"Mother?" I turn and look at Lance, finding the top half of his face pale and his eyes gleaming. He seems more hurt by my revelation more so than I am.

For cycles, I've obtained no memory. For cycles, I've had more questions pop up with every answer someone gives me, and this...I remember how I escaped. I remember killing Eleanor and Charles and the words they each managed to spit out just before the last drops of life left them, and I buried their corpses in the ground, feeling bad that they'll forever be remembered as traitors and murderers rather than two people who were victims of Xaxias's tricks. The only way to save them was to kill them, and they made their death worth it.

They slipped me the pieces of information they knew I'd need.

Your mother is the key.

Sing. That was Charles's last choked word, and it didn't make sense as to why that was supposed to help until I had Dee translate it.

Then it was just a matter of putting the pieces together.

The Ginerva never talked about my parents, so I naturally assumed they were both dead. That seems to be the case, but somehow, for some reason, my mother still lives on in a way. In Melody.

I never met the beautiful horse before, but something clicked earlier. A single image of the horse and someone saying her name. I pinned the voice as Darius's on the walk over here. He looks just as perplexed, and his power is falling in waves around him. My own answers to his, feeling everything that's trying to work its way through his mind at the moment.

It's his horse, the stable boy made that clear earlier as I stared into my mother's eyes and tried not to get lost in them. His horse that he's known for however long, carrying the last part of my mother that Lance and I might have.

Gods the questions I want to ask her. How did she die? When did she die? Why will no one tell me what I really want to know? Where is dad? Is he truly dead too? Is he happy? Was he a good father? Why can't I remember him? Why can't I remember you? What's wrong with me? What did I do? Why would Charles and Eleanor send me to you? And how did they know where you were?

So many questions I need answers to, but first, everyone else has questions for me for once and though it's all too satisfying to see them confused and not understanding a single word, I have answers for them. Or, some, at least.

"How?" Mak starts, still staring disbelievingly at Melody.

"I don't know," I answer honestly.

Víđarr moves then, dragging a paw on the ground in the center of our little group.

When Aracely brought Melody to Dawn hoping to give Darius one last hope

Dawn saw an opportunity to do the same for her own children
She inserted a part of herself into the filly knowing that her death would come before she could see her children grow.

"Holy shit," Alex breathes.

"So that's how Melody knew where to find us," Nilsa concludes. "Because Dawn was the only one who knew where we were hiding, so she was the only one who would know where to go."

"So was every death we've ever witnessed a lie then," Vanya vents, throwing her hands up in the air frustratingly.

"Please don't tell me that someone else we thought was dead is still alive," Rohana pleads to Melody. She doesn't get an answer, the horse is too focused on watching both Lance and Darius's reactions.

Darius's face is still unreadable, as it always is when he's too deep in thought to portray emotion. Funny how I know what he's thinking when he's thinking it, or at least, the general idea of what's going through his mind. With Lance, it's just as easy as reading a book, though that's probably because he's my brother, and my mind just naturally puts the pieces of him together like a nine-piece puzzle. It's unsettling considering that anywhere aside from when our group is in a secluded room, he's wearing that mask that covers half of his face. How can I possibly read someone when all I can see are their eyes?

I guess I'm not entirely a pro at it, as Lance turns and walks back towards the main hallway and then turns back towards the doors.

*****

"Back so soon?"

I close the door to Will's room behind me, waiting until the wolves freeze over the walls and door before answering. "You're going to want to bathe."

"Doing better than last night then?"

I don't answer.

No. I am not doing better than last night when I came here in the earliest hours of the morning after sneaking out of my own bed with Katarina in it. I was happy for her presence, but something else was keeping me awake, and Will seemed to be the only thing that my mind could think of as a reliever. It was right, as it usually is when it tells me to go to him, and I ended up knocking him out after a minute of lying on the ground with my head on his lap.

He didn't like that I did that, but he didn't move. He woke me up two hours later, telling me to go back before someone else noticed that I was gone. I stalled, talking to him until he practically shoved me out of the room.

Turns out that I was more depressed than I thought. I told him about how I felt alone, even when I used my power. Controlling the elements gives my mind somewhere else to wander. It distracts me from reality and allows me to be...free. Truly free.

I can travel across the land and feel how alive the earth is. I can feel the heartbeats of the children that run on the western side of the castle grounds all day. I can go everywhere, and yet stay sitting in the same spot. Lachester's drills and training keep me on my toes, testing my limits and setting boundaries. The feeling of when Darius and I use the elements and combine them to make something strong is...indescribable. I can breathe, and I can push further without fear of going too far.

But it's just Will, no one around me makes me feel at ease - like I don't have to pretend. Hiding the fact from Tanith has become slightly easier, as I've asked Lachester to teach me how to keep certain thoughts from her. He did tell me that I could just ask Tanith not to wander in my mind, but I don't like pulling the whole Queen card, and I might as well learn to guard my mind for future reference.

That's a headache in itself, learning that I was a Queen. The crown is probably the only thing I like about the title. Gods those teardrop jewels and the way it makes me feel more like...well, me. Another thing I confessed to Will. I ended up crying last night, all the overwhelming emotions and information I've been given - though I blame myself for asking so many questions - just crashed down on me last night, and I could do nothing to hold them back. I went somewhere dark, somewhere empty, and the barren feeling hasn't left me. Not even when I realized that my mother was still alive, and the thought that I killed two people and then had to watch my brother walk away from our surely long-dead mother, hasn't made that feeling better.

And these are only the happenings of the past few days causing me to have to bite my tongue to keep tears from falling. Now comes the weight of today and the absence of my brother.

"You smell horrid," I say, speaking after my long silence.

"I'll take that as a compliment." My lip twitches upward, and his own lifts at his victory in getting me to smile. "Why am I going to want to bathe? Am I having visitors? Because in that case, I'd say it'd be useless to get clean only to be bloody and bruised after."

"I'm pretty sure it's bloody, broken, and dead." I get a victory smile of my own. "But no, you're not having visitors. We're going for a walk, and I'm not walking with you looking and smelling like that."

He lets his head fall back against the wall, his disgustingly dreadlocked hair falling away from his face and exposing the scar over half his face. A story he still refuses to recite, but I can read him enough to know that it had something to do with me. I watch it stretch as he talks, wondering if it hurts to do so. "First off, I don't want to go for a walk. Secondly, you've never complained about my smell before."

"First off, I don't give a shit what you want at the moment," I counter easily. "I want to go for a walk - I need it. And I have complained about your odor several times."

"I'm not going."

"You are, and you're going to enjoy it."

"How can I enjoy a walk around a castle full of people who want to chop off my head?"

I sigh loudly, staring up at the ceiling and pleading to the Gods and their Saints to let me have this. "No one's going to chop off your head," I exasperate.

"You can't be entirely sure-"

"If someone tries to kill you, then I'll drown them on dry land." His mouth closes at my argument, now looking at me with that pained look in his eyes again that says, I deserve to get my head chopped off. "You have two options. Either you go to the bathroom and clean the gunk off of you, or I'll call in Kit to grab you by the collar, undress you, scrub your skin until it's red, and then dress you and drag you back out here. Your choice."

His jaw works itself, clearly annoyed that those are his only two options. If I'm being honest, I'm really hoping he doesn't move so I can call Kit and watch him be dragged away like a rag doll.

He opens his mouth, and Kit walks in from the sitting room. Will rolls his eyes and, sadly, stands and walks to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Right. Now comes the fun part.

I walk to the other side of the room opposite the front door. Kit comes to lay at my side, a solid anchor to keep me focused and feeling confident as the ice melts and reforms into two more wolves, one lying at my other hip, and the third staying by the door.

Come in.

Rohana, Nilsa, Mak, Vanya, and Dee walk in, all instantly searching the room for the man their hands are clearly twitching to kill. They're not even trying to hide their dark desires, which is why I need to do this, even if I hate having to use my title.

"Everything alright, Clarice?" Vanya asks, taking note of Kit and his sister.

"I'm taking Will out of the tower."

"No-"

"I wasn't asking."

"It's not a good idea," Dee explains gently as if trying to coax a predator on the hunt.

I can already hear Rohana's rule reciting in my head. If Dee says it's a bad idea, then it's a bad idea. But Dee's visions only have percentages of good versus bad, and I'll take the low odds of good going against the bad in this case.

I need to walk, and I need someone who isn't mentally put together to walk with me. Darius is an option too, but I always feel...weird around him. I can't explain it, but it's not something I necessarily want on my mind the entire time I'm trying to clear it so I don't have to think for once. I'll get anxious, and then stressed, and then frustrated that it's so Gods be damned hard to talk to someone who so easily gives me space and silence when I need it. I hate how his presence screams at me more than it comforts me.

Lance...well, Lance just walked away from me, so...

The Ginerva don't help with their loyalties, and everyone else makes me fidget and self-conscious about how I know nothing about how I know them. Not even Darius will tell me how we met. He just changes the subject or deflects, and I let him, noticing how the wind picked up or slowed or the room went still.

"I'm taking him out of this tower, and you can either keep your snarking comments and weapons - including your limbs and powers - to yourself or wait in my room. I'm giving you a choice, but I can just as easily take it away and order you to be nothing but silent guards," I threaten, mustering up as much confidence as I can.

"He tortured you-"

"No. He didn't."

"Your thin body and loss of memory say otherwise."

"Rohana-"

"My body being thin is a result of my choice to sacrifice my life to save everyone else, and my loss of memory is because of Xaxias - not Will," I say, cutting off Branka

"If you had scars from every cut or broken bone he inflicted, you'd say otherwise."

"I do have scars - and no, they're not on my skin or visible to your eyes, but they're there - and it takes everything in me to resist the urge to take a knife and mark where my skin itches just to give me something to remind me of why in heathens I'm still fucking fighting. Because that's what I do, isn't it? That's what everyone says? I. Never. Stop. Fighting." My voice cracks on the last word, and I stop before everything comes crashing back down on me again.

Everyone's always telling me to fight, to not worry about whether my memory returns or not, but choosing to fight or training to be prepared to fight is my top priority. Forget me needing the comfort of knowing that I'm not a huge disappointment for having not gained a single foothold on remembering anything, I just need to get stronger. I need to build muscle and eat to get meat on my frail bones. I'm a liability. I just learned how to pack a punch and deflect one, and that's useless in a fight against demons and demon hounds.

I faced the ten rings of pain, and yet, I can't seem to face this. I can't face the fact that my biggest strength is one that Serephina can take away with a simple touch of her hand. If she can do it, why can't Xaxias? I'm sure he's come across something, undoubtedly searched for such a thing so he can finally get the upper hand on the Ginerva and Willa and any elementals that rise against him.

Scars...scars would be a Godsdamned blessing. They would give me something to touch when I need a reminder that I am strong - that I'm more dangerous than an injured rabbit trying to run from a fox. It would remind me of what I've gone through and what I will and can go through again, because I have gone through it, and yeah, I lost more of me than I probably thought I would, but it was a risk I was willing to take because I had reminders then. The only scar I have is over my left breast, and that eludes me entirely as to why it's the only one left, but Will already confirmed that the scar wasn't from the last two months. It had been there before and I don't know fucking why!

Before, my reminders could've been scars, or maybe an object, or a person - or several people, but those people now make me feel alone. Those objects are lost to me, not even the slightest of hopes within them. My skin is clean - too clean. It's smooth and flawless, and I hate it. I hate how my face doesn't break out in redness or acne as Kat's does from time to time, or some of the staff members or Thralian's. I want normalcy. I want...I want...

Home.

I want my home. Wherever that is, I want it - more than anything in this world - more than my life, I want it. If death is home then so be it, just...leave me in peace. Leave me in beatitude.

"Clarice..." I take a step back, retreating behind Kit and his sister. I hadn't realized that I had gotten in Rohana's face, and now I'm ashamed to have done so. I'm not like that.

"We'll keep the other's opposite of wherever you decide to go," Dee offers.

"No. I...as much as it would comfort Will to know that no one's close enough to kill him, everyone else needs to understand that I wasn't the only one who was broken and tortured."

"What do you mean?" Nilsa crosses her arms and spreads her feet. I get intimidated when she does that, though I know that she does so when she's getting deep into her tactical thought. She really is a warrior.

"It's not my story to tell, but..." I glance at the bedroom door, then feel for the water element to make sure that Will's at least doing as I asked. I barely whisper to the water's song, not wanting to violate his privacy by feeling everything the water touches. "Will was rarely ever himself."

"Was?"

"It's his story, not mine," I repeat sternly. "He can tell it if he wants, but I'm not going to tell someone else who they were when they already know that who they are now is the complete opposite of that." No arguments come, and I'm only slightly sorry that I used their own tactics against them. I neglect to mention how i don't even remember Will's story, so I wouldn't be able to share it if I wanted to.

"So how far are we to stay from you?" I look to Rohana, finding her expression softened but her eyes still ablaze.

"You stay to the castle walls. Relax, I'll stay close to the moat."

Her jaw shifts, but then she's nodding. "One movement, one little twitch from him, and I'm pushing him into the water with a knife in his throat."

"Fair enough."

I can't stop the smile from forming on my lips. I honestly thought I'd need to fight harder to get what I want, but that was...okay it was hard, but it was easier than I originally thought. They're all still clearly against the idea, but they're holding their tongues while they all look toward the bedroom door. All except Vanya, who's staring directly at my stomach.

I look down, but nothing looks or feels weird. "Vanya? Everything alright?"

Her eyes snap back up to mine. "Fine. I was just thinking about how I was going to beat Rohana in killing him with my own blade in his heart."

"I call between his brows," Nilsa declares, looking hungrily at the floor.

"Dibs on tearing off his arm," Mak adds.

"I'll find some snacks for the show." They're all scary, but Dee always seems to know just how to lighten the mood. "Or just in general. I'm kind of hungry."

I let them stay in the foyer, figuring that telling them to leave again would get them into a more cranky mood. We're sitting in here for a good thirty minutes before Kit and his sister walk to the slowly opening door. The Ginerva tense when he walks out fully, which is why the two wolves will be staying close to his side. That, and the fact that I'm pretty sure anyone we run into who knows who he is will have a large fit that he isn't being monitored, or try to kill him themselves.

"Uh...hi." No one responds to his awkward attempt to fill the tense silence. The Ginerva all end up stiffly walking out the door, leaving me to try and keep myself from laughing. He notices my struggle. "What?"

"Uh, hi? That's the best you could come up with?"

"Well what was I supposed to say," he whispers angrily.

"How about, 'I'm sorry for torturing your friend,' or 'sorry for siding with the dark lord who has been trying to kill you for a few decades now.'"

"I didn't choose to side with him. You know that." His eyes have barely met mine, too busy glancing at the backs of my overprotective guard standing outside the open doors.

For all his talk about deserving worse than death, he always seems worried about one of them actually getting their hands on him. It's makes his face gaunter than it already looks. A trait I used to determine that I was right when I first came here to see him a cycle ago about him being as much a prisoner as I was. That, and the now haunted look in his eyes that never stop watching the shadows, waiting for them to move. It's why he doesn't sleep.

"I know." I lead us out after the Ginerva, the wolves following. "But they don't."

"You didn't tell them?"

"It's not my story to tell," I repeat. He also believes that I still remember the story, the reason as to why I saved him, and I haven't had the heart to tell him the truth because then he'll start acting and treating me like everyone else, and I can't take more pity and walking on eggshells.

"You do realize that no matter who the story comes from, it's going to sound a hundred percent crazy, right? How am I supposed to convince them otherwise?"

I give him a look that I hope he can read as we walk out of the tower and into the