Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (31 page)

She was back in her room. Back in the castle.

Memory doubled over, breathing through the shock and pain of the instant, and unexpected, Veil transportation.
What in the holy horse balls was that?
That was not what she meant to do, but then her magic had always been as predictable as it had been explainable. The Veil door was something that she could do if she concentrated to control it, but to do it instinctively, or worse accidentally, made her stomach contract.

A shiver built in her back and shuddered out through her limbs, bringing with it a cold sweat.
Calm down. You’re okay, you’re still here,
she told herself firmly, but panic kept debating that with her. What if she wasn’t? Was she even in the same time? What if she got lost in the Veil again for another sixteen years?

She straightened up and analyzed the room.
My room
, she reminded herself. It looked the same as it had that morning, still a total mess. Eloryn had ended up in Loredanna’s well-maintained suite, and the pristine, ornate setting suited her, but Memory couldn’t handle it. It felt like stepping right into the shoes of a mother she’d never known.

Instead, Memory took the adjoining chambers, which would have been the king’s, her father’s. She knew less about him than she did her mother. The royal bloodline was through Loredanna, and he was just some sorry soul whom the Wizard’s Council picked to be her husband, and he only lived another nine months after that. His chambers had not been well kept. Shards of broken vases covered the patchy rug and torn paintings, shrouded in cobwebs, sat where they’d fallen off the walls. This entire wing of the castle had been closed up during the sixteen years of Thayl’s rule, with only Loredanna’s chambers being cared for by Thayl himself.

The debris had been cleared out by servants, and the castle steward argued that room should be properly renovated before Memory moved in. She preferred it like this though, a clean slate. She intended to decorate the room with personal mementos, make it her own, but so far her only belonging was her old wallet that Will had returned to her.

No one had snuck in and renovated the room, or even made the bed, so she guessed she managed to come right back. But this was something that needed to be confirmed. She needed to see her sister and tell her what had happened, both the good news and the bad. How to share the news was another matter.
Hey, I remembered stuff, but then got caught by a furry fairy and Veil doored back to my room without meaning to! Yay?
Memory doubted her twin would take this new installment of weird very well.

She walked to the corner of the sitting room and heard muffled murmurings coming through the patchy wallpapered wall. She knocked hesitantly and the sound stopped. A second later Eloryn called her welcome. Her voice sounded tiny.

“Lory, you won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you.” Memory opened the doorway that looked like a section of wall, joining their chambers. It wasn’t really secret, just designed to fit in. Nerves twinged as she thought how to share the news with her twin, but the sight in the room chased the idea out entirely.

Eloryn’s neat and pretty chambers were now cluttered with wooden chests of all shapes and sizes. Some were open, showing folded clothing and books. Mostly books. Eloryn sat on the floor, surrounded by the boxes, her face splotchy red and wet.

“What happened?” Memory stood frozen for a second then managed to step through the boxes and kneel in front of her sister. Eloryn squinted through tears.

“Hayes arranged to have it all brought here. That’s what the meeting you missed was about. All of our belongings, mine and Alward’s.” She held a man’s shirt, hands like claws, gripping it tight.

“It’s... a lot of books.” Memory bit her tongue. She had to do better than that, be a better friend, a better sister, but felt so awkward.

“It’s not even all of them. They kept everything that falls within the Council’s legal domain - books on magic, the speaking mirror, and all of Alward’s research into the Veil. I understand that the mirror and books had belonged to the Council to start with. Alward took them with him when he went into hiding. I’m not ungrateful. It’s so moving that they went to such trouble to bring this all to me, but I would have liked to see Alward’s research again. I wanted to see his handwriting again.” Eloryn’s small body shook as a loud sob ended her sentence. She covered her eyes with a forearm, blonde hair shimmering as she shook with silent sobs.

Memory had so many things to ask her twin about accidental magic, the fairy ring, and the black-eyed fae. She wanted to celebrate her memories returning. She paused for a moment and looked at her sister.

Memory leaned forward and wrapped Eloryn in a tight hug. The fabric of their skirts rustled against each other and puffed out like they were sitting in clouds. Eloryn put her head on Memory’s shoulder and wept quietly.

“Mem, why is your dress all muddied? What did you want to tell me?” Eloryn mumbled.

“Nothing to worry about.” Memory squeezed Eloryn and let her cry.

It was like some kind of cruel joke, but she was there, really there, standing right in front of Thayl’s cell.

Memory's lip twitched in confused anger. She hadn’t known where Thayl was being kept. She didn’t want to know, as long as he was kept away from her. She had just been wandering the castle, and her traitorous feet led down the cold stone steps into the wisp-lit depths of the dungeons. Guards nodded as she walked by, unlocking gates, watching curiously but not daring to stop her. She just walked and found herself there.

She stood and glared. Thayl sat on a cot in the furthest corner of the room, back against the rough cut wall, hunched over, face hidden by dark wavy hair. Memory could see he’d been unable to shave. His right hand hung down on one side.
Right arm,
Memory corrected herself. Thanks to her, he no longer had a hand there. It was still bandaged, blackened by blood and dirt from the cell. A thick, rotting stench filled the space. His clothes, the same he’d worn the morning she’d cut off that hand, looked grey now, not the rich blue and gold they once were.
Hadn’t he been given anything else to wear?
She cringed off a feeling of sympathy, twitching it away like a spider crawling up her arm.

Thayl reacted to the movement, his head jerking up. He stared at her for a moment then rested his head again on his knees. “Come to gloat? I guess this was inevitable. Say your worst, demon.”

Caught off guard, Memory rambled, “I’m not. I didn’t come here for anything. I didn’t mean to come here at all. I was looking for Roen.”

“I don’t think you’ll find him down here.”

“I mean, I went to try and see Roen, but Isabeth says he’s not here, gone off on some trip all of a sudden without telling me. I couldn’t find him and then I... I ended up here.”
Why am I telling him this? What am I doing here? Why am I not leaving?
Memory looked to the stone stairwell then back to the cell. This was the only cell down these stairs, separate from the rest of the prison. A private high-security dungeon for the most hated man in Avall. Thick gridded copper squares let her see in clearly to the simple stone room. A wooden tray had been slid under a small gap at the front, with just one piece of bread the size of her small fist. She wondered if he’d eaten the rest, or if this was all he got.

Thayl sounded tired, any bait in his words overwhelmed, making him almost seem interested. “Surely you have other people to see. What about your sister? Or that savage pet of yours?”

“Will’s not savage! And it’s your fault how he is now. He wouldn’t have had to grow up like that if it wasn’t for you.” Memory shivered. It wasn’t only Thayl’s fault. She couldn’t help but feel guilty too. “He hasn’t been around much. Being around too many people freaks him out.”

She had thought of looking for Will, but it seemed he could only be found when he wanted to be. She knew he was still around, on guardian angel duty, but she hadn’t exactly been in any danger lately, until the furry-fae encounter, and then he didn’t show. He’d only visited a few times these last weeks and seemed to be getting more withdrawn. His sprite friends were also still hanging around, keeping an eye on her. Memory tried talking to them once, but they treated her like toxic waste. And Eloryn was always so busy, much like Memory should have been if she wasn’t dodging handmaidens and duties. She needed someone to talk to, someone to share her big news, and found no one to turn to. But that didn’t mean she wanted to talk to Thayl. She balled her hands into fists.

“Like you can talk anyway, you’re not far from savage yourself. Doing what you did to the woman you claimed to love.”

Thayl half smiled, as though he were expecting this. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, still as dark and sad as when she’d first seen them at Duke Lanval’s estate. “Not just one.”

“Not one... who what now?” Memory’s raised voice faltered in confusion.

“Not just one woman I loved, but two.” Thayl shook his head, the oily mess of his dark hair glossy in the low light of the cell. “It’s not surprising you were drawn here. You don’t know, but when you were born I had a sixteen-year-old sister. Another beautiful life sacrificed as part of the ritual to take your power. That bloody ritual. That’s why you’re here.”

Memory shook her head, not understanding, not sure she wanted to understand.

“The ritual bound us together, you and I. I barely feel it now without my hand, but I know it’s still there.” Thayl tapped his chest. On the same place on Memory’s body, a disfiguring scar twisted the skin. “Even if you won’t acknowledge it, it’s bringing you to me.”

Memory stood frozen for a moment before a growling grunt of disgust burst out. “Connected to you? Make me want to barf my skin off. I wasn’t drawn here, I just got lost! How could I be connected to someone who would kill his lover
and
his sister over revenge?” Memory breathed hard, snorting the anger out, but her feet remained planted.

Thayl spoke again after a long pause. “Does it help that I didn’t know? I didn’t kill either of them. And I didn’t know they would die.”

“Why should I believe you? Why are you even telling me this? You let them die. It was your fault. My mother died because of you, and you sent me away!” Memory screamed at the top of her lungs, not caring how far the words carried up the stone stairwell into the rest of the dungeon.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Thayl’s voice rose in return. “I made such a fool of myself in court, begging Loredanna to be with me. She refused me, in front of everyone. The Wizard’s Council was so cruel. I vowed revenge on them all right there. That night the witch came to me, said she saw what happened, and that she could help. She promised me enough power to take my revenge on the Wizard’s Council. Looking back, I don’t know where I thought such power would come from. I should have known the cost would be so great, but I had no other way, not enough power to do anything on my own. I didn’t know what my deal with her would entail. All I did was take Loredanna, my beautiful Loredanna, to the witch, and then...” Thayl’s last words shook from his mouth. He turned away.

“All you did? Then, killing my father, hunting the wizards, banning magic, and generally being evil for sixteen years, who was that? You won’t even admit it, what you did to her, what you did to me! You screwed up my whole life. I hate you! I hate what you did to me!”
You stole my soul. You broke me. I’ll always be broken!
Her mind kept screaming as her voice failed, and she turned away from the cell and dashed up the stairs and away from the man who took everything from her, making her as much a monster as him.