Page 9 of Madness of Her Mages

Anya, who is she?“W-what happened?” I rasped, my throat feeling almost as gritty as my eyes.

The old man knelt beside me, his bones creaking with the movement. He held out a tin cup of what looked like water, his dull eyes crinkling as he smiled. “You don’t remember?”

I took the tin from him, taking a hesitant sip and then several more gulps of the cool water. “No,” I finally said after finishing the tin.

“You fell and hit your head.” He clucked his tongue while patting my knee. “Don’t worry, daughter. You’re safe now.”

I handed the tin back to him, alarm bells blaring in my skull. My father? That couldn’t be right. “Y-you’re my father?”

He sat beside me with a grunt, stretching his bony legs by the fire. “I am.”

“Oh.” I scratched my head, trying, and failing, to remember anything about this man claiming to be my father. Then again, I couldn’t remember anything about myself. Was he right? Had I hit my head? If so, how much damage had I done that I couldn’t remember anything about my life? Memories of my dream slowly filtered into my mind. Two toddler girls with silver-blue eyes crying in my arms. I rocked them and whispered soothing words into their ears, but they continued to sob. So strange.

“Father?” The word felt heavy, foreign on my tongue. Though I wanted to believe this old man with the kind, smiling eyes was my father, some other part of me feared this was all a deception.

He leaned into me, so close, I could smell the stale tang of his breath. “Yes?”

I scratched the back of my head, trying to recall anything other than the toddlers’ striking eyes. “I had a nightmare.”

He frowned, holding out his arms to me. “Come here, child.”

I fought the urge to recoil. I didn’t want him to hold me. I wanted to run far away. I looked around for any sort of escape but was met with odd glowing eyes blinking back at me fromthe shadows. The clouds overhead muted the light from the twinkling stars, and I feared I wouldn’t make it far if I escaped this strange place. When he gave me an expectant look, I felt compelled to obey and let him take me in his arms.

“Tell me about your dream.” His breath in my ear was too hot and heavy, and his beard itched my face as he clutched my back. I tensed when he kissed my cheek, then froze when his hand wandered to my knee before traveling back up my thigh.

I struggled to break free of his grasp to no avail. How strange that I felt so weak. Why had I thought I was stronger? “I had twin daughters,” I said, wondering why I was confessing my dream to him when I wasn’t sure if he would use my secrets against me. “No matter how much I held them, they wouldn’t stop crying.”

“Strange,” he slurred, not sounding the slightest bit interested.

“Yes,” I mumbled. After nearly choking on his sour breath, I turned my head away.

He squeezed me tighter. “Well, it was just a dream. You have no children, my love.”

My love?I pressed my hands against his chest, trying to push him away. “It felt so real.”

He wouldn’t let go. “It wasn’t.”

I froze when his hand moved between my thighs.

“Father,” I ground out, pushing harder against him, “let go of me.”

“Why?” He slid his hand dangerously close to that juncture between my thighs. “Don’t you want me to give you comfort?”

“No.”

“I’m trying to soothe you.” His hands were all over me like a sea creature’s tentacles.

“Father, stop.”

“But I love you, Flora,” he whispered.

Flora?Why had he called me Anya before? I managed to break free of him, slapping his hands away. Bile rose into my throat when I looked into his foggy eyes as sweat beaded on his brow.

I scrambled away, pointing an accusatory finger at his chest. “You’re not my father!”

His dull eyes sharpened then narrowed.

Chest heaving, I slowly stood and took a step back. I had to get out of here. But where would I go? What new threats would I meet in that dark forest?

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