Page 120 of Realm of Nightmares
Rowan.
He was carrying her.
Then it was gone.
He gently laid her down on the sofa by the hearth, and she stared up at him while Laurel hovered over her. Their faces blurred in and out of her vision, swarmed by the tears that continued to fall. Two names. Rowan and Laurel. Names she remembered. Faces she recognized. Everything else was indistinct. Bleary depictions and hazy silhouettes of the life she lived. Each time a vision bled into her mind, she tried to grasp it. To hang onto it. But it was like trying to catch a breeze or capture the sunlight.
Impossible.
Panic streaked down her spine in cold waves, and she trembled. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, rocking back and forth. She was hollow. Empty. Desolate. Each breath left her with a shudder. Her heart quaked, burdened by a familiar feeling she longed to forget. The one she could never quite shake.
Loneliness.
It swept through her, that relentless pain of isolation.
“I can’t remember.” Her voice broke as the shreds of her memory tangled together in a knot of absolute nothingness.
“Can’t remember what?” Laurel asked, her voice soft. Almost kind.
“Anything!” Maeve curled her knees to her chest, hugged them close. “I know you. And Rowan. And I know I’m in the Ether. But I don’t know why. Or how. Everything before this…before you…is gone.”
Laurel dropped onto the sofa beside her, and sudden warmth poured from her as she gently rubbed Maeve’s back. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s lost her memory.” Rowan stood motionless, gazing down at her as though suddenly seeing her for the first time. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Of course it’s possible. Anything is possible.” Laurel stood abruptly, a cascade of black lace falling around her. “She’s not supposed to be here. Aed should’ve sent her back weeks ago. Now look at what he’s done! She barely remembers her own name.”
Maeve sniffed, using the sleeve of her blouse to wipe away her tears. “Can it be reversed?”
Laurel knelt in front of her, clasping both of Maeve’s hands in her own. Her eyes sparkled with sheer determination. “Anythingis possible.”
Maeve glanced up at Rowan. He looked toward the hearth, then the floor, before finally meeting her gaze. He’d told her to ask if she needed help, if she needed anything. He was the Nightweaver, the other half of one whole. The night to the dawn. Destruction to creation.Like calls to like.“Can you help me?”
His face remained impassive, but his eyes, those pools of lovely lavender, flickered with emotion. Regret. Anguish. Love. He dipped his head, looking anywhere else but at her. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you can. You can fix this.” Laurel stood, then poked him in the chest with one of her excessively sharp nails. “Put aside your feelings for Maeve and do what is best for the Dawnbringer. For Faeven.”
Faeven.
The word was a glimmer of recollection, lost to her a moment later.
Rowan shoved a hand through his hair. He debated, glancing at Laurel, then Maeve, then back again. “There’s no guarantee it will work.”
“The least you can do istry,” Laurel snapped, impatience searing her words. “Did you not give your life for her? Were you not ready to sacrifice everything to save her?”
“I—” Rowan hesitated, fists clenching by his side. “I don’t want to lose—”
“I know what fear grips you,” Laurel interjected, cutting him off. She placed a firm hand on Maeve’s shoulder, squeezed lightly. “But it’s selfish. If you stand there and do nothing, then you fail her. You fail all of us. Shemustgo back. And you must be the one to help her remember. Her purpose is greater than your love for her.”
Laurel released Maeve and crossed her arms, daring him to contradict her.
“Accept it,” she said coldly. “She is not yours.”
Rowan’s face fell, as though he’d been gutted thoroughly. Defeat was etched into the angular planes of his face, his mouth pinched with remorse.
“Show her,” Laurel pleaded, her voice quieter this time.
“Alright.” Rowan lowered himself before Maeve. “Give me your hands, Princess. Let me show you who you are, what you are.”
