Page 1 of The Forgotten Queen
Sydria
The Kingdom of Cristole
Summer 2261
Faceless people stared with tilted heads, trying to get a better look. A long aisle stretched out in front of her. It seemed miles long, but at the same time, the shortness of it squeezed her stomach. She couldn’t catch her breath. Each step she took weighed her down until she found herself in front of a faceless man.
The scenery changed.
The people and flowers were gone. Sand filled in, and her body slowly sank into it.
Deeper and deeper.
The quicksand of life pulling her down.
She reached her hand up to the faceless man, hoping he would save her.
“I want to set you free,” he said as he watched her sink.
She tried to climb out of the hole she was lost in, but the sand was too heavy. She yelled, but her cries were muffled. The grainy substance filled up her mouth and chest.
She couldn’t breathe.
She was suffocating, dying.
Dead.
Sydria jolted to a sitting position in her bed. Her chest collapsed hard with each gasp of air. She looked around the room, eyes blinking rapidly. The late afternoon sunlight seeped through her small bedroom from the window above her bed. Dust particles floated through the light in a tranquil way, contradicting her racing heart.
It was a dream.
Only a dream.
She wiped at the sweat that had gathered at her forehead, the moisture reminding her that the moment wasn’t real even though the emotion behind itfeltreal. Sydria brushed a few strands of her black hair, which had fallen out of her braid, away from her face and reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. The cool liquid trickled down her throat, bringing a sense of calmness with it. She closed her eyes, searching for the meaning behind her dream.
Nothing.
There was nothing but useless facts in her mind. Everything personal to her was blank, not even a shred of a memory or a past. That part of her life was dark, like the blackness that filled her whenever she closed her eyes. Sydria should be used to it—used to not knowing who she was. She had woken up every day for the last three months with the absence of a history. All she knew was what her Aunt Edmay and Uncle Von had told her.
She was Sydria Hasler.
She’d been in a terrible carriage accident that had killed her parents.
She was lucky to be alive.
Sydria wished there was more to her story than that, but right now, there wasn’t.
Her eyes wandered to the orange vial on the nightstand that Uncle Von had left for her. She turned the lid and squeezed the top of the dropper, sucking the liquid up into the tube. She held the dropper above her mouth. The glass skimmed the top of her tongue, and a bitter taste took over. The medicine was keeping her alive, keeping her heart beating as it should. She drank another swig of water, washing the drops away, and swung her legs over the side of the bed and slowly stood, tugging down the skirt of her lavender dress, letting the fabric fall to her calves. The walls of her bedroom seemed to be closing in on her the longer she stayed at her aunt and uncle’s house. She needed some fresh air to quiet her racing heart and mind. She walked to her bedroom door and pulled it open.
Voices carried down the hall of the small cottage. She heard the bitterness in Uncle Von’s voice as he spoke. “I would never choose to be stuck with you.”
“And you think I like beingmarriedto you?” Aunt Edmay hissed back.
Sydria glanced down, playing with her fingers. The suffocating feeling from the dream returned. There was nowhere to go and no way to escape the feeling.
Trapped.
She always felt trapped.
