At first, even in her sleep, she was aware that her head was throbbing with an intensity that was impossible to ignore. She was aware of an alarming rushing sensation, but she was too exhausted to do anything about it.

Then the dreams came. At first it was familiar, just the old dream of fire whenever she thought about her mother. She had the dream so often that she simply tried to move past it. Yes, I know I spent a lot of time thinking about her today, she tried to tell the dream to dismiss it. The fire seemed to wane, and for a moment, Rosalea thought she was clear of the nagging nightmare, but instead, she felt the dream shift and pull on her.

She could see a young woman, looking back at the castle, her last look at it while she was alive. She recognized Lindir just before she became Lindir. She was running away from the Ieshans so she could be with Gaiden…

She owned her own cottage… so much smaller, but so much friendlier than the cold and austere Castle Darius. She kissed Gaiden as he came in, and patted Hakon on the head.

A baby cry in the background caused her to move away. She pushed into the only room in the house, where a small child with hair so bright it looked almost silver instead of golden was crying for food….

Rosalea sat up with a start, feeling that her body was damp and cold. She pushed the blanket off of her that Genya must have put on her, since she went asleep on top of her covers. She was trembling all over, and many thoughts and emotions were crowding her all at once. The headache that had burdened her so horribly before bed had become very mild, but even so her mind felt no clearer than before. She stared into the hazy darkness, only a blueish light from the moon faintly illuminating shapes in her room.

She slowly got up, folding the blanket about her, half of it dragging over the rich carpet, as she moved up to stare at the moon, with its ever present light, and she sighed faintly. The dream was vivid, and she still felt rattled by it. Lindir died making sure I would remember her, she realized. She hugged the blanket closer, feeling a wave of sorrow for the loss of her mother she had never felt before. It was, perhaps, the first time she had ever thought of Lindir loving her. Ulric had told her a hundred times or more that a mage could live through anything as long as she didn’t use up the last of her magic. Rosalea felt another pang of sorrow.

There had been no explanations for why Lindir had run away, but somehow Rosalea understood it. It was in her also, a desire to be free from the pressure that pressed down on her every waking moment.

I wonder if my mother had some suitor that she did not want to marry, but still liked, and so felt responsible for. I wonder if she had horrible lessons and council men making plots about her future behind her back. And Ulric…

And Ulric… she clenched her fists even as she thought about it, and a cold, tight feeling formed in the pit of her stomach that blossomed to hot, constrictive heat in her chest. He killed my father.

After a moment, she began to tremble again, her emotions seesawing between rage and impulsiveness, but she couldn’t quite allow herself to move. The dream had a sense of… déjà vu. Yet, as she tried to chase that feeling, she couldn’t quite pin it down. She stared up at the moon. Am I remembering this now because my magic being sorted dislodged a mental block?

As soon as she thought, it all clicked into place. She instantly understood the sense of the situation repeating. She couldn’t remember it, but she must have remembered this dream once before. They must have brainwashed her once already. At least once. She closed her eyes tight. How often did I dream of fire before I remembered why?

Rosalea wished she could go to the moon, somewhere far away, out of reach. But tonight, she couldn’t even see the odd sparkle of lights on the landmasses. She let the blanket go and lit a candle. Her reflection in the window caught her eye, and when she turned to stare at her own reflection in the glass - the puffiness on her cheek had spread to the corner of her lip.

She clenched her teeth, she really, really hated Ulric. She rested her forehead against the glass of the window, and then turned her face and lightly pressed her cheek to it; the coolness felt good on the heat of the bruising and swelling. Next archery training, I should just accidentally shoot him, she thought bitterly, eyes welling up with tears as the murderous thought went through her.

Then, she realized that the revulsion she felt presented a problem. She already could barely control herself around her mentor. She couldn’t face Ulric again and not give him some sign something was wrong with her. He’d use mind control on her again. Trembles that had just subsided started anew. She slowly came to realize something else: something that had been buried within the dream. Lindir had known something, something she only got a fragment of in the dream-memory. That something had made Lindir run away from the Ieshans hoping to escape forever.

She remembered overhearing Ulric about needing to check on Nerric’s magic block. She knew the slaves routinely had theirs renewed. And there was one on her… maybe more than one. It was the cold truth Lindir knew: her own mind was her enemy. They can control you, and then they can make you forget that they controlled you.

That the dream was fact, Rosalea accepted. She was too young to have remembered the events, and they had felt like Lindir herself. She felt she could focus and slip easily back into the memory, as if it were a sort of record burned into her mind - and it had been, with the last of her mother’s magic before she died.

Ulric tried so hard to make me not my mother, but I think she was right. Who knows what else they will do to me if I do not choose to comply? Who knows what other dark secrets have been erased? No wonder Myraduillians were said to fear the Ieshans.

She thought of Nerric, and how her mother had refused her own suitor. She had known for a long time that she did not love him, and probably never would. He was her dearest, and even only friend, but he inspired no feelings of longing or desire to be with him. However, she knew both of them were only trying to make the best of it, because both of them knew that this was their own prescribed fate. For a moment, she felt she could not leave him to face a fate without her.

But Ulric… she remembered the still bodies. She was sensible of her feelings of repression and struggles against Ulric, and now all she could feel was potent hatred. She wanted to … kill him. Yet, somehow she didn’t want to kill him. He killed my father, provoked my mother to kill herself, and then raised me. She crouched down, pressing her body into a ball, gripping the sides of her head for a moment as it felt like her whole world was about to spin wildly out of control.

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She felt cold inside. She knew with her current feelings toward Ulric, she would do or say something that would make this happen again. He would make her forget, and then what? When she gained her animal familiar like the rest of Uryans; she would remember again? What if they realized she broke free at least once before and took even more away from her? How could he do this to me? I want to kill him! Yet, even as she thought it, she knew the idea was hollow, but I cannot because he and Genya are the closest things to parents that I even have. But he killed my real parents.

Tears welled up. Her grandparents had died of betrayal; it wasn’t talked about, something dark had happened. It was a repeating cycle, generation after generation seemed to be cursed. I cannot give them my soul, she thought with despair, as she imagined Ulric covering up her memories again to make her behave. No wonder he had become so desperate and savage if she had already remembered once.

The only way to break the cycle is leave, she realized. Her mind immediately locked onto that realization. She measured her knowledge, the things that she had learned as a part of her studies against certain potential realities. Ulric had been there when Ninevah fell; he had sometimes said it, “This castle isn’t impervious. Ninevah was a castle, and when it fell, most the royal family died.” And so, while she had refused to be like her mother and learn war fans, she had been taught archery by Ulric and had been forced to build a certain amount of physical endurance as well as mental studies and manners. Other children played, Rosalea and Nerric were groomed to become formidable leaders. Both of them knew how to hunt, track, and build a shelter. She knew how to sew and cook. She knew how to fish and swim. Her skills were not complete, as she rarely had much to do with preparing food before it was cooked: she knew little about how to skin an animal or butcher it, or even how to make flour. She also did not know very much about foraging from the land. However, she felt that her magic could aid her where she lacked. I may be part Uryan, but I am a little of everything else too. I can make this work. Anything is better than here.

She looked once more outside at the moon and stars. It was still several hours before dawn. She had time.

She still had her bow and arrows from practice the day before yesterday because she had not put them away. She put these up on the desk and got into her closet. She was hoping that her last outing had not been properly cleaned up by Genya.

She felt a wave of gratitude to no one in particular or perhaps the cosmos in general as she reached the back of her closet and felt the stiff leather of her backpack. She dragged it out, I am so glad that Genya did not notice you and put you away, she thought as she opened it up. She had emptied it out last time, so all that was currently on it was a sleeping skin bundled up in the bottom and an empty water canteen dangling off the side.

Rosalea put the pack next to the bow and quiver of arrows. I should get more arrows on the way out. I do not really know how to make all the parts of them.

As the bag, unbalanced by the water canteen hanging off the side of it, tipped over with a thump, she froze. Now that her decision was made, she felt suddenly paranoid that someone would hear her moving around her room, and how would she explain that? She paused, listening to make sure that all in the castle was quiet. I cannot let anyone realize that I am up to anything. She moved to her window and carefully drew the curtains slowly, stealthily, entirely shut, and got a candle shield and blocked half the light toward the furthest wall from the window. She pulled the blanket she’d left on the floor over to the door, to block the light from going out beneath it. The last thing she needed was for someone to notice that she was awake.

When she pulled out the sleeping skin to roll it up more carefully, she saw that the bag still contained the small tin pan and the oiled cloth to keep out moisture. Now, to repack everything and be sure I think of all the supplies that I need before I leave. I need to leave quickly though; I have only a few hours of darkness left most likely. She repacked her bedroll, the cloth, the pan, and added her sewing needle as well as all the decent grade thread she could find within her embroidery set. It amounted to enough to get by for now; she would have to figure out how to get by with a different kind, or trade for some. With the idea of trading, she went over to her dressing table. She picked up the brush, combed her hair, and gathered all the hair pretties that were kept there as well as jewelry, placing it all in the bag. What else did she need?

Changes of clothes. Food. A water canteen or two. She went to the closet, and selected her hunting dress, changing into it. It was the toughest article of clothing that she possessed - conveniently red brown to blend in with the landscape. She then took out the riding dress and the two dresses she was to wear when performing chores. She packed these in her bag. She left the rest. The pilfer of the jewels was more than enough, she thought.

She didn’t acknowledge that the real reason was that she felt like a thief stealing away in the night. She didn’t acknowledge that taking the jewels would be a real blow to the wealth the princess usually held and that made her somehow guilty. She told herself this was the only way she could do it, and besides the jewels were her own. She raided her room for anything that could be useful or needed.

One thing she was really struggling getting around was the knowledge that she was leaving without even saying goodbye. She tried to envision a scenario where she brought Nerric with her, but all she could do was imagine him whining and refusing, and begging her to see sense, and he had probably been magically forced to be like that. So, she carefully did not think about what it was probably going to do to Nerric’s future without her. She sat down at the desk and got out one of the very treasured bits of paper.

Dear Genya,

I love you. I will miss you. People will probably say I am like my mother, but I hope it does not happen that way. But, you have always been more like my mother than any mother dead shortly after I was born. I will miss you, but I do not belong here. The truth has come back to me, and I cannot live here with it pressing down on me.

Please tell Nerric that I am sorry and that I wish him well.

You deserve the best.

Rosalea

She stared at the letter for a while. It was completely inadequate. She knew it. She knew they would know it. Yet, she knew there was nothing she could do about it. Except to say goodbye in person tomorrow, and that would run the risk of getting caught. She would not risk that. She could not risk that. Who knew how long it would take for the brainwashing to come off if it was laid on her a second time? If indeed, it was only the second time. Besides, she could not bring either of them. They likely had regularly enforced mental blocks from Ieshan magic.

She put out the candle, took all the remaining candles in her bag, and then waited until her eyes adjusted, picked up the letter, and listened. It was much later in the night now, and she was running a bit low on time. It was silent out, and so she carefully stole out of her room and into the hallway. Genya’s quarters were near hers, shared with a few other maids. Genya was the only among them who could read, so Rosalea slid the note under the door and knew she should be the only one to get it.

Then she turned down the hall, and carefully opened an emergency supplies closet. They were stationed every two dozen paces or so, and kept stocked with all kinds of good things. From this, she gained two hunting knives, two water canteens, flour, and some dried fruit. Her backpack felt heavy, and she knew this would have to do.

She knew what she intended to do next. She found the nearest large window and opened it. Cold night air brushed across her flushed face.

All right. I can do this. I was able to stop water from falling on me when I was scared of getting wet, and I know how that felt. Adrenaline surged through her body with her heart rate spiking. She willed herself not to think about falling and breaking her legs and being trapped with Ulric. She was just going to do this, and her magic had to answer her.

She reached for her magic, climbed up on the ledge, took a deep breath in and then out… and walked out of it. She could feel the caelus and some of her deep essa magic swirling beneath her feet, answering her call much easier than the imber magic had with water.

I did not fall! I can do this! She walked right over the walls, and kept walking, until she slowly lowered herself near the ground. She did not touch the ground, and kept a barrier between her and it, so that she would not leave any tracks. Nerric, I wish I could tell you thank you for making me practice some basics of magic today.

She did not look back as she walked away. She kept her eyes forward toward her future.