Traitors

by Bella Forrest

  “You will pardon Navan, won’t you, Your Majesty?” I asked. “I know he’d be grateful to be welcomed back into the fold.”

  Gianne burst out laughing, though I didn’t know whether to interpret that as a good thing or a bad thing, considering the unpredictability of her mental state.

  With a deranged twinkle in her eerie eyes, she tilted her head in a slight nod. “I will honor my pardon for Navan. I am a woman of my word.”

  “You can’t be serious, Your Majesty,” Aurelius interjected, evidently irritated at the prospect of losing his “delicious” fiancée.

  “You dare question my judgment?” She whirled around. He recoiled so far, I thought he was going to fall backward into Lorela. “I don’t care whom Serpentine marries. A marriage in the upper classes will be good for morale, which is needed more than ever during these times of war and strife. Seraphim is a rare beauty, and the people love to see a beautiful woman in a wedding dress, especially one who prances around with children all day. Now, I’d rather there was something handsome standing beside her at the Binding Font, to make the people even happier—give them something to strive for—but I really couldn’t care less.”

  She grinned, her expression wild with excitement, as if some new idea had struck her. “Besides, when the marriage is complete, I will set Navan to work permanently in my alchemy labs. He will remain there, with his father, residing at the facility. Of course, I will permit the occasional conjugal visit with his lovely new wife. I am not a monster.”

  Jareth frowned. “I’m going to reside there too, Your Majesty?”

  “With your wife so sickly, I do not imagine there will be much to come home to,” she mused. “To fulfill my vision, to succeed in creating a functional immortality elixir, I require around-the-clock work. I have already heard some troubling mutterings that my sister is further along than we are. She may even have a working product, though we cannot confirm that yet. Either way, we must not permit the North to win!” she barked. “This time next year, I wish to have the immortality elixir flowing in the veins of every soldier in my army so I may send my fleet across the universe, to conquer every corner, no matter how small. I will be empress of it all.”

  This woman had some serious delusions of grandeur. Her hair was thinning from stress and the tug of the tight braids. I could even see a few dried patches of blood where her crown had dug into her scalp. As vicious as she was, it was hard not to see the frightened girl lingering beneath the surface of the cruel queen she’d become. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to feel an ounce of pity for her.

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Jareth said solemnly.

  By his feet, Ronad stirred, his eyes blinking awake. He took one look at what was going on and feigned unconsciousness again, squeezing his eyes shut. I wished I could do the same, but I’d made my decision. At least, this way, Lorela would live.

  My mind drifted toward Navan. He was out there somewhere, with no idea what he was walking into. He didn’t know about the marriage; he didn’t know about the tunnels; he didn’t know about the mystery deal that Jareth and Aurelius had struck. When he did get back, it was going to be a lot to take in.

  I tried not to panic at the thought of the upcoming nuptials. It would be hard to watch him marry another woman, but as soon as it was over, and Seraphina was safely out of Aurelius’s clutches, we all could escape together and cross the universe in search of more allies. I knew Seraphina wouldn’t come along for that; she’d already said there was no way she was leaving Vysanthe. So it would be a marriage in name only—a union of necessity.

  Just then, more soldiers appeared in the hallway, though they weren’t dragging any stowaways with them.

  “Anything?” Gianne asked.

  They shook their heads. “Nothing, Your Majesty,” one said.

  “Did you find the lab?”

  The same soldier shook his head. “No sign of it, Your Majesty.”

  “I can show you where the lab is, Your Majesty. There’s no need for all of this,” Jareth proclaimed.

  She cast him a curious look. “Who’s to say we can trust anything you say, Jareth? You might be hiding two labs in this house, for all I know. You may have one for show, and one for use.”

  “I assure you I don’t, Your Majesty.”

  The lead soldier took a tentative step forward. “It’s okay, Your Majesty. We asked the weird one downstairs if he knew where the lab was, and he promised to draw us a map of the house, with the lab’s location marked in purple pen. I don’t know why the purple is important, but he insisted it was—he said we wouldn’t know which room the lab was if we didn’t color coordinate.” He looked utterly baffled, making it really difficult not to laugh. Kaido—ever the efficient mapper.

  “Kaido told you where the lab is?” Jareth sounded bitter. My heart jolted. If Jareth punished Kaido for this, Kaido wouldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. He was fiercely loyal to his family and his queen, but he obeyed his queen above all else. He was just going by what he’d been taught.

  The soldier nodded. “He said he’d draw us a map.”

  “Was the other son around—the one with the severe face?” the queen asked, but the soldier shook his head. “Well, at least one of your sons has some integrity.”

  Where was Sarrask?

  “Your Majesty, might I make a small request?” I asked, feeling bold.

  She frowned. “Haven’t you asked enough, creature?”

  “There’s one more thing, Your Majesty,” I pressed. “Do you think it might be possible for Lorela to be taken to one of the royal hospitals, for further treatment? I’m sure she’d be better off there, under the care of your expert doctors, rather than here at home.” I neglected to mention she’d also need to recover from the side effects of nearly being smothered to death.

  I flashed a knowing look at Mort, who was as far from expert as it was possible to be. Seeing his cue, he stepped forward and raised a hand.

  “I would be happy to take her to one of the royal hospitals, Your Majesty,” he said.

  “Doctor Ulani, I didn’t see you there. Why are you lurking in the shadows?”

  He smiled. “I was on my way to visit with Lorela. We had an appointment to check how things were progressing with her incendiary gastrointestinal gesundheit. I thought it best to stay out of the way, with so many soldiers wandering around the place.”

  “Her what?” Queen Gianne looked appalled.

  “An ailment of the stomach, Your Majesty. A side effect of her brain-eating virus,” he tried again. My heart sank.

  “Her what?”

  “It’s best I just remove her, Your Majesty, in case she happens to be contagious. I would hate for you to catch something. In fact, had I known you were headed here, I would have sought to curtail your arrival—or at least made you wear a surgical mask,” he said apologetically.

  Queen Gianne nodded, stumbling away from the bedside. “Yes, get her out of here!”

  “Could one of you help me carry her downstairs?” Mort asked the soldiers. One of them stepped forward, tentatively reaching down for Lorela. He evidently thought he might catch something, too. It was the first time I’d seen her without a thick duvet covering her body, and the sight was horrifying. In the soldier’s arms, she looked like a skeleton. She’d lost so much weight, her limbs barely more than bones, her vertebrae protruding from her thin nightgown in uniform lumps.

  Jareth watched her go, reaching out to grasp her hand for a moment, before Mort and the soldier took her from the bedroom, disappearing down the hallway to the shifter’s waiting vehicle.

  “Might I go after my wife, Your Majesty? She really is very sick. She’ll worry if she wakes up and I’m not there,” he insisted. I wanted to call him out. Yes, he cared for his wife and spent time with her, but he wasn’t the one who’d been at her bedside every single day, calming her nightmares and easing her fever.

  The queen shook her head slowly. “We are not finished yet.”

  “Did you w
ant me to show you the lab after all, Your Majesty?”

  She smiled strangely. “Not quite.”

  “Then what is it, Your Majesty? What more can I do to prove to you that I’m loyal?”

  She turned to Aurelius. “Arrest Jareth Idrax for treason.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A flicker of concern passed across Aurelius’s face. He hesitated a moment too long, confirming my suspicion that they were working together. Gianne, however, missed the expression, her focus fixed on Jareth. Evidently realizing that she’d notice if he stayed frozen to the spot, Aurelius moved forward, removing two slender bracelets from a soldier’s holster and clapping them on Jareth’s wrists. A spark jolted between the metal bands as a magnetic pull drew his hands together, a sliver of blue light running up his arms, completing the circuit across his neck. I didn’t want to see what would happen if he tried to break free.

  “Your Majesty, what is the meaning of this? I am no traitor! What act of treason have I committed?” Jareth pleaded. “I will take you to the lab. I will show you anything you wish to see. Let me prove my loyalty!”

  “You told me, to my face, that you had nothing to hide. Yet you hid this creature from me, intending to use it to lure your son back,” she spat. “Did you not think that was something I should be aware of, as it is I who holds the power to pardon him? There is something amiss here, and I do not like the bitter taste it’s leaving in my mouth. I must surround myself with those who are loyal without exception—those who do not lie, and those who do not deceive.”

  “Please, Your Majesty. Can you not show forgiveness for this small indiscretion? I hid her for your sake. I didn’t wish to bother you in times of great stress.”

  Gianne was having none of it. “Even if I could forgive your lie, I cannot forgive the knowledge that you have been experimenting with the elixir here, away from the palace. Why would you do that unless you wanted to discover something by yourself, where word could not reach me?”

  “I did not work on the elixir here, Your Majesty. My lab was here long before I began work on it—it is a relic, as I said.”

  “We shall soon find out if that is the truth,” she retorted. “I will be sending researchers to deconstruct your lab. If there is anything amiss, we will discover it.”

  Jareth hung his head in despair. “What do you plan to do with me, Your Majesty?”

  “You will be thrown in prison, for the time being,” she replied. “Later, if anything is found in your lab that I do not like the sound of, you will be executed. I will make an example of you.”

  He nodded. “As you wish, Your Majesty. You will find me to be innocent.”

  She ignored his remark as she turned to Aurelius. “Nobody is to know that Jareth Idrax has been arrested. Do I make myself clear? I do not want any gossip leaking out. If my queendom discovers that my greatest, most-valued advisor has betrayed me, the people will begin to doubt me. There can be no cracks in my rule, do you understand? It makes me look weak and disordered. I will not have that image projected to my subjects, not when I am so close to succeeding.”

  Aurelius gave a low, awkward bow. “Of course, Your Majesty. I will ensure these soldiers understand what is at stake, too. No word of this will leave this room.”

  “Good. Now, take him away!” The queen glowered at her former advisor, hatred bubbling behind her strange eyes.

  The soldiers were just about to drag Jareth out of the room when he put down his heels, slowing the progress of his exit. With his mouth set in a grim line, he leveled his gaze at the queen. “You should be careful when you set foot in my lab, Your Majesty. There are some highly flammable liquids in there. If you push one wrong button, or pull one wrong lever, you might end up setting the whole house on fire.”

  She snorted. “Believe me, I will not be setting foot in that place! Now, get out of my sight.”

  As the soldiers took him away, he cast a conspiratorial glance in my direction. An image popped into my head—a strange lever, beneath the trapdoor to Jareth’s lab. It had stuck out to me the first time Ronad and I had explored the underground tunnels. But was I understanding him correctly? Did he really want me to destroy his lab and burn down his home, just to hide whatever evidence his lab held? It was gutsy, I had to give him that, not to mention ridiculously smart. If he razed everything to the ground, stopping Gianne from gaining access to whatever secrets he was hiding inside, she’d have to keep him alive just to preserve those secrets. He’d be the only one who knew them.

  As much as I hated the idea of doing anything that might let Jareth off the hook, especially given his ties to Aurelius, it made sense to burn the evidence. If we didn’t, there was every chance that Gianne might change her mind and go after the rest of the Idrax family too. I wasn’t sure she would, but I wasn’t willing to take that risk, either.

  “Do you truly promise that you’ll pardon Navan if he comes back, Your Majesty, even though you’ve arrested his father for treason?” I asked. I wanted to gauge her reaction before I did anything to help Jareth.

  She smiled, that same troubling glint in her eyes. “I never forget a promise, creature, and I think you’ve said and done quite enough for one day,” she said. “When Navan returns here, I want you to pass on a message to him. Tell him he must come to see me at the palace so that he may receive the honor of my official blessing toward the marriage between him and Ser… Ser-whatever.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “The moment he arrives. Does your tiny mind understand that?”

  I smiled sweetly. “It does, Your Majesty. Do you want me to stay here to keep an eye out for him?”

  “Where else would you be?” She looked down at me as though I were something she’d just stood in. “I don’t want you running around the palace, sullying my things with your foreign hands. You stay here, and you wait for Navan. It’s not that hard, is it?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “I will leave word with that trustworthy son to ensure you remain here. He can guard you all, see that you don’t get up to anything. I will give him the same message I have given you in case you forget. I don’t know how your brain works.” She sneered, breezing past me and heading out the door.

  I followed her into the hallway, stepping over the still-collapsed figure of Ronad, who’d undoubtedly heard every word. I figured I’d come back for him later as I trailed the queen to where Kaido and Sarrask were waiting, on the landing by the staircase. Sarrask looked anxious, while Kaido seemed surprisingly unperturbed. I wondered how much he understood of what was going on.

  “Your Majesty, have you arrested my father?” Sarrask asked, dipping into a low bow.

  She smiled, brushing her forefinger against his cheek. “I have, and I must thank you for bringing his traitorous behavior to my attention. Had it not been for you, I would not have known he had a private lab here, where he could progress with the elixir at his leisure. Nor would I have thought to pay a surprise visit. It really was an excellent idea. He is hiding something, and my research team will find it.”

  I stared at Sarrask in shock. True, I didn’t know him all that well, but he was the last person I’d expected to betray his father. I couldn’t believe what he’d done. Did he know the risks he’d taken, the lives he’d put in danger?

  The queen turned to Kaido. “You must be the weird one—the one who offered to draw maps for my men?”

  He met her gaze, unfazed by her status. “Yes, Your Majesty. I didn’t end up drawing the maps, because I didn’t know if you had my father’s permission, but then Sarrask assured me that he would take care of it instead. I am sorry if that has caused any inconvenience, but I’m sure it will be quicker if Sarrask just shows your soldiers the way.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it will,” the queen replied, turning back to Sarrask. “Where were you, anyway?”

  “I’d just gone out for a moment, Your Majesty, when you and your men arrived. My apologies.”

  She flicked her wrist in dismissal.
“Never mind. I ended up at the conclusion I desired, and you are to thank for bringing me here. Tonight, I shall rest easier, knowing I have one less traitor on the loose.” She sighed. “In the meantime, I have employed the services of this wretched creature, to pass on a message to your returning brother, whenever he chooses to arrive. We shall welcome him back with open arms, but I wish to see him first. As long as this creature remains in this house, I expect you to keep an eye on her—that aberration in the bedroom, too. Neither of them can be trusted. You will guard them and see to it that the task is completed, yes?”

  Sarrask bowed again. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “I will return. Until then, I put this house in your care,” she added, before sweeping down the stairs and out of the mansion, where a sleek vessel was waiting for her. I caught sight of Aurelius peering out of the hatch, his expression anxious. Things had just gotten a whole lot more complicated for all of us, and, by the sound of it, it was all Sarrask’s fault.

  I turned on him the moment the front door closed. “What the hell were you thinking, Sarrask?!”

  His face fell. “I tried to give her what she wanted. She asked me to investigate the house and see what I could find out about the elixir, so I did… but I couldn’t find anything useful, and she was threatening me!”

  “If you told her to come here, you must’ve known Ronad and I would get caught!” I jabbed a finger at him. “I can’t believe you’d betray us like this. Not just us, but Navan, your mother, your father!”

  “I had to find another way to appease her!” Sarrask shot back. “I had to tell her about the lab, that he’d been working on things here, away from the palace.”

  “Why?” I hissed.

  “She offered me a position as Royal Head of Geological Explorations, all right? I have a nothing job at the geology center, and they were taking away my funding,” he explained solemnly. “I went to her to try and win her favor. I only wanted some more credits for my investigations, but she offered me a proper role, one in which I’d hold sway over where explorations went, and what they should bring back. I would’ve been in charge of an entire fleet of vessels, sending them wherever I wanted.”