Chapter 5
The rolling dunes of the desert spread out before us, the stars sparkling overhead. I lay on my back in the sand, staring up while Madden rested beside me.
We’d spent the day continuing on our journey around the base of the mountain, hopefully getting closer to the path that would lead us upward to the top, to my safe haven.
Today, instead of marching ahead of Madden, I walked beside him, talking about my time here, sharing stories from the various suitors who’d come to rescue me, while Madden shared more about himself, who he was in the outside world.
“I didn’t think a cursed world like this would have such a beautiful sky,” Madden said, his hands resting on his stomach.
I turned my head to him. “It normally doesn’t.” I frowned. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the stars.
A flash of a woman’s face interrupted my thoughts.
Then the images came, one after another, so fast I couldn’t close my mind to them: pale skin, red lips, hair black as night.
A castle. Trees. Vines writhing over the ground.
Lush forests. The woman and me, laying side by side underneath the stars, laughing, talking.
“Princess, princess!” A hand gripped my arm, and I looked down, then looked back up, expecting to see the woman next to me. But it was Madden. Those intense brown eyes reminded me of all the shades of the desert.
“I think I just remembered something,” I said, breathless. I shot up. “But there’s no nightmare here. I’m not facing a nightmare. What—”
Madden propped himself up on his elbows. “Maybe by facing that dragon nightmare, you’re beginning to break down whatever walls you’ve built in your mind, allowing more memories to come. What just happened? What did you see?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing the woman’s face so clearly. “I wasn’t in Gilraeth, I don’t think. I was somewhere else with lush forests, green, blue, trees that stretched so high it seemed like they touched the sun.” I opened my eyes to search Madden's face for any kind of recognition.
“That sounds like Elwen,” Madden said.
I raised my brows.
“The earth court.” He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “It borders Gilraeth, located on the other side of Dragonstone Mountains.”
None of those names, outside of Gilraeth, sounded familiar, but that wasn’t surprising given I had no memories of my past life.
“Were you with anyone?” Madden asked.
“A woman.” I toyed with the end of my braid. “She was beautiful, long black hair, skin as white as snow, lips bright red. She seemed like a friend.”
“That sounds like Princess Liliath.”
I supposed if I was a princess of the fire court it would make sense for me to be friends with royalty from other courts around the continent.
“I had a friend.” I paused. “We had fun together. We laughed and talked, and it felt like we might've been close.”
Madden tucked a strand of his brown wavy hair behind an ear, his brows furrowing.
“What’s wrong?” My stomach sank. “Why are you frowning like that?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this, but, well, I guess if you break this curse, you’re going to find out one way or another. Princess Liliath has been imprisoned by her stepmother.”
“What? Where? How?”
He took a deep breath. “There’s not a lot of details, just rumors that make their way across the continent. From what I’ve gathered, her stepmother betrayed Liliath and her father. She used some kind of dark magic to murder the king and then threw Liliath in a prison in her own castle.”
I pictured that laughing woman, how carefree we’d been together, and something in my heart splintered. “That’s awful.”
He nodded. “No one’s been able to rescue her, and her stepmother has let Elwen fall to ruin.
I visited recently, and it looked like a fire had swept through the land, all the plants, grass, trees dead, blackened and wilted, the earth scorched.
Her dark magic has infested everything.” He gestured to the dark sand below us.
“It looks a lot like this cursed world, actually.”
“So a sorceress has taken over Gilraeth, an evil stepmother has taken over Elwen. What of the other courts?”
“Everyone else is okay, as far as I know,” he said, then nudged me. “Hey, you remembered something else, and it wasn’t painful.”
I tapped my chin. “No, it wasn’t.”
Maybe Madden had been onto something after all.
Maybe unlocking my memories wouldn’t shatter me like I thought, like I was so afraid of.
Still, darker memories lurked under the surface of my mind, memories that my own brain locked away to protect me.
It wasn’t these happy memories I feared; it was the painful ones.
Madden sat up and covered my hand with his. “One thing at a time, Princess.”
“Sera,” I said.
He shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. “Now that would be a disrespectful thing to call you.”
“You mean what I’m asking you to call me? I think my command supersedes tradition.”
“What if I’m a very traditional man?”
I let my gaze wander over his body, from the scar stretching from his eye to mouth, to his shoulder-length wavy hair, to the black leather vest he wore, to those bare arms covered with tattoos.
“Nothing about you says traditional.”
He tsked. “That sounds judgmental.”
I pointed to myself. “I’m a princess who no one wants to rescue. I’m not judging.”
He flicked my finger. “A lot of people want to rescue you and to see you rescued.”
I snorted. “Until they meet me and realize I’m not who they’re expecting. I’m not Seraphina. Just Sera. If I ever free myself, the people of the fire court will take one look at me and wish I could go back to being cursed.”
“When,” he said. “Not if.”
“Someone’s feeling very optimistic.”
“And you can be both, you know,” he said, ignoring my statement. “Sera and Seraphina. Princess and warrior. Stubborn and compliant. Pain in my ass and sweet and thoughtful. You get to decide.”
I had a feeling as princess, I actually had very little choice in anything. But Madden didn’t seem like the type of man who knew much about princesses. Which oddly made me like him even more.
I raised my nose in the air. “And I’ll continue to be a pain in the ass as long as you continue to make jabs like that.”
He swept some sand up onto my pants, and a laugh escaped my lips. “How dare you throw sand on a princess.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, now you’re a princess?”
I threw sand at his arm, and a roguish smile overtook his face, danger glinting in his eyes. “And it’s not a jab if it’s the truth.”
Oh, that did it.
I reached out to shove him, and he caught my arm, bringing our faces close together. We locked eyes, and I bent my arm and twisted it underneath his, flipping him onto his back as I straddled him.
“I win,” I said, pinning him to the ground, braid hanging inches from his chest.
“I think I might be the one winning in this situation.” His eyes dipped to my thighs, pressed into either side of his waist.
I swallowed, staring at him and all the contours of his face, the sharp edges and angles, that puckered scar I suddenly wanted to trace with my finger.
A buzzing sounded behind us, faint at first, but growing louder as it got closer. I stilled, turning as thousands of firebugs flitted toward us, their fiery wings flapping. Black smoke swirled around them.
“A nightmare.” My stomach clenched. “What part of my past could this possibly be from?”
I twisted back around to see Madden’s face slacken, a haunted look in his eyes. “I don’t think this is your nightmare,” he said. “It’s mine.”