Time stopped—like it had when my glove grazed Teodric's mouth, sending a shockwave of memories through me.

Time stopped—as it had once I first put on the veil. When everything about my existence before that day became a figment in the distance, a blurry piece of me that I wasn't meant to ever remember. When I was transformed, transported, a new person in the same, albeit enhanced, body.

Time stopped—and all the other times once shoved in the back of my brain resurfaced, choking me. Clouds of images, jolts of reminiscences I'd thought long forgotten. Waves crashing up on the shores of my mind, bringing all the baggage from the past. Baggage I'd packed, sealed, hidden far away.

In real time, in the guest bedroom, Teodric and I froze, sort of suspended, paused. But in my head, it all replayed in vivid color. All those moments, all those years. All of them.

It was before. The morning I stood near a crowd of girls all wearing decadent dresses of coral, cerulean, crimson. Emeralds on their ears, sapphire bracelets around their dainty wrists, rubies dangling from their creamy necks. There we were, all green as the spring grass, gaping up at a podium atop which a handsome young man awaited, staring down at us with...down-turned lips? A fake smile? My memory didn't pick up on this too well.

I was a nobody. A lady's maid, a chamber-pot changer. No one of importance, no one anyone should have noticed.

But he did. Through that crowd, through all the fancy, flighty girls gawking at him, he saw me. And his expression changed. A glow, a smirk, a squint, a wink; perhaps a combination of all, but the truth of it all escaped me long ago.

Next I knew, I was atop that platform. He'd plucked me from the throng of girls, chosen me despite my lower status. He'd fought for me, wanted me. Refused anyone but me. So, there I was, beside him. A heavy crown on my head, our hands joined as we proclaimed our love to the world.

His queen.

The next flash of memory showed us on that dais once more, our joined hands in the air, but one of my hands atop my stomach as I beamed. Even in my head, I felt the bumping inside me, the growing of another being. The bundle of joy brewing in my belly.

I was to be a parent.

Later, that bundle of joy lay in my arms, his big brown eyes staring up at me in wonder. I couldn't have been happier, couldn't have asked for more. And I didn't. This was all I'd ever wanted, and then some. All I'd never allowed myself to dream about. A poor girl, sold to a rich family, granted basic comforts—now a beloved queen, holding a precious, baby boy.

Years passed. Good years, healthy years, happy years. The healthy part didn't last, though. Eventually, something plagued me deep within, and without warning. A sickness I couldn't be cured of, they told me; one that slowly rotted me from the inside. One that would, for sure, kill me.

Physicians loaded me with false cures, with false hopes, but in the end, they'd misdiagnosed me. And without apologizing much, they decided there was nothing they could do but let me fade out, make me comfortable, and pray for my soul.

Their prayers didn't take effect. My condition worsened, and my husband was distant in his distress, too sorrowful to see me in pain. He buried himself in work, promising that his priority was the medical field. Hiring better healers, training them, instructing them on how to treat royal patients.

My child was in lessons, learning how to rule for when their time came; I was abed. I fought a deep, dangerous cough, pretending like the blood dribbling from my mouth didn't mean this was the end. Acting like every time I crumbled in agony, this wasn't the last time I'd speak out loud.

I was terrified. Laying there waiting was too much. Reading books didn't help. I was too weak to knit or draw or write. All I did was stare at the same pattern on the ceiling, over and over, day after day. Night after night, too, because I couldn't sleep.

The slow approach of death made me so depressed I ventured into fantasy worlds in my head.

I once rolled off the bed, landing hard on the ground. I must have passed out, because when I woke, I was half under the bed frame, half out. The floor beneath me was rock solid, and I was cold. I reached my hand out, not sure what I searched for. A latch to a secret place? Somewhere to hide and wait until I perished?

Instead, I came across a loosened floorboard. My intrigue must have given me strength, because I snuck my hand under the board, pulling it up. I located a small, smooth box.

This memory, of all the memories, was the most intense, the closest to me. The one that came back to me so easily, it was as if I were reliving it now, though in fact I was frozen in time.

I opened the box—a deck of old, dusty playing cards was inside. I pulled them out, blowing gently on them. Soft patterns decorated the backs, and the face-cards were old-fashioned; the kind I'd played with as a child.

Somehow, I hefted myself to my feet, knowing that I needed to fetch someone. While I'd been busy perusing the box, my condition took another turn for the worse. I tasted blood in my mouth and expected another round of coughs and needed tea and herbs to calm me down.

It would soon be time to go, I could feel it; but I wouldn't go with blood caked to my face, or without saying goodbye to my husband, my child.

I fumbled to the mirror, gauging my haunting expression, my mess of dark, curled hair, the tangles too painful to attempt to fix. My once vibrant eyes were droopy, and the smears beneath them were so pronounced, they were tattooed to my skin. And that skin seemed to sag off my face, ready to melt to the floor. Red stains covered my lips. I feared if I opened my mouth, blood would pour out in heaps.

Absentmindedly, I shuffled the cards I still clutched, figuring out which way to go through the castle, and which passage wouldn't take me the longest—

The mirror opened, like water parting in a lake, with nothingness in its middle. And that nothingness sucked me in, slurped me up, took me away.

I vanished.

Wherever I woke, whenever I woke, I was in semi-darkness. Soft candles with gentle flickering flames surrounded me on the floor, in a circle. A smudged figure sat in front of me, inclining their head. "Welcome," they said, their voice nondescript, lost and forgotten, yet so strongly anchored in my mind.

They removed their cloak, their veil, and set them in the circle before me, and then...they were gone, in a puff of smoke. Not another word spoken. No indication of who they were and where they'd gone off to.

In the real world, in that guest room, time restarted. I'd reached the end of my memory walk, and it was time to face the facts. To face him.

My motions came back to me, slowly, as did the Acewood Castle suite where I'd enacted the vision. Where I was about to be exposed for the fraud I always knew I was.

It was too soon. But also, too late.

In my vision, the beige walls bordered by silver, the polished floors, the four-poster bed sharpened. The soothing scent of incense and soap, of lavender fields and honey, seeped into my nostrils, grounding me.

And there was Teodric, no longer frozen, likely not having known he'd been frozen at all. He was staring at me, his jaw dropping to a painfully low level.

I remembered those big, brown eyes as if I'd first seen them yesterday. As if I'd never stopped seeing them, though I was long gone.

And it all made sense. The reason I'd been so suspicious of him, why I'd been on my guard around him. Why his presence shook me to my core; not the castle, as I'd thought, but me, personally. Me, the one tethered to him in a bond not even magic could break.

Me, the one who gave birth to him.

Now, time to explain.

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