Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (93 page)

They tell me my name is Memory.

They tell me that I did amazing things.

They tell me all about this land I’m in and the changes that are happening here.

Avall was experiencing a wary peace.

Oonah was proving to be a kind and intelligent ruler of the unseelie fae. She was Finvarra’s wife, Nyneve’s mother, whom Nyneve had exiled for being too sympathetic to humans. She and Aine worked together with the forces of seelie and unseelie fae to stop Avall shifting back to the rest of the world, stabilizing it within the Veil, separated again from the world it had once been part of. But the doorway that Memory had opened between the worlds, whose opening was smack in the middle of the Round Room of the palace of Caermaellan, remained open. At least, on Avall’s end.

The Wizards’ Council had used their magic to hide the opening at the other end. They did not think Avall was ready to be rediscovered by the rest of the world yet. Most were afraid of that world and its technology, but some were excited by it, thrilled at the prospect of being able to share again, to import new things and to allow Avall to move forward. It had been stuck in its time rut long enough, and it had outlived the antiquated ideals and principles that had once ruled the land. Bedevere had already made a number of trips into the other world.

The world they told Memory she was also part of.

I try to understand, but the hole inside me feels so big that it could never be filled.

Will looked across at Memory, his face the normal mix of small smile and small frown she had grown to know. He was always by her side, as long as she wanted him to be. There were times when she needed to be alone and he would let her be, but mostly she appreciated his presence, and his answers. They sat together on the balcony of her bedroom, staring out at the springtime flowers in the courtyard below, legs dangling over the balustrade, feet tickled by the ivy leaves that grew there. Memory smiled back at Will. He had become a good friend.

She had a sister here, too. Eloryn. And Eloryn’s boyfriend, Roen, seemed to treat Memory like family as well. They were around often, but also had responsibilities that kept them busy. And there were many other friends she was learning the names of. There were also a lot of names that were spoken of friends who were gone.

Alward, Thayl, Waylan, Peirs, Edele, Shonae, Clara.
Memory recited the names often, although she couldn’t remember the people themselves. It hurt her, to know that maybe she would never remember them, that these people had died and she would never now have a chance to know them.

Eloryn had tried to explain Memory’s complicated relationship with Thayl. At times it made Memory too sad and she had to stop her sister, taking the story in small installments only.

A warm breeze blew past the balcony and Memory sighed. “So many terrible things,” she whispered quietly to herself.

Will’s normally small frown deepened and Memory had to remind herself again how good his hearing was.

“Lots of terrible thing have happened. To this world, to you, and to me,” he said, staring over the courtyard to the forest beyond. He turned back and met her gaze. The icy blue of his eyes made her heart jump. “But know you’re the best thing to happen to me, and to this world.”

Memory looked down at her right hand, or what used to be her right hand, and sighed. A finely crafted silver prosthetic hand was now attached there. Eloryn had spent days planning an intricate behest which imbued the replica hand with a sort of life. It responded to Memory’s thoughts and moved just as a real hand would, however while it could touch, it could not feel. Sometimes she could have sworn she still felt the tingle of real flesh, then when she looked down and saw the cold metal at the end of her arm it confused and scared her beyond anything she wanted to admit.

Losing her hand, losing her memories and herself, were the sacrifices she had apparently chosen to make. Everyone said she had changed everything, and talked about the differences, but she did not remember what it had been like before.

There was no Pact anymore, no forced peace treaty, and no threat of Branding. There was just an implicit agreement to treat everyone, seelie and unseelie and human alike, as equals. So far everyone had managed to behave. Nobody knew if that would or could last, though they all hoped that it did. The fae had been given life again due to Memory’s actions, and there was a grand sense of gratitude for that. The numbers of fae spending more time in Avall had grown and it was rare to spend a day without seeing a fae of one kind or another. And with the return of the fae, the weather had also improved. The bitter snows ended and a mild sun shone across a flourishing land.

The Kingdom of Avall was being managed by the people Memory had put in place, but they had yet to crown a new ruler. Memory was still queen, at least in name, and everyone seemed to be waiting for her, hoping that she would regain her memories or learn enough again to step back into that role. In the meantime Eloryn was acting in her place.

There was a quiet knock on the door, and Eloryn and Roen came in together. The happiness Memory could see in them always made her happy as well, and somehow sad.

They didn’t say a word, just came over and joined Will and Memory on the balcony. The sun had just begun to dip toward the horizon, warming the clouds around it to a blazing gold.

Eloryn rested her head on Memory’s shoulder, and Roen put a hand on hers, and together they watched the sunset.

Memory found the whole thing strange, the way people treated her, and talked about what she did. She felt like they were talking about someone else. In a way, they were. She didn’t recall doing those things, didn’t know the people who spoke to her, and she never knew what was exaggerated. It all sounded like an exaggeration to her. Could anyone really have had that much magic? How had she have survived it? It seemed like she would have just exploded, or imploded, something oded, just to get rid of it at some point. It had to have hurt.

When things became too confusing, Will was always there for her, always ready to comfort her and to talk to her and to tell her about their shared past. Guilt swamped her on a daily basis. He loved her. It was obvious, despite how he tried to hide it, how he tried to put no pressure on her to feel the same. Her heart was as empty and hollow as the spot in her head where her memories had once resided. She apologised daily that she wasn’t the person he remembered. He said he could wait, and that he would wait forever for her if he had to. She believed him. He treated her with nothing but the utmost patience and love.

Everyone treated her like a hero even though she remembered nothing of what she had done. But she knew one thing— that person they all saw in her, that was who she wanted to be.

The wedding between Eloryn and Roen was a sumptuous affair.

It was a celebration of their love, but also a celebration of the new peace and prosperity Avall and all its inhabitants had found. Seelie and unseelie fae and people of all walks of life were in attendance. The ballroom was filled with sprites dancing, their wings shedding bright colors onto the fur of black-eyed fauns and satyrs around them. People in rich velvets and homespun cottons, women in tightly laced corsets and fae in wispy gossamer gowns filled the chamber and overflowed into the gardens and grounds of the palace.

The feast was huge and many of the people who had been going hungry in the land were at the groaning tables, stuffing intricately iced cakes into their mouths and laughing joyfully. There was plenty for everyone. The fae were no longer in danger of leaving the world forever and so Avall was no longer at risk of becoming a barren wasteland again. The land was healing, and the races along with it.

Music swirled and the dancers clapped their hands. Gaiety was everywhere, or almost everywhere. Some people remained still, looking around with the sad expression of a person searching for someone who will never come in the door again.

Memory leaned against a pillar, watching Eloryn dance with Roen. It was tradition in Avall for the bride to receive a gift of some form from a fae, and so Eloryn’s gown was a gift from the seelie queen. It was a blend of gauzy, lighter than air fabric and gems like dewdrops that fell in smooth lines from her waist, spilling onto the floor like a shining pool at her feet. The golden tones mirrored her hair, which was pinned up in a mass of curls, highlighting her delicate face, made more beautiful by the flush of happiness it held. Roen wrapped his finger around one loose curl of hair, his eyes only for Eloryn’s as they spun in slow circles around the room.

Leaning on the other side of the pillar, Will asked, “Do you want to know how they fell in love?”

“No,” Memory answered. “It’s enough to see that they are.”

Memory swallowed, mustering up the courage to ask something she hadn’t yet been able to. She’d pieced some of it together herself, from how Will and her other friends behaved and talked, and at first it made her only feel sad. But something had been stirring inside her, and she felt she was ready. “If you could though, if it’s not too hard… maybe sometime could you tell me about how we fell in love?”

Will had a guilty look of being caught out. “You know?”

Memory grinned mockingly. “Sheesh, give a girl some credit! You can’t look at me with those eyes without me seeing all the feels.”

Will looked at his feet. “I didn’t want to force anything by having you know.”

“I know. Thank you. But I want to know. I’m not saying I’m ready to be in a relationship with you again or whatever it was we were. I’m not sure that is the path I want for myself now. Not that I don’t like you, I mean, I do like you, I mean…” Memory took a deep breath and looked away from Will’s blue eyes and mess of dark hair and strong shoulders. “Yeah, so. Ahem. Maybe we can have that chat sometime.”

Will nodded and looked away, sparing Memory from him seeing the growing redness in her cheeks.

Across the room, Memory saw Oonah giving Eloryn a gift, some kind of large book. The two turned in unison and looked straight at Memory. She felt strange under the Unseelie Queen’s inhuman stare, and the mix of emotions on her sister’s face confused her. She didn’t know either of them well enough to understand what it meant.

But she didn’t have to think about it for long.

“Dance with me?” Will asked, his voice so slightly shaky.

“I don’t know how to dance,” Memory said.

Will chuckled. “Do you think I do?”

Memory grinned, and took his extended hand. They shuffled out into the crowd, awkwardly trying to copy the moves of those around them. Soon they let joy and silliness and the beat of the music take over, moving any which way they liked, laughing and panting and swinging about the room.

As one lively song ended and a slow waltz began, Memory found herself in Will’s arms. They stood mostly still, swaying together on the spot.

Will bent down, tentatively, and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. She smiled at him and her heart swelled, as though growing to love him again was the most natural thing in the world.

“It’s late,” Roen said, silhouetted in the doorway.

Eloryn looked up at him from where she was hunched over the desk in the queen’s office. “Is it?”

Then she frowned at him, seeing him standing there in the darkness. “Where is your wisp light? You’ve been getting good at that behest, but you do still need practice.”

“Thanks, teacher,” he said, and Eloryn imagined the grin on his face despite not being able to see it. She did see him shrug. “I guess I’m just not used to being able to do that yet. I’ve always been comfortable in the dark. Àlaich las.” A small glow appeared in his hand, shining up and making his caramel features turn to gold.

Eloryn smiled. He had been getting much better. When Memory replaced the Spark of Connection in the humans of Avall, it entered everyone. Even Roen. Even Will. Eloryn had been teaching them how to use their new connection to magic. Just one of her current projects.

Roen walked in and sat on the arm of her chair, putting his hands to work on the tight muscles at her neck. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch.

His words were quiet. “I know what you are trying to do, and I want it as much as you do, but please don’t lose yourself to this.”

Eloryn looked back at the desk where Nyneve’s journal lay open. Oonah had proved a kind ruler in many ways, and this wedding gift to Eloryn had been just one. Somewhere in these pages they hoped would be a way to help Memory.

The book was bound in leather that still held a stickiness like wet blood. The pages had been created out of thin linen and the ink was clear and legible even when the hand that had written the words within had shaken from grief or rage or jealousy.

The book felt wrong. The cover and pages had a weight to them that made Eloryn want to wipe her fingers on her skirts after each leaf turned.

“There are things in here I would be better off not seeing or knowing. Nyneve was beyond the darkness, she was headed into lightless territory,” Eloryn said.

“I will try to keep you in the light,” Roen replied.

A smile took the shadows from Eloryn’s face.

She had to admit it, reading Nyneve’s journal had taken a toll on her.

It started out innocent enough. Then Myrddin began to appear often in the text, and soon Nyneve’s love turned to poison, to hatred. She refused to see what she was doing to him and their relationship, with her jealousy over Arthur and the humans that Myrddin loved so much.

The emotions in those words were so raw and powerful that Eloryn could feel them tangle her insides. They battered at her heart and she had to stop reading those passages. But the next passages, once Myrddin had gone missing, were worse. Dark spells, sacrifices, and blood pacts, anything to bring Myrddin back to her. Her first body sacrificed was Myrddin’s father, using his blood to make like call to like, drawing Myrddin free of the Veil. It was much as Alward’s failed Veil door and Eloryn had accidentally drawn Memory back out of the Veil when she had been lost.

Once Nyneve learned that Myrddin had attacked Mordred, seeking revenge on the man for killing Arthur and was then Branded by the human, things really turned dark.

That’s when the blood drinking began.

Eloryn learned that while Nyneve had been building her resistance to iron by drinking human blood, she had also been testing her resistance to iron by being in contact with it. When Memory’s past was freed into the world after beating Thayl, Nyneve had been able to experience some of Memory’s past, filtering the memories into her through the iron.

Nyneve could not possess Memory’s past, but she could learn enough from it to act as Hope. But there was something there, something in her methods that started connections firing in Eloryn’s mind. Eloryn knew that holding iron had returned some memories to her sister in the past, but magic came with it, and she didn’t want her sister suffering from an overflow of that again. The Wizards’ Council had collected and locked away all remaining iron artifacts after the battle, understanding now its connection to magic and what too much contact with it could do. They did small and highly monitored tests, and in their own way were trying to help Memory too. But they hadn’t yet discovered a way to return Memory to herself.

The rest of the pages of Nyneve’s journal were filled with darker magic than any before. Blood sacrifices, runes cut into flesh, and spells with hearts the color of coal. The journal needed to be destroyed, or taken somewhere and hidden for all time so that nobody else could use the evil magic and spells inside. The lure of that power was too tempting, even to Eloryn.

“No, I won’t lose myself.” Eloryn shuddered and closed the book, no longer wanting to see those words, to feel the residual magic, twisted and sickening, that lingered there.

She moved out of Roen’s grasp and turned to look at him face to face.

“I found something, in Nyneve’s mad words. The way she returned Memory’s past to her the first time, it might be a way to bring our Memory back to us.”

“But without any sort of sacrifice, of course?” Roen asked, one eyebrow raised.

Eloryn frowned. It was a sacrifice of sorts, for Memory. Eloryn closed her eyes, picturing how she saw her sister earlier that day. She was laughing, rough-housing with Maeve on the palace lawn, green grass clinging to her dress and a daisy tucked behind her ear. She seemed so happy. None of the weight and pain of a terrible past, the suffering she had lived through. Would it be better if she remained free of that suffering forever?

It’s not your decision.

The words bounced around in her head and she wished they were not true, but they were. It was up to Memory whether or not she wanted them back.

Roen’s eyebrow rose further. “You’re worrying me here.”

“No, no sacrifices,” Eloryn said.

“Do you think she will be okay?” Roen asked, echoing Eloryn’s fears. “The last time she got her memories back, she tried to kill herself.”

Eloryn stood up and put her arms around Roen. “I know. I’m scared too. But this time, we’ll be there for her.”

Memory, Eloryn, Roen and Will, stood staring at the open Veil door that sat in the center of the Round Room. Wispy gray smoke circled the blurry window to the rest of the world, and in the middle stood Caliburn, wedged into the floor and glowing golden, spilling light and magic out into Avall.