Consciousness returned slowly, like morning mist lifting from a lake. Emberlyn's crimson eyes fluttered open, unfocused and heavy with confusion. Above her stretched an unfamiliar ceiling—rough wooden beams crossed with dried herbs hanging in neat bundles, their medicinal scent filling her nostrils.
This wasn't her cottage. This wasn't anywhere she recognized.
She tried to sit up, but a sharp pain lanced through her ribs, forcing her back onto the narrow cot with a barely suppressed gasp. Her body felt foreign, as if it belonged to someone else—wrapped in clean bandages, aching in places she couldn't remember injuring.
"Easy now, don't strain yourself."
A gentle voice drew her attention to the doorway, where a middle-aged woman in healer's robes approached with practiced calm. Her graying hair was pulled back in a simple bun, and her eyes held the kind of patience that came from years of tending to the wounded.
"I'm Healer Maren," the woman said, settling onto a stool beside the bed. "You lost consciousness last night. We weren't sure you'd wake up so soon."
Emberlyn studied the healer's face, searching for some spark of recognition, but found none. "Where am I?"
"Healing House," Maren replied, beginning to unwrap the bandages around Emberlyn's left arm to examine the wounds beneath. "You were brought here in critical condition. Multiple fractures, internal bleeding, severe magical exhaustion..."
The healer's words felt distant, as if describing someone else's injuries. Emberlyn tried to piece together how she had come to be here, but her memories felt scattered, incomplete.
"I need to check your cognitive functions," Maren said, producing a small crystal that glowed with soft blue light. "This will help me assess any potential head trauma. Can you tell me your name?"
"Emberlyn Scarlet." The answer came automatically.
"Good. And what do you do for a living?"
"I'm a hunter. S-class." Again, the response felt natural, familiar.
Maren nodded, making notes on a piece of parchment. "What's the last thing you remember clearly?"
Emberlyn frowned, concentrating. Images flashed through her mind—practicing her fire magic in the forest clearing behind her cottage, completing a solo mission to eliminate a pack of dire wolves, returning home to...
The memory stopped abruptly, like a book with pages torn out.
"I remember... training. A mission with dire wolves. But after that..." She shook her head, frustration creeping into her voice. "It's all foggy."
Maren's expression grew more serious. She held up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three."
"What year is it?"
Emberlyn answered confidently, but Maren's frown deepened. "Miss Emberlyn, I'm afraid that's not correct. You're off by three years."
The words hit like a physical blow. Three years? How could she have lost three entire years?
"That's impossible," Emberlyn protested, trying again to sit up despite the pain. "I remember everything clearly. My cottage, my training, my missions—"
"I believe you do remember those things," Maren said gently, placing a restraining hand on Emberlyn's shoulder. "But there's a gap. A significant one. You've suffered what we call selective amnesia—likely caused by the severe head trauma you sustained. Your earlier memories are intact, but the recent years... they're gone."
Before Emberlyn could process this revelation fully, the door to the healing room opened with a dramatic flourish.
"Emberlyn! Thank the gods you're awake!"
Lucas Mitchell burst into the room, his azure cloak billowing behind him, his face a perfect mask of relief and concern. He rushed to her bedside, reaching out as if to embrace her before catching himself.
"I've been so worried," he continued, his voice thick with emotion. "When I saw you fall, when I thought I might lose you..."
Emberlyn stared at him blankly. She knew who he was, of course—Lucas Mitchell, the other S-class hunter in Eldervale. But the familiarity in his voice, the intimate concern in his eyes, felt completely alien to her.
"Lucas," she said slowly, "what are you doing here?"
His face fell slightly, though he quickly recovered. "I... I'm here because I care about you, Emberlyn. We went on that mission together, remember? We fought side by side against the basilisk."
"Mission?" Emberlyn's brow furrowed deeper. "I don't work with teams. I never have."
"The basilisk mission," Lucas repeated, his voice taking on a patient, explaining tone as if speaking to a child. "You agreed to work with me and my team because the threat was too great for any of us to handle alone. We... we've grown close over these past few years, Emberlyn. Very close."
Something about his words felt wrong, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong space. Emberlyn had always prided herself on being a lone wolf, on never needing or wanting the complications that came with partnerships. The idea that she would suddenly change her entire approach to hunting seemed absurd.
"I don't remember any of that," she said carefully, watching Lucas's face for any tell.
"The healer said you might have some memory issues," Lucas replied smoothly, glancing at Maren. "But they'll come back. They have to."
"Actually," Maren interjected, "selective amnesia of this severity rarely reverses completely. Miss Emberlyn may never recover those lost years."
Lucas's expression flickered—was that relief?—before settling back into concerned sympathy. "Then we'll just have to help her remember, won't we? I can tell you about all our adventures together, all the times we—"
"I need some air," Emberlyn interrupted, pushing herself upright despite the protests from her injured body. "I need to get out of here."
"Absolutely not," Maren said firmly. "You're still recovering from severe injuries. Moving around too much could cause internal bleeding to resume, or—"
"I'm leaving." Emberlyn's voice carried the authority of someone accustomed to having her decisions respected. "I need to understand what's happened to me, and I can't do that lying in this bed."
She swung her legs over the side of the cot, fighting through the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. Lucas moved to help her, but she waved him away with a sharp gesture.
"Don't," she warned. "I can manage."
With careful movements, Emberlyn stood and made her way toward the door. Each step was a battle against pain and vertigo, but her determination carried her forward.
As she moved through the healing house toward the exit, something strange began to register. The other patients, the assistants, even the guards at the entrance—they all looked at her with expressions of genuine concern and warmth. Not the fear and wariness she was accustomed to from her memories, but something softer.
An elderly man with a bandaged leg smiled at her as she passed. "Good to see you up and about, Miss Emberlyn. Gave us all quite a scare."
A young assistant healer rushed forward with a supportive arm. "Are you sure you should be walking? If you need anything—"
"I'm fine," Emberlyn replied automatically, but the kindness in their voices puzzled her. In her memories, people had always been respectful but distant, intimidated by her reputation and her fierce independence. This treatment felt... foreign.
She pushed through the front doors of the healing house and into the afternoon sunlight of Eldervale's main street. The familiar sights and sounds of the town surrounded her, but even here, something was different.
"Miss Emberlyn!"
A small voice called out, and she turned to see a group of children approaching. In her memories, children had always given her a wide berth, frightened by her intense crimson eyes and stern demeanor. But these children ran toward her with bright smiles.
"We heard you were hurt!" one of them said, a girl who couldn't have been more than eight years old. "We brought you something to help you feel better!"
The children thrust a small bundle into her hands—candied fruits wrapped in colorful cloth, clearly handmade with care and love.
"We hope you get well soon," another child chimed in. "Everyone's been so worried about you!"
Emberlyn stared down at the gift, her mind reeling. These children weren't afraid of her. They were treating her like... like someone they cared about. Someone they wanted to see healthy and happy.
As the children scampered away, she noticed more of the same treatment everywhere she looked. Merchants nodded to her with genuine warmth, townsfolk approached with offers of help, and even the usually stern town guards smiled at her with what appeared to be affection.
This was nothing like the Emberlyn Scarlet she remembered being—the cold, distant hunter who worked alone and kept everyone at arm's length. That woman had been respected but not loved, feared but not cherished.
What had happened to her in those three missing years? What had changed her so fundamentally that an entire town now looked at her with such care?
Lucas appeared at her side, having followed her out of the healing house. "You see?" he said softly. "Everyone here cares about you, Emberlyn. You're not the same person you used to be. You've changed, grown. We've all grown together."
She looked at him sharply, searching his face for truth. "And you're claiming you're part of that change?"
"I'm claiming nothing," Lucas replied, his voice carrying a hurt that seemed genuine. "I'm simply telling you what I remember. What we shared. If you can't remember it..." He let the sentence hang, looking like a man whose heart was breaking.
But Emberlyn had survived as a hunter by trusting her instincts, and her instincts were screaming that something was wrong. The kindness of the people around her, the children's affection, the genuine concern of the healers—those things felt real, felt right in a way that resonated with something deep inside her.
Lucas's claims of closeness, however, felt hollow. Forced. Like a performance rather than truth.
Standing in the middle of Eldervale's main street, surrounded by evidence of a life she couldn't remember but holding proof of love she couldn't deny, Emberlyn faced a terrible realization.
She had lost three years of her life, three years that had apparently transformed her from a feared loner into someone worthy of a town's affection. And the only person claiming to know the details of that transformation was a man her instincts told her not to trust.
The truth of what had happened to her—and what she had become—remained locked away in the darkness of her missing memories. The only question now was whether she would ever be able to find her way back to it.
Or whether someone was determined to keep her from trying.