Page 60 of Lady of the Lake

When did I become claustrophobic? My breath is faster now, and I’m inhaling particles of dirt. I hate being trapped.

This isn’t me. This is Talan.These are his feelings. His dream.

Screams pierce the stone walls from outside. Or maybe from within my skull. I’ve been suffocating in here forever.

A deep ache settles in my chest, the feeling of being abandoned.

I’m not really dead. I’m buried alive in a tiny, cramped cell in the dungeons. The Fey don’t die so easily.

I’m Nia.

I claw my way to the surface. Even if it’s only a dream, I need to get out of this coffin. The small, dark space is maddening, sodisorienting that my muscles cramp, bent at odd angles to fit. Panic rakes at my thoughts, and I still can’t breathe.

For years, I’ve wished I’d never been born.

The door opens, and soldiers stand before me. I brace myself, knowing they are going to burn me. A traitor’s fate. This was always going to be my destiny: tied to a stake, set aflame by dragon fire, flesh blistering?—

But they’re calling meYour Highness. Since when is a condemned man afforded that respect?

The light hurts my eyes, and I can no longer stand.

I’mabove the surface now, looking out from a balcony in Castle Perillos. Below me, flames rise at the stake. Tarasque unleashes another gout of flames on a traitor, and smoke coils into the air. Screams ring out.

Carnage everywhere.

My father has arranged stone slabs for disemboweling prisoners, racks for stretching them, horses for pulling them apart. But it’s my name above them all…Prince Talan.

This is why he pulled me from the prisons, not just because Lothyr is dead. I’m here to take the blame.

The scent of blood and burned flesh coils through the air.

I grip the balcony tightly. I will become king in Father’s place. I only need to wait for the right moment.

Screams ring out, the noise rattling in my skull. I lived in silence for so long, and now the shrieks deafen me.

I’m not the prince. These aren’t my memories. This isn’t my world.

A dark wave of terror crashes over me as I fight my way to the surface, scrambling to remember who I am.

I’m Nia. From Los Angeles.

Now, I’m stalking through the palace halls, drunk on mead. A blonde, nymph-like woman staggers by my side, more drunk that I am. I can’t remember her name.

The mead makes my thoughts softer, duller. It burns my throat and turns down the volume on the world.

She reaches for my neck, pulling me closer, and whispers in my ear, “I want you to fuck me here in the halls. I don’t care who sees us.”

I terrify her, and that turns her on.

I see the way people look at me. They think I was behind the slaughter.

And why should I tell them otherwise? Better to let them fear me. Because one day, Iwillbring down the king. And if I want to succeed, I need them to be more afraid of me than they are of him.

I’m in the dungeons again. In dreams, time isn’t linear, and I’m trapped here once more—buried alive. Forgotten. I’m starving. I can feel my ribs protruding through my skin, a skeleton trapped in stone. I’m not sure if I died long ago but my mind hasn’t caught up…

I’m Nia, I scream in my mind.I’m from California. This isn’t me.

I’m lyingon a bed beneath a sycamore tree, watching the branches sway in the breeze. I’m whole again, bathed in lemon-yellow summer light.

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