The afternoon sun felt harsh against Emberlyn's skin as she made her way through Eldervale's bustling marketplace, each step a careful negotiation with her still-healing body. The children's gift of candied fruits remained clutched in her hand—a tangible reminder of the affection these people claimed to feel for her, affection she couldn't remember earning.
Lucas walked beside her, his presence both protective and suffocating. Every few steps, he would gesture toward a merchant stall or point out a familiar face, weaving tales of shared experiences that felt like stories about a stranger.
"You see that baker there?" Lucas said, nodding toward an elderly woman arranging loaves in her window. "Martha always saves you her best cinnamon bread. You helped her grandson when he got lost in the forest last year."
Emberlyn studied the woman's kind face, searching for any spark of recognition, but found only the hollow echo of a life she couldn't access. The baker noticed her gaze and waved enthusiastically, her smile so genuine it made Emberlyn's chest tighten with confusion.
How could she have forgotten someone who clearly cared for her so deeply?
"And over there," Lucas continued, his voice taking on that patient, explaining tone that grated against her nerves, "is where we first shared a meal together. Do you remember? You were hesitant at first, but I convinced you to try their honey cakes..."
Something about his words felt rehearsed, like lines memorized for a performance rather than cherished memories naturally recalled. Emberlyn was about to voice her skepticism when a commotion near the fletching stall caught her attention.
A man was pushing through the crowd with desperate determination, his appearance so disheveled and wild that people stepped aside in alarm. His clothes were torn and bloodied, his face streaked with dirt and what looked like tears. He moved with the single-minded focus of someone pursued by demons, calling out a name that made Emberlyn's blood run cold.
"Emberlyn! Emberlyn! Emberlyn!"
Her name, spoken with such raw desperation, such intimate familiarity, that it cut through the marketplace noise like a blade.
"Emberlyn!"
She turned toward the sound, her hunter's instincts immediately assessing the approaching figure.
The man was of average height and build, with gentle features that might have been handsome if not for the wild desperation etched into every line of his face. His dark hair was matted with sweat and forest debris, and his clothes—what remained of them—suggested he was no warrior or hunter. There was something almost domestic about him, like he belonged in a kitchen rather than whatever battlefield had left him in this state.
But it was his eyes that gave Emberlyn pause. Blue eyes that looked at her with such profound relief, such overwhelming love, that she felt something deep inside her chest respond despite her confusion.
"I finally found you, Emberlyn," he whispered as he drew closer, his voice breaking with emotion.
The intimacy in his tone, the way he spoke her name like a prayer answered, sent alarm bells ringing through her mind. This wasn't the respectful distance she was accustomed to from strangers, nor was it the calculated familiarity of Lucas's claims. This was something else entirely—something that felt both foreign and achingly familiar at the same time.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed.
The question seemed to hit the man like a physical blow. His face crumpled with confusion and pain so raw it was almost painful to witness.
"Who are you?" Emberlyn asked again.
"What do you mean? Who am I?" His voice cracked, desperation bleeding through every word.
She noticed how his eyes kept darting to the bandage around her head, his expression shifting to one of deep concern and growing horror. As if he understood something about her injury that she herself didn't.
"Can I talk to you alone for a moment?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Something in his tone, some quality of desperate sincerity, made her nod despite her better judgment. She gestured for Lucas and the other hunters to step back, then walked with him to a narrow alley between two merchant buildings for privacy.
In the shadowed space between the stone walls, she noticed how this stranger—though something whispered that calling him a stranger felt wrong—was looking at her head wound with profound concern.
"What happened to you?" he asked gently, his voice filled with such tender worry that it made her chest ache in ways she didn't understand.
His concern seemed so genuine, so personal, that she found herself answering despite her confusion. "Huh? I... I made a small mistake during a mission."
Before she could fully process what was happening, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace that felt like coming home to a place she'd never been.
For a split second—just one heartbeat—something inside her responded. Her body seemed to remember the embrace even though her mind didn't, fitting against his like a puzzle piece finding its place. The scent of herbs and something uniquely comforting filled her nostrils, and for that brief moment, she felt safe in a way she couldn't remember ever feeling.
Then training and instinct kicked in.
How dare a stranger touch her without permission? How dare this madman presume such intimacy with Eldervale's legendary hunter?
With practiced efficiency, she grabbed his arm and threw him backward, her body moving with the fluid grace that had made her reputation. He hit the ground hard, the impact echoing through the marketplace and drawing gasps from the gathered crowd.
"Who do you think you are?" she demanded, pinning him with her knee as she twisted his arm behind his back with precisely applied pressure. "How dare you try to hug me?"
But even as she held him down, even as her rational mind catalogued him as a threat to be neutralized, something deep inside her was screaming that this was wrong. That hurting this man was like cutting out a piece of her own heart.
"What's wrong with you?" this man staring at her with shock and confusion.
She released him abruptly and stepped back, disturbed by her own conflicted response. Without another word, she turned and walked away, her crimson hair catching the afternoon light as she moved through the crowd with determined strides.
Behind her, she could hear him calling her name again, his voice growing more desperate with each repetition. But she didn't turn back—couldn't turn back, because something about this encounter was threatening to crack the careful walls she'd built around the gaps in her memory.
"Wait..."
His voice followed her, weak but persistent. When she glanced back, she saw Lucas and the other hunters restraining him, their expressions a mix of protectiveness and disgust.
"I'm your husband!" He cried out, his voice carrying across the marketplace and causing conversations to halt throughout the square.
The declaration sent another wave of shocked whispers through the crowd. Emberlyn stopped walking, her shoulders tensing as she felt the weight of dozens of stares.
She turned back to face him, her voice cold and carrying clearly through the sudden silence. "What are you talking about? I don't know you! And I've never been married!"
The denial felt like ash in her mouth, even as she spoke it with conviction. Because somewhere deep inside, in a place she couldn't reach or understand, something was whispering that she was wrong. That this broken, desperate man bleeding in the marketplace dust knew something about her that she herself had forgotten.
But that was impossible. Wasn't it?
His composure shattered completely at her words. On all fours, he moved toward her, shedding every shred of pride and leaving his dignity behind with each desperate inch. The sight made her chest tighten with an emotion she couldn't name.
"Please!" he sobbed, his voice breaking on the word. "Emberlyn, please! I'm Ethan—your Ethan! I made you dinner last night—your favorite, grilled chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. I set the table and waited for you.. I was so worried when you didn't return—"
"Give it up, Ethan! Emberlyn is no longer the woman you once knew," she heard Lucas mutter to the man, his voice low but not quite low enough to escape her enhanced hearing.
The phrasing struck her as odd. Not "Emberlyn doesn't know you" or "You're mistaken about who she is," but "no longer the woman you once knew." As if Lucas was acknowledging that there had been a connection, but that it was somehow gone now.
"EMBERLYN! PLEASE! PLEASE BELIEVE ME! I'M YOUR HUSBAND!"
His plea echoed through the square, raw and desperate and so filled with pain that several of the watching citizens visibly winced. But instead of sympathy, his outburst seemed to trigger mockery and disbelief from the crowd.
"Shut up! You're nothing but a liar!" someone shouted from the crowd.
"Don't you dare come near Lady Emberlyn again!" another voice added.
The whispers spread like wildfire, and Emberlyn watched as this man—this Ethan—was systematically torn apart by the disbelief and ridicule of people who had no idea what they were witnessing.
She should have felt vindicated. This was clearly a disturbed individual making impossible claims about their relationship. The crowd's reaction was entirely reasonable.
So why did she feel like she was watching someone crucify a saint?
What followed was brutal and methodical. Lucas and the other hunters systematically beat the man, their strikes relentless and calculated. The crowd watched with a mixture of approval and uneasy fascination—until some, driven by rage or fear, joined in. Each blow seemed to land with more force than necessary, each kick designed not just to stop a perceived threat but to humiliate and destroy.
Emberlyn stood frozen, watching the violence unfold with growing horror. This wasn't justice—this was cruelty. And yet she found herself unable to intervene, paralyzed by the conflict between what her mind told her was right and what her heart was screaming was wrong.
When they finally finished, Ethan lay motionless in the dust, his body broken and his spirit seemingly shattered. The crowd began to disperse, their entertainment concluded, leaving him alone on the cobblestones like discarded refuse.
"Come on," Lucas said, placing a possessive hand on Emberlyn's shoulder. "Let's get you away from this madness."
But as they walked away, as the distance grew between her and the broken man in the marketplace, Emberlyn couldn't shake the feeling that she was leaving something vital behind. Something that might hold the key to the three years of her life that had vanished into darkness.
The children's gift still clutched in her hand seemed to mock her—evidence of a capacity for love and connection that she couldn't remember developing. And now there was this stranger, this Ethan, who claimed to know her in ways that went beyond even what Lucas suggested they had shared.
Two different versions of her missing years. Two different claims on her heart and identity.
One from a man her instincts told her not to trust, despite his apparent sincerity.
And one from a broken stranger whose pain felt like her own, even though she couldn't understand why.
As rain began to fall, washing the blood from the marketplace stones, Emberlyn realized that the truth of her missing years might be more complicated—and more dangerous—than anyone was willing to admit.
The question now was whether she had the courage to seek that truth, even if it meant discovering that everything she thought she knew about herself was a lie.