Reign of Embers

Chapter 2- Memories

Rowan

I watch as my wife stalks out of the dining hall. I shouldn't of pushed her to get help from Yrene. These past years have been a struggle, we've all had to try and crawl back into life, into normality. Me pushing my mate isn't going to help anyone recover. Mate. The word still shocks me. Brings back hundreds of memories. I thought I'd found my mate in Lyria, but it was all a lie. I forced myself to try to fall in love with her, learnt to love her, then she was taken from me. Along with my unborn child. I could have been a father. But Maeve took them both from me. Lied to me. Then when I found love again after hundreds of agonising years, took her away too. I will never forget that day on the beach. Finding out that my wife had gone. To then be told that she's my mate. The words I screamed still wake me up at night, reaching over the bed to where she sleeps soundly - Where is Aelin? Where is my wife. They whipped her until her blood died the sand seemingly permanently red, then stuffed her in an iron coffin and tortured her until she had entirely new skin. Until she no longer knew what was real and what wasn't. Until she gave up hoping that I would come, and the claiming scars left her too.

I shake away the memories and blink back the tears that are starting to form. I know Aelin doesn't want a healer but I know something is wrong with her, her scent just doesn't seem right. I call for some paper and a quill and set to work writing a letter to Yrene, send it with the fastest fae messenger I can find, then I head off to find my wife.

Aelin

I've been sat here, motionless, staring at their names, trying to recall my slowly fading memory. I'm starting to forget the exact intonation of Sam's voice, the tilt of his lips when he smiled, whether the tone of his laugh was deep and guttural, or light and jolly. Whether Nehemia's eyes were closer to chocolate or chestnut brown, if her handwriting was curvy or slanted. The others memories hit me hard as well, but mainly them. My parents memory started fading long before this war, faded fast due to my young age, and I will forever be grateful for the one lone portrait of them we found in Ren Allsbrook's trove. I have to stay strong for them, keep their memory alive, even though it's my fault they died. All these people, they all died so I could build a better future. I wish I could talk to them, tell them I'm sorry. Tell them that although the kingsflame now blooms all over Terrasen, unfaltering after all these years, and that we're safe, I failed. The world is only slightly better, my people still suffer from the past 20 years and the world is broken. I'm broken. I'm sorry Nehemia but you were wrong.

My spirit can be broken.

Memories come like a tidal wave through me, each person's details getting more blurred than the last. Sam. Nehemia. Mother. Father. Everyone. The flashes keep coming, threatening to drown me. I can't get air. I can't breathe. I think I hear someone shouting, or it might be me. My throat is raw, definitely me. Tears stream down my face as the only crystal clear memories I have slam into me. Nehemia in a trashed room. Dead. Sam missing. His mutilated body on the table. Dead. My parents in the bed around me blood covering us all. Dead. Fenrys' screams as his twin killed himself. Dead. Gavriel dead. Murtaugh Allsbrook Dead. The thirteen Dead. Dead......dead......... Dead. Someone else is shouting now. Who cares. Someone is trying to grab me, I erect in impenetrable wall of fire around me. I hear someone swear. Good, make them feel pain. Sam. Nehemia. Connal. My parents. My uncle. The thirteen. Uncle kitty cat. All gone. My powers. Gone. Someone is pounding on my mental shields. Leave me alone. I might have screamed it. Who knows, who cares. The memories keep coming, I'm going to be sick. A faint beating comes from inside me, something that isn't me. I dismiss it. Everyone I've ever loved is gone. Gone. Never to return. Gone. Something is trying to drag me out of this abyss. What could be worth seeing that doesn't include them. They're gone. The tug is more persistent and I try to wave it off, but it keeps it up. I follow the tug. It brings me out of this strange eternal darkness and towards something else. I think someone is shaking me, screaming at me. How did they get past the flames? I keep following the tug until I see the outline of a white haired male shaking me.