Chapter 2 #2
“Thank you. I just wanted to be sure.”
“When is this happening?”
Her eyes brightened. “Next time he’s in port. So, two months’ time.”
“That’s soon. I… won’t see you.”
She smirked and waved me off. “Don’t be silly. I’ll find a way. I’ll always find a way. Phillipe knows his way around everywhere. He’ll make sure I see you.”
“Will you be okay? What if something happens?”
“I don’t care. I’m doing it, Elariya.” The determination in her eyes gave me goose bumps.
“I won’t marry anyone else. You won’t remember, but I tried over the years to see other people.
But Phillipe is the one for me. I’d rather be poor and live at sea, than marry a man I don’t love. Let alone a Baron. They hate us.”
My insides tightened, and my thoughts drifted back to my own situation. “You shouldn’t have to marry someone you don’t love. I’m wondering the same about myself.”
Her shoulders went rigid, and she straightened, as if righting herself. “Elariya, it’s not going to be like that for you. Thayden adores you.”
“But… do I adore him?” As soon as the question left my lips, I felt exposed. But this was Emabelle, the one person I’d share all my secrets with. And she’d just shared one hell of a secret with me.
“You’ll get used to him. You’re just affected by everything that’s happened.”
I leaned closer for extra privacy and balled my hand into a fist. “I feel like everyone is keeping secrets from me. Things feel wrong.”
“Of course, they’d feel wrong. You can’t remember anything.”
“That’s not what I mean. My gut… is telling me something else is going on. And my journals feel off. Everything feels off. Thayden feels off. Every time he touches me, I want to run out of my skin, yet I’m supposed to believe we’re madly in love. And this…” I held up my wrist to show her the sigil.
She flinched and narrowed her stare. “You know what Grandmother said.”
“Yes. I know what she said, but it doesn’t feel like it’s what she’s saying. It doesn’t look like a punishment, either.”
“Elariya, stop.” A bewildered look filled her eyes, and I could see she was genuinely afraid. But afraid of what? “Please just stop.”
“I just want the truth.”
“The truth might feel distorted right now.” She spoke in that careful tone everyone had been using with me. “Because you can’t remember Thayden.”
No. It wasn’t that at all. I knew what I felt. And deep down, I had a sinking feeling she knew what I meant, too, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t going to agree with me. Maybe it was the same fear I’d sensed in her.
She covered my fingers with hers again. “Look, I know everything feels strange right now, but you’re in good hands.
That’s all that matters. Especially during a time like this.
We always had King Varis to rely on. Now we don’t.
Take comfort in knowing you and your family will still be taken care of. ”
The words should’ve soothed me. Instead, they landed like a lock clicking into place.
She might have been right, but it wasn’t enough. Not when my skin kept insisting something was wrong.
Gods, I wasn’t going to get an answer tonight. Not from her.
But perhaps there was one thing I could get her to clear up for my peace of mind. “Tell me one thing, please.”
“What is it?”
“Mother did a virginity test when I woke. She said I wasn’t a virgin.”
Her skin went pale, but I swore I caught a spark of wonder in her eyes.
“I thought I would have written it down,” I said hoarsely. “But I didn’t. The only other thing I would’ve done is tell you. Did I tell you? I just…” My throat tightened. “Was it Thayden?”
She smiled the first real smile of the evening and shook her head. “No, it wasn’t him.”
Blessed Mother. I shouldn’t have felt so relieved.
“No?” I bit back a smile.
“No.”
A darker thought crossed my mind. “I wasn’t attacked or anything, was I?”
“No.” Her fingers tightened around mine with reassurance. “I don’t know when you lost it, but knowing you… you would’ve been with someone you truly wanted to be with.”
Thank the Gods. “I wonder who it was.”
“I know this sounds bad,” she said quietly, and something like regret flickered across her face. “But it doesn’t matter now. It can’t.”
I nodded slowly. Again, she was right.
What did a forgotten love matter, when I was about to marry Thayden?
“Come on, eat your pie. Let’s just have this moment and enjoy it.”
Because our days together were numbered.
“Yeah. We can do that.”
She lifted her tankard, and I did the same, clinking mine against hers.
The house was quiet when I finally retreated to my chamber, the halls dim and familiar in a way that should have comforted me.
I slipped into my bed and lay back against the pillows, staring at the darkened ceiling. Emabelle’s words looped through my mind— “It doesn’t matter now. It can’t.”
The harsh reality was nothing mattered, except what we were already doing. And I was glad Emabelle had her own plans. At least one of us would have the love we wanted.
I turned onto my side and curled my fingers around the edge of the blanket, my thoughts tangling together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.
Tomorrow was another day. One day closer to the next reset. One day closer to my wedding.
I couldn’t even think about finding my father, about breaking the curse. My journals might have felt off, but my grandmother’s words echoed through every one of them: Find him. Find him. Find him.
I tried to update my current journal this morning, but I couldn’t. Whatever was broken inside me refused to be shaped by ink.
I dragged in a breath and gazed through the window at the shadowed trees leading toward Griffin Forest. I let my mind drift, indulging the pull that still called to me.
My eyes fluttered shut, and for a few heartbeats, all I heard was the thud of my own pulse.
Then the air shifted.
Not around me but inside me.
There was warmth at my back. A steady pressure, like hands bracing me, holding me in place, as something vast moved just out of reach.
My thoughts slipped, sinking into a wash of gray nothingness.
The world around me had no edges, only a sense of space stretching outward in every direction, soft and endless, as if I were suspended between breaths. Sound existed without a source, a low, distant hum that seemed to vibrate through me.
I tried to move, to turn, but my body wouldn’t answer. The warmth tightened, possessive, demanding.
Then something whispered to me.
A still voice, small and thin, barely there. So faint I couldn’t tell who it belonged to.
“Ziy…ka.”
“Ziyka.”
“Ziyka!”
I bolted upright with a gasp, sheets tangled around my legs, sweat slicking my skin. My heart hammered as if it had been running long before I woke, and pain sparked inside my wrist.
I whimpered as the mark there flared, sending heat radiating through my arm. Then the ache wrapped around my heart and squeezed.
Panting, I pressed a hand to my chest and tried to breathe through it.
When I calmed, I looked down at my wrist, at the black sigil. It didn’t look any different, but the pang still thrummed beneath.
Blessed Mother… what was that?
And that dream…
It hadn’t felt like a dream.
I scanned the room, frantic, as if I might find proof lingering in the shadows.
The certainty settled heavily and cold in my bones.
And I knew in my heart it hadn’t been a dream.