Skylor's POV

It has been ten minutes. Ten minutes of lying here with a black hole where my heart should be, of facing the wall as my sister stands silently in the doorway just waiting for someone to walk past. It has been ten minutes since the master of fire sulked out of the room and disappeared to who knows where to digest what I said.

He wasn't lying to me when he told me that PIXAL was here with them. To my knowledge, he hasn't lied to me about a single thing since I got here. Every story, every little comment, everything has all lined up.

The guilt is making my skin heavy and chest empty. My soul is calling out for them, for the master of fire, for PIXAL, for Harumi wherever she is. My arms itch to hold them. Every time I looked at him, I just wanted to embrace him and never let go. The same thing goes for my sister even if I only saw her briefly.

But I can't. My head is fried and scrambled. All I know is that I don't know what I know. I have been told so many contrasting things from so many different people. I have to sort through a labyrinth of information just to find the truth. Right now, these people, these natural elementals, t feel right to me, but I felt the same way in the presence of the unnatural elementals, so I can't be sure.

"PIX, what is going on? Lloyd and I were cuddling up on deck when Kai walked over to us and was an absolute wreck. Now, you're standing outside of the doorway as if you're afraid to walk in," the voice is harsh and dripping with anger. Even though it is deeper than in my dreams, the intonations are still the same. It's my youngest sister.

"Skylor wishes for my departure and will not look at me. Please fulfill my duties," my middle sister responds with so much eloquence that my insides squirm even more at my behavior. I allowed her to get thrown into a mountain. How can I look at her?

Instead of the brash response I was expecting, murmurs that I can't make out fill the air. I can feel the distance between them and me, thick and sour. A few seconds after their murmurs finally stop, the slam of the door shakes the bed frame and makes my muscles tense even more. Heavy stomps make their way across the room, most likely to the chair where the master of fire usually sits.

"Don't worry, you can look now. The monster is gone," I can practically hear Harumi roll her eyes.

"I don't consider our sister a monster," I roll over from beneath the covers and try to take in my sister. Unlike PIXAL whose features themselves didn't seem to change much aside from the change in complexion, Harumi's features have scaled up with her face. Her eyes, nose, lips, they have all grown into proportion on her face. She has matured a lot in comparison to the soft version of her in my dreams. Her face has no wrinkles, but even so, it still looks a bit worn, like she has endured a lot.

"Sure you don't. That definitely wasn't the reason that you couldn't look at her or anything," she shakes her head and looks towards the door as if she was staring far into the distance.

"That isn't..."

"I don't want to talk to you," her eyes snap from the door to mine. They're green, an emerald that should be brimming with life, but there's nothing in them but contempt. "It sucks, doesn't it? When one person is trying to put in an effort to talk, and the other one tells them to fuck off?"

"Do you hate me?" the words escape my mouth before I realize they're coming out.

"Well let's see what happened to the people that love you. You just kicked your sister out for being a robot, which I assure you she wasn't thrilled about being either. Plus, you've been constantly berating the man who would literally sell his soul for you. So yeah, there's no incentive to love you, really," she shrugs and looks down at her nails.

Her words don't only make my guilt bubble up to the surface, but they also pierce through my chest. "I didn't kick PIXAL out for being a robot." I sit up and curl my knees to my chest.

She just raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. "Forget it."

"I failed to protect her. On the day that she was murdered, I couldn't save her. Then, on the mountainside..."

"You are not turning PIXAL's hardships into your own right now," her head snaps up, and her eyes narrow at me. "Not everything is about you. PIXAL's death is about PIXAL, not you because frankly, if you were there, they would have just ripped your head off too. You couldn't have done anything about it."

I scan over her face, and even with my hazy mind, I can see years of pent up anger radiating off of her skin, and it makes my insides curl up even more. "I'm sorry, for whatever I did that made you hate me so much, that made you not want to see me..."

"You can't be sorry if you don't know what you're sorry for," she looks away from me and scoffs.

"Please tell me then," I sit up, the chains on my wrists jangling as I try to close up the pit in my chest.

"No," she shakes her head. "I won't. You can't act like the victim for not remembering anything when you aren't even trying to regain your memory. You're just sitting here, scared that what you remember won't be what you want."

Her words slither into the deepest parts of my brain and lock up all thought. "I...I'm not scared," I stammer.

"Then prove it. There's literally no reason to not to at least try to remember," she crosses her arms, still not looking at me.

I close my eyes. According to the master of fire's theory, now would be the best time to try to regain my memories since Neuro should be asleep. However, as I try to think, all I can focus on is my accelerating heartbeat.

I don't know what I want to remember. On one hand, if Aria was telling the truth, I can feel justified in at least some of my behaviors, and I won't feel like a complete fool. However, the thought of that being the truth also makes my skin prickle. It would mean that the master of fire has been lying to me, and despite my efforts, I crave him. His smell, his touch, his overall aura overwhelms my senses in a way that makes me feel truly alive.

If the natural elemental masters are telling the truth, I have been actively fighting against the people that I care about the most. I have been deliberately rude to try to get the master of fire away, and if he has done nothing wrong...

I need to know what happened in the past so I can live my life accordingly. My lungs inflate as I take a deep breath in and empty as I puff out the air. After a couple of deep breaths, I recenter my thoughts and trace my memories back as far as they can go. I think about my time here, in the caves, in the mountains, and all the way to when I was freed from the amber. When I reach that final memory, it is like I reach a mental wall. The memories behind it press against my brian, but I can't quite grasp them. They're slightly out of reach.

I clench my jaw and push harder against it. My will claws at the edge of the memory, trying to find a way through. Just as panic starts to creep over me, a crack forms in the mental wall and the light scent of fresh roses wafts over me. I can visualize them in his hands, his fingers flexing around the stems as he holds the bouquet out for me.

"The guys and I are going out to check out a distress call a few hours away. Apparently there are some creatures attacking people? I don't really know the details, but what I do know is that I will be back tonight to keep you from drowning yourself in work. Don't have too much fun while I'm gone. Love you," I hear the master of fire say from deep within my head, and then I feel his lips on mine, and the wall holding back my memories crumbles.

Every experience that I've had comes flooding back. Each lasts only a millisecond, yet I can now recall the experience in its full. Both the bad and the good hit me at once. I see Aria wrapping a cloth around my nose and mouth as my world turns fuzzy. I see my step mother charging at and scrutinizing me.

More importantly, I see my father rambling on about his next grand renovation plan for the palace. I see PIXAL lying beside me as we stare at the clouds and share our hopes and dreams for the future. I see Harumi giggling as she plays with Lloyd in the courtyard. I see my mother, her face something I didn't even remember prior to having my memories blocked, singing lullabies to me with a giant smile on her face.

I notice Kai with all of his subtle smirks and romantic gestures that I would roll my eyes at but secretly loved. I watch how he treated me, the care in which he held me and talked to me. He didn't simply touch me. He felt me. There is no faking the way his eyes would gloss over when he saw me in a new dress or the way his smile, no matter how big it was, grew every time I walked into the room.

This man did not murder my sister.

My eyes shoot open. I push myself as far as I can off of the bed, but the shackles on my wrists snap me back down. If oblivious me was feeling awful, then aware me is feeling horrendous. The nausea rises more and more as I remember how Kai and PIXAL walked out of this room. All of my muscles feel prickly, and I know that the only thing that will stop it is getting to them.

"Harumi, I remembered...please let me out, I need to see Kai, I..." I rapidly pull against the chains, begging for them to break or loosen or just anything.

"Who is to say that you're not lying? It would be a good ploy to get your chains off, would it not?" she briefly glances up at me before letting out a sigh.

"Gah," I thrash against the chains as their clanking fills the air, but then I stop and just stare at my baby sister who was a literal child the last time I saw her. She is a woman, a beautiful one at that, and she is exactly what I hoped that she would be. I know that whatever she went through to get to today must not have been easy, but she is here, and she is resilient. I can see the fight in her eyes from over here even if her fight is against me.

In fact, even with that onslaught of memories, I can't remember a time when her fight wasn't against me. I would try to play with her and move the attention from myself onto her and PIXAL, but it was never enough, and I know it.

"I am sorry," I state simply and softly.

Now, her head snaps up, and our eyes meet. She doesn't say a word, but she just stares at me.

"Nothing I can say will ever replace the hole in your childhood that was created by me. It wasn't fair to you that your mother, our subjects, and Father never gave you any attention. Look at you! You're absolutely gorgeous, and I'm sure that you are extremely intelligent since you were always so sharp. You were neglected, and while I tried to make up for it, it was ultimately because of me, and it wasn't fair to you. You deserve so much from the world, and...

"Stop," she cuts me off with a shaky voice. She slowly stands up from her seat. "Let me bring you to Kai."

"You deserve to hear this, Rumi, you..."

"I deserve nothing from you," she exhales as she fishes the key out of her pocket. Once it's in her hand, she sits on the bed beside me and takes a hold of one of my shackles. "It isn't your fault that I was jealous of you."

"But you had to go through so much because of me..."

The shackle that was holding down my right wrist pops off. "Comparatively, no, no I didn't," she sighs as she moves to my other wrist. "I was denied parental love when I was a child, that much is true, but... I still had people who loved me, and the lack of that love for 12 years is nothing compared to the trauma brought on by Aria and what she did. Besides..." she drifts off as my second shackle pops off, but I don't move, waiting for her to finish her statement. "...I had a chat with Lloyd the other day, and it made me realize how lucky I actually am. I always felt like you got handed everything, but you've been deprived of your soulmate for so long and... let's bring you to him."

Harumi stands up and sticks her hand out to me. "I'm sorry, Skylor, for everything that has happened to you."

My eyes water as I take her calloused hand in mine. She helps me off of the bed, and the two of us make our way out of the room and walk down the hallway. Neither of us say a word, but our hands stay connected, and it makes me feel lighter in a way. I never thought that Harumi could view me as a sister, but now...

I'm punched in the gut as I hear broken sobs coming from inside of a room. When I look above the door frame, I see Lloyd's elemental symbol, meaning that it's his room, but I know whose tears those are. Without hesitating for a single second, I twist the doorknob and send the door flying into the wall.

Two heads whip around, but I can really only see one. His hazel eyes are red and puffy, and tear marks stain his cheeks. His mouth is slightly agape as he looks at me, and I don't take another second to rush across the room and engulf him in my arms, knocking him down onto the bed.

There is a duality in me right now. On one hand, it feels like it has been less than 24 hours since I last hugged him since in the time in between I was either unconscious or unaware. On the other hand, it has been weeks since I last hugged him if we consider all the time that I have been conscious. In reality, it has been 628 years, and my body can definitely feel that. I need this hug right now.

I grip onto the back of his shirt, feeling the hard plane of his back, as I rest my cheek against his. "I remember it all, Kai. I love you, and I'm so sorry for how I treated you."

"Oh my..." I hear him murmur before he tightens his hold on me, his hands cupping one of my shoulders and my back. Then, his shoulders start to shake, and more tears begin to transfer from his cheek onto mine.

"Shhh, shhhh," I say softly in his ear before pulling back a little so that I can see his face. I momentarily let go so that I can take the pads of my thumbs and wipe the tears away from under his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

He moves one of his hands to the nape of my neck, pulling me forward so that our lips connect. His are salty and wet from his tears, and they move slowly yet strongly against my own. Each movement is deliberate, and as his hand runs up and down my back as if he's feeling it for the first time, my chest swells.

When we pull apart, I look into his watery eyes. They're a gorgeous mix of gold and brown that are so uniquely him. They've always burned through any walls that I had up, and now, with the edges of them crinkled by his smile, I can see right through them.

He takes his hand that was on my neck and uses his index finger to delicately tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. His touch is hot, leaving my skin tingling in his wake.

"628 years. It was torture, Sky," he inches his finger across my jawline.

I bring my palm to his left pec, resting it over his tattoo. I feel his heart thrumming beneath his flesh, and in this moment, it feels like ours are beating in sync.

"I love you, Kai Smith."

"I love you more than you could ever imagine, Skylor Chen."

A/N: Woohooo, Skylor got her memory back! Took her long enough!

So sorry for the break between updates. School got hectic, but I'm done for a few months, so yay! Hopefully I can get these out to you more regularly and have it done by the end of summer.

Thoughts?

Have a nice day! Thank you all for reading, and don't forget to comment, vote, and share!