Page 40 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
Not knowing who she is.
Not knowing why or how she lost her family.
Not knowing what her future could have been.
Or perhaps this last is a slight mercy. Because if she remembered in detail what she’d lost, that would make it all the worse.
For the first few months she kept hoping her memories would return, even if they did torture her. She’d get the tiniest of flashes sometimes… more feelings than anything concrete. A joltof familiarity seeing a mother with her child. A wave of déjà vu seeing two sisters holding hands in a marketplace. A prickle of muscle memory seeing two people fighting with swords.
She could handle a blade. Read a book. Ride a horse. She knew how to do these things even though she didn’t remember ever learning them. She knew the taste of ale, of a certain kind of fruit. The smell of a distinct woodsmoke would bring a momentary flash of windswept hills and starry nights.
After a few months, however, she realized that these glimmers into her past were all she was going to get.
And she had to know.
When she walked back down the streets of Terlian, she kept her cloak up, her red curls tucked far back where no one could see them. She swept her gaze down every alley, every sense on the alert for the hunters. She was careful not to head straight for the street where she first awoke that night. Instead, she meandered, skirting the edges of the neighborhood, observing and checking to see if she was observed.
The area seemed clear of hunters.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this was thelastplace they’d expect her to come back to. Maybe she was safe for a little while.
As twilight fell, she gathered the courage to visit a pub at the end of the street where it all began. She sat at a table by herself near an exit, and after ordering some food, and some ale which she carefully did not drink much of, she began to ask the barmaid questions.
She was looking for work, she told the barmaid, and was this a good area for blacksmithing?
Did a lot of people move in and out of this area, or was it the same families who had founded the town?
Was there a lot of crime, or was it relatively safe in the area?
Had anything bad happened here in the last few years?
The last question definitely earned an odd look, and the barmaid sidled closer. “Other than the fire, nothing ever happens ‘round here.”
The girl kept her face neutral. “The fire?”
A gesture from the barmaid, a ward against fae magic. As if there was such a thing. “Unnatural, it was. The whole building went up just like that.” Another gesture. “Burnt to the ground in less than a minute. No normal fire could do that.”
Words forced past a tight throat. “Did anyone get hurt?”
“Aye.” The barmaid shook her head. “A whole family perished. A husband, wife, and two daughters.”
Her heart pounded so hard it might bruise her ribs. “How awful. Locals?”
“No. They’d only just arrived. Very mysterious like.”
The girl stayed in the area for several days, visiting different pubs and markets, but they all told the same story. Visitors from abroad. No one knew where they came from. Here and then gone in a very strange and unfortunate happening. Fae magic suspected.
On the fourth night, sleeping in a barn as usual, the horses saved her from being caught.
She’d woken to their snorts and the stomping of hooves. Then, the shadowy outlines of three men making their way down the barn aisle in the moonlight. Adrenaline jolted her upright, propelled her out of the nook in the hay bales she’d been sleeping in. Powered her as she ran down the aisle out the opposite end of the barn, snarls of pursuit behind her.
And for a moment, as she slipped through the back entrance, she almost stopped running.
Because if she let herself be caught, then maybe, just maybe, she’d learn the truth before she met whatever fate these men had in store for her.
The truth was the thing she wanted most. To know her history. Her purpose in this life. To no longer be adrift and alone.
She hesitated, in the dark hours after midnight, and she almost let them catch her.
