Page 82 of Fated or Knot

“Undoubtedly,” he agreed. “However, you also have to consider the ripple effect of a careless order. You’re told to forget one thing, and you forget every instance of it before or since that order. Take the metalark for example.”

“The what?”

“The purple bird I drew on your arm,” he answered patiently. “You asked me about it several times.”

My brow wrinkled. I couldn’t remember doing that, but I should’ve. I’d admired the purple lark with its star-flecked feathers and traced my fingers over the curve of the ribbon it’d clutched in its claws.

“It’s a metalark, a bird from the dreamlands that you were ordered to forget,” he explained. “No matter how many times I talked to you about the metalark, the moment I said what it was,you would go quiet and forget where you were. I guessed that it might be your full name.”

I glanced down at the basin of memory shards far below us as something stirred. My father’s voice echoed up to us. Kauz tilted his head to listen in.

“Metalark, my baby bird.”

“You’ll fly too someday.”

“Your mother wanted to name you after one of her favorite things.”

“Tweet tweet, little Metalark.”

A baby girl’s giggle.“Tweet tweet!”she echoed.

Glimmers of light shot back up the tunnel past where we sat.

My eyes welled with tears, and my shoulders shook with a sob. I’d forgotten what he sounded like, and the love he spoke with was nearly too much. I couldn’t speak for missing him. What I wouldn’t do to see him again one more time.

I buried my face in my hands, and Kauz pulled me closer. “Sorry,” I sniffed.

He tilted my chin up and tenderly wiped away the tear trails on my cheeks. “You never have to hide your pain from me,” he murmured. He continued his explanation while still cradling my face between his palms. “My brothers forced Cymora to break her vow to you, which is why your memories are returning. It was part of the plan for when we got here. I just didn’t expect the memories to fragment so much.”

“They did? There was a plan?” I asked.

“A rather successful one at that. My father and I removed the silencing band, Fal and Marius probably wrung the fish dry of any moisture left in her, and now you’re on the verge of getting your memories back.”

“The what? They did what?” I was trying to follow along, but there appeared to be a lot I’d missed. “When did you…wait. You all planned this when I was sleeping late, didn’t you?”

Kauz smiled with a bit of mischief. “Aye. Now you’re catching on.”

I was starting to love that look on my favorite Unseelie males. I leaned up and kissed him, glad he was as solid as ever in this corner of my mind. He kissed me back slowly, sighing as we broke apart.

“It may be easier to get started rather than continue trying to explain. We have a lot of memories to cover.” He took in the pit below us again. “It’s going to be hard, but I think the only way to do this is to relive these moments. That way, they’ll become your memories again.”

“So, do I just jump in?” I asked.

“Nooo,don’t do that. We’ll call individual ones to us. I think I know where to start.” Kauz had a sad sort of smile as he reached out over the pit, and a memory flew into his waiting hand. He held his other palm out to me. “Just remember, I’m here. I’ll be here with you no matter how bad it gets.”

As I took in the shard and the color and sound that vibrated off it, then his offered hand, I had the feeling that this was the beginning of an ordeal. I literally didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I was about to find out face-first.

I put my hand in Kauz’s. I entered the memory he held and was hit with an immediate sense of dread as I watched my stepmother and a teenage dryad enter my room. I watched as an observer, a floating ghost that didn’t know what was about to happen to my eleven-year-old self as she closed a book she was reading for the third time.

“I saw this memory in Cymora’s dreams,” Kauz said. He appeared next to me in a flash of starlight and preemptively put his arms around me. “That is a silencing band. Anolcanusdesigned to suck on your essence until almost nothing is left.”

I trembled in his arms but didn’t look away. Not when I screamed and begged and Cymora watched me writhe in pain with poorly disguised satisfaction.

I remembered how much it hurt to have the band bite into my flesh. The worst pain of my life as it settled in and drank deeply of my essence. I’d keened for hours, calling and calling, but no one came to help me.

My lame foot…was this. We returned to the alcove, and off went the memory, restored to my mind. Dozens followed it. The voices of the fae of Osme Fen, filled with mocking. Even from some I thought were my friends.

“Look at her faking that limp.”

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