He was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, lest he break the spell.
How desperately he wanted to remember.
He needed to find himself again.
Just open the door.
Elias closed his eyes and imagined himself opening a proverbial door. He waited for a rush of memories, of feeling the old Elias return.
Nothing.
The murky gray nothingness would not coalesce into reality.
He made eye contact with Sander across the room.
“Everything all right?” Sander asked.
Elias felt every gaze turn his way. His frustration and desperation peaked.
“Actually, no. Everything is not all right. I’m glad you’re well, Sander, but if you’ll all excuse me.” He hit the hallway without looking back, and briskly navigated the corridors until he emerged into a grotto. Elias realized belatedly that he’d walked there as if by design or muscle memory. The grotto itself was not familiar—or was it?
Lunch. Sander. Ball cap.
Images flickered too fast through Elias’s mind. He could not wholly capture what he was seeing. He paced past an iron table and four chairs, past the carved stone wall. Someone had put a pond at the end of the terrace.
White and gold fish.
Koi swam beneath the surface of the water—one was as large as his forearm.
White and gold with fanlike fins.
Elias crouched at the edge of the pond.
That had been a memory, he was sure of it.
A memory of the fish. He hadn’t been out here before, so it couldn’t be anything else.
He struggled to bridge the gap between injured Elias and old Elias.
The sensation of standing on a precipice, about to fall into space, persisted.
“I’m glad to see you up and around,” Inari said from the doorway.
Elias straightened and turned toward her voice. She had changed from the last time he’d seen her into cream linen slacks and a thin powder blue sweater. Her eyes showed no signs of judgment that he hadn’t sought her out before.
Something about the calm, collected way she watched him from the other side of the grotto sent yet another wave of déjà vu through him.
Ballroom. Glass. Dancing.
He didn’t know what it meant, yet it felt familiar. She felt familiar.
“Are you all right, Elias?” Inari asked.
He realized he hadn’t answered. Sweat trickled from his brow down his cheek. The effort of trying to force memories had put a throb behind his eyes that spread slowly through his head. He hadn’t suffered a blinding headache recently, but he knew one was on the way.
“Thank you. I’m fine. I’m just . . .” He gestured toward the grotto with his good hand, as if that might answer all her questions. Elias did not want to admit yet that he thought he was on the verge of a breakthrough.
“Oh. I see.” Inari smiled as if she knew exactly what he meant. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Inari.” He paused when she looked back from the threshold, unsure how to phrase what he wanted to say. Finally, he untangled the words on his tongue. “Thanks for being patient. Are you staying at Kallaster?”
“You’re welcome,” she replied quietly, without censure. “And yes, I am. I’ve canceled all my appointments so that I can be here if or when you need me.”
“I’ll find you later,” he said.
She drifted from the grotto, disappearing into the halls of the castle.
Elias turned back to the pond, willing the sense of familiarity to return. He waited for a memory to surface, for that feeling of standing on a precipice to overwhelm him. After five minutes of nothing, frustrated at the finicky nature of his brain, he departed the grotto.
The echoes of his past had vanished.
Chapter 31
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Sander said as Chey dabbed an antiseptic cloth over the wounds on his back. He was straddling a chair in the empty parlor, shirt removed to expose the various cuts and abrasions he had acquired during the explosion.
“Yes, I do. Some of these are pretty bad. Like this one.” She saturated the cloth from a bottle in her other hand and pressed it against a particularly deep laceration.
Sander bit back a hiss. “I don’t think you got it deep enough.”
She laughed at his sarcasm, a sound that was a balm to his soul.
“I can go deeper,” she said, sassing him back.
“Hey, that’s usually my line,” he quipped.
Chey guffawed; he smiled. Despite the dire circumstances of the last few days, he found it comforting to fall into effortless banter with his wife. He knew this private time soothed her, too, even though she’d shown no outward signs of strife. Inwardly they were both still dealing with their own demons.
He hunched his shoulders forward to tighten his skin when she began applying wound closure strips over the worst of the cuts.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
“Good. Better than it did. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Almost done.” She applied a final strip low on his back.
Once she’d stepped away from the chair, he pushed up and swung a leg over the seat, rising to full height. He didn’t bother to put a new shirt on. Chey had seen him covered in bruises before.
“How are you holding up?” he asked as she began cleaning up the cloths, bandages, and other medical paraphernalia.
“As well as can be expected. We have you two back and safe. That’s a big worry off my mind.” She glanced up and smiled.
Sander tried to detect leftover fear or anxiety or exhaustion, but found none. She was as resilient as ever, as strong as the day he’d married her.
“We should be able to round up the few men left in this coup attempt pretty quick, which means I can turn my attention back to Elias and his problem. He was saying at the cabin before the attack that he thought memories might be trying to surface.”
“Really? That’s great news.” Chey abandoned her task. Hope glittered in her eyes as she faced him. “Did he mention something specific?”
“Only that things were starting to seem familiar, or that he felt he should remember something.” Sander cupped his hand along the side of Chey’s throat and stroked her pulse with his thumb. “I think we should keep doing what we’ve been doing. The meals, the outings, anything and everything that he used to do.”
“I’m willing to do anything. I was worried when he left the parlor so suddenly earlier, but I guess he has to cope with all this at his own pace,” Chey said.
“I wanted to go after him,” Sander confessed. “But like you, I realized he probably needs time and space after such chaos. Time to settle himself.”
A hinge creaked as the door opened. Whoever had left the parlor last—Jeremiah or Emily, Sander thought—hadn’t closed the latch properly.
Elias stepped in and paused, as if frozen by the sight of him and Chey.
“You all right?” Sander asked, concerned by his son’s suddenly white face and wide eyes.
“I came to tell you . . . I wanted to . . . wait. Don’t move.”
Sander dropped his hand from Chey’s throat and took a step toward Elias. The halting speech alarmed him. Everything about Elias’s reaction alarmed him. But the request, don’t move, halted him in his tracks. Chey, who had also turned to take a step in Elias’s direction, went still at his side.
“What is it?” Chey asked.
“It’s the déjà vu again. I’ve seen this before,” Elias said with a gesture their way. “If I can just hold onto it, I think I might be able to remember.”
The tableau of Sander standing in front of Chey, both staring into each other’s eyes, hit Elias so hard that he was momentarily dizzy with it. He was afraid to move lest it shatter the sense of familiarity. He felt as if he’d stood there a hundred times before, in the exact same place, looking at the exact same scene.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Sander asked in a
cautious voice.
Elias quietly closed the door behind him. And just like that, the spell ended. As if the click of the latch had somehow snapped the memory thread.
He wanted to shout with frustration.
“It’s gone,” he said as he crossed the parlor to the fireplace. Elias skimmed the family pictures lined up on the mantel but turned away, too annoyed at the sensation of coming so close to remembering only to have it ripped from his grasp. Was this how his entire life would be? Not quite remembering all that had come before? He didn’t think he could live on the precipice and stay sane.
“This keeps happening, Elias. It’s a good sign, I think. It has to be. You’re close to getting your memory back,” Sander said somewhere behind him.
“That’s how it seems every time it happens—and then nothing comes. I go back to being fuzzy and vague.” Elias paused near the window and stared out at the forest in the distance. Bitterness had him tight in its grip. Even the brightness of a new day could not pull him from his darkening mood.
A shadow coalesced in the pane of glass. From shadow to the shape of a man, blond hair loose around a chiseled face. As Sander drew closer, Elias picked out more detail.
Sander’s intense blue eyes.
His forehead.
The slope of his nose.
A strong, angled jaw.
And then a proverbial dam let loose.
Memories flooded in from all times in his life: childhood, teens, young adult. Like the flip of a movie reel, Elias saw Christmas celebrations, birthday cakes, canoes, hunting trips, dungeons, galas, thrones, uniforms. The crushing weight of an entire life descended with merciless precision. Dizziness swarmed him as the onslaught continued.
Him and Sander at the edge of a river, fishing. Chey behind the lens of a camera. Secretive missions in far-off palaces. Castles. Royals. Dungeons. Friends. Sisters. His brother.
His mother. Father.
Inari.
Elias turned from the window. Sander stood perhaps five feet away, a bemused look on his face.
Even that he remembered.
Elias suffered through a strange transition from the unknown into a life he remembered that he loved and cherished. That he belonged to people he loved and cherished.
He stepped forward with a gust of relieved, emotional laughter and embraced Sander with his good arm.
“I remember, Pop. I remember.”
Chapter 32
Sander didn’t know what to do with Elias’s obvious agony. He could read it in every line of his son’s body, see it in every angle of Elias’s face. Instinct made him leave Chey’s side to go closer, prepared to ask Elias what was on his mind.
The reflection in the glass showed him that Elias was still suffering. A sharp frown marred his son’s brow and Elias’s mouth had pulled into a tight line.
And then their eyes met.
Elias’s expression shifted from distress to . . . something else. Sander watched the metamorphosis with his breath caught in his throat. It was an amazing sight to see as enlightenment brightened Elias’s eyes and turned the distress into wonder.
When Elias turned around, Sander knew.
He knew Elias had finally regained his memory.
Instead of staring into a stranger’s eyes, he stared into his son’s. The difference between the two could not have been more obvious.
Sander threw his arms around Elias and hugged him tight. Relief surged through him at such a rate that he grew light-headed.
Finally. Finally. Thank God.
Chey joined them with a small sob of happiness and Sander opened his posture to accept her in. Elias kissed Chey’s forehead in lieu of a hug due to his cast. Sander knew Chey wouldn’t care.
Elias was back.
That was all that mattered.
“Do you remember everything?” Sander asked when they parted.
“Yes. I can’t really describe what the sensation of remembering was like. It was just strange. All of it. Like I knew who I should be, but none of the memories were there. In the beginning, when I first woke up, it was all foreign to me. Everyone was a stranger. Imagine not knowing anyone or any part of your past. It was so alien to me that I just wanted to be away from everyone,” Elias said.
He even sounded different. It was as if the amnesia had taken away the familiar things about Elias. His tone, the cadence of his speech. Sander couldn’t believe the differences now that he’d interacted with both sides.
“I’m glad we never got to that point, because I was ready to follow you everywhere you went, you know,” Sander said. He left his arm around Chey while one hand remained on Elias’s shoulder.
Elias laughed and it was the sweetest sound Sander had ever heard.
“And I was ready to cook as many of your favorite dishes as possible,” Chey added with a shaky laugh. Tears collected in her eyes, though none spilled over.
That would come later, Sander knew, in the privacy of their bedroom. She had agonized over Elias’s condition just as much as he.
Elias hugged Chey with his good arm, grinning.
Sander clapped Elias lightly on the back, a show of solidarity and amusement.
“Your brother and sisters will be beside themselves with relief as well. We should call them in as soon as you’re ready,” Sander said.
“And Uncle Mattias. Leander and Jeremiah, too,” Elias said. “Also, I need to find Inari as soon as I clean up. She has suffered enough. I’m embarrassed at how dismissive I was toward her the entire time.”
“Not you, Elias,” Sander reminded him. “Remember that it was out of your control. She’s strong and compassionate. I’m positive she’ll understand.”
“Inari and I spent some time discussing the complexities of amnesia,” Chey added. “She gets it, you know? She understood from the beginning.”
“Thanks. It’s good to hear positive things. I’ll find you two in a little while, after I clean up. Gather everyone?” Elias asked.
Sander forced himself to release his son. It was difficult after just getting him back, so to speak.
“Of course. We’ll be here waiting.”
Chapter 33
Elias spent an hour in his chambers showering, changing, and recovering. He allowed his memory to completely fill in, including all the things that had happened while he was wasn’t himself.
The trip to Macor was a sore spot, if only for the fact that he hadn’t been able to help in the normal ways he would have otherwise. In hindsight, he would have come to the conclusion of a hidden assassin within the ranks much sooner, possibly preventing the scenario that had played out.
A scenario that had almost taken his life.
He’d gotten lucky.
By the time he pulled on black suit slacks and a steel-gray button-down, he felt as if he’d regained the whole of himself. The memory of a charred body he’d thought to be Sander left a scar on his heart, but he knew he would recover from that eventually, too.
Armored with confidence and conviction, he departed his suite and headed downstairs.
The elated cheer that erupted when he walked into the parlor brought a grin to his mouth. He greeted every single person with a hug—the women got kisses to their cheeks—and laughter at the teasing banter that wasn’t far behind. He made amends with Jeremiah, lamenting his lack of friendship during the amnesia trip, and was relieved when Jeremiah showed no signs of affront or upset. Like his mother and father had suggested, everyone understood that it hadn’t been his fault.
He hadn’t been cold and untouchable on purpose.
Elias spent two hours poring over details of the attempted coup and agreed that the media should never know the sordid truth. He also agreed to go on camera at the earliest opportunity to prove to the world that he was whole and hale and ready to resume his status as heir to the throne.
Emily took everything in stride. She was not bitter whatsoever at having the title stripped and, in fact, seemed wholly delighted just to have her brother back.
&
nbsp; The jubilant atmosphere lasted until Elias decided he couldn’t put off finding Inari any longer.
He made his goodbyes and departed the parlor, anxious to mend his relationship before his former behavior drove a permanent wedge between them.
Inari was not to be found.
Not in her suite, in any of the parlors or sitting rooms, or even in the solarium.
Elias searched every floor of Kallaster but did not locate her anywhere. In his quest, he avoided questions by councilmen and advisors alike. Now wasn’t the time to engage the men in endless conversation.
He discovered from a member of the staff that Inari had left the castle on foot for parts unknown.
Elias took a chance and headed across the bailey to the gate.
From there, according to the guards, Inari had disappeared somewhere in the direction of the shoreline.
He followed the path away from the bailey wall toward the private beach, scanning the area for signs of life. It wasn’t until he reached the sand that he spotted a lone figure walking at the edge of the waterline. The sun glinted off a head of tawny hair, giving away the identity immediately. He would have recognized her anywhere.
Elias set a pace along the shoreline in her wake, taking his time playing catch-up. He lamented the cast on his wrist that prevented him from sliding his hands into his pockets, and decided he should try to get the offending plaster off as soon as possible.
Less than twenty feet before he reached her, Inari suddenly turned around. Elias drew to a halt and smiled. He knew Inari would figure out that his memory had returned, that the smile was meant as an invitation and an olive branch.
She gasped and covered her heart with her fingers. “Elias?”
“Hello, Inari.”
“You remember!” She flew across the sand, a squeal echoing into the day.
Elias laughed and opened his arms to receive her. “It’s very un-queenly to squeal, Inari. What would your father say?”
“I don’t care!” She launched herself into his embrace with a delighted laugh.
Latvala Royals: Sacrifices Page 15