Beginning's End

by M. Dalto

  Sara could tell her father would have rather his fingernails peeled off, one by one, than listen to either Reylor or Lexan, but he turned back to the Borderlands’ prince in sheer aggravation.

  “This was Symon,” he repeated, pointing to the body. “He was compromised before he took his seat on the Council, and I was using him to find out what the Empire knew. Or didn’t know.”

  “What did he tell you?” Sara asked.

  “The most valuable piece of information he had to offer was that you had returned,” he told his sister with a glance over his shoulder. “That you both had arrived.”

  Sarayna swallowed as she shared an uneasy glance with Jared.

  “I didn’t know of your return,” he said to Treyan. “We had brought Symon here for his protection before you arrived.”

  “We?” Treyan asked with a perked brow, and now Lexan pointed to his father.

  With a sigh, Reylor moved to the table. “I knew Symon was Lexan’s spy the moment he arrived at the palace. He wasn’t very good at keeping his expression neutral so it was easy to pick up that something wasn’t as it should be.”

  “You let him in anyway?” Tanya asked from where she stood against the far wall of the cabin, observing with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I did,” the Lord Steward admitted with a nod. “I watched him carefully, fed him what I wanted to have relayed, and once I was certain he was who I suspected, I made sure Lexan knew.”

  “You did all this under my mother’s nose?” Sara hissed.

  “She knew, eventually,” Reylor told the princess, his red eyes meeting hers.

  “You lie,” Treyan snapped.

  At the same time Sarayna hissed under her breath, “bullshit.”

  “It is true,” Lexan chimed in. “Which is why he was brought here.”

  “I don’t follow,” Sara began, but it was then Tanya joined them at the table, her eyes on the corpse.

  “Razen informed me that if I continued my monitoring without his approval, he would send an assassin to take care of him, and his blood would be on my hands.” He huffed a cynical chuckle as he looked down at his own blood-stained palms.

  “You moved him here to protect him,” his sister observed, and Lexan nodded.

  “But he died anyway,” Treyan said, stating the obvious.

  At that, Lexan’s gaze traveled to meet his father’s. “There are only so many people who know this cottage is still used.”

  Reylor’s lips pursed and Sarayna swore she saw his eyes widen slightly.

  “Who killed him?” Treyan asked steadily.

  Lexan dared to turn his gaze to the Crown Prince as he spoke. “I realized Crystal was missing three days ago.”

  The words barely registered in Sarayna’s mind before her father was running for the door.

  It was Reylor shouting after him, fast behind on his heels, that snapped Sarayna from her reverie, and had her following out the back door, to where she saw Treyan untying a horse faster than she would have thought possible, and all but flying up into the saddle.

  “You’re going to ride back into a death trap,” Reylor was saying, one hand on the horse’s bridle.

  “Unlike the one we left her in?” Treyan snapped, jerking the reins away from Reylor’s grasp. “If you care about her so damn much, maybe you should be thinking about that.”

  Reylor hesitated. “You should be thinking about what we set out to do in the first place. Jamison would never let anything happen to her.”

  “I’m not about to let that traitorous bitch anywhere near my wife.”

  “Dennirr,” Sarayna finally said, loud enough to get their attention.

  Treyan turned in his saddle to face his daughter upon hearing the term of endearment, and Reylor was watching her curiously.

  “You know what you have to do, nirr haesd,” he said, his features softer than she’d seen them since they arrived. “Retrieve the Annals at any cost and bring them—and yourself—back to the Empire.”

  Sarayna swallowed and nodded. “Ride fast. Keep her safe.”

  Treyan nodded, and with a final glare at his brother he kicked his horse into a gallop and rode away from the cabin, uncaring about staying under the cover of the dense forest. This was not a time to be hidden.

  “Rhaid,” she heard Reylor breathe as they watched him disappear over the horizon’s line.

  “You’re damn right,” she said as she looked at him. “You’ll be in even deeper if anything happens to her.”

  If Reylor tried to challenge her, she didn’t notice. She was already walking back towards the cabin. To her betrothed, and to her brother.

  They still had a book to retrieve and a Prophecy to fulfill.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Alex did all she could to distract herself while her family was away.

  With Crystal’s ankle still injured, she was unable to leave the infirmary much, so Jamison posted two guards outside her room at all times, three when he couldn’t be one of them himself.

  The only time Jamison was never outside Crystal’s door was when Alex dared to leave the confines of the palace.

  That morning was one such instance, when Alex could no longer stand the quiet and the paperwork and the glances from the Empireborn living within her palace. Instead, she decided it would be a fine morning for a stroll through the rose garden, and Jamison did not challenge her decision as he followed her.

  “What’s on your mind, Captain?” she asked as they walked casually amongst the red, pink, and orange blossoms.

  “What makes you think there is anything on my mind worth saying, Empress?” Jamison countered as he strolled by her side.

  “When have you ever not told me what was on your mind?”

  “Since you chose not to tell me about Reylor when I asked you to marry me.”

  Alex stilled, stalling her steps along the white gravel path. “Jamison...”

  “Don’t, Alex,” he said as he cut her off, turning to face her.

  Only then did she realize this was the first time they had been alone and able to talk since that dinner in his cabin.

  Since he had nearly proposed to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were sleeping with Reylor?” he pressed, his features darkening at the mention of the Lord Steward’s name.

  Crossing her arms across her chest, Alex held his piercing stare. “I don’t believe it was your business to know.”

  “It was a matter of the Empire’s security!”

  “He would never have done anything to compromise the security of the Empire.”

  Jamison’s jaw dropped, and she knew she had made a mistake.

  “Do you even hear yourself speak anymore?”

  “Jamison,” the Queen Empress began in protest, but he ignored her.

  “This is the same man who kidnapped you the day after your coronation. The same one who cast a spell on the entire palace to do so and manipulated one of your own Mistresses in the process.”

  “Jamison—”

  “He stole you away—tortured you—and yet here you are, still defending him.”

  “Jamison!” She had had more than enough and was about to tell him as much.

  “My wife was murdered because of him, Alex.” He let out a shuddering breath as the memory of Mallia hung between them. “Whether he dealt the killing blow or not, it was under his orders. How many more people need to fall in his wake?”

  Any other words Alex would have said flew away upon the breeze that tangled her hair and ruffled her shirt. She stood there, looking at a broken man who was doing everything he could to keep it together for the sake of his Empire. She was about to reach out, to attempt to say something to comfort him, but before she could he scoffed and turned on his heel.

  “I’ll be at the gates when you are ready to return.” The sound of his boots as he marched away was enough for Alex to understand the conversation was over.

  With a heavy sigh, she returned to the path, only this time she ignored the f
lashes of colorful blossoms as she passed them, her gaze solemnly on the path before her as her thoughts wandered to lost friends and questionable decisions.

  Her inner dialogue was halted, however, when she heard the crunch of gravel along the path in front of her. Blinking in the light of the morning suns, she glanced up to see a figure approaching her.

  Squinting, she was able to make out the shape of a female form as it grew closer, and her eyes widened considerably when she finally recognized who it was before her.

  “Crystal,” she gasped. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  Their guest from the Borderlands was no longer wearing the gown they had found her in, nor the robe provided to her in the infirmary. Instead, she was wearing a pair of borrowed leggings and an oversized sweater that was long enough to cover the bump of her growing stomach.

  Her limp...was gone.

  “A pleasure to see you as well, Empress.” Her words dripped venom.

  Alex retreated a step as Crystal continued to approach. What she would have given for her knife. Or for Jamison...

  Jamison.

  He’d have to have seen Crystal by now. She spun around to where she last saw him leaving the gardens...

  His body lay prostrate on the ground, not twenty feet away. How had she not heard anything?

  She let out a cry as she began to rush towards the fallen Captain, but her path was soon blocked by a man she had never seen before. He was older, his hair dark, short and greying at the temples, his skin tanned and weathered, but his eyes...

  His eyes were red like rubies and shone with utter joy as he looked at her.

  The eyes of a traitor to the Empire.

  “It’s been a while, Empress,” he purred with a voice like velvet, unfitting for a man of his age and stature. “But the years seem to have been kind.”

  “Who are you?” Alex breathed.

  “No need to worry about that now, my dear,” he said as he smiled a smile filled with too-white teeth. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up once we get you home.”

  He reached out to grab her, but she stepped back. “I am home,” she hissed. Why was no one else here? Why was no one else seeing this and intervening?

  “We had a feeling you would say that.” The man grinned, and his gaze flicked over her shoulder.

  Alex followed it, turning around just as Crystal approached, holding something long and heavy in her arms, and before Alex could react, she swung it around until it collided with the side of the Empress’ head.

  The rest she knew was darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Sarayna walked around the interior of the cabin while Jared and Tanya sat at the vacant, unbloodied chairs, while Lexan and Reylor buried Symon in the wooded area beyond the cabin. They owed it to him, Lexan announced mournfully, and as a group had decided, much to Reylor’s dismay, that they would continue towards the Borderlands as originally planned.

  Only with one, minute change.

  Jared and Lexan would wait at the cabin until the others retrieved the Annals and they all made the return trip to the Empire.

  No one argued the importance of Jared staying behind this time—the stakes had been raised drastically and being the Empire’s King Emperor, no one was going to put him at even greater risk.

  Leaving him with Lexan, however...

  That made everyone but Reylor uneasy.

  “By now, Lexan has a target on his back larger than mine,” the Lord Steward informed them once the decision was made. “Guards are going to be on the lookout for him, which will now benefit me.”

  It was decided, and the three immigrants from the Otherrealm sat and waited while the father and son from the Borderlands buried their spy.

  “What kind of a person is this Razen?” Jared asked Saratanya quietly.

  The princess swore she almost heard a laugh escape the former Queen Empress’ lips. “Would that I knew anymore,” she replied, and her voice sounded distant and dreamlike.

  “You did know him?” Jared pressed.

  Sara caught a nod from the Empress within her peripheral and wondered if Jared was about to get answers she only knew to be ‘complicated.’

  “I knew him well,” Tanya admitted. “Very well...perhaps better than I should have.”

  The insinuation was not lost on Sara, and she wondered if Jared caught the buried message as well.

  “So...you were friends?”

  No. No, he did not.

  Tanya chuckled again, and her voice softened as if she was speaking to a child.

  “We were lovers.”

  Sarayna bit at the inside of her lip when she actually heard her make the confession. Razen was nothing short of a monster, and to hear that her grandmother had a romantic relationship with him, especially while being married to her prince...

  “What did Axell have to say about it?” Sara found herself asking, as if the compulsion overruled her common sense.

  “Axell knew,” Saratanya said as she turned to face her granddaughter.

  “He allowed it?” she inquired with disbelief. That any husband would willingly allow his wife to take a lover, and allow it to continue to occur...

  “Not only did he know about it, Sarayna, but he was a part of it. More often than not.”

  Sara felt her jaw physically drop.

  It remained as such until Reylor and Lexan returned to the cabin, their expressions solemn and their hands, arms, and legs covered in dirt.

  They stopped just within the doorway, and the silence that befell them would have been obvious, even if Sara’s expression didn’t tell them they arrived at a most inopportune time.

  Or perhaps the most opportune, depending on who was asked.

  Sarayna returned her gaze to the table where Jared and Saratanya sat. The Queen Empress had an amused look upon her face as she met eyes with the princess, but Jared... Jared had his eyes on Lexan.

  She had to wonder what he sensed—if he knew the threat Lexan posed. That even though he was her twin, he was still an enemy.

  Lexan, it seemed, was assessing him just as much, his features set as blue eyes met grey.

  Whether Reylor noticed or not, he didn’t let on as he approached the table, removing a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

  “What’s that?” Sara asked, trying to break the uneasy silence.

  “This,” the Lord Steward began as he spread the parchment on the tabletop, “is where we are going.”

  They all gathered around, and sure enough it was a map, depicting the far edges of the Empire where it was bound by the tree line separating it from the Borderlands. Even the very cabin they were in was marked.

  “Where did you get this?” Lexan asked quietly as his eyes surveyed the paper that lay before them.

  “We can thank your lovely wife for this.” Reylor smirked, his eyes on the makeshift drawing.

  Lexan’s gaze shifted between his father and the map. “There is no way she would have given this to you willingly,” he ground out, and Sara noticed his fists clenching where they were braced against the table. Even after everything, he still felt a level of responsibility for her. Perhaps it was because she carried his child, but even still, Sarayna respected him for it, to a fault anyway.

  “You’re right,” Reylor conceded, his red eyes finally meeting his son’s. He allowed Lexan just a moment to believe the worst before he added. “She gave it to Alex.”

  Hearing her mother’s name on his lips, in such a personal, informal manner, still made Sara’s skin crawl.

  “It must be a trap,” Saratanya interjected, looking at the sketch. “Why else would she willingly give us this information?”

  “It’s correct, though,” Lexan murmured, a strong finger tracing along a pattern of dotted lines. “This is the correct route for the patrols. And her figures for the number of soldiers surrounding the castle are spot on.”

  “Why, though?” the former Queen Empress pressed the Prince from the Borderlands.

 
“Perhaps that is what Treyan is going to find out,” he replied. “Maybe she wanted my mother to trust her. Maybe she wants us to retrieve the Annals and end this once and for all...”

  “She said you beat her,” Jared added, his eyes still on Lexan.

  “I would never do that to her,” he snapped, almost defensively.

  “We’ll save that conversation for another time,” Reylor chimed in, pointing a finger at the map. “The routes are the same from what I remember as well, and the numbers are still similar in division, though the number of soldiers and mages are much higher...” His eyes raised to his son in question, and Lexan merely shrugged in response.

  “We’re at war.”

  Reylor held his stare for a moment longer before he took the map back into his hands, folded it with care and returned it to his jacket pocket. “It’s time to go.”

  Sarayna was more than ready—she wanted to get back to her mother as much as everyone else and made her way towards the door when a hand grasped her arm.

  “Give Jared your mother’s knife,” Reylor instructed, and she looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t told anyone she kept it on her.

  “Why?”

  “If we’re leaving Jared here alone with Lexan, we don’t know what else—or who else, could make their way here.”

  “I don’t need a knife,” Jared said defensively.

  “No one else is coming,” Lexan chimed in.

  Sarayna looked between the two of them. If anything happened to Jared, whether it was by her brother’s hand or not...

  Lexan’s threat still lingered, and she knew what he was capable of. She made her way to Jared, and after reaching into her boot to remove the knife, handed it to him, hilt-first.

  “Just in case,” she said softly, and before he could argue she placed a gentle kiss on his lips. “I’ll be back before you can miss me.”

  “What if I miss you already?” Jared whispered against her lips.

  She smiled at that, giving him another kiss before she straightened to face the others in the cabin, who were already looking at her.

  Sara’s attention lingered on her brother, and the scowl he was giving her, most likely because she opted to arm Jared while in his presence. She plastered on a smirk as she approached him and leaned up on her toes to whisper in his ear, “If anything happens to him, I will flay you myself.”