Page 245 of Children of Fallen Gods

Sound came first. The sound of birds. Then, the rustle of a breeze through leaves. The distant click of footsteps on a polished floor. All things that perhaps I knew once.

Then, touch. The soft sensation of cushions beneath me, of smooth fabric on aching skin. Smell. The clean scent of damp earth, of distant flowers. Of strong tea. Of lilies. How did I know it was lilies?

I opened my eyes.

I stared at a ceiling formed of intricate patterns crafted in copper, vines and moss twining around them. Those patterns framed glass, which revealed a churning grey sky.

I twitched my fingers.

My fingers.

I expected to feel someone else, here — someone else in this body who would fight me for control or linger just out of reach.

But I was met with nothing but silence. My mind was cavernous, empty, lonely. There was no one here but me.

“Aefe.”

Warm fingertips brushed my hand, and on instinct, I yanked it away. I sat up, too fast, making my head spin and stomach churn.

“You are safe,” the voice murmured.

You are safe. I heard it in Tisaanah’s voice, in her thoughts, within the mind we had once shared. My mind was empty, now.

I turned, a snarl at my lips, already lunging out of the bed. I collided with a figure and the two of us were on the ground, me crawling over him, his hands gripping my shoulders, before I even had a moment to look at him.

“It’s me, Aefe.”

“Do not call me that,” I snarled.

And then I looked at him, and stopped.

I did know him. Even though I didn’t understand how. He was a ghost from a life I no longer remembered. Someone else’s life, not my own. It was always someone else’s life. He had a sharp, angular face, a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, auburn hair that waved over his forehead. A copper crown, formed in the shape of a stag’s horns, sat upon his head. But it was his eyes that froze me. A familiar mossy green, and now, they were looking at me as if they saw me. As if theyknewme.

I did not like it. I did not want to be seen.

I hissed and leapt away, staggering backwards until I fell against a wall. I was in a bedchamber — a fine one, from what I understood of such things. The tile was cold beneath my feet.

“Where am I?” I blurted out. “Who— what is this—”

I did not know how to word my question. I looked down at my splayed hands. They were not Tisaanah’s. They were not Maxantarius’s. They were not the withered hands of the man in the room of white and white.

The copper-haired man approached me slowly, carefully. I did not like the way he looked at me, as if I was something to be examined, something to be understood. It was easier not to be understood.

“The body is yours,” he said, quietly. “Come. Look at it.”

“I have no body.”

“Look.”

He held out a hand, gesturing to a mirror on the other side of the room. I regarded it warily before stepping towards it.

What I saw within it made my heart clench, though I did not understand why.

A female Fey stood there, wearing a simple white shift. She had tan skin, and long deep-red hair, and a smattering of pearlescent purple across her cheeks. Her eyes were a dark violet. They were deep-set, and tired, and very afraid.

I stepped backwards.

“You recognize yourself,” the man said.

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