Two Thousand Years | The Empire Saga #1

Chapter Twenty-Two

The mages unceremoniously discarded Alex into her designated room for the fifteenth time since she had been in Reylor's castle, and without a word turned around, locking the door behind them. She knew because she rushed the door every time, trying to get it open. Every day she would try the door, and every time it would still be locked.

She was still a prisoner.

Of course, he had given her the option again, as he had every time before. He proposed she divorce the Empire and become his Empress in the Borderlands. And every time she refused him.

And she would continue to refuse him every time he asked.

She leaned against the door, trying her best to assess her situation. There was something different about this last encounter. He was too forceful this time, almost desperate. It felt as though Reylor was restraining himself for some reason—she knew what he was capable of, had witnessed it in her own nightmares. Sooner or later, he wasn't going to hold back from his advances, and she was going to have to tread lightly if she was going to get out of this unscathed.

The room that had become her home for the last two weeks remained the living nightmare that it was, and she swallowed the lingering panic every time she returned to it. It was obvious Reylor worked with what he knew, and she never allowed herself to contemplate what else could very well happen here the moment Reylor deemed it so.

She started pacing around the room. Fifteen times she had been brought to Reylor's room, and therefore it had been fifteen days since she was taken from the palace. She was convinced there was a rescue attempt in the works. Why else would Reylor have been acting so anxious during their last meeting? The only thing Alex couldn't figure out was why was it taking so long?

Her thoughts stopped her in front of the floor-length mirror hanging on the front of the room's armoire. Before her stood the Empress with her hair disheveled and face smudged with dirt, wearing a dress of black and red that closely resembled the garb from her dreams. She had ransacked the room when she first arrived, desperate for something else to wear, but to her dismay there was nothing more than low-cut, dark-material dresses available to her. She refused to walk around Reylor's castle naked, so the hellish gown it would have to be.

Frustrated, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Try as he might to convince her both the Empire and the Prophecy were wrong, nothing Reylor did helped his case one bit. Between kidnapping and imprisonment, he did little to make her feel as though she had any choice in what happened to her, regardless of how much he insisted that in the end, choice was what this was all about.

Choice.

All of this began when Reylor refused to accept his lack of choice. Instead, he chose to betray his family and attempted to destroy the very book their legacy was built upon. In turn, his own brother chose to banish him from their Empire; Treyan chose the Prophecy—chose her—over his twin.

What about her choice?

Was she given a choice that night in her apartment, as Reylor suggested? She tried not to remember her last moments in Boston—the moment she started questioning one event would lead to the dissection of other incidents she was not ready to engage at that moment.

But could she blame Treyan for his urgency? He was in a battle against time and Reylor, so far as she was concerned.

Wasn't he?

Though if he was so concerned for her well-being, where was he?

Sighing, she held her head in her hands. Alex knew Treyan would never make it to the castle unscathed, and even if he tried, the chances of him being captured were too great, and having both of them on this side of the Borderlands would do the Empire no good.