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Timerra wakes in a bed that’s unbearably soft, wrapped in covers that smother her. Her body feels shattered, but she’s too numb to be in much pain. She twitches a leg, recalling a lance puncturing it, a battlefield of greyed and bloodied snow.
“Hey there, Princess.”
The shamelessly gallant voice jerks Timerra’s attention toward the chair at her bedside.
“Merrin?”
No. Merrin is dead. Those bastards twisted her corpse, and Timerra tried to put her out of her misery. Yet here she is, gazing at Timerra with something akin to affection, despite how wretched she must look.
“Yes, it’s me. Don’t push yourself—you’ve been out for quite some time.”
Ignoring her, Timerra tries to push herself upright. Though she winces, she isn’t exactly sore. She feels more like a wheel that’s been jammed. Merrin reaches to support her, and Timerra lets herself lean on her retainer, one last time.
When she’s on her feet, she shoves Merrin aside and tries to bolt for the door. Her legs won’t cooperate. They slow, twisting wrong. An arm wraps around her waist from behind. Timerra tries to claw her way free, but Merrin wrestles her into a tighter hold.
“Please, don’t fight me. I promised you—the other you—I’d keep you safe,” Merrin says. What in Solm is she yammering about? “I don’t know what will happen to you if you leave. I’m begging you to rest, just for now. I need to tell the Divine Dragon and Prince Fogado that you’re awake.”
That makes her freeze. “Fogado?”
The memory of his mirage strangles her numbness. He, at least, had to be a figment of her imagination. Even an uncorrupted version of her brother would never have spoken so gently to her.
Merrin speaks in a soothing tone, as if there’s anything soothing about her words. “He’s the one who carried you here.”
She has so many questions about him, but a queen needs to assess the bigger picture. “Where are we? What’s going on?”
“The others can explain better. Please, rest for just a moment. I promise you’re safe.”
Timerra doesn’t believe that for a second, but with such sluggish control of her limbs, she won’t be able to outrun a fighter as vicious as Merrin. She returns to the bed and watches the one claiming to be her knight until she leaves.
The room reminds her of the infirmaries in the Somniel, with even that curious lightness it used to have, like the island itself was a cloud. Thin, silky linens flutter above the white tile. The potted plants along the walls seem to belong to no land or season.
But that can’t be. Without the Divine One’s magic to hold it up, the Somniel crashed to the ground. Its tiles shattered. Its plants withered. And nobody could stand on it without feeling so, so heavy.
Yet, if this isn’t the Somniel, why is the next person to enter Alear, with their eyes holding their usual compassion despite the strange dual colors? Through a veil, she observes her grief at their death, then the stab of betrayal at how they wouldn’t help her prevent Sombron’s return. In a moment of clarity, she remembers why she fought on that snowy battlefield. She throws off her covers. Has the ritual been completed? Has that devious princess already...
Alear steps aside, and the next person to enter the room banishes all other thoughts. Her own face, looking as cautious as she feels, though there’s an undercurrent of curiosity she can’t muster.
The illusion from the battle. Of course—all of this must be some illusion Sombron has trapped her in to keep her sedate. Why? Does he plan to drain her sovereign blood?
She doesn’t let the look-alikes justify themselves. She waits just long enough for an opening, then lunges again for the door.
The two of them converge on her. This time, a sentimental lapse isn’t enough to make her go limp. She kicks and elbows them, searching for anything in the room resembling a lance.
She curses herself for not training in hand-to-hand combat. The illusions have her full strength as well as Alear’s, and they manage to wrangle her back toward the bed.
She sits and seethes while they explain that they’re of another world, not illusions but facsimiles, and that they took her from her world. Rescued, they claim. The rest of that world now lies barren.
They must think her a fool.
“I know this must come as a shock. But Sombron is in this world now, and we’re all fighting to stop him for good,” Alear says.
“And you need my help.” That idea grips her. If this place has a Solm, she has to protect it. “I won’t let that fiend escape again. It’s a Watcher’s duty to fight for justice at all costs.”
Alear shakes their head. “I’m sure you could offer us valuable insights, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to leave the Somniel.”
So she is a prisoner, after all. They can’t let her leave the illusion. Her brief grasp at purpose, the chance to have a cause to spearhead, dissolves.
The next part of their explanation is even more inane, but somehow, it rings true to hear that she’s one of the Corrupted. That she’s dead. There are so many blank spots in her memory; she can’t recall taking Solm’s throne after the war, only that one day she was seated upon it, surrounded by people who didn’t walk or talk right. Just like her.
A queen can assess a chaotic situation. She still isn’t sure what to think, but she has to consider what these people are telling her. If they are to be believed, only the Somniel’s magic keeps her mind and body intact. They plan to let her stay there and recover. As if there’s any chance of recovery.
Her fate sinks in, and she feels as heavy as if this were the fallen Somniel.
The one who looks like her lets out a squeaky laugh. “It’s kinda weird, taking care of myself. Now I know how Fogado feels.”
Again, his name jolts Timerra. She’s almost afraid to ask, but a queen is never afraid. “You mean this world’s Fogado?”
“Yeah, he’s gonna come see you soon. Is that okay? Actually, I’m not sure I can stop him. He’s really worried.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re sibbies. Me and him, I mean. And I guess, kind of us and you, too?”
The reaction is too clumsy for her not to take it at face value. Whoever the royals of this world’s Solm really are, they’re each other’s family. The most unfiltered feeling Timerra has had since she woke up strikes her—envy for this person who wears her face and has a brother who loves her.
She falls back against the pillow. “As long as I don’t have to look at you anymore.”
This can’t be her Panette, the one she buried in a special place away from the graveyards her dear retainer so feared. The visitor offers her a platter of meat. She wrinkles her nose and sends the sick joke away.
She’s wondering if the Corrupted need to eat when there’s another knock. At Fogado’s face, she again throws off her sheet. He waves, holding up a plate with his other hand so she can see he isn’t armed. At least, not visibly. Her Fogado always had more concealed daggers than he thought she knew about.
This one sets the plate on the bedside table. Her favorite fruits, albiet mashed almost to a pulp.
“Sorry, I cut it myself, so I’m pretty sure I invented some new shapes,” he says.
There’s nothing to eat it with except her fingers. Of course they wouldn’t give her anything remotely sharp. She wonders about poison, but if they want to kill her, they’ll just do it. Besides, she’s already dead. She picks up a crooked piece and sticks it in her mouth. Though she can’t tell if it satisfies anything, it’s tangy enough to almost bring her back into her body. He sits down.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks.
That doesn’t deserve an answer. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Already, she’s thrown off. Her Fogado hadn’t seemed this weary, this young, since they were children. She used to look after him. Tried to impress upon him the responsibility of his role. But more and more, he snuck away to pointless parties, and his laugh got emptier and emptier.
When his retainers died, the laugh he let out had been as dry and relentless as the desert. After that, he seemed to have run out of laughter.
“I’m sorry,” Fogado says, and at first she thinks he can read her mind. “I know this must be hard for you. No, I can’t really imagine it. I’m not even sure what we can do for one of the Corrupted, but I’m here as long as you are, okay?”
“I told you, I don’t need a ghost to comfort me.”
He holds out a hand, palm up. “All human, see? Go on, give me a poke.”
She stares at him, then slaps his palm, quickly enough that he won’t have a chance to grab her. His hand snaps back as reflexively as any flesh, and he laughs. It sounds too different, too full, for her to think of him as her brother.
“Ow! Okay, you’re definitely not a ghost, either,” he says.
She takes his hand, not to soothe it from her hit, just to study it in lieu of his face. An archer, she can tell from the nicks on his brown knuckles (always knobbier than hers) and the callouses of his paler palm. Not her own brother’s preferred weapon; he never had the patience to aim from a distance. This one clearly does. He remains still, calm, as if she hadn’t already taught him to recoil.
“Ghost or not, I stand by what I said.”
“You know, my sis is always trying to stay strong, too,” he says.
“That ridiculous, smiling girl?”
“Don’t underestimate her smile. Keeping it up stretches a lot of muscles.”
So his earnestness doesn’t just come from being a different person. It comes from having a sister who prances about and plays along with his jokes. Who must not have what it takes to wall herself off like Timerra's ancestors walled off her world's Solm.
“I’m not her.”
His own smile falls. “I know. I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve been through. But I know you’re hurting. And I’ve never thought that love had a limit.”
Carefully, he squeezes her hand. Her vision blurs, and she yanks away. He holds out his arms, not moving any closer, just waiting.
You’re still human, he told her when they fought, but that isn’t true. She’s just an abomination.
It doesn’t matter—a queen doesn’t need a stranger to hold her. A queen doesn’t cry.
Her Solm is gone. She has no people, no crown, no castle. She is not a queen.
Whatever Corrupted are, tears can spill hot over their cheeks. He wraps his arms around her and rubs her back, warm and alive. She cries until her eyes get emptier and emptier, dry and relentless as the desert, and she thinks that after everything, she finally understands how her Fogado felt.