Mark of the Empress | The Empire Saga #2

Chapter One

A kiss was supposed to be a sign of affection, or used to seal a pact, or even bestowed as a final goodbye.

It was never supposed to bring someone back from the dead.

Alex had already mourned, grieved and accepted the loss of her husband.

She and Crystal spent a month trying to save his life after he appeared through the Key, wounded and poisoned.

She said her farewells. She accepted their fate and was ready for both of them to have some semblance of peace and carry on.

Yet there he was, sitting across from her with a mug of coffee between his hands as though it was just another day in their mundane existence.

Treyan was supposed to be dead, but she brought him back to life.

She didn't know which scared her more.

"I suppose it's not that surprising, when you think about it."

Treyan broke the silence, snapping Alex from her train of thought, and she looked to her husband as he took a sip from his mug. "You received the Mark from a kiss. Why should its powers not be transferred in the same manner?"

Alex's hand went to the starburst-like burn scar between her brows, ever warm to the touch. "But you were dead."

"And so were you, if you recall."

She tried not to and brought her hand down to her own mug of coffee before her.

"So, what do we do now?" Alex asked, softly blowing at the steaming cup between her hands.

The question lingered between them for a moment, as if each were weighing the severity of the inquiry through the uncomfortable silence. Finally, Treyan shrugged, his attention focused again on his own mug.

"Whatever we do, we'll do it together just like we have in the past, and we'll survive doing it."

She didn't want to think of the need to survive or otherwise, so Alex quickly changed the subject. "You still don't remember anything?"

Treyan's inability to remember exactly how he arrived back at her apartment in Boston proved to be more of the mystery. Alex watched her husband for a minute, and she could see the flashes of memory from his last moments within the Empire as they ran through his mind.

Treyan shook his head as if trying to clear away the haze. "I remember confronting Reylor in the library while he hovered over the Annals, and I remember the agony of the sword coming down along my back."

Alex's brows furrowed and she pursed her lips. The last person she wanted to think about was Reylor. The banished Lord Steward should have remained in the Borderlands and left the Empire alone. Instead he infiltrated their sanctuary and turned their own people against them.

She grit her teeth at the thought. If she ever got her hands on that spy of a Mistress, she truly believed she would murder her. It was Bria who so cowardly attacked Treyan, and it was Bria, through whatever poison she coated on that blade, who inflicted Treyan's back with such a severe wound that it sent them all through a month of torment.

Bria who, in the end, caused Treyan's demise...or would have if not for one timed kiss.

Her musings were interrupted by the startled cry of an infant waking up from yet another nap. Even after a month, the actuality of the baby belonging to her remained fresh and new. Yet every time she heard the familiar cry from her daughter's lungs, the initial smile that came to her face quickly turned to a frown as she remembered the son they had been forced to leave behind.