I sank into the dark and stillness of sleep as it softly beckoned me to follow. Its warm embrace pulled me from my abysmal thoughts and delivered me to an unfamiliar road. Beneath me was a horse as shining white as a star. The stretching field at my side waved like a living painting. The tall grass was a mass of green, like thick paint strokes from an artist’s loving hand. Sun-warmed apples fermented on the ground at the base of a small grove of trees proudly encircled by an old, half-broken fence, creaking as it swayed in the breeze. I stroked the horse’s mane, and it shook its head—the light from the motion sprayed in a twinkling of stardust. I dismounted and led the steed to the trees. Green apples dangling from the branches, not yet big enough to satisfy my hunger. No matter, the horse enjoyed them. Plucking the low-hanging fruit from the boughs, it crunched the small treats. I ran my hand down its flank and patted against the firm muscles as its tail swayed. We had both earned a break after a long ride.

The sky churned in beautiful whirls of blue and white. The woods around the field came in a calamity of blotches of greens and browns and distortions of hazy shadows. Taking the canteen from a pack on the horse’s saddle, I held it in my hands as I wandered onto the road. To one side, there was a bend opening to a town. Down the other way, there were more trees. A man walked slowly along the side, bearded and worn. His clothes were a mess, and he kept his gaze on the ground. I turned back, checking on my horse. The heat of the day was intense and burning my skin. I took a drink from my canteen and twisted the cap back on as I spotted a sign at the edge of the road. Stepping toward it, I couldn’t make out the words. It was murky, like over-watered paint bleeding across paper too thin to hold color. Then, as the words on the board took shape, black splashes of ink fell around me like rain.

It dripped and pooled under my feet, flooding the street. I gasped and fell back, and suddenly the road was gone—replaced by an infinite void in every direction. I clambered to my knees and tried to stand, but I wasn’t able. I looked at my hands and found shackles and chains. With a shriek, I stumbled back to find my ankles were bound, too. I pulled and tugged on the golden restraints, but they wouldn’t budge. From the emptiness and darkness came a screeching so immense and piercing, I covered my ears. It did nothing to muffle the high-pitched shrill. Long, twisted bars stretched up around me, shaking the ground and jostling me back and forth as the darkness quaked. They climbed impossibly high and reached one another, forming an aureate dome. Curls and ornate designs wrapped around the bars, anchoring themselves into the nothingness. I reached out to touch a bar, and a shining gold gossamer curtain dropped in front of it. Startled, my hand jerked away and gripped the front of my shirt. I looked down to find that had changed, too.

The dull white fabric was torn down the back and smeared over with a generous layer of dirt. My skin had become dry and almost gray. My hands trembled as my hair fell around my face. I gasped at the sight. It was brittle and muted, as if all the color had drained from me. My breath caught in my throat as I tried to breathe in. With each gulp and gasp, my lungs burned as if filling with water. I grabbed at my throat; bubbles floated over my lips and rose around me. I was underwater. And I was drowning. As I frantically kicked and swam in every direction to find the surface, I spotted a distant, shining cord sagging low at the top of the cage. As I neared, I reached out, but I couldn’t touch it. I choked on the water as I tried again, but the closer I got, the thinner the cord became until it was little more than a thread from a spider web. Desperately, I clutched the bars and beat against them. I had to break out. I had to escape. And the harder I hit it, the weaker I felt until I couldn’t hit it anymore. I sank to the bottom again, my chains heavier than I thought possible. My head tipped back and suddenly I felt my face break through the waters.

I gasped, and air filled my lungs. Bright sunlight greeted me and a warm breeze kissed my cheeks. I coughed and sputtered and grabbed the first thing I could find: a shirt. There was someone there. He was speaking, but it didn’t make sense. I lifted my hand to my head, and a stabbing pain shot through me as if thousands of threads were breaking, as if I were a cloth ripped in half. My stomach flipped, and I rolled to my side, emptying the contents onto the ground. I was dizzy. The man I had clutched onto placed a hand on my back and apologized for my discomfort. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Everything was spinning as I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Sucking in a shaking breath, I sat up. My hands were so unfamiliar. Despite the bright sun, everything was cast in a soft shade. The man who kneeled at my side was busy checking me over and wiping the dirt from my clothes. It was Milo; I knew that, but I hardly recognized him. He looked like a rugged vagabond the way he did when we first met. I winced as he touched the back of my head. The tang of hot metal rolled from him. My lips pressed in, the taste of it staining my mouth. I sniffed and cringed as it burned my nose while he talked with calm reassurance about the injury to my head and back. I ran my hand across my face, smears of blood staining my knuckles.

I blinked madly, trying to figure out what he was talking about, the words coming in choppy and disjointed. He suggested I get some rest. That sounded right. I didn't know why, but it did. I nodded, pushing away, and tried to stand. My legs disobeyed, and I crumpled to the ground. He helped me up, and I leaned hard on his chest. My body was foreign and cold, and he was warm. I tried to look around, but I couldn’t make my eyes focus. I couldn’t find my voice, either. Every part of my body hurt in the worst ways. I curled closer to him, coughing again as the sting of strange waters rattled in my lungs. His fingers were so hot, my skin burned under his touch. I clenched my eyes shut as I tried to endure the scorching pain, but when they opened again, I was alone. I was at the top of a hill, a place I’d seen before.

Shrouded in a haze of gold dust, shadows like phantoms in the night filled the field in front of me. Static crackled in the air. A boom like thunder rolled through the sky. The horse beneath me reared and whinnied before racing down over the hilltop. I drew my bow and reached back to take a gilded arrow from the quivers strapped to the saddle. Nocking it with fluid ease, I drew it back and fired. The arrow swirled through the air and met its mark. The body dropped to the ground, and I grinned with unbridled delight. I reached over my shoulder and drew another, no longer in the vast, open field. Snakes raced all around me. Their snapping jaws and the clattering of swords filled my ears. I shot again and again. One by one, they fell until I had no arrows left. I took my sword and swung it around, slaying anyone who came too close. And then, without warning, it was dark and there was nothing.

I stared down at the chains on my wrists in the darkness I'd grown too accustomed to finding, to returning to before I could make any sense of the things I'd seen. They gleamed despite the absence of light. I gripped the chains and pulled at them, demanding my release, but the harder I tried to rip free, the tighter the shining chains became. The metal cuffs cut into my skin, biting so deep it scraped against the bone. I fell to my knees, weakened by the struggle and wanting only to stand. My head fell back, and as I looked up, the darkness cleared. There was Milo, above me again. His face was calm as he used a damp rag to clear the smears of dirt from my forehead, and he spoke with gentle affection, cradling me like a child. I was dizzy again as if thrown through a vicious windstorm. I took his wrist and wrenched his hand away from my face. If there was anything I needed, it wasn't coddling… but what was it I needed? I stared up at him, confused by my own actions.

“Who are you?” My words echoed from the memory of our first meeting. “Who am I?”

He smiled, and a glimmer of amber sparkled amid the olive green of his eyes. Something familiar resonated there. It was as if I was gripping the last trails of thin threads as all the others fluttered away. The ringing in my ears grew louder, deafening until it muted him completely. I tilted my head back, exhausted, as I stared into the blue sky. Suddenly, I was weightless, and dark shadows raced up in lines overhead. They thickened and took the shape of a cage again; the darkness sloughing off to reveal the magnificent gold beneath. I lifted from the ground, floating in the rising waters, and took hold of the bars at the top. The endless sky turned to night and stars twinkled beyond the confines of the cage. I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to those stars, knowing I would never touch them. I shut my eyes and sank into the cold water of the void. I let it pull me down to the bottom, and I held my breath until it burned. Sinking into the nothingness, I opened my eyes and stared at the surface high above. The waves rippled and reflected the shimmering gold of my prison. I took a deep breath and welcomed the pain as the waters flooded my lungs. I gagged and choked, but let the void strangle me.

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I gasped, shooting up in bed. Cold sweat beaded over my forehead and trickled down my temples. I tried to catch my breath, but each pant came more strained and wheezed than the last. It was a dream; I told myself, clutching my blankets and searching over the bed for proof the nightmare was over. I looked down at my trembling hands. It was a dream, nothing more. My body shook as I curled into myself. Nausea churned in my stomach. I had to calm down. A surge of tears collected at the corners of my eyes, stinging as they pooled. No, it was more than a dream, and I knew it. I was fighting those snakes again, and once more was chained down in a cold gilded cage. I drowned in it, over and over. Those visions haunted my sleep as much as they did my waking days. Why was this happening to me?

Pressing my knees into my chest, I wept. It wasn’t half as awful as my nightmares about the bodies in the pub, and it didn’t come close to reliving those dwindling moments with sepsis, night after night, but there was something existentially worse about slipping into those dreams of nothingness. It was colder and hopeless. Trapped like a bird, I couldn’t escape. I held my head as I whimpered against my knees. Those visions of my horse eating apples and Milo tending to my wounds were the clearest they had ever been. He looked strange back then, haggard and dirty from travel. I hiccupped a small laugh. He was there, comforting me and cleaning me up. I bit down on my lip to quiet myself.

The room was dark, and the house was silent. I glanced at the bottom of the door. There were no lights on in the hall. I didn’t know what time it was, but my best guess was that it was late. The last thing I wanted to do was wake anyone with my sobbing. I held my breath as the ringing in my ears faded. Hard as it was, I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat—the one that told me I was to blame for all the things that had happened to me because I'd not listened to the one person who'd cared about me when he had no reason. I wiped the tears from my face and sniffled. I hated the visions of that wretched, gilded cage more than anything else. Even when I woke, the chill lingered on. The more I thought about it, the more my skin crawled. I scrunched my face, and shut my eyes tight and hard, trying to escape the maddening thoughts racing through my head about what it could mean. There was no reason for me to be in a cage. I wasn’t a monster, a beast to keep locked away. Anger and anguish flipped inside me, and I gripped my gut, convinced I was going to heave. I gulped down the stinging in the back of my throat, dragging in a ragged breath. My chest tightened, and I didn’t breathe as my thoughts spiraled out of control.

How had I forgotten my horse so easily? Milo was so worried about my injuries, he couldn’t have cared less about an animal picking fruit from a tree, but had he lied to me? I wasn’t on my horse. So, how did I fall? Dammit. My head pounded the longer I tried to sort it out, a flurry of sparkles invading my vision. It was too convenient that there were gaps in the memory, but Milo called me "Ash". He knew me and had no reason to lie about what had happened. What could he gain from that? But then again, why me? Why was I the one he stopped to help? He could have passed me by, anyone else would have, and I would have been fine. Or at least I thought I would have been fine. I healed so fast from everything else, but Milo had no way of knowing.

I fell backward onto my bed and curled into my pillow as guilt ricocheted through me. He was doing the right thing for a stranger, and in turn, I’d done right by him—why was I doubting him now? If he was so bad, I wouldn't have given him a home where we were happy for years. More or less. It wasn’t perfect, or even half as pleasant as where I’d come to find myself, but at least neither of us was alone. Not everyone was as lucky. Roya spent weeks on end alone. She didn’t have the fortune of others until we showed up in the underground. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like if it weren’t for Milo, Roya, and everyone else I'd met. Those years would have been so lonely, and with how reckless I was—I dared not think about all the injuries I would have had if there was no one there. I should have been nicer and listened more. For one thing, Milo was right about everything. I paused, my face scrunching. No, wait, he wasn’t. He was wrong more often than not. He had an opinion on most things, but his worry about them got the best of him. At every turn, he dissuaded me from what I wanted, from knowing more about the Razen to learning to fight in the outpost. He was sure he needed to protect me like I was some delicate doll floating in a bubble. I wasn’t weak or incapable. By all means, I was stronger than him. I was stronger than damn near everyone. I saw fear in more eyes than I’d ever felt in my entire life. Surviving wasn’t my first concern. It was fighting, it was overcoming, and what did I have to show for it but a handful of scars and isolation from everyone I knew? Sure, I knew Charon, and I almost knew Callan, but it wasn’t the same. They were borderline strangers, no matter how many meals we shared. Their conversations were more confusing than Sig and Makaria arguing in their strange language.

Those were the days, the ones I missed most. Stuart and Tristan would bicker about who could lift more weights or ride faster by horse. Sig and Makaria would host parties behind the lodging and fraternize with newcomers. They welcomed the scared and confused like long-lost family. Roya didn’t ever ease their nerves, but it wasn’t her fault. It took a long time for her to have any control over her ability. Ezra and Gaelin started up that damn book exchange and Sig pretended he wasn’t officially part of it, but I knew better. He waited at the front post for the couriers almost as much as Ezra did.

It didn’t matter how comfortable I was breathing in the earthy, smoky smell of the pillows, and it didn’t matter how good it felt to be on a soft mattress for a change, I would have traded it all for one more day with the people I loved. They were my family. Matti had made me into one hell of an archer, and it saved my life. Pips got me to laugh harder than I’d ever before. There wasn’t a single person I didn’t miss, but there I was, lying in a quiet room as if that had all been in another life. The most noise I heard at night was the soft creak of floorboards and the click of doors, nothing like the echo of voices at all hours down the hallways or early morning arguments about who'd be to training on time in the outpost. No, this was quieter, hosting little more than Callan's habit of staying up late. Charon, on the other hand, was ritualistic, and his door shut at the same time every night. For as little as I knew about them, I couldn’t help wondering if they would have liked my friends, my family, from the outpost. Neither of them would have liked Milo, but they seemed to believe he’d done something to me, and it had some impact on my memory. I still wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t as though they had any proof, and neither did I. The closest evidence any of us had was whatever Charon saw from whatever it was he’d touched, which wasn't something he'd shared with me. I doubted he knew I’d overheard him talking to Callan that night in the wagon.

I wanted to scream. Nothing made sense. I just wanted a good night’s sleep, and I couldn’t manage to get it. I buried my face in the pillow. To hell with whoever I was in the past. I wasn’t that person anymore, and I could live with that—I already had for years. What difference did the rest of my life make? Callan and Charon, as confident as they were about knowing me, would simply have to deal with the new me. They could learn to like me how I was, and with any luck, Charon would give me fewer dirty looks about how I mixed my food. Perhaps one day he would meet Sig and they could stand across the kitchen judging me together. They’d be fast friends. I didn't know why, but I felt it in my bones. They'd be almost like brothers if they had the chance to meet. I pulled the blankets up over my head and tried my best to settle myself to sleep. Tomorrow was another day. I would deal with Charon and his concerns about cleanliness and order in the morning. Callan would take it upon himself to remind Charon that I was trying to heal and pestering me wasn’t helping that process. Tomorrow, they’d dance around talking about who I was in the past, the way they did every day since I'd come into their company. In turn, I’d offer only a dark glare as a steadfast reminder that I didn’t want to hear it. No matter how I looked at it, I was starting over the way I had so many times before. The only difference was that this time, I was on my own.