“Mary...”
Her name barely scraped past my lips, a whisper, a ghost of a voice that no longer felt like my own.
Reality’s embrace was tenuous at best, the line between waking and nightmare dangerously thin.
I tried to sit up.
The world tilted violently, blurred at the edges.
My limbs were heavy, unresponsive—like lead weights dragging me down.
Mary’s hands were there.
Gentle.Pressing me back into the cool linens.
Lavender.
Faint.Familiar.
A scent that should have grounded me but felt distant, disconnected.
“Easy now, Lady Elizabeth,” she soothed, her voice a balm against my fractured mind.
“You’ve been quite ill.”
Ill.
The word felt foreign.Inadequate.
This was not an illness.
This was something else.
Something stolen.
Something lost.
My thoughts spun, untethered, drifting through a haze of broken memories.
Searching for reality.
Finding only pieces.
Memories.Fragments.
A dream too vivid and cruel to be only a nightmare.
“Mary… was there… a man?”
The words felt foreign and hesitant, as if speaking aloud would pull the shadows from my mind and make them real.
“An old man.With power in his eyes.
“He was drawing these… blood symbols on me.
“He said he was protecting me…”
Mary’s expression shifted, the lines of concern on her brow deepening.
