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“Callidora...”
“Callidora, where are you, faywen?”
“Calli, come play!”
“Callidora, ha! Terrible name for such an ugly girl.”
“Meya, we ask your blessings for this union.” Foalan brushed an oil-covered thumb across my spinning, drowning head, then did the same to Alisdair. “Lord Lumenfell, it is time,” he began. “Make your vows before the All Mother.”
“Wait...” I choked. “I—”
“Do you, Lord Lumenfell, vow to care for, honor, and obey Shoua Callidora?”
“I do.”
“Wha— What’s going on?” My voice was a thin rasp.
“CALLIDORA!”
“I don’t understand!”
“Do you, Lord Lumenfell, vow to give your title, your love, and your life to Shoua Callidora?”
“I vow to give you everything, Callidora, because I love you.”
My mind broke.
I clutched my head, screaming as two decades of a lifetime flooded my head. Little Calli playing peek-a-boo with Mama. Callidora and Meli singing while they hung the washing. Riordan knocking on Calli’s door, inviting her out to play kickball with him and his friends. Calli tickling Jaclan’s and Gisela’s feet under the covers, so their shrieking giggles covered the shouting fight Mama and Kirwan were having in the same room.
Callidora saying goodbye to her faywens outside her home, promising she’d come back.
No, not she. Me. It’s me!
One after the other, the memories crammed into my skull—splitting it apart. Darkness bled into my vision, dragging me to a peaceful, painless realm of unconsciousness as all the while...
I screamed.
“—DORA? ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”
“Everyone, out! There won’t be a wedding here today.”
Those words drilled into my skull, peeling my eyes open. A blurred shape came into view.
“Wake up.” Alisdair leaned over me, holding me in his arms. He brushed the hair from my forehead. “You don’t have much time.”
“What’s... going—?”
“It’s Aya Olene. She and Meliora have been arrested for treason. They’re to be executed tomorrow at daybreak!”
I bolted upright. “Mama!”
“Good,” Alisdair said, “you already know what’s going on. Callidora, you don’t have much time.”
“Calli,” I blurted. It all came back to me. Every single second and every memory of my life, including the long months I spent losing it. “No one calls me Callidora. It’s old-fashioned and embarrassing. It never suited me. It means—”
“Beauty.” Alisdair grinned that grin, making my heart stop. “A name never suited anyone on this earth more.”
Even with everything going on, he could still make me blush. “But you can’t say that,” I cried, pushing him back. I looked around at the wedding that would never be as the last guests left through the main doors. “You don’t know what I truly look like. You don’t know so many things!”
