Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (2 page)

Earlier.

Why has it become so hard just to keep my mind on a simple book? Focus,
Eloryn ordered herself. Her eyes skimmed over words without absorbing any meaning. She pinched her forehead and flicked back a page, trying to find the last information she’d actually retained from
The Principles and History of Infantry Warfare.
Alward no doubt had his reasons for making this dull book part of her syllabus but she couldn’t see how it would ever be much use to her, either for her teaching or in practice. If she was learning things she couldn’t share with her own students, she’d prefer to be studying magic.

Learning used to be easy. As a child, Eloryn already knew everything Alward taught the farmers’ children. She went to classes with them anyway, enjoying being with the other students. They stopped coming at age ten, schooled enough for their lives tending fields. She became a teacher herself after that while her own education continued. Now at sixteen, teaching felt repetitive, and she rarely saw anyone her own age. Apart from her small clutch of young students she rarely saw anyone at all. They lived alone, just herself and Alward, here in the fortified old monastery high in the wooded hills, set apart even from the tiny rural hamlet; a place where no one might recognize Alward, or herself, for who they really were. A place they could be safe.

Eloryn brushed against the pink flowers that spilt over the garden wall where she sat. They released a syrupy fragrance and she breathed it deeply, hoping to quell the unnamed ache in her chest.

“Riddip.”

Grateful for a distraction, Eloryn smiled to the speckled frog who hopped up onto her knee. “Kiss you? Why do you want me to kiss you?”

“Riddip.”

Eloryn giggled. “Oh, a handsome prince under a curse, and just one kiss from a beautiful princess will set you free? I’ve known you since you were a tadpole, little fool.” Eloryn poked him and imagined he smirked bashfully in return. But really, he always looked like that. “I shouldn’t have read you that story.” Eloryn sighed. Night approached, stealing away the friendly light. The high stone courtyard walls loomed over her. “I shouldn’t have read me that story.”

“Riddip.”

“I don’t know. There might be romance like that out there, and adventure and charming princes, but not here. Those things happen in places far, far away.”

“Riddip.”

“Shush! Really.” Eloryn dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper. “Owain only comes by to deliver produce for us. I’m sure he’s taken little notice of me.”

But she couldn’t say she hadn’t noticed him, with his feathery brown hair and strong wide shoulders. Eloryn closed her eyes and turned her face into the sun, enjoying the last few warm rays. Rather than focusing on infantry warfare, Eloryn found herself developing tactics to be the one to greet Owain on his next visit. She wondered what it would be like to hold his work-worn hands, and the heat from the sun’s touch spread through her whole body.

“Eloryn!”

Eloryn jumped and a deep blush bloomed on her face.

Alward bellowed from his chamber window overlooking the courtyard. “In here. Quickly!”

The urgency in his tone made her bolt to her feet, dropping book and frog from her lap. She whispered a sorry to her friend and puffed her way up the stairwell to Alward’s quarters.

Inside, Alward had shoved all the furniture aside to clear the space, knocking precious books off shelves in the process. Shards of a broken porcelain cup lay ignored in a puddle of still steaming tea, and the floor mat had been lifted and thrown over an armchair. Alward wore his normal grey suit, the top buttons now undone and sleeves rolled up. He hunched over the floor, scrawling magical symbols and words in charcoal. Eloryn recognized with excited fear what he was doing. The workings of a Veil door.

“Ellie.” Alward stood up to inspect his work. Pushing his glasses back up his nose he left a line of black soot behind. His graying blond hair, tied back in its usual ponytail, frayed and escaped from its bonds. “We have to go; we’ve been found. I don’t know how. Someone in the village perhaps recognized me. I’m sorry child. Hurry, fetch the pack.”

Eloryn’s mouth turned dry. She always knew they could be found, but one thought stormed through her head, leaving her dazed.
Why now? Why have they found us now?
Her chest tightened.
Please don’t let this be my fault.

Forcing her body to move, she went to a large wooden chest and unlocked it with a spoken behest, pulling out a packed bag that had been prepared for just this day. Alward still focused on the complex spell words, so to keep busy and calm her nerves, Eloryn took a fresh loaf from Alward’s desk and tucked it into the top of the leather satchel.

Alward called her to his side and she skittered to him, stepping carefully within the wide ring of soot-black words and trying to hide her shaking. She tilted her head back to look up into his face, which had begun showing the deeper lines of age. A crash of noise rattled up from the monastery entrance, making Eloryn gasp. Alward’s eyes darkened and he put a hand on her shoulder.

“It will all be well, my girl. The spell is set. Stay close to me. Be brave, the experience is not pleasant.” His expression held sad secrets she often saw when their eyes met. It sometimes made her wonder if he was disappointed in her, in his responsibility to care for her. Her heart leaped about and she clung to the leather pack as though it were a stuffed doll.

The charcoal words hummed and glowed when Alward began incanting in his gravelly voice. The Veil door was a long and complicated spell that most would have to read from a page, but Alward knew the ancient words well from years of study. The spell markings on the floor exploded into magical fire, and tendrils of smoke twisted around them, moving in unnatural ways. The vapor enveloped them. Eloryn watched as her own body began to take on the likeness of the smoke, shimmering into the Veil. It was wondrous, terrifying and painful.

She turned to Alward for reassurance and saw a stranger standing in the doorway.

Eloryn cried out a warning. Lost in his focus on the spell, Alward continued to chant.

The man at the doorway also called out and more men joined him, pouring into the room. One man, with a scarred face and lion’s mane hair, drew a fine crossbow. He shot a splinter-sized dart that lodged itself into Alward’s chest.

Alward’s form became solid. Light exploded in the room, knocking back the other men. Magical fire and living smoke, no longer under control, sparked and hissed, shifting like violent shadows. Whipping mists ripped into Eloryn, still caught within the Veil, barely there.

Alward strained toward Eloryn with charcoal blackened hands. She reached back but her hand passed through his, and she was gone.

In the black of the cave, Eloryn took a moment to ease the burning in her throat and stifle the sob building in her chest. She choked. Asking the rocks to fall had seemed clever at first but now she wasn’t so sure. Dust hung in the air, thick and invisible in the darkness, clogging her throat with each breath.

At least I’m safe now. Safe until Alward can find me again.
Eloryn pressed her bottom lip between her teeth. Safe, maybe, but she’d already made grave mistakes. The strange girl had even seen her using unauthorized magic. Girl? She had taken her to be a boy at first, wearing what she did. Maybe it was a disguise? The girl even refused to share her name. She could be hiding something too.

Now Eloryn only needed to cast a simple behest, one of the few authorized spells every person in Avall knew. The behest for light. “Àlaich las.”

Her request granted, the wisp appeared, creating a soft glow around Eloryn’s hand and illuminating the girl across the tunnel. Her strangely trimmed hair, short, ragged and roughed up at the back and long at the front, was rich black and... pink?
Could hair be pink?
She cast her gaze over the girl’s face and its odd metal pins and gems, pierced through nose, lips, eyebrows, sparkling against obvious bruising. The injuries weren’t from their recent chase. The yellow swelling of the girl’s jaw and purple around her eye had matured a good few hours. The hand the girl pressed to her forehead had fought some battle, with grated knuckles and blood around her fingernails. She moved with stiffness and hesitation that told of other pain throughout her body.

Worry nagged at Eloryn. Just moments out of his care and she already longed for Alward’s guidance. She remembered tumbling through the Veil, turning to wait for Alward to follow, and instead seeing this girl. Screaming. Shimmering in and out of existence.

How, how could she possibly have appeared there, caught in the Veil like that? None of this makes sense. How could I begin to guess her motives?
Eloryn pulled her shoulders up to her ears to fight off a chilling shiver.
No, she’s no older than me, just a girl, scared and lost. And it’s my fault she’s here. At least I won’t be alone.

Eloryn smiled at the girl and tried to keep her voice level. “We should keep moving, if you are well enough to.”

The girl didn’t respond. She leant against the rough stones, half bent over, chanting under her breath. Eloryn listened closer, but the girl wasn’t using the language of a behest. Shaking violently, she willed herself over and over to wake up, to wake up from this horrible dream.

“Let me help you.” Eloryn reached out but the girl shied away and edged farther along the rock wall.

Her head flicked up. She glared at Eloryn with oddly familiar eyes rimmed in thick black that ran down her face in dried tears. “What have you done to me? Why can’t I remember anything? Not anything! Have you used some kind of… magic on me?”

Eloryn backed away.
Did you do this, did you bring me here? Was it magic of yours?
She’d made similar accusations just moments ago. Now on the receiving end, they hurt.

“It wasn’t me, I, I didn’t...” Eloryn said. “You don’t remember anything at all?”

“No!” the girl snapped back. The sharp word echoed against the rocks around them.

A deep growl answered from the darkness, reverberating like distant thunder. With a turn of her hand Eloryn shifted the light. They stood in a twisted crack of tunnel that opened into a large cavern. The rough ceiling hung with dry and broken stalactites, the floor scattered with their fallen remains like a rocky bone yard. Deep amid the shadows and gloom, she swore she saw movement.

“We have to go,” said Eloryn. “We’re not safe here.”

The girl made no effort to leave. She put her hands over her ears and sank further toward the ground.

“Please!” said Eloryn.

“I don’t even know my name,” the girl said, her words broken by a shiver.

“I’ll give you a name,” Eloryn promised in desperation. She’d never had anything she needed to name. Things spoke with her as she could speak with them. They already had their own names. Only one thought came to her. “Memory. Your name is Memory.”

The girl looked both horrified and amused. “You’re cruel.”

“I’m sorry.” Eloryn tried to think of an alternative, but the girl – Memory – stood up.

“No, it’s... it’s OK. It’s better than nothing.” Her voice still shook as much as her hands, which she wedged under her armpits, but the glaze of confusion had left her eyes.

Eloryn nodded to Memory, then turned and took a tentative step forward, crunching twigs that had gathered at the mouth of the cave.