Page 2 of Of Shadows and Blood

“What do you mean? Do you not remember me?”

I stare at him again, my mind drawing blanks. I shake my head – no.

“Elivienne,” he calls me again, pulling me to him. His firm clutch brings me to his chest, making the pain in my neck seem minute compared to the pain I am feeling everywhere else, especially in my throat.

My heart begins racing as anxiety fronts. Shaking my head against him, I push away from his chest, subsequently throwing myself backwards onto the floor.

“Get away from me,” I yell, sliding off the bed onto the cold floor, pressing my back against the stone wall underneath the windowsill.

He looks over his shoulder, anger brimming. “Where are the fucking healers? You’re safe, Elivienne, I promise.”

“Help!” I scream out, the male looks wounded as I cower in the corner. More footsteps sound from down the hall. Frantically, I check my surroundings for some sort of weapon and settle on a pair of shears next to the other medical supplies. With my weapon of choice pointed at him, I survey the distance between me, him, and the door.

“Star? It’s me,” he says, coming from around the side of the bed and crouching a safe distance from me. The largeness of him in such a vulnerable position looks ridiculous.

I am not Elivienne. Or Star.

I do not know who this man is.

I do not know where I am.

A group of women and a few men crowd the door, pausing at the scene in front of them. Me, barely covered by a thin nightgown, shivering on the floor with medical shears pointed at the man in front of me. A few of the women in the hall look to each other with shock on their faces, some whispering. Whatever infirmary this is, they need to check their loyalties.

He looks back at them, somehow conveying an order with just a look. The small crowd retreats behind the walls, still lingering outside the doorframe. The stranger’s focus returns to me and he puts a hand out.

“Stay away from me.” My hand grips the shears until my fingers turn white. I try to conjure myself, my memories… and blanks only appear.

The man inches closer, trying to read my face. “Do you know who you are? Where you are?”

I swallow, as if tasting myself will produce information. The only answer I have is plain. “I do not.”

“Elivienne,” he repeats, with a stern face. “Your name is Elivienne. You do know that, do you not?” His expression is of genuine concern and something else, but he is mistaken, sorely mistaken.

I am not Elivienne, I am…

“I am Liv, not Elivienne. Who are you? Where am I?” The name comes to me easily now and I own it with my being as a sense of severe dread pools in my stomach. Home, the village, is very, very far from here. His accent does not remind me of anyone I know and his clothing is far different than that of our society. Yet, while I cannot place him, something nudges inside that he is certainly not unfamiliar.

Cool air passes over the top of my head again from the window. It grazes some sort of bandage and I reach up, feeling both the gauze and the pain that surges from the touch. Red comes into my eyeline and I grab the hair framing my face. No longer blonde but red. I reach for the rest of my head frantically to find the blonde locks now have red streaks.

“It’s me, my Star. Cedric.”

Cee-drick.

His slight accent causes the “r” to roll smoothly from his tongue.

I keep the shears up, ready to defend myself. “You have abducted me and you, sir, are the confused one. My name is Liv and you will return me at once,” I growl, my voice shaking from fear and dehydration. “Where am I?”

Cedric quirks a brow and nods slowly, though he is unconvinced and continues to check over his shoulder. “You are in Lux, in Demis, your home,” he says softly, moving forward an inch. Worry now flashes across his face but returns to a desperate look when he glances at the shears again. I hold my arm stiffer, trying to locate this place in my mind.

I come up with nothing. “I’ve heard of no such place.”

Cedric pauses his approach and looks back towards the door as a woman steps into the room carefully, staring intently at the situation. Her face, honey brown and freckled, calmly evaluates what is before her. In her eyes I read warmth, something which this man lacks.

She is my healer, then. I realize now how barbaric I must look. It’s also then that I notice how everyone here is dressed. Silks, beading, ribbons, corsets. The money it would take to commission a gown even close to that would be the difference between comfort and starvation for a family in my village.

“What would you like us to call you?” the woman asks, unknowing of my previous interaction with the man. She brings my attention back to the situation. That is exactly what this is. A godsdamn situation.

She smiles softly and takes a seat on the edge of the bed opposite to me, hands folded in her lap.