Not erased, I think as I melt bonelessly back to the ground.
Sacrificed.
The dull ache that’s lodged in my chest sharpens to a point—every bit as deadly as the knife I plunged into Alaric’s back. I wrap my arms around my shaking body and try to blow out long breaths to manage the pain, but it’s staggering. Crushing. I feel like I’m the one sprawled out across the scree, bleeding to death
Thiswas the cost of saving my life.Thiswas how he found the strength to move the mountain and catch me, despite being all but dead himself. With the Vanzadorians feeding fewer memories into the ground, Alaric must have fueled his power with his own memories. And since there was no time to pick and choose as I was falling, he sacrificed everything that was there, at the ready.
By saving me, he forgot me entirely.
That’swhy he hasn’t come to the dungeon. Not because he’s dead or despises me, but because he has no reason to visit a virtual stranger who stabbed him in the back. I’m lucky he didn’t sentence me to death immediately. It honestly might have been easier. It couldn’t be more painful than knowing it’s all gone—every moment, every word, every touch. All of our struggles, plans, and hopes for the future, swallowed up by this insatiable mountain.
I can feel my lower lip trembling, sense the tears teetering on my lash line, and even though I want to scream at the unfairness and rage against the cruel irony, I refuse to fall apart in front of Garitt Von Nevus. He’s taken too much from me already.
After a long uncomfortable silence, he finally straightens his robes and turns to go. “If Rowenna is truly gone, you and I have nothing further to discuss.” He hesitates before mounting the stairs. “Unlessyou decide you’d rather not rot in this prison. Once again, it seems we have a lot in common—both of us shattered and devastated by losing the people we loved most. We might be able to come together in our griefand work out an arrangement that would be mutually benefi—”
“I’d rather die,” I snarl.
The councilor’s cheeks burn almost as red as his auburn hair. “That was my final offer. Enjoy the rest of your life in prison—with nothing but memories to keep you company.”
He smirks as he saunters off, clearly pleased with his parting blow. But instead of giving out entirely, my failing heart sputters back to life, beating with hope for the first time since my imprisonment.
Alaric may not have his own memories of my time in Vanzador, but I remember enough for us both.
Fifty
I begin sifting through my memories, agonizing over which moment will resonate most, praying the past will stir within Alaric if I show him the right glimpse of our time together. A moment that proves I meant something to him.
I think of our soft stolen kisses. Of kneeling together in the bagrava beds. Of defending each other from the councilors and courtiers. We’ve had so many beautiful moments, but none of them feel right. Eventually, I realize it’s because none of them are where our story truly began. The foundation of our relationship was never built on each other, but on the very first keepers of our hearts:
Rowenna and Besnik.
Alaric and I never would have come to understand each other and trust each other if not for those two little girls, running hand in hand through the fields. Or without the rambunctious, laughing brothers, sparring on the sofa in their father’s council chamber. We never would have opened our hearts to each other if we hadn’t experienced such similar earth-shattering love. And suffered such parallel heartbreaking loss. So these are the memories I carefully siphon into pebbles and broken bits of stone from the walls of my prison cell—reminders of the boy and girl we used to be. Moments I couldn’t possibly know about unless Alaricchoseto share them with me.
The rest of our story, I’ll reveal in time. If he gives me the chance.
Then the only thing left to do is find a way to see him.
I keep thinking he’ll come to question me. He must be craving answers about what really happened on the mountain that night. But more and more days pass, and I eventually give up hope. He has so little regard for me, he doesn’t care to know the truth. He’d rather just forge on and pretend none of it ever happened. That I was never here.
Since Alaric isn’t coming, and begging the guards is useless, I decide to use the only other tool at my disposal.
My gift from Earth Mother.
My mind goes first to bagrava, of course, but I don’t have any seeds or cuttings, and I know Alaric won’t be lured by its dark promiseanymore. He won’t continue taking memories from his people and bandaging the side effects. So I scour the floors, walls, and ceiling instead, searching every corner of my cell for something I can use. For something already present, like the goblin’s gold I found in the silver mines.
At last, I find a patch of black mold growing in the perpetually damp straw beneath my leaky window. Living underground in the hillock palace, it was commonplace to find all types of mold peppering the walls and floors. Most were harmless and easily removed. But black mold is far more volatile and invasive, and the side effects of exposure more severe: coughing and wheezing, headaches, rashes, and fever, even memory loss and bleeding from the lungs. All conditions I’m certain the guards assigned to watch me would rather not suffer.
Using one filthy fingernail, I gently scrape the black mold into my palm and bring it to the front of my cell—so the current guard will have a clear view of what I’m doing. Then I tuck my nose into my shirt to save myself from inhaling the worst of the spores, and begin to sing.
At first, it creeps across the floor like a slow-growing vine, but thelouder I sing, the higher and faster it spreads, climbing the walls and hungrily twining through the bars.
“Quiet down!” the guard shouts without looking up from his whittling.
“I’ll quiet down if you take me to see King Alaric,” I shout back.
The guard chuckles. “Prisoners don’t get to see the king.”
“This isn’t’ a request. It’s ademand—one I suggest you fulfill sooner rather than later if you value your health.”
