Memory's Wake (6 page)

“Nothing, I am not,” Eloryn insisted to them both, flustered.

Roen pushed back to his feet, took hold of Eloryn’s arm and moved her away from Memory. He placed Eloryn with her back to the furthest wall and bent down to whisper to her.

“Hey, let go of her!” Memory moved after them, but Roen gave her a warning look, stopping her in her tracks. He turned back to Eloryn who stared in alarm at where he held her. He pulled back his grasping hand and clenched his teeth. This was all going very wrong. For a moment that he, his parents and so many others had dreamt of for so long, to find this person of such importance, and here he was, throwing the princess into rubbish and manhandling her.

“Please,” Roen beseeched her. “Trust I am no enemy. Tell me it’s so, that you are the heir. You’re the right age. You’re in possession of our late Queen’s medallion,” he swallowed, skin tingling with goose bumps, “and her appearance.”

She looked from him to Memory with fear in her eyes. Roen dropped his voice to an even lower whisper. “This girl, Memory, who is she? Is she a threat? If she’s a danger to you in any way, I can help.”

“She’s not, I’m not, she’s...” Eloryn panted out the words then her knees gave way and she fell in a faint. Roen blinked in disbelief, just managing to catch the falling girl. Memory dashed across the room and took Eloryn’s weight out of his arms, the two girls sinking to the floor together.

“What did you do to her?” she demanded. “What was that interrogation about?”

Roen stood above them, hand hovering near his mouth.
Could I be entirely wrong about this? No. Everything adds up to the same answer. She has to be.

“You really don’t know who this is?” he asked Memory.

“I just met her yesterday,” she snapped at him. Eloryn’s eyes fluttered back open and Memory loosened her bear hug hold of her. “We haven’t slept. We’ve just... just been running.”

The girls gave him matching glares. He didn’t blame them. He couldn’t believe in his desperation to know the truth he’d driven Eloryn - already injured, terrified and exhausted - to collapse. He felt sick to his stomach. Even if she wasn’t who he believed her to be, he’d acted poorly. If she was, it was unforgivable.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive my behavior. Whoever you are, and it doesn’t matter who that is, I can assume you’ve been running from someone, or something, terrible?” He dropped down next to them. Eloryn now kneeled unsupported, but swayed as she stared warily at him. Memory hesitated, then nodded for the both of them.

“You don’t have to tell me what it is. Just let me help you. I can sneak you from the city, past anyone who might be watching, to somewhere safe. I give my word you will be safe.”

No answer came. Roen bowed his head, unruly hair dropping over his face. “Forgive me, I only want to help,” he whispered.

“You promise?” Memory asked with a pout, sounding very much like a child.

He nodded with all the sincerity he could show.

“Will there... be food? And beds?”

Hope tweaked the corner of his mouth into a small smile. He stood and stretched a hand to her, which, after one false start, she took gingerly. He then offered a hand to Eloryn.

Looking defeated, Eloryn brought herself up to her feet with the wall as her aid, ignoring Roen’s hand. “Memory, I don’t… I don’t want to go with him.”

Roen put on his most charming, pleading look for Memory, who at least acknowledged his presence. He didn’t know how she fitted into this situation, but if she could help persuade Eloryn to come with him, that was what mattered right now. No girl he’d ever known had been able to say no to that look.

“We need rest. We’re a mess, Lory. I don’t think either of us knows what we’re doing. We might as well have had flashing lights on our heads out there. If he can help us get away from here then I vote we go with him.” Memory’s voice became a little kinder. “If he was going to rat us out, he had his chance before. He’s helped us twice already. That has to count for something.”

Eloryn gave the faintest nod.

Roen dug Eloryn’s bag out of the debris pile where it had fallen and walked back to her.

“My name is Roen. Here.” He did not pass the bag to her this time. Instead, he draped the large satchel by its strap over her shoulder and across her torso. His hand brushed her waist while he adjusted the strap and pressed the bag to her side. “Wear it like this. Keep it always close to your body.” Letting the bag go, he stood the barest space away from her. “You should take more care of your belongings, and try not to be so tempting with thieves about.”

“Oh, come on,” said Memory. “You’re going to make her faint again.”

Memory walked beside Eloryn, following more than a few steps behind Roen. He led them through a system of tunnels under the town. Tunnels and caves were almost all Memory knew of life so far. Maybe that was why she didn’t feel the discomfort that being down here seemed to bring out in the other two. Maybe she was just too tired. No, she was definitely too tired. She felt like a visitor in her own body. It kept moving along of its own accord. She barely felt the ache anymore.

Earlier while they walked around the market, Memory had fished through all her pockets, trying to find out something about herself. Lots of things came to her naturally – words, actions, general knowledge - but still not a single memory of herself or her past had come back. She felt like she was learning everything from scratch again.
I don’t even know what I look like.

Her heart had sunk when she found a crumbled mess of multi-colored metal and plastic in her back pocket. She guessed it might have been a phone, before it was crushed some time during their hazardous journey the night before. Maybe earlier. When she asked Eloryn if she had a phone she could use, Eloryn looked at her as if she spoke a foreign language. Not that she knew any numbers or names of people to call anyway. But still, everything felt so strange. Magic. No phones. The fancy clothing everyone wore. Maybe she’d gotten lost at a LARP convention. Maybe she was just more messed up in the head than she thought.

That
is
entirely likely
, she thought, glumly. She second guessed the reality of everything she’d seen so far. Dragons, moving trees and trolls were hard to believe after all. Even that beast man in the forest. She’d thought at first he was just another of the scary chasing men, but when he took hold of her, he threw her to safety, relatively anyway. She thought she saw recognition of some kind in his wild blue eyes, but in the riot of confusion that formed her first moments of consciousness she couldn’t be sure of anything, not even his existence. How could she ever find him again anyway? She somehow doubted he’d have a phone number, even if she still had a working phone.

The only other things she found in her pockets were a piece of cherry gum and a knife. One look at the knife told her it wasn’t the kind you take camping, it was the kind you threatened people with.
Is that who I am, the kind of person that threatens people?
She decided to keep the knife to herself. Eloryn already looked at her sometimes as if she was dangerous, and maybe she was, but that wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to find out about herself. Besides, she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets and Eloryn’s seemed much bigger than a knife in the back pocket.

Memory wiped her hands on her jeans, but gave up when it only made them dirtier. Resigned to eating even more dirt than she had already, she unwrapped the gum and popped it in her mouth. The candy cherry flavor rushed across her tongue, unfamiliar. She turned to Eloryn. “So,
Princess,
what was that all about?” Memory realized that she hadn’t even known Avall was a monarchy. Then again, she only knew the name of the place because Eloryn told her.

“It meant nothing.” Eloryn kept her eyes averted.

“It didn’t look like nothing.” The way Roen had grabbed Eloryn, moving her against her will, left Memory with a strange, ill feeling inside. She discarded it, filed away with all her other confusing emotions, and tried to judge Roen anew. She hated how handsome she found him, how she just wanted to touch that soft caramel hair, and how when he smiled, she couldn’t help but like him. It made it hard to say no to him, and left her wondering if she’d made the choice to go with him for the right reasons. Why was everyone she’d met so far so damn pretty! Amnesia or not, Memory knew pretty people lied too.
Everyone lies,
her heart told her.

Wow, learned something new about myself. Turns out I’m a cynic. Surprise.
She looked at Roen walking ahead of them. Not very tall, lightly built; Memory kept telling herself the two of them could overpower him if they needed to, but the way he moved revealed a casual, confident strength that made her worry.

“Really, I just felt faint, from exhaustion. That was all.” Eloryn blushed so earnestly Memory had to suppress a giggle.

“I heard what he said, Lory. He said Princess. And with the kneeling and all.”

Eloryn’s eyes shifted as though looking for a way out of a trap.

Memory sighed. “Look, I’m working with nothing here, know nothing except what you tell me. Why the hell would you leave out a detail like being a princess? Seriously, if it’s for reals it’s kind of cool, right?”

“We’re nearly there,” Roen called back to them before Eloryn could give an answer.

So intent on needling Eloryn, Memory hadn’t noticed the rich orange cast of light falling into the tunnel up ahead. They were at the tunnel’s end, and it opened out onto an untended set of terraced fields. The sun had just begun to brush the sky with color as it fell toward night, and lit the dried crops to a burnished copper.

Eloryn and Memory caught up to him where he waited at the exit, haloed by the golden light. He pointed through the rambling reeds to a small rundown cottage.

“That’s where we are going.” He gave a small cough and Memory thought he almost seemed embarrassed.

“My parents and I live out of town because, in a way, we are also running from something.” He began walking forward again, but slowly this time, not letting them hang behind. He directed them straight through the web of unharvested corn stalks and twisting weeds, bending them out of the way. Dry stalks crunched satisfyingly under their feet, releasing wafts of musty mud fragrance.

“My parents, you see, are Grand Duke Brannon and Grand Duchess Isabeth Faerbaird. You may have heard of them?”

Despite Eloryn’s studied indifference, her voice held an edge of suspicion. “I have. But if you were their son, you would be a prince, then?”

Memory swallowed her gum, coughing. “What, seriously?” She couldn’t hide her surprise, but Roen didn’t seem to care. He continued to watch Eloryn intently. Princes and princesses everywhere. She felt left out.

“I’m no kind of prince. If my parents were still ruling, then I may have had that title. But my parents were close friends of Queen Loredanna’s, and our family loyal to the Maellan bloodline. When Thayl Vaircarn killed her and the King, my parents lost their titles, land and more, fighting him. It is his fault my parents have been forced to live poorly for so long.”

“These are dangerous words,” Eloryn said, her lips tight and stubborn.

“I believe I’ve already made my allegiances clear. If I’m endangered by that, can it be worse to explain why they are so?”

“Explaining is good,” Memory said. “I like it when people explain things.”

“Well,” Roen continued, rewarding her with a lopsided smile, “I’ve plenty of stories to tell. My parents always believed Loredanna’s newborn survived Thayl’s slaughter. They and my brothers fought to remove Thayl, to find the lost heir, or at least assign a more worthy leader. Obviously to no avail. We went into hiding after that. We’ve still got a friend or two in the nobility who make sure we remain overlooked when needed. It’s been hard for my parents, so I look after them now. They miss royal life, and it’s risky even for them to be seen in town. So I work, and try and bring them things of value when I stumble across them.”