Chapter 22
Zenevieve
Another prison. It is to be expected.
I lay on the hard little bunk, tracing my fingers over the dank stones.
I feel as though I have been a prisoner for several lifetimes, though I can’t remember the walls of my last prison, who my jailor was, or even my crime.
It must have been something terrible, because so many people are angry with me.
I look at their faces, and I feel a sense of déjà vu.
This place. Have I been here before? Zenevieve, that white-haired Alpha kept calling me. Is that my name? Do I know him?
A man enters my cell, and I start screaming. I know his face. He’s done something to me. His eyes are red and his hair is black as coal, and I whimper his name and try to get away. “Emmeric. No—don’t. Please.”
He retreats, and a woman enters in his place. She looks familiar as well, but I don’t feel the same crushing fear in her presence. She looks at me like she’s in pain. She pities me. She talks to me like she knows me.
I hear myself asking to speak to Zabriel—who is Zabriel?—and gabbling about danger. I didn’t mean what I said to Stesha. What did I say to Stesha? Who is Stesha?
I don’t understand anything that’s happening. For splinters of moments, I think I know who I am, and then the certainty is gone again.
Women dressed in red tend to me and give me things to drink.
They tell me to rest and cover me with warm blankets.
Whenever I sleep, I awaken soon after covered in cold sweat and screaming from nightmares.
It takes me a long time to realize that I’m no longer in a cell made from bricks, but in a chamber with smooth black stone walls.
A woman in red is bathing sweat from my forehead, and I seize her arm. “Will I survive the lavish sickness, Mother?”
The woman’s eyes widen in surprise. Mother Linnea.
That’s her name. I remember now. Gods, my head has become so muddled from nightmares.
It must be the fevers that the lavish sickness brings on.
“The things I have been dreaming. Terrible things.” My eyes widen in surprise.
“I am speaking without coughing. Does this mean I am finally getting better?”
Mother Linnea is blinking back tears. “You do not have lavish sickness, my dear.”
My brows draw together in confusion. “But you said it was lavish sickness. I couldn’t have any medicine because I needed to cough.”
“You recovered from lavish sickness a long time ago. We don’t know your ailment, but it seems to have been induced by magic, and we are hopeful that you will recover.”
Not lavish sickness? I look at my arms, surprised to find they’re no longer painfully thin and wasted.
I cover my face in horror as it comes rushing back. I survived the lavish sickness. I told Stesha he has a heart of ice. I flew away from Lenhale on Minta. My whole body was aching, and I was thin and weak. And then…and then…
I don’t know what then. “Why can’t I remember what happened to me?”
Mother Linnea is silent. When I turn to demand that she tells me all she knows, there’s no one there. There isn’t even a bowl of water or the cloth she was using to bathe my forehead.
I clench my hands on either side of my head, breathing hard. Oh gods, what’s wrong with me?
Time passes in splinters. People tell me things that have happened or that I’ve said, and sometimes I remember but often I don’t. Does Stesha live? I must have asked. I don’t remember. Where is my dragon? Why can’t I feel her?
A young woman who is vaguely familiar comes to see me, and it’s on a day when I have managed to keep track of the hours ever since morning.
At least, I think I have. She tells me such shocking things.
That the king and queen are dead and Zabriel is the new king.
That Stesha lives. Thank the gods, Stesha lives. But no one has seen my dragon.
I weep for Minta for hours on end, until I forget why I’m weeping.
There is parchment and a quill by my bedside, and I write down everything that’s important, and I read the words over and over in the hopes that they will sink in. I look up from the parchment and find I’m in the middle of a conversation with Mother Linnea with no memory of how it began.
“He is not the man he once was,” she says sadly.
“Who?” I ask.
Mother Linnea sighs and gives me a long, pitying look, and I wonder how many times I’ve lost the thread of this conversation. She patiently says, “The dragonmaster.”
“But why? What has happened to him?” I cry, terrified that someone has hurt Stesha.
“It is not what has happened to him. It is what has happened to you. He’s devastated.”
I sag back against my pillows. “He does not care so much for me.”
“Your memory is playing tricks on you. The dragonmaster has always held you dear. Just yesterday he beat his head bloody from despair over what you have been through.”
“I probably wasn’t the reason. I don’t even know what I’ve been through,” I mutter.
“You were Emmeric’s captive,” she reminds me gently. “The dragonmaster made mistakes with you, but he has always held you dear, and he’s afraid… Well, perhaps it’s best that you don’t remember. Try to get some sleep, dear.”
When she’s gone, I sink back onto my pallet and stare at the ceiling in confusion.
Held me dear. What does that mean, held me dear?
I have been struggling with my feelings for Stesha forever, and what his might be for me, and I am no closer to understanding them.
Stesha and I spent one of his ruts together, I know that.
I press my fingers to my lips, remembering his kisses.
His hot breath on my mouth. How beautiful and fierce he was as we were joined.
But then he rejected me and declared he wanted another woman.
Stesha does not hold me dear. He would not hurt himself from the agony of not having me or from worrying about me. I would remember if he cared for me that much.