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“Nylah, that wasn’t a dream. That was a memory. I remember that day clearly. You and Dex were always at each other. It was just before Baut came to us with a condition for a ceasefire, a reason not to go to war. What else do you remember?” Her words came fast.
“Nothing else, that was it,” I said.
“If one thing came back, then more will!” Ellie cried out. “This is great news!”
“Is it?” I asked, unsure.
“Of course! If you can remember, then everything will be different. Everything will change—it will go back to the way it was. Oh, Nylah, you have no idea how great this is.”
I nodded. It had to be a good thing that I was starting to remember. If I could remember, I would know who I was, and maybe then, I would feel better equipped to deal with what was to come.
What scared me was that remembering meant I would know everything. Not only the good, but the bad, too. It seemed silly to say, but these past two months, scary as they’d been, had also been strangely blissful because I hadn’t known pain. I hadn’t had bad memories or stress about things I couldn’t change. I hadn’t known what they were.
Lately, I’d been having the strange sensation that something was missing. Once my memories returned to me—if they did at all—I would know what I’d lost. I would know the pain it caused. My bliss would be gone, and the past would rush back at me, the good and the bad.
I didn’t know if I was ready for that. I didn’t know what I’d lost and what I missed, but something wasn’t right, and as soon as I remembered, I would know.
As soon as I remembered, the pain that my memory loss kept at bay would come flooding in, and there would be no escaping from it then.
“Are you okay?” Ellie asked.
I forced a smile and nodded. I didn’t know how to explain what I was thinking. I didn’t know how to tell Ellie that I feared what I didn’t know now. My memory loss was a shield, blocking off something I didn’t know.
And I didn’t want to know.
14
DEX
Iwas stationed in Gloverbalt at a military training academy where I was in charge of new recruits. When I’d told Ren I was leaving, coming here to my family seemed like the best choice.
After the Palgian war, I’d set up these military academies in cities all across Jasfin, training warriors so that we were ready for battle at any moment. When we’d faced a civil war against Baut and then a war against Palgia, we had been grossly unprepared. We’d won by only grace and willpower, almost, and not because our troops had been ready to rule. I’d wanted to make sure that never happened again.
When I’d come to Gloverbalt, I’d been excited about a new routine, new warriors, a new life. Seeing my family more often. Maybe I could start over and create a life worth living. I’d hoped it would be the change I needed—the change that would allow me to forget about everything I’d left behind.
Gloverbalt was a coastal city at the very south of Jasfin. The air was humid and tasted of the tang of the sea. The sun was hot, and people spent their time bathing in the sea water whenever they could to shake off the heat and cool down. It was a quaint city with the feel of a little village, and although the population of the city was well over a million, it seemed like everyone knew everyone, anyway.
It had seemed like the best place to start over and be happy.
It hadn’t worked. I hated it here. The people were nice and accommodating, the warriors were respectful, and they worked hard. It wasn’t their fault, they really tried to make me feel welcome. In a different life, under different circumstances, I could have loved living in Gloverbalt.
It just wasn’t home.
I missed being at the palace. I missed my general’s quarters, I missed seeing Ren and Ellie every day. I even missed Lars and Freeman, two people who were always grumpy and usually gave me gray hairs, pissing me off to no end.
It was Nylah I missed the most. I kept telling myself the Nylah I missed wasn’t the Nylah I’d left behind. That woman was gone, and chances were she’d never return.
That didn’t stop me from thinking about her, from dreaming about her, all the time. She was always on my mind, no matter what I did to try to distract myself. Throwing myself into work didn’t make a difference. I always thought about how we’d worked together to train the warriors for battle, working on physical and magical skills in tandem.
When I worked with warriors one-on-one, teaching them skills they needed when they were in the depths of despair, or when they needed to take care of people in high positions like aristocrats, I thought about how Nylah and I had worked together, training Ellie so that she could be a full-fledged warrior on our team of elite guards.
When I lay in bed at night, I thought about Nylah’s blemish free body, her perfect, pale skin that stretched over her naked body as she writhed and gasped and moaned beneath me.
I hadn’t missed anyone as much as I missed her. Without having her near, I struggled. I felt incomplete and untethered. It wasn’t that I defined myself by her, but knowing who I was through her eyes had changed a lot for me, and now that I didn’t have it, I felt adrift. Every now and again, I caught myself forgetting that she was missing from my life, and then I crumpled and fell, trying to reach for something that didn’t exist anymore. Physically, I was a strong warrior, able to face anything the world threw at me. Emotionally, I was constantly off-balance.
My nephew Xenos was a lieutenant now, stationed at the academy, and since I’d arrived, he’d gone out of his way to make me feel welcome. He often invited me to his home to dine with him and his wife Ailey, and it was nice to feel included. My sister Marica had her hands full with the younger kids. She had six boys in all, and only Xenos had moved out of the house.
I didn’t want to impose.
