The King’s Betrayal (The Rift #2)

Chapter 1 The Ghost Of Memories

Impossible.

I felt like I was seeing a ghost.

Or was this more like some apparition of him in Heaven, happy and surrounded by a peaceful rose garden?

But then his eyes found mine, and I felt the weight of The General’s hand leave my shoulder. My uncle’s features mirrored my own, first with shock, then with utter relief as he took in the sight of me running toward him.

“Uncle!” I shouted before reaching him, and he too started making his way toward me, his arms outstretched and welcoming as he shouted my name.

“Alex!”

My body collided with his, and with it, the dam broke as my emotions spilled over.

“Thank god it’s true,” he whispered on a sigh the second we connected, wrapping his arms around me as I did the same. The sound of his voice only added to the dream I was still trying to convince myself was reality.

The relief, the guilt, the pain, the suffering, the grief, the fear, and the longing all just poured out as one.

There was just too much to hold back as I cried into his denim jacket, breathing him in and taking me right back to the days leading up to the Rift.

The woodsy scent of him seemed ingrained into the fibers of the jacket that still clung to him, like a memory that I had been unwilling to let go of.

A memory I wouldn’t let fade, not even in my darkest hours would I give it up for the fear I would never get it back.

When he pulled away, I was suddenly looking back at my dad’s eyes, until his face blurred through my tears.

“I thought you were dead… I thought I would never see you again,” I cried softly.

“Oh, sweetheart,” my uncle said before cupping the back of my head and pulling me in for another hug.

I then felt him nod, and I looked up just in time to see him gesturing to The General in thanks. I pulled back and turned my head enough to look over my shoulder, finding him walking away, leaving me with my uncle.

Something that left me questioning everything I thought I knew. And lucky for me, I now had someone to ask… someone I trusted. Because obviously, my uncle and I had a lot to talk about, starting with the biggest question of all…

“How? How is this possible?”

My uncle gave me tender eyes before tucking my hand in the crook of his arm and leading me over to an empty bench.

“We have a lot to talk about, and I have a feeling you could do with sitting down,” he said, his thoughts mirroring my own. He looked down at me and smirked at the way I was dressed, no doubt surprised to see me dressed like a soldier.

I chuckled.

“That obvious?”

He grinned, and even though it was clear he had aged since the day I lost him, it was still my uncle’s genuine smile, through and through.

So, any questions of mind control or magic spells The General might have been able to cast were disappearing with every second.

Which meant I was more than eager to find out how this was possible.

Not only how he was alive, but how he ended up with The General in the first place.

But more than anything, why hadn’t he tried to find me?

“You always had such an expressive face,” he commented with a chuckle as we sat at a stone bench situated against the old prison walls. One that clearly wasn’t being used for prisoners anymore, like I had first assumed.

“I do?” I asked, making him chuckle once more.

“I can read the questions flicking in your eyes, honey.”

“Yeah, and what would my next one be?” I tested, and when his eyes softened tenderly, I already knew he wouldn’t get it wrong.

“If I have been alive all this time, why didn’t I try to come find you?” he guessed, and like I said, I wasn’t surprised because my uncle was as sharp as a tack.

“And the answer would be what?” I asked, which was when he reached up and pushed his greying hair back from his forehead, making my eyes widen at the long, thick scar running across it, one that disappeared into his hairline.

“Post-traumatic amnesia is typical after a head injury, or so the docs here tell me. It doesn’t usually last years but due to the severity of my injury and the fact that I had nothing to trigger my past memories, parts of them took longer to return.”

I gasped, taking a minute to fully absorb what he was telling me.

“Jesus,” I hissed, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

“I woke up in the infirmary here, a week after the attack, not even knowing my own name. The General was the one who explained what happened after I came out of the coma.”

“The General?!” I asked in astonishment, making him give me a wry look.

“Yeah, he was the one who saved me, after all.”

Now this I didn’t expect, and once again, my face said it all.

“He did?”

“He found me on the losing side of fighting a Gryphon, and I was barely conscious by the time they reached me. According to The General, I had been flung against a tree and damn near split my head in two.”

I winced at that. “So, you have been here ever since?”

He looked around and grinned. “I helped them build this place.”

I frowned, making him chuckle again.

“Well, not build it, but I helped them put together what was needed to house the survivors. Helped them understand our needs and how we could work together to protect people against the dark ones.” This wasn’t surprising, as he may have lost his memories of me, but he wouldn’t have lost his sense of duty or the need to help people.

All his experience was right there at the forefront, taking the lead.

I couldn’t help but shake my head, realizing just how wrong I had been about it all… about him. A man whose name I still didn’t know and who had only ever played the villain in my mind.

“I was so wrong about this place,” I muttered, lowering my head to my hands before pushing all my loose hair back.

“You’re not the first and no doubt won’t be the last, kid, so don’t beat yourself up about it,” he said with a nudge of my arm.

“But why don’t more people know of this place?”

“Some do, and they make their way here for sanctuary, but most just think as you do, that a monster is just a monster, no matter which side they stand on,” he said, basically describing the exact way I had felt for the last three years.

That was until a few days ago, when I first started to question why The General’s army hadn’t joined in attacking us at the base in Jerome.

“I didn’t even know there were two sides,” I admitted quietly.

“And like I said, most don’t. Not when people end up witnessing both sides fighting because it usually ends one of two ways, either they are caught in the crossfire and rescued, or they become a casualty of their war.

Either outcome means word spreads of people being taken or dying, and fear will always fuel the wildfire of prejudice. ”

“And neither one paints a pretty picture,” I added, making my uncle nod in agreement.

“Exactly. Stories from survivors spread, and before you know it, the enemy lines are blurred.”

“But not here,” I said, jerking my head to the sight of so many people all enjoying the courtyard space, whether it be chatting, reading, or even tending to one of the flower beds. It was like some peaceful colony, so far from what I ever imagined I would find here.

“No, not here. Here we have created a safe haven. A place to be free and not constantly live in fear as we would outside of these walls.”

“They protect you?” I asked, looking back the way I had come, seeing a glimpse of the Myths pass by the open entrance, as if guarding the perimeter.

“Yes,” he replied, glancing toward one of the ground-floor windows and making me turn my head in time to find The General there, watching us. The sight made me shiver before turning away from his intense gaze. My hands twisted my T-shirt nervously, something my uncle didn’t miss.

“He’s a hard man, rules this place with unwavering resolve and an iron fist, but that doesn’t mean his intentions are any less noble.”

“Noble?” I repeated. His choice of words shocked me. Plus, I wondered just how noble my uncle would think he was if he knew about the dreams, or how The General had blackmailed me into coming here. Although my questions as to why would have to wait for the man himself.

“What would you call it? After all, he could have just claimed this city for himself and banished all humans from it. Could have taken the supplies for his own kind and not shared them among us, yet he didn’t do that. Just like he could have left me to die in those woods.”

At this, shame filled me. It was like being made to swallow battery acid, making me say, “Like I did.”

He sucked in a quick breath. “No… oh, Alex, is that what you think you did? That you left me to die?” he gasped.

“I don’t think it, I know it,” I replied regretfully, lowering my head as fresh tears filled my eyes.

“Oh, sweetheart, no. That’s not what happened,” he argued, making me raise my watery gaze back to his kind eyes.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice strained and vulnerable.

“Had you not run, then we most likely would have both ended up dead. I wouldn’t have made it as far as I did before The General turned up. You did the right thing, Alex, and now I get my niece back,” he said, palming my cheek and taking away my stray tears with his callous thumb.

“And the memories?” I asked.

“Ah, well, for that I have The General to thank once again,” he replied.

“How so?”

“Your journal.”

I jerked back a little at the mention of it, reminding me of the piece of me The General still possessed. And well, now it looked like I no longer had a reason to hate that fact, not when my uncle explained.

“He read about what happened that day when the Rift opened up the portal. He remembered seeing a girl speeding away in a truck but didn’t know it was you until he read about it in your journal.

After that, he pieced it together and told me, let me read about it in your own words.

That night, I let my mind go back to that day, trying to reach for it when it suddenly hit me. ”

“Your memories came back?”

He nodded before confirming, “Every single one.”

I inhaled a quick breath as realization hit me.

“It was the connection to the past you needed?” I guessed, making him look sad for a moment.

He reached for my hand before squeezing tight as he told me, “I am so sorry, I wish I had known. I could have come and found you, brought you here and…”

I shook my head and quickly cut him off.

“Hey, what’s done is done. We can’t change it, but we can be thankful it has brought us to this point. I never thought…” I stopped as my voice grew thick, before I flung my arms around him and hugged him tight.

“I’m so proud of you, Alex,” he told me, making fresh tears roll freely down my cheeks. I then pulled back and swiped them away. “The General told me about the base in Jerome and how courageous you fought to protect it, and the civilians there.”

I frowned in surprise. “He did?”

He chuckled. “He respects you.”

I laughed once without humor and argued, “I doubt that.”

“He’s a leader, Alex. He values courage, honor, and integrity above all else.”

I flinched at that. “Yeah, well, whatever he might have once thought, I doubt he does anymore,” I said with a wince, knowing how I had gone back on my bargain with him and tricked Aster into breaking Riley out of his cell.

Which also made me wonder, why had he been in a cell in the first place?

Why hadn’t The General just shown him this place so that he too could have come to understand it like I now did?

“Answer me this, if you had known all I had told you, all you have learned today… would your actions have been the same?”

I shook my head, telling him no.

“That’s because our actions can only be judged based on what we know, not what is kept from us.

You weren’t to know The General wasn’t the enemy, not until you saw it for yourself,” my uncle said, and as always, he made perfect sense.

But again, this still didn’t explain why Riley wasn’t given the same opportunity to make up his own mind.

Which is what prompted me to say, “Which I gather not many have chance to do?”

He shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Most people fear ghosts over the living, despite what the living are far more capable of doing. People fear what they don’t know and often see whatever gives weight to those fears, blinding themselves from the truth.”

“Assumptions only make fools out of the ones who speak them,” I said, repeating what The General had told me once in my dream. A memory that led me to look back up at the window, only to find it now empty.

“Exactly, but it’s human nature, always has been. So don’t beat yourself up for fearing them all, we can only act on what we know, Alex.”

I nodded, knowing he was right.

There was still so much more I needed to learn, and now, looking down at my scars, I realized that there was only one man who held the answers.

A man whose name I still didn’t know.

Making me wonder, who was I to him now?

His prisoner, or…

His ally.