“Come back!” The shout was shrill, filled with both irritation and giggles, something that wasn’t that surprising given the age of the child who was chasing after me.

She couldn’t be more than five, her frame diminished in the large ornate dress she wore. Bustles and petifores and who knows what else were making her pursuit that much more difficult. She didn’t seem to care, she just giggled more, tripping as she ran.

Her giggles chased away Nastya’s laugh. The electricity that burned through me faded away to nothing, the grey walls and laughing men dissolving into stone walls and cobblestones. Reality was gone as I ran through this street, chased by a child I could already tell I adored more than anything.

“Come and get me, Ovailia.” My own voice was unfamiliar with the sound behind it, my laugh was something I had never heard before. Not in the life I spent strapped to a hospital bed, not in the pieces of a life I had been dreaming of for months.

There had been so much pain before, but in this memory there was pure joy as this tiny child chased me. She tripped again, sending many of the blossoms that were weaved through her braid tumbling to the ground. I had put the plait into her long blonde hair that morning, the twisted design one I had mastered years before. The flowers tumbled as we ran, leaving a trail of color behind us.

Our laughs joined together, causing a woman in a long grey dress to smile before we turned into a large courtyard. Hammers and shouts filled the wide street, the construction of the church Jan Hus had been building for the last few months slowly taking shape. I slowed to dart around a few workers as they carted wood and stones toward the site; Ovailia’s laugh growing louder as she caught up.

The courtyard was filled with working surfs and the bohemian royalty, the tunics and massive ornate dresses filling the grey stone world with pops of color.  

It was an image out of a storybook, something you read about and imagined being a part of as a child. A renaissance world, tucked into a quaint European village. Except, it wasn’t any European village, it wasn’t some fantastical delusion. This was real. This was familiar.

Yes, I had seen it in the images Detective Bondar had shown me for months, but here the steeple of the church hadn’t been built and the white spackled houses and red roofs were more faded paint and thatch work. But, it was still the same.

The same city, the same streets, being built hundreds of years before they would be turned into nothing but ruin.

I knew this place.

As I ran through the wide alleys of my memories, dodged around statues and over fountains. I knew it was home.

“Brother!” The little girl, Ovailia, screamed from behind me and I turned, the sudden disappearance of her joy frightening to me.

Magic rushed to my fingertips, the power scaring me as I ran back to where the girl was, her path blocked by three men in long black cloaks.

I tensed as I stared at the men, the fear that gripped me only heightening the knowledge that I had no idea of who they were or why they were there. One of those answers whispered to me through the memory, knocking against my chest in a flash. The religious zealots giving me the same fear and hatred I felt at seeing them there.

Hussites.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” I was polite, calm, and yet I could distinctly feel the strength of my magic growing as I drew their attention away from the girl.

They turned toward me as one, black robes swishing, their movement sending Ovailia to my legs as she tried to hide behind them.

“That is an interesting plait the girl has.” One of the men said, his dark eyes not leaving my sister.

It seemed odd to have my memory recall her as my sister. She was a child and I was a full grown man. A man walking in a time that was obviously centuries before. Aliens or not, there was something about this that I knew was right, this time, this life. It wasn’t just in delusion.

“Many of the girls in staré město have braids such as this.” I was firm as I stared them down. The power in my hands grew as I pushed Ovailia behind me.

The strength of my power was more than I had felt in the hospital, more than when I had attacked Bondar in the interrogation room. How could I control such a surge of magic, how was I keeping it inside of me without even a spark escaping past my fingers. The control I had in this memory scared me almost more than the power did.

“Not like this,” another of the Hussites said, the heavily robed man looking us up and down. “This has too many strands, and that there,” he pointed to a twist in the braid, Ovailia shying away from his judgmental gesture. “This is not what those who believe do.”

“Believe in what?” The calm in my voice was leaving, the threat of anger bringing a snarl to every syllable.

I was sure the men heard it, but they only smiled, the threat meaning nothing to them. Even through the shadow of thought and memory, I knew these men were dangerous. The situation growing more so as the altercation garnered the attention of many others in the square, several of those who believed as they did coming forward.

Ovailia hid against my legs at the rise in focus, but I stood straighter, I wasn’t going to back down.

The men stared at us, a look of knowing that I couldn’t quite place taking over their eyes. There was an eagerness there, a bloodthirsty power that made my skin crawl. I waited, desperate for my memory to provide me with some other detail, nothing came but a sensation of danger and a thought of fire.

Fire.

They had burned many of my people as punishment of our mortal sins.

The Hussites straightened their shoulders, the one in the center stepping toward me. The move was meant to intimidate me, it did little of that. Instead, the heat in my hands flared and I clenched them, the subtle movement not missed, although the man foolishly flinched in preparation for a hit.

“Do you seek to fight me?” he snarled.

I shook my head, realizing as more people began to take notice that this was becoming a dangerous situation.

“No,” I said calmly, “I seek to take my sister home. I seek to continue our game and then enjoy a turnip stew. I mean you no harm.”

The absence of anger in my voice sent a ripple of confusion through the Hussites, the three men looking between themselves before glowering at us. Ovailia’s tiny hands clung to the hem of my tunic, a faint shake accompanying a low sob and the smell of burnt cloth.

The smell was acidic and brought another worry, I wasn’t the only one who was having trouble restraining my magic from the fear.

The thought was confusing to me as I watched this memory, as I was stuck in it. The idea that a child could have the same power I did, the same power I had been working so hard to control, was impossible.

One look at her, and even without all of my memories I could see the power in her. I could see the strength. I could also see the impending explosion. Just as I hadn’t mastered the power from the restraints of my bed, neither had she.

Heart clenching in fear, tension rippled over my back as the men stepped closer, as I stared at their eyes.

“You created harm,” the one in the middle spoke again, his voice a harsh warning.

There was so much of this that I didn’t understand, no matter how many threads of memory I tried to pull at.

“Fly home, Ovailia.”

I felt a strong pulse of warmth before the weight on my back left, Ovailia’s presence vanishing just as my magic flared in a brilliant explosion of white light. Screams echoed in my head, the light consuming everything before they both began to fade away, leaving me in darkness.

The light had gone. The screams had vanished. There was only a soft mattress pressed against me and the scratchy comfort of a blanket.

For a moment I thought I had woken and that whatever nightmare I had escaped and whatever dreams my mind gave me, were gone.

But then I heard her sobs.

I felt her body against mine.

“I am here, mi Lasko,” I whispered, my voice a balm in the dark as I pulled her to me. “You are safe Joclyn.”

I spoke the words, but she continued to whimper, my worry in the moment mixing with the confusion of the recall.

I knew it was her, I had felt her small body against me before now, I had smelled her hair so often that it followed me into reality, becoming an anchor as I lay restrained to a hospital bed.

It may be her, but I had never seen her like this before. Something was wrong.

As I lay there in memory I could feel my concern, the worry wrapped up in the same desperate need to protect her. I couldn’t see anything past that, the memory wouldn’t grant me more than that.

Her cries increased as I rubbed my palm over her back, the heavy fabric of her sweater making it hard for me to calm her.

Like a slap, the cries shifted from the soft cries of a bad dream into the shrill screams of pain.

The change was terrifying and I tried to grab at Joclyn, desperate to hold her, to help her. But the memory restrained me, the screams continuing as everything shifted from the darkness of a bedroom to a dimly lit room. The dull glow of dawn swelled through massive windows of a quickly solidifying foyer. The light stretched over tiles and up the staircase reaching toward where I stood in the middle of the elegant steps. Bare toes curling over cold granite, the cries continued, my focus intent on the oversized mahogany doors just down the stairs ahead of me. The rich brown wood was carved with what I was sure was meant to be joyful scene, a bear dancing through trees, his maw opened wide.

But instead of a laugh, the motion was a scream, the emotion echoed by whoever was sobbing on the other side.

“Please,” the voice broke into words as the woman called through the door, the pounding of her fists as strong as the beating of my heart.

I stood, staring at the door, the internal struggle confusing me. Why wouldn’t I just go to the door? Why wouldn’t I open it and let her in? It was Joclyn, I knew it was.

I tried to prod myself forward, but the memory kept me there, tightening the belt on my heavy dressing gown before I took a few slow steps down to the wide floor of the entryway.

The stones were cold against my feet, the sobs were daggers against my heart, and yet I stopped again, the door within distance now.

“Give me one reason why I should trust you, Ovailia.”

Ovailia.

The name of my sister, of the little girl. She was crying outside the door, pleading with me. Yet, I stood there.

“They killed him.” She sobbed, the broken voice obviously not that of a child.

“You didn’t love him anyway,” I snarled, the hatred that was rising up in me confusing me. I knew I was missing something, but I didn’t understand why it mattered.

I needed to help her.

“I did.” She pleaded, her voice dropping as I was sure she did, the tone making it clear that she had fallen to the ground. “I did. He…”

This memory, this moment, was suddenly feeling as frustrating as the hospital. Trapped in place, unable to move forward.

Fear and worry mixed together, the emotions unclear as to if they were coming from myself or from my memory.

Finally, painstakingly, I stepped forward. Hand tight around the cast iron knob, I opened the door to a woman, a grown woman, laying on the ornate rockwork outside my door. Twisted in a tangle of pain, she lay in a pool of her own blood, the color weeping over the stone in a flood of gut-wrenching color. The color seeped from a long line in her back, her white shift cut away from her to reveal a massive gash that ran from neck to navel, the bones of her spine peeking out from behind blood and ripped flesh.

“Ovailia!” The anger dissipated into horror at the scene. Everything forgotten as the woman became little more than the child I had adored so deeply.  

My knees slammed into stone as I fell to her, bringing her into me as she shivered at the touch, jerking away in a frightening expectation.

“What happened?” I asked, grasping at words as I tried to understand. “What did he do to you.”

“Punishment,” was all she said, her hand wrapping around the hem of my robe just as they had done in the courtyard as a child.

The word brought a deeper anger and I held her tighter, the two of us clinging together as her sobs continued, as my magic flooded her in an attempt to stop the flow of blood.

My power moved into her, sensing injuries and what I was sure was a poison as I flooded her with my magic, letting the power stitch her skin back together.

I was healing her.

Just as I had with Kaye all those years ago. Although then it was an act I had no control over. Here I was prodding my power, I was telling it what to do. The memory froze in place as I focused on my magic, on the way it was moving, on the way it felt.

“Punishment for what?” I heard myself ask, although I didn’t move, the scene now a frozen piece in time.

“Father… he…” Ovailia’s broken answer faded away as she did, her image dissolving into dust and air, the scent of her blood lingering.

“What did he do to you?” I heard my growl, heard the anger, but the motion was gone, the moment was gone. The voice had come from outside of me, filtered from a memory that had occurred years before on the same porch I now stood on.

The same porch, the blood nothing more than a stain on my soul as I looked past stairs to the rocky coastline that stretched before me.

As far as I could see the ocean kissed the sand before stretching away in the brightest blue before it faded into sky leaving me surrounded by a dome of sand and sky. The long lines of color were broken up by the brush that grew close to the water, their thick strands swaying in a warm breeze that carried the ocean chill on its back. They rocked in time with the waves, the sound calm as a few grey headed gulls called out loudly, diving down to the surf in a graceful landing.

The memory of before had left, the tension and pain washed away by the crashing waves as I stepped toward the peaceful beach. I longed for it, for the water, to sit against one of the deep red rocks that was nestled into bright white sand. Everything about it was serene, including the woman that stood yards away from me, her dark hair blowing in the breeze.

She was beautiful, standing there, walking in the sand toward me. A smile spread across her face as she saw me, her joy plunging through me as if it was my own. It infected me, until my smile was as wide as the one that matched her face.

She was glowing, a light spreading from her as she ran, stumbling in the sand multiple times until she fell, her laugh drifting on the breeze to meet me.

The sound was infectious, the way she rolled over and laughed at herself swelling through me. I loved this woman. There was no question.

With a sigh, I ran to her. Her laugh continued as I reached her, sitting over her and fighting the need to bring her into me. My shadow stretched over her as the laugh faded, leaving only that amazing glow and a heart-stopping smile.

“Why do I have a feeling you have done that before?” I asked the question as it came to me, surprised when I had full control of the words.

I was able to talk, able to move. It was something that had never happened when I was locked in memory. Only in dreams. I didn’t know which this was, I had been here with her before. This beach was the same as in our dreams. But the way it felt, the way everything moved.

It was more than that.

“I can speak to you…” I gasped as the words in my mind flowed free, fighting the temptation to pinch myself.

“Have you not been able to?” she asked in a whisper, her fingers sending an electric jolt through me as they grazed my jawline.

“No,” I said, sinking into the sand beside her. “It's all been… memories…”

“Memories of me?” She asked, the playfulness dripping from her coy smile.

“Just memories,” I replied wishing I could just tell her yes, that they all had been of her and not this painful tragedy of a life I had lived.

“So, you haven't remembered yet?” Her eagerness was clear, it dripped from her eyes as she sunk into the sand, her hand falling from my face.

“I know who you are,” I whispered to her, taking a chance and reaching out to her, touching her face, running my fingers over the jaw, down her neck. “Does anything else matter.”

“So much does. You don’t even know who you are.” She stopped my movement, wrapping her fingers around my own and pressing my palm below her collarbone. Her heartbeat was right there, I could feel it fluttering against my hand, feel the warmth of her.

This beautiful woman was right here with me. Having her so close, being able to talk to her, it stole my breath.

“You don’t know what you are.”

The words struck home, the truth almost paralyzing.

“You could tell me,” I taunted, fighting the desire to just lean over and kiss her. “You could tell me who I am, and what all these memories mean…”

“Můj navždy,” she sighed, the words sounding odd coming from her for some reason. “I cannot tell you what you do not know… I am only here from your memory.”

“So, this is all a dream,” the words echoed the devastation that pulled through me, the smile that played on her lips hammering it into me more.

I pulled my hand away as I fell into the sand, the rough granules uncomfortable as they dug into my skin. She was here, right here, this couldn’t just be a dream.

“If it is a dream, is it all that bad?” The sound of the waves nearly washed out her voice, the steady rhythm of the foam matching the way she touched me, the way her hands moved over my skin.

The sound, the touch, it brought a bit of a relaxation. It numbed the devastation somehow, it made it easier to bare. Something about the way she warmed me, the way her touch electrified me familiar.

Everything about this was familiar.

“Joclyn,” I sighed, loving that I was able to say her name. That I could lay next to her, that I could touch her arm. In a way, it made the dream-scape matter a little less.

Sighing deeply, I relaxed into the sand, watching the way my fingers trailed over her skin, watching her shiver under my touch.

“Do you remember the first time we were here?” She whispered, the words sounding more like a taunt now I knew where she came from. Where this all came from.

I didn’t remember. Not fully.

“No,” I gasped, my heart tensing as the electricity in her touch began to change.

“I remember,” she whispered as she pressed her forehead against mine, snuggling into me as the light around us faded to darkness, the sand softening into blankets and pillows.

She didn’t move, she remained against me, curled into me as she slept, her breath hot against my bare chest.

Joclyn. I tried to ask the question, but no words came, just the roar of a thunderstorm, the smell of rain as it drifted over us, sweeping me back into memory.

I breathed it in, loving the way it mixed with her smell, loving this moment.

Loving this woman.

The emotion was so strong I could barely restrain it. It was the same I felt when I lay in the hospital, this need - this want of her.

The memory that I was trapped in pulled her closer, her arms wrapping around me as her fingers dug into my back, holding me as tight to her as I did.

The mood had changed so much from before. The playfulness of the beach was gone. While there was this love, this passion, that I felt every time I thought of her, there was also a tension that I couldn’t quite place.

The two emotions blended together, fighting for the stronger position in my heart. Nothing could quench the love, however.

“I don’t want to die.”

Her voice was quiet, frightened. It sapped the passion from the moment in a second, the tension bubbling to the surface.

“Do not be afraid, my love. Know that I will be here. I will protect you.” My words were muffled as if they had come from thought instead of spoken.

I wished I could say them louder, I wished I could scream them loud enough she would never forget. Instead, I pressed her against me.

Death. Protection. The words blended with every other little thing I didn’t know, making me desperate to remember. I had seen her die in one of my memories, but I had also seen that image of her by the river, Ryland running behind her, both of them very much alive.

She nestled into me more as the room filled with the thud of a knock, the sound causing both of us to jump.

“It’s time, my lord.”

“Thank you, Sain,” I sighed in response, pressing my lips into Joclyn’s hair as I kissed her.

I clung to her for one more beautiful moment before I pried myself away. My hand ran over her arm as I rolled out of bed, the wooden floor cold under my feet.

A long snake of a golden ribbon trailed over the bed behind her, the glimmering thread weaving through her hair and into the intricate flowers I had seen before. The ribbon. The same one from the pictures of her and I in Prague, the one Ryland was trying to give her beside the Vltava.

The ribbon left my vision as my memory turned away from her, the pain of curiosity spiking as I stepped away. There was more to see here, more to ask, but I only continued to walk away from her, no matter how hard I tried to push otherwise.

No! The word exploded in my mind as I fought, desperate to see the ribbon, desperate to ask. I tried to will the bedroom back into existence, but instead of the room, the world caught on fire.

I no longer stood shirtless in the middle of an ornate bedroom, I ran next to a woman in a hoodie, the gold ribbons trailing from both us as we ran through the flames. The love of before had swelled into a protective need, the wave of power that rippled through me directed right toward Joclyn, surrounding both of us in a shield. Controlling the power with the slightest thought, we ran, my mind moving fast as I attempted to find something familiar and figure out what was going on.  

Before I could gather my bearings a sharp pain pulled up my arm, bones and nerves jumped painfully as I stumbled to a stop. Joclyn turned to me with wide eyes, her hand clenching her forearm in a sure sign that she had felt it too.

“What was that?” She asked, her face growing hard.

“Something has happened. Wyn has deviated from the plan,” my voice was a growl as I looked away from her to the burning tree’s behind us as if the person I spoke of was about to burst through them.

“They are headed into an ambush; they can’t fly as you commanded them.” Joclyn’s voice was hollow behind me, although I recognized it as her, there was a darkness there that I didn’t expect.

It frightened me, although the emotions from the memory did not match. There was only concern.

Opening my mouth to speak, it came again, the pain sharp and violent as an older woman’s voice whispered through the flames, the broken sound full of static. “You are going to want the 10a for this, that’s most common for straight cuts like this.”

My memory shifted as I turned toward Joclyn, expecting to see someone else, but it was only her, standing in the dark. The world around us had gone, taking the war-ravened girl I had expected with it.

The braid was gone. The hoodie was gone. She stood in the middle of the dark with me, her hair tangled around her face as she stared with a look so intense I stepped back in expectation of fight or injury.

“Can you see me?” she asked as my arm exploded once again, my whole body jerking at the agony that ran from wrist to shoulder.

“That’s perfect, now you see how I am cleaning here, the tiny pats here…” The same distant hollow of the woman's voice echoed from behind me, louder this time. Although no one was there, it was still just Joclyn and I standing in the dark.

“You need to remember,” Joclyn pleaded, her voice as intense as her stare.

“I don’t know how to do that, Joclyn,” I pleaded as the pain came again, the jolt of pain causing me to call out in a soft scream.

“Yet,” she whispered, answering the thought as she stepped closer. “You don’t remember yet.”

The pain in my arm spiked and I jerked, looking down to the limb in expectation of blood and bone, but nothing was there, not even the burned skin on my palm.

I stared at it as the pain grew, the agony broken by the soft touch of her lips against my cheek. I closed my eyes at the feeling, at the way it drowned everything out and sent me into a whirl of pleasure. I turned to grab her, desperate to return the touch, to return the kiss, but she had gone. I was surrounded by darkness.

The pitch swallowed me as the pain grew, whispered words drifting on the back of the agony.

“Go slower, make sure you are letting the skin stay loose to prevent micro cuts.” The pain grew as the older woman's voice did.

“You will find me,” Joclyn whispered through the pain, “You know where you have to look.”

“Softer there…” the woman said again, the pain that was ripping through me swelling. Everything felt like it was being ripped apart.

My arm felt like it was being ripped from me.

The darkness left as my eyes pulled open to the long overhead light I had stared at for so long, and the scream that was trapped inside of me finally broke free.

“Layno!” The expletive joined my scream as hands pressed against my shoulders, shoving me back onto the bed.

The pain didn’t leave no matter how much I screamed. It only burned more, the agony joined by the warm heat of my own blood as it ran over my skin. The hands pressed harder as I fought them, desperate to escape the pain, to escape the heat as my magic began to spark dangerously.

Threatening to explode.

I needed to control it before that happened. Unlike my memories, I couldn’t seem to grab hold, it slipped away, the faint sparks that shot from my fingers causing whoever was in the hospital room with me to call out in fear.

“Sedate him, Mother!”

I tried to move away from the magic, away from the hands that held me down. Although the restraints that had been my prison for so long were gone, I still couldn’t move. The cold fluid that was rushing through my veins was doing its job.

I was back. I had returned right to that moment. To that woman. Nastya. Screaming as I fought, I tried to let the magic out, but with the drugs that now poured through me I couldn’t call more than a few bright sparks of light. I couldn’t fight.

Everything slowed down as I screamed once more, the sound, I realized, muffled by another intubation tube.

“Jan!” A woman hissed from beside me, a dark shape obstructing the light as she moved over me. “Jan, you have to shut up.”

“I can’t give him more,” the older woman hissed, another flush of cold moving through me.

“Jan,” The younger woman hissed, her shape beginning to come into focus, the light framing her like a haunting angel. “You need to calm…”

“Kaye,” I yelled in recognition, but the word was as trapped as the scream, my mouth open wide from the tube.

It was her, although I could instantly tell she had aged, yet again. Her hair was short, the dark frizzy curls cut unevenly. The loss of hair made her freckles more prominent, the nut brown color of her eyes digging into me. Seeing the young woman above me frightened me, the loss of time evident just in the maturity and fight the girl had gained.

“Welcome back,” she whispered, squeezing her hand against my shoulder.

Given the precious memories I had just regained, and the strength of the love I had left, I knew I should shy away from the touch. I couldn’t, however, there was too much comfort in it.

I tried to exhale, but the oxygen that was being pumped in and out of me refused the release, leaving me trapped under the tubes and machines that had been my life.

“Can you…” I began to ask, but the words burned my throat, cutting me off.

“We can’t take the tubes out,” Kaye responded with a glance to whoever else was in the room, her mother I realized. Katenka.

I began to freak out at her response, but she stopped me with one wave of her hand, her eyes glaring into me.

“Yet,” she said, the use of the word tugging at my heart. “We aren’t supposed to be in here-- If we remove the tube now we will all be in trouble.”

She didn’t need to say anymore.

I stared at her, trying to ask a thousand questions with my eyes. She only caught one.

“It’s been two and a half years,” she whispered, her hand soft against my jaw. “You’ve been gone two and a half years.”