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To an unclaimed infant in a hospital, hours after birth.

I screamed when my legs gave out, tumbling me forward. Blood pulsed in my skull like an incessant fist beating on the bone. My fingernails dug into my palms until I swallowed the burn of sick back into my swirling stomach.

Where was I? Where was the prince? The thief?

A warm fire burned in a small inglenook. Vines lined crumbling stone walls. Beyond open, pane-less windows was a meadow of pastel blooms. Dark trees edged the meadow, shadowing the brilliance of the tall grass and flower. Leaves as dark as patent leather fluttered in the wind and reminded me a bit of Gaina’s forest when I first arrived.

A deep voice, smooth as satin, flowed from the next room. My fingertips jolted back when I touched the wall. Cold stone. Real. Gritty. I swallowed and strode toward the voice, keeping to the shadows as I rounded the corner.

My heart stilled. There, in a courtyard of ruins and vines, a man, face unclear, knelt on the ground, pleading. Shoulders hunched, blood dripped from one arm and the left side of his ribs. What looked like shadows coiled around his wrists, his waist. Phantom fingers holding him in place.

“You made a vow,” he shouted. “By the goddess, don’t do this.”

A woman stepped from the shadows, a mere ten feet from the man on his knees. My stomach lurched. What was this? The woman, she looked like . . . me. Only wilder, fiercer. A dagger was pinned to her thigh, another on the small of her back. Strawberry hair was braided and matted with sweat and blood.

Any hint of softness was found in the tears carving tracks through her dirt-smudged cheeks when she peered over her shoulder at the man.

“Don’t,” he pleaded, softer, a crack in his voice. “Don’t do this.”

“Forgive me,” the shadow of the woman whispered.

Another scream broke from my chest when the couple faded, and I was tossed backward.

More flashes of strange moments burned to my damn soul, like distant memories. Laughter, the smell of ink and a bit of blood. Curses and complaints of pain as strange glowing needles pressed into my fingers, my hands. Then warm lips pressing kisses to each knuckle too soothe the pain.

Shadows thickened, blotting out the scene.

Somewhere in the darkness a man whispered, “You’re all mine now.”

“Not yet, you arrogant prince.” A woman laughed. I couldn’t see the couple. “When you make your vow, then we’ll talk.”

“Trust me, the moment you’re my wife, I plan to do little talking . . .” His voice trailed away in the torrent of shadows along with her laughter.

A force shoved me back. When my body struck the ground, a cough followed, desperately seeking the air that was wrenched from my lungs.

“You think you’ve figured it all out.” From the darkness, a throaty voice found me.

I spun around, searching, finding nothing.

“Don’t do it, girl.” The voice wrapped around me in the darkness, no face to claim, only the rough, tearful rasp. “There can be other ways. We keep fighting.”

“You say that, Mam?You?” Another voice replied, broken and anguished. “You who speaks and sees so much. More than anyone, you know I’ve no choice. I won’t let them have him. I won’t.”

My hands slapped over my ears. It was disorienting the way voices collided against me, both familiar and foreign. As though my heart recognized each one despite the absence of faces, but my mind fought against them.

“Let the other worlds surrender, let them give away their precious ones, but not you.Not. You.”

“Mam, please,” the softer voice pleaded. “You know this is the answer to protect him from the cruel ones. I . . . I need you to . . . look after him.”

“For how long?” The reply was harsh, desperate. “Cruel ones will not end here, my girl. Worse will come.”

“But he will live,” the other woman whispered. “Speak to his soul, Mam. Keep him close, however you can.Please.”

“You give up yourself, you’ll take all of him and crush it to nothing.”

I blinked, tears on my cheeks as wind quickened again, spinning darkness like a cyclone around me. Something tugged against my middle, a rope or twine, pulling me away.

“Promise to look after him for me,” came the same burdened plea.