Chapter 13
Who are You?
“You lied.”
Alissa could have recognized the sweet, high-pitched voice from miles away for the way it warmed her heart. She looked down to her left and saw the little girl staring at the walls that held Bryniard captive from the rest of Heldraine.
“What did I lie to you about, sweetheart?” Alissa asked.
“You said we would find out what’s beyond the wall together, but you left me behind.”
Alissa’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at the huge wall. It was like someone had taken hold of her heart and squeezed it hard between their fingers.
“I only did it to save you, honey.” Alissa knelt to hold the girl close. She wished she could embrace her forever, keeping her daughter warm, loved, and safe from any harm. She wished nothing would ever make her bleed, cry, or cause her suffering.
But as she tried to reach out to Dhalia to fulfill all those wishes, Alissa’s hands went right through her small figure, like she was made of fog instead of flesh and bones.
Alissa desperately tried to hold on to her, to breathe in the scent of jasmine that enveloped her small clothes, to touch her soft, rosy cheeks. But she couldn’t.
She saw, then, how, all of a sudden, the girl’s hair color faded from the shiny gold, her natural color, into pure white. White as bright as silver. She saw the color of her eyes change, from dark brown to light blue. She saw the black and white threads start embracing her all over again.
For a moment, Alissa thought she was having a vision of Dhalia’s appearance when Senectus Subita finally sucked the years of youth from her, aging the girl to her last breath.
However, when she looked at the figure standing there, she didn’t recognize her child anymore.
She saw a beautiful woman, her white shiny hair and eyes blue as the sky—the same woman she had seen in the canyons.
“She looks a lot like me at her age,” the woman said, but her voice was nothing like what she had heard in the canyons.
This time, it was sweet and caring. “I hope she doesn’t make the same mistakes I did.
” The young woman’s smile faded. Her expression darkened at whatever memory brought so much regret to her soul.
“Who are you?” Alissa asked, her voice faltering.
“If you find out the answer to that question soon enough, you might be able to save her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hope you, unlike all the fools before your little girl, can find out the truth in time, Alissa.”
“What truth?” she begged, reaching out for the woman for answers, attempting to grab shoulders that weren’t truly there.
“Good luck,” the woman said before vanishing into the air.
Alissa woke up with a start. Sweat slid down her forehead, her heart racing so hard she feared Eldric would hear it on the sleeping mat beside her.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember everything she had dreamed, but like in every other dream, her mind seemed to be intentionally hiding important pieces of the puzzle.
As if her brain made the effort to steal those memories away from her grasp.
Like they were something she was never supposed to have seen.
Alissa stood up and quickly rummaged through her bag to find her notebook and quill pen.
The same ones she had taken to the potion shop to ask Mr. Hamit the questions that led her out of Bryniard.
She wrote down keywords as recollections of her dream came back and forth: young woman, silver hair, blue eyes.
Reading her words aloud flushed her mind with memories of something Dhalia had told her the day after Mr. Monlard’s service: “I had a dream of a princess. She had silver hair and blue eyes.”
It can only be her!
The woman from her dream must have been the princess Dhalia had mentioned that morning, the same girl the other victims of Senectus Subita had dreamed about.
But who was she?
A heartbeat later, another important detail returned to her. “If you find out the answer to that question soon enough, you might be able to save her,” the woman had said.
Alissa wrote down those exact words in her notebook before her brain tried to steal them from her again.
Suddenly, it struck her that the verses she heard from the canyons, leading her straight to Golheim, weren’t the only answers she had been given.
The apparition of this same woman was a vital clue she had almost let slip away.
Staring blankly at the paper where she scribbled, she bit her lower lip, waiting for the paper to magically give her the answer she so desperately needed.
Tapping her feet, Alissa glanced ahead and saw Freyah standing guard. On her right, Eldric slept like a baby. His breathing blended with his own snoring and the sounds of the forest where they camped that night. She crawled to where he lay and abruptly shook his body.
“Van Myr,” she whispered low in his ear, trying to wake him up. He was the only person she knew who could answer that question.
In a matter of seconds, Eldric grabbed the knife he left by his sleeping mat, climbed over Alissa’s body, and pressed the blade against her throat.
She swallowed slowly, her eyes wide in fear, aware of the touch of the cold blade against her skin.
His breathing was so close to hers, she could smell mint.
Eldric was aware that he had used his weight to pin someone to the ground.
It was only after his eyes focused on the view of the woman beneath him that he recognized her.
His knife was pressed so hard on Alissa’s jugular that he wouldn’t need to put much more pressure into his grip to end her life in a second.
When his gaze settled on hers, Eldric saw fear. He sighed, lowering the knife from her neck.
Alissa took a breath of relief but couldn’t help but notice his body was still on top of hers, his chest against her own, pressing her against the floor so hard she could barely draw enough air into her lungs.
“What happened?” he murmured in a threatening yet sleepy tone.
“Nothing. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Did you just wake me up like that to ask me a question?” He didn’t want her to notice how scared he had been, thinking they were in danger, so he put on his best look of boredom. Despite his efforts, his pounding heart gave him away.
“It was important,” Alissa said, their eyes inevitably locked, such was their proximity.
“I could have killed you.” His tone was a warning.
His awareness of her body and how she reacted to him was unmistakable; her eyes hiding intent, her long and rapid breaths bringing her chest up and down, her racing heart almost to the rhythm of his.
Eldric’s gaze settled on her lips as she bit them, and out-of-place thoughts flooded his mind before he could rein them in.
“I know,” she whispered.
He shook his head, but his scrutiny was as intense as it had been seconds before. It made her blush, and she shifted beneath him, uncomfortable with the attention of his green eyes.
“Could you…” Alissa cleared her throat, looking up to avoid his gaze. “Could you please let go of me?”
Eldric swiftly nodded, although it hadn’t even crossed his mind to stand up. “Do you promise not to do that again, unless we’re in danger?”
“Yes.”
He slowly stood up, sitting back on his sleeping mat, his eyes on her, curious to learn what would be important enough for her to wake him up in the middle of the night.
“Do you know if there are any records in Heldraine of a princess who had silver hair and blue eyes?” Alissa asked, serious, hopeful.
She never would have expected the reaction that followed.
The man burst into laughter. “Okay, nice one. Now tell me the real question.”
In his defense, anyone who didn’t have enough context of the situation Alissa found herself in would think this to be a joke. Alissa didn’t realize that because her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. She grabbed her notebook and walked away with her head down.
Eldric chased after her, but her steps were so fast and determined that he had to make an effort to reach her amid the trees. When he finally did, he took her hand in his, pulling her closer, forcing her to look at him.
“Why are you so upset?” he asked, his voice low. “I should be the one making a scene after you woke me up like that!”
“Because you made fun of me.” She let go of his hand and dug her nails into the small notebook cover.
“I didn’t make fun of you, Kriegen. I thought you were joking.”
“You think I would joke about something like that?” she asked, raising her voice.
Eldric frowned, utterly confused. He obviously didn’t give the same importance to knowing if there was ever a princess in Heldraine whose hair was silver and eyes were blue as she did. It simply made no sense to him.
“Something like… the color of the hair and eyes of a princess?”
Alissa took a deep breath. “Look, Van Myr. I know you think I’m a spoiled little girl who left her town to go on an adventure around the world or whatever, but you have no idea what has brought me here.
” She paused to take a breath and compose herself a little.
“If I woke you up and said this was important, it’s because it is. ”
Eldric watched her. A muscle in his jaw twitched when he noticed her tearful eyes and realized this was truly important to her. Handling it the way he did—however nonsensical it seemed to him—was wrong.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted that way.
” He examined her as she looked down, playing with a loose thread of her shirt to avoid gazing at him.
“Now, answering to your question, there are no records of a princess with such characteristics in the history of Heldraine. Not that I recall, at least.”
He saw her eyes lose a spark of the hope she seemed to be carrying within her. Feeling the need to light it up again, he said, “I’m certain you will find enough volumes on the royal lineage when we get to the library.”
Alissa nodded. “I hope so.”