by M. Dalto
She was already out the door before he could defend himself.
Chapter Forty-Four
Leaving Jared behind was easier than Sarayna had thought it would be.
They would enter the Borderlands, retrieve the Annals, and return to the cabin before nightfall. She had given him her dagger, and trusted he knew how to use it should he need to, but they would return.
Leaving him with Lexan, however...
A stone sat in her stomach the longer she thought about it.
She wanted to trust her brother. She wanted to believe that by helping them, he finally understood that he had chosen the wrong side. That even though he may have sworn himself to the Borderlands, maybe, when this was all said and done, there could finally be an alliance between them, and the Empire could once again be whole.
Even despite all that, the stone within her stomach slowly grew into a boulder as they rode further from the cabin and closer to the Borderlands.
Lexan had threatened Jared’s life and yet she still left them alone together.
She prayed to whatever gods were listening that she hadn’t made a mistake.
“Your Emperor will be fine.”
Tanya’s words snapped her from her thoughts, and she glanced at the former Queen Empress as she rode beside her.
“The Prophecy would not have chosen him if he could not handle himself,” she continued. “Your brother would be a fool to think otherwise.”
“Was he chosen though?” Sara asked. “Does the Prophecy even matter anymore when the Annals haven’t been in the Empire’s possession all this time?”
“It always mattered,” Tanya informed her. “Regardless of the book’s location.”
A shake of her head was the only answer Sara could give. None of this felt right anymore. She wasn’t certain it ever did. She was brought to the Empire as an infant and forced to age twenty years in a flash. She didn’t have memories or experiences...she just was.
No one around her seemed bothered by this.
It was as though the magic of their Prophecy, which none of them had ever asked to be a part of, truly did drive their lives, whether they wanted it to or not.
“Is that why you came back?” she asked her grandmother, though her attention remained on the Lord Steward that rode on ahead, his gaze on the makeshift map between his hands.
Tanya followed her gaze. “Among other things.”
Sarayna looked to her. “Razen.”
Tanya visibly swallowed, watching her son riding ahead of them, or perhaps on what awaited them beyond. “I told you before, he was not always so...ambitious.”
“You really had a relationship...with both of them?”
Slowly, Tanya nodded. “It wasn’t unheard of in the Empire, though the practice was...rare. We looked into it—all three of us. Just to make sure it wouldn’t go against some ruling of the Prophecy. We could find no rule or regulation that told us we couldn’t, so...”
“How?” Sarayna breathed, a slight blush spreading across the princess’ cheeks, to which Saratanya chuckled.
“Axell found me in the Otherrealm, just as Treyan found your mother. We courted—and when we knew that there was something more than just love between us, he told me. Everything. Even though my options were to go with him to a world I never even knew existed, leaving behind everything I knew, or to never see him again, I knew which path to follow. He brought me with him to the Empire, where Razen was awaiting our return.
“It wasn’t immediate—what happened between Razen and me. We became friends first, well before anything else occurred. The two of them trained me in the ways of politics and self-defense. Magic, though I’d yet to come into any power, and the histories of the Empire were also included in those lessons. Their parents had perished before Axell had ever dreamt of me, so it was the two of them and whatever Mistresses I had that kept me company in the palace once I was coronated and Axell and I were married.
“I was already pregnant with the twins when I realized there was something more than just a friendship between Razen and myself. I also felt incredibly guilty about the thought alone, and I knew I needed to talk to Axell about it.” Only then did she assess her granddaughter’s incredulous stare. “Don’t give me that look.”
“You actually told him you had feelings for his brother?”
“Yes, Sarayna, I did,” she said, exasperated. “I’m an honest person, and never wanted to do anything to betray my husband or the love we had for each other. When I told him, I expected him to tell me to refrain from seeing Razen again—that he would send him away so the temptation would be removed. Even when he called all three of us together, I sensed the worst. As did Razen. We both knew there was something between us, but I never told him I would go to Axell, and having the three of us together like that...it was mortifying. Axell...it was like he knew. He understood. That my heart belonged to him regardless of who else came into the bedroom. Razen was his twin...they already shared so much already, why not his wife?” She chuckled at that. “The first time the three of us—”
“Please,” Sarayna pleaded. She didn’t want to know.
“Fine,” conceded the Queen Empress. “I just want you to understand there is more to love and life than what you think is right and wrong.”
“Regardless of it being right or wrong, Razen still killed Axell,” Sarayna reminded her heatedly.
Tanya’s look was dark. “As I said before,” she began, her voice low and hoarse. “Razen no longer appears to be the man he used to be.”
“We’re here,” Reylor announced, and Sara hadn’t realized where they had ended up in the midst of her conversation with Tanya.
“Where is here?” Saratanya asked her son, as though grateful for the reprise from her granddaughter’s interrogation.
“Here is how we are going to get into the Borderlands, and eventually its castle, with the least likelihood of detection,” he explained as he dismounted his horse, tying it up to a nearby tree, trying his best to keep the beast hidden.
Sara and Tanya followed suit, jumping from their saddles and quickly tying up their animals to trees equally concealed. “We have no weapons, nothing to protect ourselves beyond that sword at your waist.”
“That’s why we’re here," he said and motioned for them to follow him further into the tree line.
The growth was dense and dark as the canopy of trees above blocked out most of the Empire’s suns’ light. It was a good mile’s walk over roots and across fallen trunks, and when they eventually emerged on the other side, though it was brighter, the land before them was covered in a cool, hazy mist.
“The weather never changes here,” Reylor murmured as the plains of the Borderlands, with its castle in the distance, came into view. “I could never understand why.”
“A curse,” Tanya murmured, but motioned to a building in the near distance. “What’s that?”
“That’s where we’re headed.” When both women gave him a questioning look, he explained, “It’s the armory, or at least one of them. It will be our first stop before we disburse.”
“You actually have a plan?” Sara countered.
“Of course I do. What did you think I was doing the entire time the two of you were discussing taboo relationship practices?”
Both gave him similar glares, which he laughed off as he motioned for them to follow once again.
“Come—the Borderlands await.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Breaking into the armory shouldn’t have been so easy.
There were only two guards outside the door, and Reylor dispatched them swiftly. Sarayna would have told him that no more deaths were needed, but they needed to remain unseen and undiscovered for as long as possible. Anyone knowing they were within the Borderlands before they chose to be discovered would thwart their plans. Rendering the several guards unconscious with the potential for them to awake was too much of a risk any of them were willing to take.
They armed themselves as best as they
could with what they found. Sara took a dagger to replace the one she gave Jared, as well as another which she slid into her other boot. Tanya chose a bow and a quiver of arrows that she slung over her back, but Reylor was content with just the sword at his side.
“I have more than steel to work with,” he informed Sara when she gave him a questioning look.
The plan was laid out while they were strapping on their leather and securing their blades. Once they arrived at the castle, entering through the lower dungeon entrance, which was still unused so far as they were aware, they would split up. Reylor and Sarayna would search for the Annals, while Saratanya would look for Razen. The goal would be to keep him distracted and occupied, especially if the Annals were in his possession.
No one questioned the plan because they all knew there was no other way.
There were two more guards outside the supposedly abandoned dungeon entrance. It seemed they weren’t as unused as they had expected. Still, they moved on, and were both relieved and anxious when the inner, dark hallways of the dungeon’s crypts were found unmanned. Why they would guard an unused door was the only cause for suspicion.
A small red orb of light hovered over Reylor’s shoulder as they maneuvered through the catacombs. Sarayna made the silent promise to herself that once this was over, she would ask to be trained magically
The cells they passed were dark and in horrible disuse, so she supposed she could give the Lord Steward some credit for not locking his prisoners down here during his reign. The red shadows from the light above his shoulder flickered over rotting metal contraptions that made her not want to think about what they could have possibly been used for, and she hurried to stay close to Reylor and Tanya as they navigated through the darkness.
She also remembered that a dungeon cell was never necessary for true evils to be conducted.
She didn’t hide her shudder that time.
They finally stopped at the end of a narrow, spiraling stairway, where Reylor pressed himself tight against one wall while Sarayna and Tanya hugged the opposite. The castle beyond the closed wooden door before them was quiet as far as Sara could tell, unless sounds were being muffled by the soundproofing of the thick wood. It very well could have been—who would want to hear the screams and cries of the men and women being tortured and dying down here while life continued as it should up above?
“This is where we part ways,” Reylor whispered. “You know what you have to do.”
Tanya nodded. "By whatever means necessary." The implication hung between them and Sarayna shuddered again.
“We’ll meet back at the horses by nightfall. That will give us plenty of time to track down the Annals and secure them, leaving Razen none the wiser.”
“What if something happens?” Sara asked in a hushed whisper. She tried not to panic at the thought of anything happening to her grandmother after everything she had already been through—after what they all had been through just to get here.
Reylor held her stare, and the red from the orb over his shoulder made his eyes flare with an internal inferno. “Nightfall. By the horses. We will have left Lexan and Jared alone and unguarded for too long as it is.”
Sarayna didn’t say anything else. Jared... she had to see him again.
“Let’s go,” Saratanya murmured, as if she knew if they tarried any longer, they could lose any potential upper hand.
In response, Reylor doused the orb over his shoulder, and opened the door with his sword ready. The hall opened up before them, and with a nod of confirmation they proceeded; he and Sarayna waited along the wall to the right, while Tanya kept to the wall at the left. With one more glance between them, Tanya disappeared around a corner further down, and they both stood there, watching her until she was out of sight before Reylor tapped her shoulder to follow.
Chapter Forty-Six
The castle was exactly as Reylor remembered, and the familiarity of walking through these halls again made him uneasy.
About as uneasy as the Crown Princess at his back.
He was certain she was remembering the last time she walked these halls as well.
What she had seen.
What her brother had almost done to her.
What her father had endured...
They would not be here long enough for anything like that to happen again.
He led them to the library which was a logical first choice. If the Annals weren’t there, then they would figure out their next steps. Razen—regardless of who he was now, was always one for ceremony. Reylor wouldn’t be surprised if Razen had built a pedestal for the book by now, larger and grander than the one within the palace, perhaps covered in glass to protect it from the elements. Or them.
It was much easier to move a book than an entire castle.
“What was it like, living here?”
Reylor almost forgot about the princess at his back as he was lost in his own memories. Her whisper had him glancing at her over his shoulder before he returned to the empty hall before them.
“Quiet. And lonely...for a time.”
“Until Bria.” Her voice held no joy as she mentioned the deceased Mistress, and his heart ached, if only for a moment, at her memory.
Reylor shook his head. “No... there were others before her. One, mainly. A mentor, of sorts. One who taught me all I know.”
He could feel the glare from her blue eyes against the back of his neck but chose to ignore it.
“I don’t know if he lived here before I arrived,” he continued, “but it was almost as though he was waiting for me. Watching for me as I made my way across the Borderlands, banished and exiled and...”
“He hugged you, told you it would be okay, and what, held your hand while you cried?”
Reylor scoffed—that she could even tease at a time like this...
“No, he showed me the ways of vengeance. Helped me train to be stronger. Better than I was. How to be something...someone to contend with. Someone to fear.” When she didn’t say anything, he added, “He was the one who provided the spell I used on your mother.” Full disclosure.
Sara sucked in a breath but did not say anything further.
“He disappeared before I brought her here...as if he knew what I needed to do and didn’t want to be a part of it. As if his work was done...” Reylor shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since.”
“Does he have a name?” she asked flatly.
“Not one I knew, or that he ever provided.”
Before she could respond he held up a hand for her to stop, which she did before colliding with his back, and he smirked slightly at her reaction time, or lack thereof. His focus remained on the hallway around the corner to his left. It led towards the library, exactly where he knew they needed to go.
The two guards before the door answered that question well enough.
There had never been anything within the library worth guarding before. Tomes as old as the Empire, but nothing valuable enough to require protection.
Until now, it seemed.
“Be ready,” he murmured just loud enough for the princess at his elbow to hear before he whistled through his teeth.
The sound had her drawing her dagger from her boot—he could hear the metal sliding against the leather—but it was muffled by the sound of the guards at the library door murmuring curious inquiries as they both left their post to inspect.
Morons.
Reylor unsheathed his blade only when they were close enough to kiss the cool bite of its sharpened edge along the skin of their necks, lifeblood flowing carelessly from the wounds as the bodies silently fell to the floor.
He looked to Sarayna only once, just long enough to notice her sickened expression, as if she’d never seen a life taken before. It wouldn’t be the last, he wanted to tell her, but his attention returned to the library’s entrance. He listened. He waited to see if anyone else had heard the sounds of the confrontation, though Reylor had been exceptionally quiet about it.
He waited five breat
hs. On the sixth he motioned for Sara to move again, carefully stepping over the dead bodies at their feet. Reylor knew he should hide them, rather than leaving them to soak the carpet with blood, but he had a more important task at hand.
Retrieve the Annals. By any means necessary.
Meet at the tree line. Ride to the cabin to regroup with Lexan and Jared.
Then run like the wind until they returned to the Empire.
To Alex...
He couldn’t think about her now. Not yet. Not when Treyan was on his way to her. Treyan would see her to safety. Perhaps dispose of the threats against her in the process.
The library door was locked when they approached, but Reylor wasn’t surprised. He also wasn’t concerned about their lack of a key, not as he extended his hand and allowed his power to collect between his fingers. With a silent command of his will, that power extended towards the lock of the library—and shattered it.
“That was almost too easy,” Sara breathed.
“I know,” he agreed, slowing pushing open the great door before them.
The library was dimly lit with ever-burning candles accompanied by the grey skies visible through the windows in the vaulted ceiling as well as a row of large windows at the back of the hall. They stepped into the large foyer which was lined with reading desks and surprisingly comfortable sitting chairs placed near low tables, but in the center of it all, inlaid into the floor, was a mosaic similar to that within the Empire’s own library...before he had destroyed it.
Instead of depicting a beautiful piece of artwork depicting the Empire’s history, this was a darker story of a world torn in two—a map of the Borderlands and the Empire with a jagged lightning bolt separating the two lands. Reylor never asked who designed it, nor did he care enough attention to read between the lines as to what it once signified—or what it still did.
