Page 247 of Children of Fallen Gods

Then that pain hardened. I knew the emotion I saw there, too. An anger that reflected my own.

“They began taking us,” he said. “Shortly after that. Six fey disappeared, all while I was learning what had been done to you. I reclaimed them, but only one has survived. And what they did to you… hundreds of years of it…”

His words grew clumsy. It seemed strange, for him to speak that way. He did not seem the type to lose his grip on words, but he stopped, looked away. Then turned back to me.

“The humans thrived for so long because we allowed them to. Once, lives were only worth as much as the power of their House. But now, we are one kingdom. Every Fey life is worth it. Humans had already slaughtered hundreds of our people, long ago. They do not get to take a single life more. Not one.” A sneer formed over his nose. “I will never fail to fight for my people ever again. The world will be better off when they are gone.”

Silence. The intensity of his words seemed at odds with the gentle breeze through the leaves. Caduan looked at me, and his gaze slipped through mine like intertwining hands. Something in it, this time, made me pause. There were memories in that look. Memories that he had and I did not.

“I do not remember,” I said, quietly. “I do not remember any of it.”

His gaze softened. “I know.”

“Perhaps you are looking for Aefe. Perhaps she no longer exists.”

Another change in that stare, one that I did not have the language to understand.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I am happy to have you here, nonetheless.”

Strange, I thought. I did not know how to describe the sensation in my chest. It was uncomfortable. Everything was uncomfortable.

“Even if I am only Reshaye?” I said.

Caduan’s hand fell over mine. This time, I did not pull away.

“Even then,” he said.

Chapter Eighty-Eight

Max

Reality slipped through my fingers like falling sand. I could only catch grains of it at a time. Sometimes, I glimpsed a fragment of a memory — something big, something important — only for it to slip away like a ghost.

Consciousness swung in and out of my grasp. I awoke several times in a room so white it made my stomach turn, greeted by excruciating pain and people I didn’t recognize leaning over me, looking perplexed. Those days passed in a blur. They were less vivid than the dreams. I experienced reality as if it were on the other side of foggy glass. But my dreams? My dreams were sharp, even if only in broken pieces.

I was searching for something. I was missing something. I didn’t know what. In my dreams, I saw the girl with mismatched eyes and spotted skin. Sometimes, she was laughing or talking or buried in a book in utter concentration. Other times, she was leaning towards me, her face serious, her hands on either side of my cheeks.

Come back, Max. You have to come back.

And then she would lean over me, her white hair tickling my eyelids, brush her lips against my ear, and whisper something I couldn’t hear.

Blink.

Making my way to consciousness was a battle every time. I fought it valiantly. But once I got there, I didn’t know what to do with it. Reality shifted constantly. I was in the white room. I was in a crowded room in a little cottage. I was crouched in a garden, surrounded by flowers, turning around as someone called my name. I was in a beautiful golden hallway, being jostled by bickering dark-haired children. I was in the same golden hallway, surrounded by dark-haired corpses.

Blink.

I was in the white room. A slender woman with braided silver hair stood there, arms crossed over her chest. “Check again,” she was saying, to other people here. “They cannot have fled that fast. They’re traitors, and we do not let traitors escape in wartime. Not alive.”

My brow furrowed. I strung together pieces of memories. Traitors. Tisaanah. The Scar. Nura — the woman in front of me was Nura. And she was trying to find Tisaanah. Trying to…

Panic leapt.

I tried to sit up, tried to say something. But the moment I moved, the word unraveled like burnt paper.

Blink.

I was walking down a long hallway. I was wearing a stiff jacket that didn’t fit me. The edges of my vision were fuzzy. My head ached. There were soldiers on either side of me. I turned my head. Two behind.

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