She nearly cried at the sight of him. His summertime smile, his shock of red hair, his full beard, and his enormous frame in the doorway.
‘Ervos!’ she breathed.
She rushed across the room, stepping over the worn floorboard that squeaked like a field mouse, reached for him …
And went through him.
‘Get some rest, Little Bird,’ Ervos said.
His voice.
It was the voice that had raised her, comforted her, shaped her into who she was.
‘Uncle,’ Ezer begged, reaching for him again. But her hands went through his arm, as if …
As if she were a ghost.
‘But I’m too excited about tomorrow!’ said a small voice behind Ezer.
It was young, and innocent … and it was hers.
She turned at the same time Ervos did, until she was standing face to face with herself.
‘You won’t see tomorrow any sooner, Ezer,’ said Ervos. ‘But it helps to close your eyes. Put an end to today. You’ll see the king and queen soon enough.’
Ezer stared at herself in shock. She was so small, standing there in her nightgown. So tiny, her little arms, her hands and feet. And the scars on her face … they were furious. Far worse than she remembered. As if they were only a few years out from her accident.
‘Come on,’ Ervos relented. ‘One more story, Little Bird.’
They walked past her, and the room began to grow dim.
And then she was standing at the closed door again, as if she’d been kicked out of the memory.
Ezer rushed to the next door, and the next after that, using her key to enter.
Each time, they opened and revealed to her a memory.
Some were short. Little snippets of scenes, the core things she remembered about her life, like the first time Ervos allowed her to mind a bird. When the memory ended, it spat her back out.
Perhaps … the doors were all in order, all leading towards her older years the further she made it down into the depths of the labyrinth. Perhaps she could go back to the beginning. Perhaps it would show her who she was.
So Ezer went back out into the tunnel and turned left. She jogged at first, and then she was running, the key in her hand, hope in her heart.
She could discover who she was.
Perhaps the answer had been here all along.
She went all the way back, to the very beginning. The first door in the mouth of the tunnel …
She woke to the sound of a chuckle, and then Kinlear’s voice.
‘I was hoping access to the bathing chambers would serve to refresh you. Not lure you right back into the den of the beast, where you could acquire more of her smell.’
Ezer opened her eyes to find him kneeling on the other side of the bars, staring down at her with a smirk on his handsome face.
‘What in the name of the gods are you doing here so early?’ he asked.
‘Sleeping,’ Ezer said with a groan. ‘And not nearly long enough.’
