to simply refrain from being alone.
The first step to repentance is forgiveness, he once told her, and with that thought in mind, she took a step toward him.
“Reylor.”
The Lord Steward stopped mid-stride, glancing over his shoulder. “Yes, Empress?”
Her heart pounded in her chest. “When this is over,” she said with a wave of her hand towards the empty throne room, “I want you to ask me again.”
She swore she saw a true smile on his face for the first time since she had known him, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by his usual cocky smirk. “For you, Empress? Anything.”
Alex watched him leave in silence as she wondered, not for the first time in her life, what the hell she was doing.
Chapter Five
The meetings with the Empire’s lords took up most of the Empress’ time. It allowed less time to think about what she had lost, to question the uncertain, and to reconsider her invitation to Reylor. Perhaps the distraction was for the best.
The questions from the lords were predictable. What would they do now that the Crown Prince was dead? Could Reylor be trusted? Where were the twins? There were a few who didn’t know that Lexan had been taken to the Borderlands, and even more who never realized the heir to the Empire was female.
Each time, her answers remained the same.
The Empire would proceed against the Borderlands, with the intention to honor the Crown Prince’s wishes and protect the Empire’s lands at any cost.
Reylor had been reinstated and pardoned and there would be no further debate about her decision.
Crown Princess Sarayna was in the Otherrealm retrieving her Emperor to restore order to the Prophecy and show the Borderlands that the Empire was a unified front, with or without the Annals in hand.
As for Lexan, Alex had the hardest time explaining his absence.
Lexan had been taken from them...by Reylor.
He had been manipulated to hate them...because of Reylor.
It was because of Reylor that they were in this mess in the first place.
She was vague when it came to discussing her son, explaining the prince had been kidnapped by those in support of the Borderlands soon after his birth and was being used as a weapon against them, which intensified the necessity to prepare for war; they needed to bring their prince home.
Whatever she said to them was good enough, it seemed, because their heads nodded, and the discussion turned to war planning.
She had to wonder how much of it they truly understood.
Day in and day out she awoke to attend those meetings, and retreated to her rooms once the day was done. She ate alone and avoided as many social situations as possible. Thankfully, Reylor was responsible for the Council’s dealing with the surrounding lands, and Jamison assisted in meeting with each lord’s traveling guards. Neither would have the time or need to search her out once she retired.
Truth be told, she didn’t know if she could handle the overflow of testosterone for much longer.
Five days later, however, when she had finally finished the last meeting before a few days’ break that reminded her of weekends in the Otherrealm, Alex decided that she needed a break, as well as a change of scenery from her quarters and the meeting room
. Using hallways less traveled, the Empress made her way towards what remained of the library, one of the only places within the palace that, at one time, gave her peace and solace.
When they first began rebuilding, the library was at the top of the list of that which needed immediate restoration. It was where the most damage had been done, for it was where Reylor and Treyan had fought over the Annals. The magic the two brothers threw at each other paired with the protective spells and wards surrounding the Annals reverberated throughout the palace, with nowhere else to go but out. Most of the ancient tomes within the library fell victim to the carnage, the windows shattering, the ceiling falling, and the stability of the palace itself in question from the ensuing explosions.
The first thing she noticed as she closed the large wooden doors behind her were the windows, the first part to be repaired to give the library security from the elements. Through the dim candlelight that glowed among the setting suns’ throughout the area, her heart sank as the panes of glass were just that now—plain, clear panes, with not a hint of color like the stained glass artwork that used to reflect their colors over the floor.
Sighing, she quietly walked over the remnants of the floor’s tile mosaic. Many of its parts and pieces had been shattered in the center of the room where the Annals laid, vulnerable and protecting itself. Where the circle of destruction once caved in, the floor had been repaired with plain marble. She wondered if anyone would ever repair the mosaic to what it once was, but she knew that the arts and creativity were the last of their concerns at the moment, especially when war was imminent.
Alex’s boots echoed as she crossed the open foyer, the lack of furniture and leather-bound books making the space feel more like a void than an area of learning and knowledge. Her heart sank at the thought of all that was lost, and which might never again be regained.
She didn’t mean just the knowledge that the library once housed...
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling a chill in the large, open space as she kept a steady pace towards the repaired windows and what stood before them.
Whoever had worked on repairing the library knew the importance of their work, she gathered as she observed the empty wooden pedestal that stood in front of the windows overlooking the palace gardens.
The empty wooden bookstand looked exactly as Alex remembered it, as if all the destruction miraculously left it untouched. Its carvings were decorative and its top flat and free of dust, as if it needed to remain immaculate while it waited for its primary purpose to return. She brought a hand to it, carefully running her fingers over the cool, smooth surface, and she wondered if the Annals would ever return to their rightful place.
She leaned her forearms against the pedestal as she watched the suns set in the distance over the remains of the gardens below. She should begin tending them, she thought. It was the most she could do for Saratanya, for all she was doing for them now as her daughter waited in the Otherrealm. Treyan loved those roses...
“Dusk was always one of my favorite times of day,” a deep, familiar voice drawled from behind her. “I would sit down in those gardens watching the suns disappear more evenings than I can remember.”
She was too tired to flinch, or shy away, or comment on his sudden appearance, so she kept her eyes focused out the window. “I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
“Neither did I,” Reylor countered as he walked the few steps forward to stand beside her, his eyes focused out through the windows as well.
They continued on in silence a moment longer until Alex sighed, closing her eyes as an unexpected exhaustion rolled over her. She leaned her head against her arms as they rested on the wooden pedestal.
“Do you feel its absence, too?”
Her patience was thinning. She wasn’t in the mood for riddles. “What?”
“The Annals. The longer they’re kept from the Empire, the easier it is for their powers to shift, for the magic of the Prophecy to dissipate.”
“You believe that now, after everything you had done to take them away from Empire?”
“I can admit when I’m wrong.”
“That’s why you’re so insistent on retrieving them?”
“I made a mistake. Where the Annals are now—whose possession they’re currently in— it’s wrong, and I have no control over what happens any longer.”
“And you did before?
“More so than I do now.”
She snorted. “Can’t argue with you there.”
She felt his gaze shift to her as he asked, “Are you alright?”
She had to chuckle as she let out a shudder. “No, I’m not,” she admitted, keeping her head where it was.
Of everyone she came across within the palace since her return, since Treyan’s death, Reylor was the only one who ever dared to ask her how she felt.
“Can I help?” he asked softly, and there was something in his voice that had her looking up to meet his gaze.
For a moment, she didn’t see the former Lord Steward, Betrayer of the Empire, who had kidnapped her, abused her, and left her for dead to further his own agenda. She didn’t see the ruined son of a royal line who was manipulated into stealing one of the two heirs to the Empire to further a plan that ran far deeper than he realized. No, she saw the man who wanted to save his lands, help his family, and return order. Within those red eyes, Alex saw someone with compassion and strength who would sacrifice any of those for the greater good.
“Reylor,” she whispered as she straightened where she stood, but she didn’t know what words she would have allowed to follow his name.
He took a step closer, filling the space as much as the silence. “You have shouldered so much since your return, and I know I haven’t made it easier for you.”
“I haven’t exactly been the easiest to be around.”
He smirked slightly. “Be that as it may, you need to learn to allow others to help you shoulder your burdens. Your pain is the Empire’s pain, Alexstrayna. We are all mourning together.”
She swallowed as she felt tears begin to burn in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she confessed.
“Do only what you can,” Reylor assured her, now standing less than a hand’s breadth away from the pedestal.
“What if that isn’t enough?” she muttered as she began to turn away from him, but he brought a hand up, his fingers gently gripping her chin and keeping it in place so that their eyes met.
“Then we make it enough,” he said softly, and Alex felt her heart pounding in her chest.
It wasn’t panic she felt, or the tightness thoughts of him often brought to the surface.
It was anticipation.
As he leaned in, the brush of his lips against hers sent a surge through her body that she hadn’t felt since...
He stopped and stepped back before she could gather a coherent thought, the apologetic look in his eyes matching the “I’m sorry,” he voiced breathlessly.
But she wasn’t.
She closed the gap between them, her hands coming to the sides of his face as her lips crashed into his before she could give herself a chance to reconsider the consequences of her actions.
She was alone. So very alone.
And she had given so much.
They both had.
Despite their past, their history, their differences, a piece of Alex knew that he loved her, had always loved her, and would continue to love her until she was buried in the ground outside of those library windows.
Perhaps, if she allowed herself, she could find a way to love him as well.
His arms wrapped around her waist, holding her to him as he deepened the kiss, their tongues exploring each other’s mouths in the shadow of the day’s dying light.
It wasn’t until she heard Reylor murmur her name that she stopped, pulling away just enough to meet his eyes, knowing that the longing she saw within them matched her own, but it was the sound of her name—the nickname now so rarely used—that made her pa
use.
And step away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, bringing her arms to her sides.
“I believe that’s what I’m usually saying at this point.” His tone was playful, and the gleam in his eyes was more sincere than it had been in the past.
She shook her head slightly. “No, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“You should be,” she snapped. “I...it’s not fair. To you. To me. I shouldn’t...I can’t. I need to go.”
She knew she was stammering and that her face was flushed as she turned on her heel and retreated through the library. She expected him to grab for her, make her stop, and was almost disappointed when she got halfway through the aisle without him trying.
She knew she should let it go. She should have left and pretended as though it never happened, but there was something inside her—maybe her own personal guilt for what she had just done—that made her turn to face where he stood by the Annals’ empty pedestal.
“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
His answering look made it clear he knew what she meant.
“I renounced my name, my title, and everything I held dear for just a dream about you.” His voice was steady and deep as it echoed through the library. “If this is my repentance for that, and all I have done since, then I shall pay it tenfold, and pray I’m even in the end.”
She didn’t have the words to respond. She didn’t even nod in acknowledgement. Alex could only give him one last look—at those eyes that watched her, at those lips she kissed—and left the library.
That night, as she readied herself for bed, the familiar glimmer on her finger no longer gave her comfort. For the first time since receiving it, Alex removed her wedding ring, placing it in the jewelry box upon her dresser, and closed the lid.
Chapter Six
The lords were dismissed by the end of the week. Alex spent that last day in her finest dress, second only to her coronation and wedding dresses, bedecked in scarlet silk and lace that reminded the Empire widows need not remain in black forever. As Empress, she bid each lord and lady farewell as they departed with their entourage, wishing them well, reminding them to stay vigilant, and to be prepared should the Empire need them at a moment’s notice. What they would exactly need from them, even Alex was uncertain, but better to be over-prepared than not at all.
