Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

OLD MEMORIES

L eiya led me to a small canvas tent in the middle of camp. She pulled back the flap, revealing several long dining tables, serving stations, and even elaborate candle fixtures. I gaped at the warrior—the tent should have fit one or two cots inside at the most. She only gave me a nod and motioned me through the threshold.

Magic.

Jana sat at the middle of the table rather than at the head, and everyone seemed to angle themselves towards her. The other woman I had seen before, the one from the cleansing, sat to her left. She appeared younger than Leiya. And smaller, though that wasn’t difficult to accomplish. The two men that held my feet during the cleansing were there too, one averaged height and lean, the other that looked like three of Leiya put together. I wondered if they were related.

Jana rose upon my entrance. “Welcome, Terra of Argention. Please, have a seat,” she gestured to the spot directly across from her at the table. I did, feeling as numb as I had before Leiya’s ‘revenge’ speech kicked up something inside of me.

Guess that was temporary.

“Friends, Terra has been through a great deal. May I request the room while I read her in?” Everyone hurried out except Leiya, who remained standing behind me. Eventually, Jana tilted her head back and Leiya too retreated.

“Well, you look much better.” Jana offered a soft smile. “Without all the filth on you. I imagine it feels good to be clothed and clean for the first time in such a while. Are you hungry? I can get you anything to eat. I am happy to call for a?—”

“Am I your prisoner?” A genuine question. Not that I cared terribly.

Jana sighed. “No, Terra, you are not my prisoner. I just have some things I need to discuss with you. And you can ask me all the questions you like. If you still want to leave afterwards, well, that is your choice.”

The cold, empty place in my chest took shape into something harder. “Who are you, why do you know my name, and why did that… man want to take me away?” I pinned her with my stare. “And why,” I said softly, choking on the last part, “why did he kill my family?”

Surprise flickered across her face. “Do you still not remember anything, child?”

“Remember what ?”

Jana rubbed her temples. “The cleansing is a fickle process. It may take several days for your memories to come back. You likely need to still your mind and quiet your new senses in order for that to happen. For now, I will fill in the blanks. But I must warn you—this story will not be easy to hear.”

I clamped my teeth together to keep them from chattering.

“Your family, the ones you called mother and father and brother, were not your kin. Of course, you grew up with them, so you should always call them yours, but your father did not seed you and your mother did not bear you. The blood of your brothers does not run in your veins.”

“Stop,” I whispered. Maybe I shouldn’t listen. After all, she could be making this up ? —

“You were born in Nebbiolo, a Witch queendom isle far east of here, to a Witch mother and a Fae father. Your father raised you from a young age in a Fae kingdom called Viribrum, after your mother died in Nebbiolo. He was a famed warrior amongst the Fae, and you showed unbelievable promise as a young Faerie in training; many thought you would one day follow in his footsteps and join the ranks in protecting the kingdom.”

I wanted to cover my ears and shake my head in disbelief, but it felt like she put color and sound to the muted dreams of a long sleep. I had lost not only one mother, but two?

“How is any of this possible? Witches? Fae? Am I truly supposed to believe these fabled creatures exist—that magic exists?” But even as I questioned her, the words tasted stale in my mouth. The tent alone told me enough.

Jana extended her hand. An ornate dagger appeared, resting in her palm, out of thin air, and then vanished once more. “You should know that Witch and Fae exist, because you sit amongst them. You, yourself, are one of them. One of us.”

My eyes widened, catching on her hand where the dagger laid a moment before.

“Around your twelfth year, a budding power revealed itself. Fae blood mixed with Witch blood doesn’t necessarily result in a potent combination, often they dilute each other. But in your case, the opposite occurred. Fae magic from your father strengthened the Witch magic from your mother. The combination gave you what we call Earth magic. It is very rare, you see, for someone to be able to call upon the Earth. Air, Fire, yes, they are common enough. Water? A bit rarer, and requires great strength, for the element is dense, but it is not unheard of. But Earth? It comes once a millennium. The Earth is the closest thing to calling upon the Mother—the creator—herself.”

“And you think I can… call upon the Earth,” I said flatly. “To what? Make it do my bidding?”

Jana lips set in a firm line. “I know you can.”

I let out a sound between a huff and a laugh, but Jana did not relent. “When your power revealed itself, many in the Viribrum took notice. Your gift was too rare, too difficult to hone in Fae land. Your father, Viturius, knew you would need Witch training to control such a power. You set out to leave Viribrum and return to your mother’s country, Nebbiolo, for schooling. On the way, you and your father were ambushed. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but he was killed.” She paused, her voice beginning to tremble. “And you were taken—though we didn’t know it at the time. Months after it happened, one of the ambushers was caught and confessed to taking part in both your deaths. So for the last seven years, despite your body having never been recovered, everyone in both the Fae Kingdom of Viribrum and Witch Queendom of Nebbiolo has presumed you dead,” Jana finished.

I shook at the thought of losing another parent, however foreign, the recent memory crawling up my throat, threatening to shatter my questions into irrelevant pieces.

But I needed to know more. I needed to know something that could explain why all this was happening. “Why now? Why did you come for me now ?”

“A group of us always held suspicions over your death. We’ve been tracking a known associate of the ambusher who was caught. The search went on for years. Once we located him in remote caves of the Safroy Mountains, it didn’t take long to recover the truth about how you never died, and where you were hidden. This was only a few months ago. We came as fast as we could.”

“Why don’t I remember? I had a real childhood in Argention. I had a family. As real as you sitting across from me right now… Or at least they were.” Heat pricked my eyes, and it took all my effort to shove the wave of loss down—to not let it consume me, rob me of the truth.

“The male who coordinated your abduction is a very powerful Witch. He cleared your mind of previous memories and replaced them with false ones of an early childhood. He found a town full of silver that would dampen your power and trap the magic in you, hindering it from presenting and preventing your Fae body from maturing. This is why I had to perform the cleansing on you—to release such power. And he paid a human family to look after you. You know this man, Terra,” she said, using my name as if it were tender to her.

Him.

The man who stripped me naked. The man who murdered my family. A family he supposedly gifted me.

All of a sudden, the burning feeling Leiya offered me returned. It rolled through me, swallowing that wave of grief. Shame, loss, fury—all churned together into something ugly, scarred, emboldened.

For the first time in my life, I had a thought so frightening, so vile, it pierced through my sea of fear and anger.

I will kill this man.

The sentiment should have terrified me. I’d never come to blows with another being physically.

It didn’t.

In fact, it soothed me. It eased the grip wound so tight around my lungs—ever so slightly—letting me take in more air than before.

I wouldn’t have gone so far as to say I could breathe normally again, but hey, it was a start.

I met Jana’s amber gaze, which simmered regally. She had soft gray hair, braided in a crown that piled on top of her head. She wore an acorn pendant around her neck—which seemed to pulse and move with its own energy. I would have thought twice about it, had the new fantasy taking root in my head not distracted me.

“Fayzien of Wahaca,” I ground out.

“Fayzien of Nebbiolo,” she corrected. “We still have not confirmed why he took you, though I speculate he thought you, an Earth Witch, would threaten his position in the Witch queendom. Why he didn’t just kill you right away is still a mystery to us all.”

I blinked, trying to slow my thoughts, attempting to sift through them for the memories that had supposedly been unlocked. But I only heard the buzzing of camp, louder than it should have been, and a steady thrum in my blood—demanding that of Fayzien.

The chaos in my mind stilled a moment. “If he went through all the trouble of planting me in a human family… why did he come back? Surely, the goal was to keep me hidden.” My nostrils flared. It was a flaw in the story, a crack that sent adrenaline straight to my gut.

Is she lying?

Unless … my heart sank. “Did someone in your ranks tell him you had found me?”

At this, Jana looked down, not able to meet my eyes. “To that question, I don’t have an answer. Fayzien arrived in Argention three, maybe four, days before we did. He was far gone by the time we reached your cottage, so we could not confirm if his return to Argention was related to our quest to find you… but… the timing is conspicuous. I have interrogated all who knew about our mission, and I have sensed no deception.”

“So, if you had never come for me,” I said, my voice shaking, “he wouldn’t have, either? I would still be home, my family alive.” I reached for that well of fury I was nurturing but met only darkness. If they had only left me alone…

Jana remained silent, as if weighing how to respond.

Her carefulness only angered me more, for she’d been utterly careless when the cost was so high. I stood, knocking my chair back. “How can I trust a word you say? You are the reason my family is dead.” I meant to yell, but choking on tears, my voice came out barely above a whisper.

A flash of genuine pain crossed Jana’s face. “Terra, truly, I am so sorry about your human family. I told you all this would not be easy to hear. But you have to know, I?—”

I didn’t hear another word from her, as I spun on my heels, feeling a sudden claustrophobia in the room, hating the way she said human . They weren’t just humans, they are—were, my family. I needed air, needed to breathe?—

I took off towards the canvas door. But out of nowhere, two males appeared in front of me. “Jana, we found—” The loud smack from my head-on collision with his companion cut him off.

I had been moving too quickly to stop, blinded by too many tears. My nose hit square on the man’s chest, which was shrouded in a proud breastplate of some unforgivable metal. A broad hand wrapped around my waist, spread out on my lower back, steadying me as I rocked on my feet. I looked up to surprised eyes of blazing green, peering down at me through thick curling lashes. I blinked, and he must have sensed my dizziness because he held on to me for a moment longer than he needed to. His body tensed as he sucked in a breath of surprise.

“ Bellatori ,” he said, his eyes falling on my upper lip. All of a sudden, I felt our bodies pressed together. I raised a hand to my face, and the sticky sensation of blood coated my fingertips.

No one said a word as I shoved Ezren to the side and continued my bolt towards the door.

The forest was all I knew, and Jana’s talk about the Earth calling to me was the only thing that made any real sense. I ran through camp back the way Leiya had led me, eventually meeting the carriage road. But I didn’t go to the inn. Without thinking, my body turned towards the trees, the buzzing from before threading around me in a beckoning song.

It told me to come.

I moved as if in a trance, my limbs slow and heavy. Every step into the wood breathed air back into my lungs, bit by bit, until they were full enough I could exhale. A thick scent of life coated my nostrils, sending a fizzing sensation to my head. Once, at sixteen, I’d snuck a bottle of sparkling wine and guzzled it down by the creek with Gia. The sensation of being drunk had made the colors of the setting sun deeper, the smells of wet meadow heavier.

I felt drunk again—this time, on the forest itself.

It was a comfort that sent me deeper into myself, yet further away from my body. A salve to the pulsing grief that felt like arrow-shards in my belly, in my chest.

Continuing to meander, I let my fingers brush over moss and bark and stone. The touch tingled in a way that hadn’t before. I had always sensed an energy in the outdoors, but this seemed different, almost like a current of lightning. I felt as if I could reach out and grab it, risking a shock.

After the gods knew how long, I found myself sinking onto a slab of granite bordering a riverbed. Not bothering to wash the now dried blood from my face, I let my feet fall into the snow melt. I sat there, hollow, unfeeling to the freezing water soaking my boots. The song of the forest died down. The buzz wore off. And I wept. I wept for my family, for loss, for death. I wept for the lies and for the truths. I wept for myself. For the simple place in the world that I never wanted, but was robbed of nonetheless.

At some point, my blank gaze settled on the running water, watching the curls and ripples dance over obstructions in the stream. I looked, numb, not really seeing. I thought about the memories Jana had probed. I could see them, some of them at least, but from a distance. The first images I guessed were my sire, Viturius. He looked stern, the picture of a warrior, drained of warmth. His expression lacked the kind and loving smiles I earned generously from my father. Images of drilling with him came back. They appeared in the water, glimpses of hand-to-hand combat, repeated under his instruction until the young girl of twelve could gain some sort of advantage over him.

More swirls of color and motion flashed. A boy with golden-rimmed purple eyes and a devious smile. A gravel pit, a sword in my hands, a girl with white-blonde hair as my opponent. The memories came as quickly as they went, and eventually, I let my eyes close, opening my mind to them, no longer needing to see them projected in a reflection.

The faster they passed, the more my head ached. The memories seemed to race to get to something, to show me some final part, the apogee of the story. I saw Viturius’s muscular arms hoisting me into the back of the horse-drawn cart, covering my body with a heavy cloak, bidding me to sleep. I saw a castle fading into the distance. I saw the sun setting in the west, as I looked out from the cart headed south. I felt my eyes—the tired eyes of a child—droop, the image fading to black. The last thing I saw was waking to a halted cart, looking up at two blue sapphires set in the same gaunt face I’d encountered in Argention days before.

I knew with chilling certainty that Fayzien was my abductor. At least Jana wasn’t lying about that.