He extended a gloved hand to me. He was armored in leather with a quiver of red-fletched arrows peeking over his shoulder. “Cirevan, my lady.”
Cirevan.The name meant nothing to me. “And where are we?”
“The battlefield. You took a blow.”
That was when I felt the pain. My head throbbed, and I placed a hand to it; blood smeared across my palm. I blinked, my vision blurry. A moment ago I had been in the citadel with Rhiannon and Dorian, and now…
“Let me help you,” Cirevan said. “You need aid.”
I nodded. My palm slid into his, and with slow tenderness he helped me to my feet.
Only then did I notice the heaviness of my clothing.
I wasn’t dressed in the leathers I’d been wearing in the throne room. My armor was far more elaborate; intricate fae designs in bright green were woven onto my brown-leather gauntlets and into my pants and the edges of the cloak I wore. An unfamiliar quiver looped over my chest, the arrows’ fletching touching my hair. At my hip was a dagger, sheathed tight.
Around me lay a great, verdant plain, with green grass and tall trees at its edges. A wide road cut through the center of it, leading straight to high stone walls and a massive portcullis.
The walls’ light stone gleamed in the sunlight. They were so tall, I had to raise my head to see the battlements. Men stood atop them, bows in hand. At the center of a turret a great flag flapped in the breeze.
I knew that flag. White, with three black interlocking circles at the center.
Around me, armored men and women rushed across the plains toward the walls. Arrows flew in both directions, toward and away from us,thwickinginto the grass.
This was a battlefield. An unfamiliar place. And yet that flag was entirely familiar to me. Those walls looked exactly like the ones I had spent my entire life climbing. This plain…
I turned in a slow circle, taking in the open vista and the trees all around.
“Where are we?” I breathed.
“Ah, the blow was bad,” Cirevan said. “We are at the walled kingdom, my lady. What you call ‘the wretched human cesspool.’”
I stopped with my face to the tree line. From this direction, everything gained a new familiarity. Yes, there was lush grass and a brilliant sun and no clouds in the sky. But the geography was unmistakable.
This was my home.
My head throbbed. “The Kingdom of Storms?”
“No, my lady.” He took my hand, urging me forward. “The Kingdom of the Plains.”
Not storms, plains. Kingdom of the Plains.
I allowed him to lead me toward a green battlefield tent with flaps we ducked under. We stepped onto a gray animal fur and were surrounded by a dim interior with a table set up at the center and carved wooden pieces atop it. Two chairs sat at either side, and on the far end lay a wide bed draped with another animal fur.
“Galenna!” Cirevan called out. “Our queen has taken a blow.”
Our queen.
The man urged me into a seat, and I sank into it. This all felt real. The pain was real, the touch of his hand was real. The sun’s touch had been warm on my skin. This was all real, and yet I, Eurydice Waters, was not. I was someone else—a queen. But I had all the memories of my life, and none of the queen’s.
Was I inside a memory? Or maybe the actual past? Was the spiritstag’s magic that powerful?
From a far flap a young, dark-haired woman emerged with a medic’s bloody apron already on. She wiped her hands on it as she approached me, but my eyes were still on the flap. When it had been open, I’d glimpsed—and heard—a man groaning on the other side. He had blood all over his belly.
Galenna came to kneel beside me. Her fingers rose to my head. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “I…”
“Arrows,” Cirevan said. “Carys led our people in a charge atop her mare, and the fucking front line didn’t even protect her from the volley.”
