Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (16 page)

Memory sat on the steps of their room, staring out into the endless twisting trees around them. They swayed in her half closed eyes. She tried to remember why she’d gotten angry. Her brain played over recent memories like a faulty video, all slow motion, slurring voices and skipping frames.
Devilish,
that was it. Why did he have to say something like that? They were all getting along so well, she’d almost forgotten she was probably a spawn of Hell.

The air was icy, but the alcohol provided enough fuel to keep her warm. Everything smelled of earthy wood smoke. Somewhere inside her she knew there was something she ought to be aware of, frightened of. She ignored the feeling, mentally filing it into her “Everything So Far” folder, and let her eyes glaze over.

“Don’t try to use him,” a hesitant voice said from nearby.

Memory turned around so quickly she slipped off the step down to the next with a bump. A dark shape sat hunched on the small roof above the doorway. A flickering sprite hovered around, casting just enough light to show a body covered in animal furs.

“Ah, he speaks. Doesn’t make much sense though,” Memory slurred.

No reply. The sprite had vanished and only the shadow of a hunched figure remained. Memory squinted to see if it really was her savage guardian, and shook off a wave of nausea. “Ugh, is this real life?”

“The dragon.” His voice sounded real, real enough to sound frustrated. “He’s under a man’s control. He can’t do what he wants.”

“If it catches and kills us, it doesn’t matter to me if it wanted to do it or not,” Memory said. “Were you eavesdropping?”

The savage’s voice took a hard edge. “It’s a living thing, not a weapon. The men use a flute-”

“Knew that.”

“-made from bone of the dragon’s soul mate, that they killed. You have to understand.” The wild man’s voice dropped back to a whisper. “They make him belong to them.”

“That’s…” Memory drew quiet, the smug smile falling off her face, “really sad.”

The cold crept into Memory’s skin. She watched the curling mist match the frost on the air that she breathed. With each breath, her frown deepened.

“Why do you keep helping me?” she asked after a while.

Nothing, again. He was gone. She stood up quickly, a little too quickly. She felt as if she left her head behind her, too heavy to follow that fast. She could only remember every second thing. Swearing, she fumbled her way back inside, swiftly plummeting into a woozy black sleep.

The sound of scratching at the door latch froze Roen and Eloryn in place, his nose still pressed against hers and uneven breath brushing over her lips.

“Pray pardon. It was wrong of me,” Roen said. The frown had never left his face. He backed away from her and turned around as Memory stumbled inside.

Eloryn’s legs conspired to collapse beneath her. She dropped in slow motion and found herself on the edge of the bed. Eyes closed in a slow blink and she filled her breathless lungs. She shook her head from the alcohol and emotions but could not clear it.

“Why the hell did I go outside? It’s cold out there. You ‘k Lory?” Memory flopped belly first onto the bed.

Eloryn put a palm to her forehead, blinking through her shock. “I don’t… don’t know.”

Memory said something that was muffled by her face in the bed.

“Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning, hopefully with good news.” Roen took the flagon and left the room without looking back.

Eloryn fell onto the bed next to Memory. Her heart beat hard enough to shake her whole body.

His knuckles split as he hit the rough bark of the tree. Leaves above rustled in protest.

A giggle rang out like the sound of chimes in a soft wind. “My sweet pet, come here, let me make it better for you.”

“She was drunk,” he growled low.

Mina appeared behind him. Her fingers stroked around his neck and she spun herself in a pirouette to his front. She bent into his chest with a smile. “Of course she was, blind drunk. Why else do you think I let you prattle on how you did?” Her voice lowered as she spoke, both sultry and cruel.

Prattle on.
Saying even a word to her was the hardest thing he’d done for a long time. He wanted so badly to tell her everything, and when a chance finally came to speak to her without those others around, she was wasted. Absently, he pushed a hand up into Mina’s fiery hair. The corner of his mouth pulled into a mockery of a smile. Never before had he been so aware of how little control he had over his own movements when close to Mina. Her hair felt like warm water between his fingers, and he bent his face toward hers.

A sharp thump-click sounded through the icy silent night, and he leant back into the shadow of a tree, pulling Mina in closer to him. She nuzzled into his shoulder and he turned to watch the thief boy slinking out of the room at the inn. Roen brought a large flagon up just away from his lips and held it there for a few moments as though stopped in time, then tossed it angrily aside. Clear liquid spilled through the air and fell like rain, and the bottle thumped into nearby bushes.

The thief looked carefully around, and slipped into the shadows himself.

Standing next to Mina, the savage breathed deep through his nose. “He smells of her.” Even from this far away, he could smell him, and her on him. And even in the dark, as well as the thief moved, it was easy to see where he went. His time spent with Mina and the other fae had its benefits. He was no longer what he once was, no longer weak.

“Enough about
Her
!” Mina’s eyes glittered like sparking flint and her nails dug into his chest. Like the sun passing out from behind a cloud, her face shone with a smile again, but her nails remained clawed in his skin. “My sweet little boy. Who saved you when you were too lost and hungry to survive?”

“You did,” he said, dropping his forehead onto hers.

“Who has shown you wonders greater than you could have ever imagined?”

He knew these words, knew the answers he had to give, but they hurt now, as they came through his mouth, more than they ever had before. “You.”

“Who is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

“You.”

“Who do you love above all else, even your short mortal life?”

He looked across to the inn. The window to the small back room was now dark, and the thief boy worked his way into someone else’s. Through the chilled night air, the familiar scent of cheap packet hair dye, blood and crushed flowers drifted to him. She still smelled just the way he remembered, the way she did back before they both came to this world. He breathed the fragrance deeply, holding it in his chest. His lips pressed hard against Mina’s forehead and when he whispered they moved against her skin.

“You.”

“You took your time. I started to think you had perished in the waters after all.”

“I was just dreaming about this weird guy on a roof, telling me things about soul mates or music or something. It’s all fuzzed up and skippy.” Memory talked to herself. She was nothingness, floating in a thick, comforting dark. Shapes were forming all around. A horse skeleton of rusted metal and chains swam past. Sprites fizzled like fireworks. Streams of golden light flowed in the distance.

“Sometimes we confuse dream for waking, and real for dream.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, from inside herself, deep, sad and forceful.

“Am I asleep now, or awake?” Memory grew a hand, followed by the rest of her body, and reached out to pull a silk tasseled cord. It caused a ribbon of silver to fall which became a road paved in glass. She walked along it.

“You’ve only just begun dreaming, but I am real. We share this space as we did the dream yesterday morning. I mistook it as only a dream myself until I met you while waking.” A tall figure strode out from amongst the condensing shapes.

“You?” Memory said, marching onwards. “I don’t want you here.”

“You have no choice. I was told we would remain connected, by time and space forever, but never thought I’d see you again for it to matter.” Thayl drew a black velvet and ebony throne from the shadows and sat in front of Memory. He shimmered, his eyes less tired than in the real world, but still haunted. “Don’t fret. I’m not here to harm you, and don’t know if I could here, regardless. This is your mind, not mine.”

She kept walking away from him but he remained right beside her in his throne. “That chair isn’t mine.”

“Well, it is somewhat sparsely furnished here.” Thayl gestured to the black. “Where are you going?”

Memory stopped on the path. “It’s all empty.”

Thayl tilted his head toward a grey alleyway in the distance.

“I don’t want to go there.”

“Why?” His voice teased.

“Don’t remember.” Glass cobblestones rearranged under her motionless feet. They lifted and flew, a flock of invisible squares floating around her.

“You don’t remember anything.”

“I remember you said I was a devil.”

“My mistake. Forgive that I startled you. I was simply shocked to see you after the dream we shared. I mistook you to have come alive from my nightmare. That is all. I think it must have scared you too.”

“I’m not a devil?” She couldn’t help sounding hopeful.

“Of course not. That first dream we shared was… just a mix of strange visions.”

“But...”
Your hand,
she thought.

Thayl cut her off. “But I do know what is real. I even know who you really are and where you are from.”

Memory floated, her path entirely gone from beneath her. Her stomach dropped away but she didn’t fall.

“But...”

“But,” he interrupted again, “you have something I want in return. The girl you were with at Palace de Montredeur.”

“Ugh! Typical.” Memory hissed and a swarm of tiny dancing gowns nearby caught on fire. “It’s always about precious Eloryn! I’m so over it already!”

“Then let me have her and have all your problems solved,” Thayl said, his voice as dark and velvet as his throne.

She wanted that. Wanted it so much.

“What will you do with her?” That wasn’t what she meant to say.

“No wrong.”

“What isn’t wrong to a man who killed the woman he loved?”

A flame lit in Thayl’s eyes and he arose in fury. He stormed toward her and Memory stumbled backwards.

Flashing shadows passed between them and when they cleared, the anger in Thayl had gone, replaced with simmering grief.

“Daring to say such things when you know nothing at all! I did not kill her. Never would have, never could have.” His voice sounded too hurt to be a lie.

Memory fought the urge to back away further as Thayl glared down at her. “But everyone says.”

“It’s what everyone chooses to believe, that I am the evil to hate. Everyone can believe as they want, let them fear me more. But I want you to know the truth. I want you to see I’m not the one to distrust.”

Thayl drew another, simpler chair from the black, offering it to Memory. His face had grown still, carved from wax and too cold to melt. “Sit; I will show you the truth. Once you have some knowledge in this empty head then you can make your judgment.”

Thayl returned to his throne, and Memory took the second chair, lowering herself in with hesitation as though it might bite.

“Loredanna and I were in love...” Thayl began.

“You were a stalker,” Memory interrupted with a whisper.

“We were in love, together,” Thayl said, the corner of his lips turning down in irritation.

A scene lit in front of them. A woman in the finest of gowns with coifed cream hair sobbed uncontrollably, heartbreakingly, into the shoulder of a man; Thayl, when he was younger, straighter. The frown on his face was now fresh and not yet set in permanence.

“She looks just like Eloryn,” Memory said.

“This is Loredanna, her mother.”

“What did you do to her?”

Thayl raised an eyebrow. “You truly think me a monster? This is my memory, of when she was given news from the Wizards’ Council that they had not allowed me to be her husband. My magical talent was considered too weak for the royal bloodline, so she was chosen another partner. She cried for weeks, and was never happy again, from that time till her death. I swore then that those who forced our love apart would hurt even more than she.”

“So you killed the King and all those wizards?”

“I’ve never denied this. It was as they deserved, and I will continue until I see revenge on every wizard of the council who took her from me.”

Alward,
Memory thought, but it sounded louder than if she’d yelled, echoing through the black around them.

“
Pellaine.
Him most of all. He is mine now, and when I no longer need him I will see justice paid for his crime. He is the one who killed the most perfect being of this world.” Thayl’s voice dropped into a growling whisper, hissing through bared teeth.

Memory opened her mouth, needing the answer to a million questions.

“Just watch,” Thayl murmured.

A new scene flashed by and Memory turned to it. Like a silent movie it played.

The beautiful Queen sat sad and alone, full with child in an unlit room. Through the open frame of a window she watched the moon fading into the sky around it, burnt to red by the earth’s shadow. A sound startled her and a smile of hope lit her face when she saw it was Thayl who approached. He held her, and pleaded with her, and through tears she nodded agreement. Reaching up to her neck, she unclasped a chain and removed a heavy amulet, the same crested one Eloryn had owned. She flung it onto the table with a look of disgust and triumph, then took Thayl’s hand and not a single other thing and they left.

The vision flickered, cut and jumped, to a forest of grim trees and shadows. Thayl and Loredanna fled into the woods with a look of anxious, terrified hope.