Chapter 12

Béke Day Three

The morning was blisteringly cold, but I welcomed the refreshing sting against my face as Zuriel and I rode out of the city. A thick blanket of snow covered everything in the valley that nestled Radence, and even the peaks surrounding us were nothing more than white spears in the sky. Mistik's back swayed beneath me as we walked at a slow pace in the direction of Roc Palace, and beside me, Zuriel rode Twilight, her black coat shining beneath the winter sun.

"So, cousin, want to tell me why you wanted to go for a ride so early?" Zuriel said finally once we'd left the city behind. Only snow-dusted fences and curling chimney smoke accompanied us now, save for the occasional bleat of a sheep penned in a field.

Fog graced the air in front of me as I blew out a long breath. "I had a breakdown two nights ago."

"What triggered it?" my cousin asked gently.

My throat thickened, and tears pricked my eyes as I recalled the thoughts and emotions that had sent me into a spiral – that threatened to do so again. "Kazimir told me during the opening ball that his father, Kriztof, Zekari, and Kirigin all died the night I was taken from the Night Realm. After he and Ruslan fought and we finally returned to our apartment, I just lost it. I couldn't hold everything in anymore. I thought when I saw them side by side I would know… and I didn't. I am more confused than ever before, and the reality of the prophecy set in… It was a lot all at once."

Unbidden, tears spilled out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away with the back of my fur-lined glove.

"What else?" he prodded.

"I'm so on edge right now, like the slightest noise will startle me, and the feeling of being watched and not seeing who is watching me makes it hard to relax," I continued. "I feel like I'm back in the cave all over again."

Until those words slipped out, I hadn't realized that was truly what I was feeling. Another wave of panic washed over me, and I gripped the reins tightly in my hands. Mistik stopped, shifting nervously beneath me as she sensed my rising terror. Zuriel pulled Twilight to a halt, then hopped off the mare and rounded to my side.

Without him needing to say anything, I dismounted, legs trembling beneath me as I leaned into my mare for support. She pushed back into me, giving me her strength. Mistik snorted at Zuriel when she couldn't turn her head to see me, and with a small smile, he sidestepped and allowed me to wrap my arms around her neck. Burying my nose in her horsey scent grounded me, and I cracked an eye when Zuriel cleared his throat.

My Angel cousin crouched so we were at eye level, his icy blue eyes capturing my own and forcing me to see him and not the darkness crawling from the back of my mind.

"You are still trying to survive," Zuriel stated, not a hint of doubt leaking through his tone.

"But I'm not," I protested. "I have food, warmth, power, love… everything I should need to feel safe. But I don't."

Zuriel shook his head, his white hair falling from behind his pointed ears. "From the time you left the cave, you were on the run from your pursuers and toward a world you never truly knew. Then you came to the Iron Realm, and you lived in fear of Rares and King Azim and what they wanted to do to you until only a few days ago. That, sweet cousin, is still surviving, whether your basic needs are met or not."

The Angel blurred before me, and I blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the saltiness from my eyes. "How do I feel safe, Zuriel?" I asked, my voice no more than a whisper. Mistik dipped her head and dug it into my back, then rubbed it up and down as if she were trying to soothe me, too. I released a watery laugh.

"I told you once before that the only way out is through. You must feel it all to let it go. You must feel it and then replace it with something stronger, more powerful. I know Drazen has also told you that you must let go of your emotions while fighting and be fully present with what's in front of you. Until you can do both of those things, you'll never truly be free."

I buried my face in Mistik's mane again, unable to meet my cousin's intense gaze any longer. "It hurts so much. I can't feel it. It will consume me."

"Izidora, you are stronger than you know. Right now, the pain might seem endless, but I've lived for more than two thousand years. Trust me when I say that feelings are not forever."

Snow crunched beneath Zuriel's boots as he walked away, and when I opened my eyes, I saw him pulling a familiar-looking necklace from his jacket pocket. The amethyst on the long chain glinted in the sunlight, and without thought, I reached out for it.

"I found this in the training room after Ruslan moved you both away from there after his altercation with King Azim. I think it's time you put it on again," Zuriel said quietly.

"There's more?" I asked, hope filling my chest with butterflies. Seeing my mother again with the Goddess and my father hadn't been enough, and I'd promise the Goddess I'd choose immediately if she'd let me embrace my parents one more time.

"No," he sighed, looking older than his millenia of life. "But with your level of distress, I thought you might find comfort in it."

I wrapped my palm around the stone, then tucked it away, not quite ready to delve back into my mother's memories. Silence stretched between us, only a light breeze lifting our hair and whispering in our ears.

Finally, Zuriel said, "Walk with me." Tucking his hands behind his back, he ambled forward, leisurely, and I followed, leaving the horses to stand in the snow. The world around us was still, and with the sun caressing my face, a modicum of peace settled over me.

We strolled for a few minutes before my cousin glanced my way. "I fought in the great war between the Angels and Demons. Nowhere in Keleti was safe by the time I was forced to join the fight. But in the years before that, it was hard to sleep at night. No one knew when the enforcers would come to conscript us, or if our city would be raided by the Demons. I was young then and thought I knew everything about the world, as all younglings do. It was decades, centuries maybe, before I realized that even though the war was over, the fear of it still lived inside me.

"Honestly, it was only after I lashed out at Ithuriel that he sat me down and had the same conversation with me that I am about to have with you. We both lost so many we loved during that war, and I was so wrapped up in my own pain that I forgot he suffered too. But he handled it much better than I did. I pretended everything was fine, went on living my life, burying myself in task after task, never giving myself time to think or to really feel what happened. Until I snapped after a small disagreement that should have been nothing."

Holy shit, Zuriel was describing exactly what was happening to me.

"That was when Ithuriel forced me to be still, to talk about what happened and how I felt about it. And not in the ‘recite what happened to me' way that you did when we first met. But to truly open myself to the depths of my pain and process it in a way that made the memories less acute."

My throat thickened, and I tried to swallow down the emotions knotted there. "Did it help?"

My cousin nodded slowly. "It did, eventually. It was fucking hard at first, to feel it while I was speaking of it rather than detach myself from what had happened. But in order to heal, the full integration of mind, body, and soul is necessary."

I watched my breath fog the air in front of me as I exhaled long and slow. "Then I want to do it. Can you help me?"

"I can do my best. Ithuriel was gifted with a different mind magic than you or I that lent itself better to these types of situations, but his instructions still live on, even though he does not." Zuriel offered a sad smile as we spoke of my father, his uncle, who had been like a father to him.

"When can we start?" I asked. If this method could help me let go, figure out the right choice, and empower me, I did not want to wait.

"Do you feel comfortable doing it out here?" He gestured to the nearly barren landscape around us. There were no Fae in sight, and only the sounds of the horses and other farm animals reached our ears.

"Yes," I confirmed, striding to a few misshapen rocks large enough to sit on and clearing them of snow. Zuriel joined me, settling himself cross-legged before taking a deep breath.

"First, we need to establish some rules. Number one is that I will not share anything you say to anyone unless you specifically ask me to. Number two is that you must tell me if you need to stop at any time."

"I will," I promised him.

"Good. You need a few grounding phrases, too. I know you already have a few that you prefer, so say them aloud for me now," he instructed.

Nodding, I said, "I am safe. I am an insidious bloom. I am strong. I am powerful. I will not be afraid."

"The first is what we shall work on today. Safety," he began, "is essential to healing. Until you feel safe in your skin, in your environment, in your relationships, nothing else will change, no matter how hard you work to change it."

"But I am safe, technically," I frowned.

"But your body does not feel safe. That is where the holistic integration comes in. In your mind, you know you are safe. But in your body, in your soul, do you truly feel safe?" he queried.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off with a shake of his head. "Tune into your body. Think of being in danger, and see where you feel it."

Nodding, I closed my eyes, scanning like I would to find my magic. I bypassed the well, instead thinking to myself ‘I am not safe.' A flare of tension in my low belly immediately caught my attention, but the sensation did not stop there; it grew throughout my torso, wrapping my chest in a vice and tensing my neck and shoulders as if I were prepared to fight for my life. I sucked in a sharp breath.

"Good, Izidora," Zuriel murmured, "focus on the feeling. What comes to your mind first?"

Whips.

Chains.

Cold.

Fetid meat.

Blood.

"So much," I croaked, panic clawing its way up my throat.

"Cross your arms over your chest, resting a hand on each shoulder. Then tap one side, then the other," Zuriel said, and I did as he instructed. The tapping back and forth was rapid and desperate, and even more flashes of memory started to appear.

Tears overflowed freely, and I didn't bother trying to stop them, not when it felt like I had turned on a faucet and the pressure of the water departing me felt freeing in the strangest way.

"You can speak your memories out loud, or keep them to yourself, the choice is yours," Zuriel murmured. "Keep focusing on the feeling in your body, either way."

I managed to nod, then a vivid yet hidden memory burst unbidden from me. "I was young, so young… I had a caretaker, she was so kind and loving. And then one day, they dragged her away from me. The guards pinned me to the wall, locking the iron manacles I always wore around my wrists and ankles to heavy chains attached to the stone wall of my room. I-I heard them tell her I had become defiant in her care, and that they needed to break me now. She begged them for a second chance, and even over my own sobs, I heard them say no. Then there was a scream, and then nothing. They-they killed her."

The ache was so acute, like a knife was being plunged into my body and continually twisted, but I kept tapping, kept feeling, even as my breath came faster, shallower, and my tears carved a river down my cheeks.

"Keep breathing," Zuriel encouraged.

Dragging in a deep breath, I continued. "I was so scared. I felt so alone. The guards had mostly left me alone until that point, but she always acted as a buffer between them and me. Without her… without her, they started to hurt me. That was the first day I was whipped. It was just one lash, but I was terrified. The chains–" the panicked sensation rose within me, and I had to breathe harder, tap faster, "the chains were shortened, and they ripped open my tunic. I screamed, I pleaded, I cried, but it was no use. I can still feel their fingers on me as they tore the shirt." A tightening sensation across my back had me biting my lip to stop from crying out. "The whip…" The lash felt as fresh as it had when it landed across my back for the first time. "That wasn't even the worst time. They only hit me once. But I still feel it so acutely."

"Keep the focus there, and keep tapping. Breathe," Zuriel said gently.

I did, allowing myself to feel every bit of the sting, the utter terror as I waited for the whip to fall, and the anguish that I no longer had the only person who loved and cared for me there to protect me. My muscles bunched and tensed as I relived the moment over and over and over; all the while, Zuriel encouraged me to suck down sharp, icy breaths. The air in my lungs was the only thing grounding me to the present moment as I confronted that fateful day.

"Now, we're going to rewrite that story. How is your younger self saved from this situation?" Zuriel prompted. "Visualize every last detail."

Without hesitation, I replied, "I'm there. The female I am now, not my younger self."

"Keep going," Zuriel encouraged.

"I throw myself in front of her, taking the strike so she doesn"t have to. I catch the whip in my hand and yank the male forward. Then I burn him alive with my fire." The tapping continued, but with a vigor that shifted from despair into confidence. Suddenly, the terror that had tears spilling from my eyes morphed into something different, something not quite like absence of pain, but the pain of the memory was no longer like a hot knife slicing through me. "I run to her side, unlock her chains, and then we race away from there together. I fly her to safety, and we find a place to live where no one would ever hurt us again."

"And where is that?" Zuriel asked.

The name immediately popped into my head, nearly stealing my breath. It wasn't a place, but a person. "Somewhere far, far away," I said, since neither the Night Realm nor the Iron Realm felt like appropriate destinations.

"And what would you say to her once you had gotten her to safety?" Zuriel prodded, redirecting my thoughts.

"That we were free. That I would love her and take care of her. That I wouldn't let anyone hurt her ever again." My voice cracked, and a fresh waterfall spilled from my eyes.

That's all I'd ever wanted anyone to say to me.

And Kazimir had, when the Nighthounds rescued me. I believed him then, too. But it was a half-truth, and he'd broken my trust when I learned of it.

"Where are your thoughts now?" Zuriel asked, as if sensing my shift in focus.

"Kazimir," I gritted out, my arms tightening almost protectively over my chest.

"What about him?"

"I thought I was safe because he said those exact words to me when he rescued me. I guess I was safer than I had been, but when I came to the Iron Realm, I learned that wasn't necessarily true." My words held a hint of bitterness.

"In what way?" Zuriel asked, his head cocking slightly to one side.

I gritted my teeth as a fresh wave of anger rose from within, protecting the hurt that was still so raw. "I trusted him to tell me the truth after everything I had been through. After everything I told him. But he manipulated me. He told me I would be a better ruler than King Zalan, which I think is true, but he told me that to maneuver me for his own gain: being king himself and being with me. I can't excuse the half-truth of that, not when I let my guard down for him, not when I let him get close to me."

My vision blurred, and I clenched my teeth, anger at myself rising from somewhere unknown. "How could I have been so stupid, just blindly trusting the first people who showed me kindness after everything that I suffered? After everything I went through, all the abuse, how could I have been so foolish as to let all the lessons I'd learned about surviving disappear into nothing?" The tapping on my shoulders quickened as more self-loathing broke through the hurricane of emotion whipping through me. "How could I have been so blind to his intentions? How could I have trusted him? Any of them?"

"How could you have known any better?" Zuriel murmured, breaking my tirade.

"How could I have known anything?" The words broke out of my throat like shattering glass, nearly mirroring the sensation stabbing into my heart. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks, steaming in the cold air, and I sucked in a lungful of it, welcoming the burn it offered to soothe the tidal wave of pain that threatened to drown me. "Everything I thought I knew… Every fucking day I'm learning something new, that challenges what I used to think, what I used to think I knew with certainty. I feel powerless because of how much I don't know, and the understanding that there is so much I have to rely on others for. How can I know that anyone is telling me the truth about anything?"

My voice had risen to a fevered pitch, but Zuriel was as calm as ever as he sat motionless and listened to me. "What do you think your mother would say to that question?"

The amethyst in my pocket warmed, as if my mother were with me then, encouraging me to surrender the pain and find my way out of the darkness. "I think she'd say that I need to trust myself more than anything," I whispered, and with those words, some of the ache abated. "I think she'd tell me to look for the intentions of the person I'm speaking with, and if I find them to be good, then I can trust them." Another statement that caught the breeze and swept away my inner turmoil. "I think she would tell me I am smart enough to figure things out for myself." The words spilled rapidly from my lips. "I think she'd tell me she loves me and that I have many people who can support me now, that I don't have to do it all on my own."

Zuriel.

Liliana.

Drazen.

The other Félvér.

And most of all, Ruslan.

My tapping slowed, then stopped, as I realized the emotions that had sunk their claws into me at the beginning of our session no longer clung to me. Blinking rapidly, my lips dipped into a frown, and then my brows followed. "What–" I patted myself as if I were searching for something that was no longer with me.

"How are you feeling, Izidora?" Zuriel asked, hiding a smile.

Lighter.

Breathing easier.

Unburdened.

Less fractured.

"Holy fuck," I whispered, my hurried movements ceasing. "Is this what it's supposed to feel like?"

Zuriel nodded slowly, and a choked sob rose from within as the realization settled over me. "It"s like it was never there at all," I murmured, fresh tears coating my lashes and a wide smile breaking across my face. "It's like I was wearing a heavy jacket and suddenly I no longer need it. It's like this weight has been lifted from me, and I no longer need to carry it. Oh my Goddess, Zuriel, is this really possible? It's not just going to come back in an hour?"

"This is possible, Izidora. The more you continue to do it, the more you will feel settled and whole in your body," Zuriel noted. "Though, you will feel raw and more emotional while this work continues. The little things will continue to trigger you, and you might find it more difficult to rein in your emotions. It"s especially important that you continue to focus on shielding from everyone else's emotions, so you don't get them confused with your own fresh ones."

I closed my eyes for a moment, sinking into the feeling of ease in my body that I'd never possessed before. It was as if the shattered pieces of me had been restored to their original pristineness, the crack never there to begin with. When my mind returned to that fateful day when my caretaker was dragged away from me, terror no longer speared its cold embrace into me; instead, I watched the scene unfold as if it were happening to someone else. My body did not react with the instinctual need to fight or to flee, but remained grounded in the present moment, the rock I sat on digging into my butt and the tip of my nose turning cold.

If this was possible after a single session over a single memory, what was possible with more?

"Thank you, Zuriel," I said, leaping forward and embracing my cousin.

"You are welcome, Izidora," he replied, returning the hug.

I was simultaneously giddy and exhausted when I pulled away. The Angel glanced overhead, then around us, where smoke billowed from chimneys and doors began creaking open. "I think it"s about time that we return to Ryza Citadel. Do you need a few minutes to collect yourself?"

"No," I answered, then hopped down from the rock, my legs protesting momentarily as the blood returned to them. I wiggled my toes in the fur-lined boots Ruslan had gifted me, savoring the warmth they provided, then trekked back to Mistik and Twilight, the snow crunching with every step and pulling a giggle from my chest. My mare snorted and then bumped me with her nose when I greeted her, in much better spirits than when I had left her before. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with the change in me, and she nuzzled into my jacket as I petted her dappled hide.

"Zuriel, I just can't believe it," I repeated when we mounted the horses and turned them toward the city.

An amused chuckle was his response. "It makes me happy to see that you are feeling better. I am glad I could help."

My throat thickened. "You have, so much."

This session hadn't fixed me by any means, but it had begun stripping away the barriers that prevented me from processing and healing from all the trauma. I would do whatever it took to have the freedom I so desperately craved, even if the path toward it was as painful as everything that had already happened. Steeled in my decision, I dried my eyes, lifted my chin, and returned to the citadel with my head held high.