They march me through the forest without ceremony. No gentle guidance. No patient explanations. Just rough hands and cold iron and the growing certainty that I’ve been played for a fool.
Lakhu is waiting at the edge of his camp.
He looks different in the moonlight. Colder. The sympathy that’s been his constant companion for three weeks is nowhere in evidence. Instead, his beautiful face holds nothing but calculation.
“Nasyra.” He says my name the way you’d say the name of a disobedient pet. “You left without permission.”
“I didn’t know I needed permission.” I keep my voice steady despite the fear climbing up my throat. “You said I was a guest.”
“I said many things.” He moves closer, and I see it now—the predator beneath the patient mask. “You believed what was convenient to believe. That’s hardly my fault.”
“Why?” The question erupts before I can stop it. “Why bring me back? Why pretend to help me?”
“Because you’re useful.” Simple. Brutal. “Your unique combination of abilities makes you valuable in ways you can’t begin to understand. Fire-Bringer blood and innate magic—do you have any idea how rare that is? How powerful?”
“I’m not a tool.”
“No?” His smile is poison. “Then what are you? A woman out of time, with no family, no allies, no understanding of the world you’ve woken into. What choices do you have, exactly?”
I want to argue. Want to spit in his face and tell him I’d rather die than be his weapon. But the manacles are cold against my wrists, and his guards are watching, and the terrible truth is that he’s right. I have nothing. No one. Just borrowed clothes and twisted magic and memories that might not even be real.
“What do you want from me?” My voice comes out smaller than I’d like.
“Right now? Obedience.” Lakhu gestures, and his guards begin marching me toward the camp. “You’ll return to your quarters. You’ll stay there until I decide otherwise. And you’ll stop asking questions that don’t concern you.”
I stumble as they push me forward, my feet catching on roots in the darkness. “And if I don’t?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. The threat is clear in every line of his body, in the cold light of his gaze.
I’m not a guest. I never was.
I’m a prisoner. A weapon being shaped for someone else’s purpose.
And the monster I was sent to kill refused to raise a hand against me.
They lockme in my quarters.
The room that seemed comfortable before now feels like a cage. Four walls of black stone. A door that won’t open from the inside. A window too small to climb through, barred with iron that hums with enchantment.
I sink onto the bed—that too-soft monstrosity with its squeaking springs—and stare at my hands. The manacles are gone, removed once they were certain I couldn’t escape. But I still feel them. Still feel the cold weight of iron, the way they made my magic die.
What do you know that’s actually true?
The question echoes in the silence. I try to answer it, try to separate fact from manipulation.
Fact: I died three hundred years ago. That much is certain—my body remembers death, remembers the blade, remembers the blood.
Fact: Lakhu brought me back. Used some artifact, some dark magic, to drag me from death’s embrace.
Fact: He’s been manipulating me since the moment I woke. Shaping my memories, directing my rage, pointing me at targets he wanted destroyed.
But the memory of Balroth’s death. The crystal-clear image of Zyphon tearing my brother apart. Is that fact, or is that manipulation too?
I close my eyes and try to remember. Try to push past the clear memory to whatever lies beneath.
Fragments surface. Hazy. Indistinct. Balroth’s hand in mine, leading me somewhere. His voice, gentle and reassuring. The forest closing around us, dark and deep.
And then—nothing. A gap where memory should be. Like someone cut out a piece of my mind and replaced it with something else.
