Page 7 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

H e asked me if I wanted some water, and I declined, before I realized that I was, in fact, thirsty.

My voice—was it my voice?—sounded so broken and dry, it shamed me.

The male, the one who called himself my husband, moved so gently about the room, I wondered if he was used to living with ghosts.

I watched his every movement, the way his broad frame filled the room, his large hands steady even as his long fingers trembled when he handed me the glass a servant brought.

As if it were the most precious thing in the universe.

I took it from him because he seemed so proud to present it.

It tasted like nothing, which was a relief; a memory, or maybe just a longing, told me I hated strong flavors.

I drank the whole glass at once, knees pressed together, hands shaking so hard I nearly lost the grip.

The male—Mallack—sat across from me, forearms braced on his knees in a posture of patience.

His eyes were darker than I expected. All black, as black as the void of space.

But not as cold or emotionless. Ney, not even a little.

They shone like they had seen it all. From immense happiness to unimaginable heartbreak.

It was those eyes that got to me the most. They filled my chest with…

warmth? Zyn, that, but there was something else too. Something I couldn’t define.

Instead, I focused on his larger-than-life body.

His shoulders were so wide, they diminished the generous inside of the cabin.

His torso was naked, save for the leather strap over his shoulder that held his sword.

The word for it came to me effortlessly: baldric—I hated how easily it came to me, when I didn't even know what my face looked like. The baldric held a sword he hadn’t taken off yet, and that should make me uncomfortable. Instead, it felt almost… homey.

I could see the defined lines of his muscles, each one standing out like a map on his skin.

The taut curves of his biceps and triceps, the rippled valleys of his abs.

So defined, they seemed to have been carved.

Leather breeches stretched over the muscles of his legs and…

ney, quickly I averted my gaze from the bulge in between.

Very predominant because his legs were spread wide open.

I swallowed and tried to regain my composure, “Thank you,” I cleared my throat, holding out the empty glass. He reached for it, and my hand brushed his for a second—the touch was electric, almost painful. I jerked my fingers away and watched him flinch as if I’d hit him.

Another memory tried to surface. I battled to bring it forward, but it dissolved like smoke in the wind. “You said…” My throat clicked, and my voice still sounded all wrong to me. “You said I’m not Thalia?”

He held my gaze a long time. “You are Daphne. My mate. My wife.” The word tasted odd on his tongue, borrowed from a language not his own. “Thalia is our daughter.”

“Our daughter?” I repeated, the words blooming inside me with a cold, brittle terror. “I have a daughter?”

He nodded, and for a moment the marble mask cracked. There was so much sadness there, I had to look away.

I didn’t understand, “But why did they call me Thalia? The guards. The servants?” Everyone had called me by that name.

Mallack stood and paced, one hand running through his short obsidian hair, streaked with silver.

His voice, when it came, was flat and nearly toneless.

“It’s a too-long story, and you have been…

away. Absent, for many rotations. There were lies told.

Names switched. Our family was…” He trailed off, made a bitter sound, as if language itself had betrayed him.

I didn't reply. I didn't know what to say.

I had a daughter? Shouldn't I at least remember that? For some time, the silence pressed against us, thick and full of all the things I did not know and that he seemed unable to tell me. I stared at my hands, hands that still looked like the hands of a stranger—a stranger I still wasn’t used to.

I noticed a fine scar running along the top knuckle of my thumb.

I rolled the skin between my teeth until I tasted copper.

Had that always been there? Where did it come from? I felt like an alien in my own skin.

Mallack returned to his chair, folded his hands, and made himself smaller for me. “You must have questions. Ask.”

It sounded abrupt, but somehow, I knew that he didn’t mean it that way, that this was just the way he was. The way he was ? Was it true, then, that he was my husband?

I tried to list them in my mind, but there were so many. I didn't know where to start. Finally, I just blurted, “Why do I remember nothing?”

An indescribable pain moved over his features, and I felt like I had slapped him. I flinched. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He waved me off. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He rubbed his chin, “I just don’t know how to tell you all this. Any of this. What do you remember?”

The glass coffin and the golden light. The cave. I didn’t like those memories and shuddered.

“Vissigroth, we’re ready for takeoff,” came a disembodied voice through a flat, round thing on the table.

A palmtop . The word came to me with such ease that anger sparked in my stomach.

Why could I remember stupid things like this?

When I didn’t remember the man who claimed to be my husband?

Or the daughter, he also claimed we had?

“Get us to Leander,” he ordered. Instead of putting the palmtop back, he lifted it and turned it to me. “May I… show you something?”

With a sweep of his hand, he conjured up a series of images on it.

At first, I thought it was just a feed from the ship’s external cameras—bleak skies, harsh mountain ranges—but then a sequence began to play, the grainy footage shifted until I saw a young seffy with flaming red hair, laughing in a greenstone garden.

She lifted a child, a boy with hair as dark as Mallack’s, holding him overhead so that he squealed with delight.

The camera rotated and, behind the seffy, Mallack watched, arms crossed, smiling with a kind of deep pride that touched my heart.

Without a doubt, I knew the seffy was me, even though I hadn't seen myself yet, but the red hair seemed pretty distinct. Objectively speaking, the seffy was very pretty, but that wasn't what I looked at. Her demeanor, her eyes, seemed sad, despite the smile on her lips.

I felt nothing. I remembered not a single instant of this.

The next clip showed a nighttime festival, people dancing in a plaza full of lamplight.

The same seffy was there, in a silver dress, holding Mallack’s hand.

He looked younger than before, barely older than the males who had escorted me out of the cave, but his eyes were already lined with that hard certainty that came with carrying too much responsibility.

They danced for a moment, badly, then burst into laughter and collapsed onto a velvet bench.

I could not watch it anymore. It hurt to see myself like this and not remember.

I stared at the palmtop for a long time; the urgent hollowness in my chest was replaced by a grief I couldn't name. “I don’t remember any of this,” I finally said.

He nodded, slowly, as if that was the only answer he expected.

“Would you like to see more?”

I shook my head. “I want to rest,” I pointed at my dirty clothes, “and maybe get cleaned up.”

Mallack’s head bowed. “As you wish. I will leave you alone for a while.”

“You don’t have to.” The words tumbled from me, soft and reflexive. It was too late to take them back. But he tilted his face towards mine with a look that was all hope and no hope at all.

“Thank you,” I said, more quietly.

He showed me a closet, filled with clothes, "They were yours… I never put them away."

I didn't know what to say. How long had I been… gone?

Then Mallack pointed to the bathroom, but he hesitated to leave. He stood still, staring at me like I was an apparition; a dream come to life that he was afraid to blink and lose. And maybe it was. For him.

For me, I wished I could have blinked myself away.