The more I lose myself to these thoughts, the harder the hands on my chest pin me to the bed. They’re not my family, though, not comforting to me, even as the Fates sing under my scars. Panic grips me tighter but, no matter how I fight it, I’m trapped in my mind.
Something snaps inside me, and a sob cleaves from my chest, a desperately wretched sound. Through the white-hot pain, I feel the pressure disappear, as though I’ve been cast out into the rolling waves once more.
A hand presses against my skin, soft but firm on my neck, and my face is tilted, words murmured into my ear in coaxing drawls. I don’t understand them. I don’t understand any of this.
Where am I?
Where is Pemba?
Are the Ureen here? They’ve come for us again, consuming everything in their path as they hunt us, huntme, panic in my chest and the Fates dancing in my scars; they must be here for us again. They’re dancing under my skin at my back and my stomach—they’ve never done that before. What wounds do I have now, what new hell have I woken to? Why does every inch of my body ache and… burn?
How have I been burned during the consuming destruction, the unmaking? The monsters of the Fates don’t burn. They destroy, annihilate, return to sand and dust until they have takeneverything…but they don’t burn.
Voices murmur, but my mind is slow to understand their words. The language is ancient, as old as the kingdoms themselves. I haven’t heard it used like this in such a long time, not since my mother and my father, but they’re gone. Only my brother speaks to me in that language, and only when he wants to share secrets no one but the two us could possibly hold.
A prayer for my soul, as soft and soothing as a lullaby.
A prayer for my peace and my sanity, to bring me out of this hell I’m trapped within, to lead me out of the darkness of my mind.
Even without the hands pressing me to the pallet, my body settles once more at the melodic verses.
A prayer to see me back into the safety of this castle, for me to wake from the terror that grips me, the words murmured over and over andoveragain at my bedside as a vigil is held.
The chaos calms, and I hear the forest’s song, intertwining with the prayers until my heart threatens to burst once more from the joy and the grief I hold. If I can hear the trees so loudly, then I’m lost to all who love me, stumbling toward the pyres to the gates of Elysium.
I want to go home.Please, let me go home, I don’t want to live in fear anymore. I need to find my brother and my friends, I need to find those I now call family, and I need to go home.
But there is no home anymore.
No matter how the trees sing in my heart. I have no home, none of us do, we are lost, we've been lost for so long. We once found our home in each other, but now I’m lost to them too.
More prayers murmured. More prayers to save me, to lead me back to the world that goes on around me regardless of the torture I’m locked in.
Prayers to the Fates that I've done enough, to let me be free of my own fate, to hand that task on to another, to let him take this pain and make it his instead. To let me recover from the war that I’ve returned from instead of fighting in a new one, because he can carry the weight of the High Witch’s death alone.
Promises that I’ll see the forest once again, that I can return home, that he’ll take me back there if only I wake up.
Promises I cannot believe.
When I finally wake andescape the clutches of my worst memories, I have no idea how much time has passed.
The worst of my pain has gone, though being in my body is still an uncomfortable experience. Every inch of my skin feels tight and new, every muscle squeezed until I’m sure I’m about to split open under the pressure, each breath a battle as I fight to expand my lungs.
Panic dances along the edges of my mind, the echoes of the nightmares still flirting with my destruction until I’m fighting a battle with the chaos that lives within me.
Every shield I constructed against my traumas has come down, and now I’m at the mercy of the Ureen, the war, and lessons of submission to the Fates that I learned by the most brutal means. They’re quiet within me now, though, dormant in a curious way.
I glance around to distract myself, as much as I can without moving and causing myself more pain, and it takes me a moment to figure out why the walls around me are blue, the ceiling white, and everything is so… stark. My head jerks to the side, expecting pallets and healing supplies, but I find nothing. I should be looking at my brother’s pallet, always nearby no matter how long this war has raged on. His boots and his cloak should be there, because he would never ride out without me. This alone tears my mind out of the haze it was trapped in and thrusts me into the present.
I am no longer in the Northern Lands.
I’m not a soldier serving alongside my friends, and there’s no one here to hear my groaning and fuss over me. Tears begin to fill my eyes, and I want to curse myself. The ice around my heart has been shattered, and now I’m stuck with the true repercussions of war. Facing Kharl Balzog, the male who murdered my family with a single command just to defy the Fates and instead only sealed them, has truly broken something within me.
“Tell me which of your elixirs will fix this.”
My heart stops in my chest, and a groan tears from my lips. I curse myself for not realizing the Fates are calm and quiet within me because the mate they chose is standing guard over me, offering pain relief out of guilt.
I take a steadying breath before I heave myself into a sitting position, my arms trembling with the effort and yet another groan escaping me. My gaze clashes with Prince Soren’s as he stands abruptly, his usual scowl etched on his fearsome face.
