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“Wolf. Wake up. Wolf!”
I lift a hand blindly, hoping to stop the noise. “My head fucking hurts. Quiet.”
“Wolf?” Mina whispers, the sharp edge leaving her voice. It was fear, I think. That edge was fear. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m not deaf.”
Her hand grips mine as I blink slowly, trying to clear the blackness from my eyes. “What’s wrong with you, Wolf? You have to tell me. Please.”
Her voice cracks on that last word. My princess, begging. She must be terrified.
I’m kind of shaky, too, if we’re about to admit to feelings.
I use my free hand to rub at my eyes and I finally blink up at the pink sky. Wow. What in the underworld happened? Ow, my head. I know now why they call it a splitting headache. It’s like having an ax splitting your skull in two.
Two faces appear over me. One is Mina’s, small and pretty, concern still written all over her fine features.
The other is that of a middle-aged man, a Fae, I realize, noticing the ears and uptilted eyes, like mine. An unknown man.
I push myself up to sit, racking my brain for my last memories. Splashing through the lake, fighting a horned lion—that would explain the aches in my chest—and then stopping here and lying with Mina...
Kissing her, touching her, tasting her...
And then this man appeared, saying things to which I replied but I don’t even know what I said, and then...
Both Mina and the man retreat a few steps when I sit up and try to stand. My legs feel weak. What’s this sickness?
The moment I’m on my feet, Mina throws herself at me, a soft collision, wrapping her arms around me, steadying both my body and my mind. “You have to stop doing that,” she sniffles. “I can’t take it.”
“Wait...” I pull back to grip her chin and lift it. “You were crying?”
“I thought this time you had died,” she accuses, her voice cracking. “You just dropped like a rock to the ground and we shook you and called your name but you weren’t waking up.”
I haul her back against me. “Sorry, Princess.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I tell her. “Believe me. It can’t be anything serious. I feel okay.”
“It’s not normal,” she says. “You know it’s not. It’s not natural.”
“But then what could it be?” I glance at the man who’s still bowed. “What’s your name?”
“Geryen, majesties. But they call me Crag. Because of where I live, and also my face.”
“Crag. Do you know me?”
“Of course.” He bows even lower. “Who wouldn’t? You have the royal gem in your back.”
A shudder goes through me. Faces crowd inside my head, voices raised, a dark cloud, danger coming—
“Wolf.” Mina is shaking me. “Snap out of it. Tell me what is going on.”
Memories, I think. Memories trying to come back. A crown, a gem, a ring, a throne.
“You need to rest,” Mina says. “Maybe the wounds need to be cleaned and bandaged, maybe they wounded you with iron back in the human lands...”
“It would be my honor to welcome you in my humble home,” Crag says. “You may want to rest before you resume your journey.”
“Our journey where?” I’m holding on to Mina like a man on a sinking raft clinging to the mast.
“Home, of course.” Crag lifts his head. “To the palace.”
***
“You’re a royal?” Mina whispers as we dismount in front of a rock house, the rock pitted and lined and looking a lot, in fact, like Crag’s face.
“Nah. Don’t listen to him. What does he know? He’s obviously never left this place in his life.”
She casts me a questioning look, but I don’t want to think anymore, don’t want to try and pry more memories loose. My head hurts so damn much I feel faint.
Maybe I am a royal, who knows? Some low-ranking prince sent away for some transgression. I need to know who I am and yet I can’t prod at the agony behind my eyes right now. Thinking is beyond me today. Even the light hurts.
It galls me that I feel so weak, that I lean on Mina, that I can’t make myself remember. I let her take my hand and lead me into the dark abode and don’t protest much when she leads me to a bench by a lit fire and sits me down.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her, because I can’t stand having her worry over me, even if it warms me up inside. “Where’s the man? Is he alone? I am not sure we can trust him.”
“He thinks you’re royalty. He wouldn’t harm us.”
“Maybe he lied to get us here and rob us blind.”
“Rob us of what? We only have your ring. And you can hide it with magic, right?”
Right... I have magic. It’s something I discovered over my time in the human world, that I had abilities others didn’t, abilities I had to keep hidden as much as my ears or else risk getting stoned to death or hanged. I’d forgotten that I had let her see.
I have magic, and a ring with a crest, strange tattoos on my body, and memories that slice like a blade through my head when they break through the fog filling my mind. Oh, and a peasant who claims I have a royal gem.
I wish I could see it for myself, but I doubt there is any polished surface in here, and besides, Mina helped me into my shirt and coat before mounting on Akash and following the man here. The thought of undressing feels like too much work. Anything more than sitting here feels like too much fucking work—and I don’t even realize when I let myself slide sideways and fall asleep on the bench in front of the fire.
All I know is that my mind won’t let me rest even in my dreams.
***
“The curse is closing in,” my counselor says. Her long white hair is twisted up on top of her head in the traditional hairdo of the sages of the Mountain. “We cannot resist for much longer.”
“We will keep fighting,” I say, my breath coming in a white cloud, my hands gripping armrests carved in the shape of snarling wolf heads. “King Talensar of the Sapphire Court has successfully broken the curse. We could do the same.”
“His riddle was easier to fathom. We don’t know where to find the firebird, how to capture it, how to melt the ice.”
“That doesn’t mean we can give up.”
“The Empress is becoming impatient, Majesty. King Talensar’s victory has angered her. You can see how the curse is closing in much faster than we anticipated. Time is running out.”
“So what do you suggest? Should I lay my head at her feet and let her cut it off?”
My counselor—Nekuba, that’s her name—shakes her head slowly. “I have thought of another way...”
“Magic,” I whisper.
“Magic,” she agrees.
“The Empress will know the moment you cast a spell.”
“It won’t matter because her curse is focused on you. What will happen when you’re not here anymore?”
I sit up, scowl at her. “I’d never abandon my world.”
“What if it were the only way to save it? Or at least, buy us time to solve the riddle?”
“I’d always try to come back.” I shake my head. “It won’t work, Nekuba. I’d never stay away knowing my people are suffering from the curse.”
“I did say I had an idea, didn’t I? You’ll see...”
***
Something cool is pressed to my forehead. The pain inside my head is like a wildfire, eating at my thoughts. I’m not sitting on the chair with the wolf-head armrests anymore, but where am I? I’m lying down on my side, and two people are arguing over me. I should move but my limbs are like lead.
“He’s burning up,” she says, a familiar, sweet voice. It’s shaking. “I need more water for the compresses.”
A touch on my chest makes me hiss, the fire in my head spreading to my torso. “Horned lion claws,” a man’s voice says. “Poison.”
“How do we draw it out?”
“We can try leeches,” another female voice says, one I don’t recognize. “But sometimes it is better to let the body flush it out with sweat.”
“Isn’t it dangerous? Won’t he die?”
“He hasn’t died yet. It’s a good sign.”
Someone swears.
“Horned lion poison eats at magic,” the woman says. “His body’s reaction may be due to protection spells on his person.”
“Protection spells?” Mina sounds close to panic. “I don’t... I don’t know of any spells on him.”
I want to reach out, touch her, reassure her. But I can’t move my fucking hands. I’m starting to panic, too, paralyzed, shivering with cold that seems to penetrate my bones. I have blankets heaped over me, I realize, but it’s not helping.
“Princess,” I try to form the word. “Mina...”
“You should get some rest, my lady,” Crag says. “You can have our bed. You have been by his side all night.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mina says and my head is lifted, then settled on a different pillow that moves and smells like her. Her lap, I realize. Her hand strokes my hair and it’s soothing, easing the panic welling up inside me, the wave of fear subsiding before it crests. “Rest, my wolf. Soon you’ll be better. I won’t leave your side.”
Nobody has ever done that for me, I think, and I’m certain of it, broken memories or not. Nobody has shown me such kindness, such unconditional generosity. I want to cling to her, to never let her go.
But all I can do is fall into more dreams I can’t escape.