Shock pierced me like a thin blade, without pain, but with awakening.
I suddenly realized: I had heard him. I understood every word, every intonation.
"I understand what you are saying, " burst out of me. Not a question, a statement.
The old man only smiled kindly, as if he had been waiting for precisely this reaction.
"Yes, " he said quietly. "I am glad that you understand me."
I glanced at the others.
They watched us intently, without interfering, yet a glimmer of unease moved in their eyes.
"Everything around… is strange, unfamiliar, I remember nothing" I murmured. "I don't understand them. Not their words. Not their actions. They speak, but to me it is only noise."
The old man kept looking at me with a light, warm smile, as though he knew all the answers but was in no hurry to share them.
"Am I your child?" I asked cautiously, afraid to hear what I was not ready to accept.
"Oh no, " he shook his head softly. "I spoke figuratively. Because I have known you for nearly half a century."
"Half a century?.." my breath faltered, as if struck in the chest.
The old man looked straight into my eyes. His gaze was pure, like winter water. Without a shadow of doubt.
"Biana, " he said quietly, almost with tenderness. "Your name is Biana."
I froze. Biana. It was a word. A shape. A sound.
I repeated it to myself. And aloud. Again. Once more.
But inside, nothing stirred.
No spark, no recognition. No pain, no warmth.
As though he had not said my name at all, but someone else's. Someone distant, left in another life.
And yet…
"Thank you, " I exhaled. At least something… at least one word… about me.
The old man only nodded. As though he knew this was a beginning, but not an answer.
I looked around: the knight, the man in the robe, the girl with the headscarf, and the woman in blue armor, all were watching, not interfering. We spoke through a veil inaccessible to them.
"But why… Do I understand only you?" I whispered. "Why are you clear to me, and they are not?"
"You and I are speaking, " he said softly, "in the forgotten tongue of the Gods."
It was lost almost three centuries ago. Now in the world there are almost none who could recall it. I am one of the few.
He turned his head and threw a short phrase over his shoulder, in another, harsher language.
The girl with the headscarf silently wheeled him closer to my bed.
But my attention was no longer on her.
The woman in blue armor tensed.
She raised her hand, and in it a sword flared, flowing, shimmering, as though woven from water itself.
I did not know whom she was protecting.
Or from whom.
But I felt: the moment was changing. Right now.
The old man lifted his hand, unhurriedly, as if his fingers moved through water. His palm reached toward me, and suddenly… shone. Not like the man in grey. Differently. The light was softer, deeper. Not white, but pearlescent, like the moon's reflection in milky water.
He closed his eyes. And something in his face changed. The smile vanished. The weariness vanished. He seemed to grow transparent, dissolving into the act itself.
I held my breath. He was listening to me, without sound. Not with ears, but with his palm. Feeling.
What exactly he sought, was hidden. Somewhere beyond the walls of this room. Outside these confines.
The light in his hand went out, quietly, as one blows out a candle in a temple. His hand trembled… and sank. I did not at once understand what was happening, only noticed how his body began to slowly tilt forward.
The old man started to fall.
In that same moment, the man in the grey robe, until now almost unseen, darted forward. His movements, swift, but precise, as though he had caught something precious on the edge of vanishing more than once before. He caught the old man and gently returned him to the chair. But it was too late.
His head slumped to one side. From his nose and ears thin lines of blood trickled, drop by drop. It ran down his neck, carving a path through the folds of his robe.
Inside me everything clenched. A searing dread was rising like a tide, silent, merciless. The world dimmed, as though covered in ash.
The woman in blue armor froze. Her eyes flared, not with anger, but with rage. A low, animal growl tore from her lips, a knot of pain and fury that pierced the air like the strike of a blade.
And in that instant I understood: what had happened was not just pain. It was a violation. Of something great. And all present knew it.
The pain began to slice from within. I writhed, twisting, something unseen breaking me apart. Heat and dryness spread through my body like cracks through glass. My lips split, my breath turned rasping, ragged, as though my lungs had turned to dust.
Was this the end?.. The thought came not as fear, but as silence. I did not even know who I was… Where I was… For what?..
There was no guilt in me. I had done nothing yet. I had only… awakened. And that was all. And now, they are killing me.
My gaze darted until it stopped on the old man. He was motionless. His face still turned toward the ground. And suddenly… Something strange was rising in me. Not fear. Not anger. Something deeper. Quieter. Stronger.
I felt something slide down my cheek… not a tear. Blood.
A thin trail ran from my eye. And then I understood, there were two. Both cheeks are marked by dark moisture.
I looked at her. The woman in armor. The light in her palm. And I thought: So this… this is all…
But, a voice. Sharp. Firm.
The thin man in the grey robe lifted his head from the old man's body and shouted something, short, commanding.
The woman froze. The light in her hand vanished. Everything stopped.
The pain did not leave at once. It ebbed, like the tide, leaving behind burning in my muscles, emptiness in my chest, and a tremor in my fingers.
The world swayed. I felt neither hands nor feet. Not even my tongue. I was falling into darkness.
And before the dark finally closed in, I saw… eyes.
Brown. Deep. The eyes of that same chestnut knight.
There was no fear in them. But there was… concern. True concern. For me?
And that was the last thing that remained with me before the world vanished.
Pain old, familiar, like a silent shadow, returned first. Sharp, thin, as though heated needles pierced the back of my head again.
I did not cry out, only froze. This pain was no longer unexpected. It had become almost native, like a ghost whispering from the corners of dreams.
I slowly, with difficulty, lifted myself onto my elbows. The blood in my veins stirred reluctantly, resisting awakening. My eyes refused to open, heavy as stones, but I forced them apart.
The world around swam in bluish dimness: it was night.
Through the half-shadows I discerned a figure in the corner. By the massive door, almost blending into the darkness, stood the chestnut knight. He was motionless, like a sentinel at a tomb. Yet I felt: he saw me.
We met eyes. He smiled faintly, almost imperceptibly, yet in that movement there was so much warm stillness that I suddenly found it easier to breathe.
He said something, his voice soft, calm, like a spell that could soothe pain. I did not understand a word, but it did not matter.
The sound of his speech lay over my mind like a blanket, warm and protective. He did not know how to speak with me, and I, how to answer. But at that moment… it was as though we heard each other.
I looked around again, and a pang of worry touched my heart: the room was empty.
The old man was gone. The woman with the sword, gone as well. Only he. Alone. Remained.
I am alive.
The thought flared in my mind like a fire in darkness.
I am still alive.
The silence did not trouble me, it simply was. Like breath caught between two words.
But it was cut by a sound. Three clear knocks, wood against wood, slow, even. The chestnut knight at the door did not stir. His fingers only touched the surface, not knocking, but summoning something from another world. I shuddered.
My fingers clutched the edge of the blanket. My heart beat not from weariness, but from tension.
The door slowly opened.
The old man entered the room, alive, with a face still marked by weakness, yet with eyes in which there was peace.
Behind him came her.
The woman in blue armor. Her steps rang in the air, as though metal responded to each movement. The diamonds on her breastplate caught the lamplight, scattering it across the walls. But most of all, her eyes. Not merely eyes, but blades. Their cold, piercing gaze slid over me, and my body tensed involuntarily, remembering the pain.
Run. The thought flew through me like a frightened bird.
I touched my cheeks, dry. My lips, whole. Alive. Was it a dream?
I looked at the old man. He seemed too alive. Too real. Too…
"No… No!"
The words broke from my lips before I could think them. As if it was not I who spoke them, but my soul, frightened, escaping first.
I tried to leap from the bed, but my body, still weak, betrayed me. My legs gave way, and I collapsed. Into the embrace of the carpet, soft, warm, as though it alone in this room had been woven for me.
It received me without reproach; it knew: it could not hurt more now. I pressed into it, as into a refuge, back to the bed, face to the wall, as though I could disappear, dissolve, if I pressed hard enough.
My heart pounded so that I heard it not only in my chest, in my temples, in my palms, in my throat. Everything in me wanted to run. Escape. Vanish.
I crawled into the farthest corner of the room, where the air might be different, free. Perhaps there, a crack? A hidden gap? Salvation?..
But there was nothing. Only stone walls. And the three of them, silent, watching.
I will not give in.
I will not let them do to me… whatever it is they want.
I will not die. Not now. Not like this.
The pain I had felt before, that which tore me apart inside, was undeserved. I had done nothing. I did not even… know who I was.
"Forgive me," the old man said quietly.
One word. It sounded sincere, almost a whisper.
The dim light of the lamps they had brought fell on the walls in soft bands.
And then he came forward, the chestnut knight. The one whose swords shone in my memory like the foreboding of fate.
He crouched beside me, slowly, carefully, as though approaching a wild creature.
I pressed into the wall, so hard the stone seemed softer than the fear in my muscles. I held my breath. All of me was trembling, not from cold, but from the knowledge: I was trapped.
Inside, thoughts scrambled. Panic, like a wild beast, tore logic to shreds.
Escape… Where is escape? The window… but high. The doors… guarded. The carpet… only the carpet, it alone did not wish me pain.
The world shrank, becoming smaller with each glance. And all I felt was myself. My helplessness.
"Forgive her, Adel, for harming you. That was my mistake" the old man's voice was muffled.
A name. It cut the air, touched something inside me.
Adel… That was her, the woman with the water sword.
The name echoed, stuck between memory and oblivion.
The old man threw a short phrase toward the woman in armor. She moved her shoulder irritably, metal scraping, and, without looking at me, pushed the chair forward. The wheels rolled softly over the carpet. Each turn sounded within like a count, not of time, but of choice.
"Allow him to help you" He said, indicating the knight.
He was near. Tall. Warm. Steady.
His hands lifted me with ease. My body hung limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. I felt the tunic cling to my back, my hair catch on the metal.
He gently set me back on the bed. I caught air, not from pain, but from something deeper: unease, almost shame.
The old man reached forward. Slowly. Reverently. From his fingers streamed light, pearlescent, soft, familiar.
And then something flared inside me.
"No!" burst from me. My voice trembled, cutting the air.
I recoiled sharply. Instinct. Fear. Rejection. My chest tightened, panic struck in my temples.
"Do not touch me. I do not want pain. Not again. I do not know who I am. I have done nothing to deserve this."
The room stilled. Even the air became motionless.
I pressed into the headboard, listening to the wild rhythm of my heart, and waited. For what I did not know.
"If you lose consciousness again… or die from a single touch… , my voice trembled, rasped, and broke." Will she… will she harm me again? Try to kill me again?
The words did not sound like questions, but like wounds, just opened.
I looked at the old man, but my gaze kept darting toward the woman, the one whose name now pulsed in my temples as if it itself carried threat.
Adel…
"I promise you," he said softly, "It will not happen again."
I did not believe him.
I could not.
Everything inside me flinched, like a small creature stroked against the fur while being told, "Do not be afraid, " after its leg had already been broken.
"And how am I to believe you?" the words tore through frozen lips. "You have weapons. She has a sword of water. And I… even my body is not my own. I cannot defend myself if she… again…"
"She will not touch you," he said quietly.
Silence hung, not threatening, but sharp.
Adel did not move. For one brief moment… something flickered in her gaze.
Regret?
Or… only the shadow of calculation?
" I want to help," the old man said softly, almost a whisper. His voice remained warm, even. "This is the only path. Only this way can you remember. And then together we can answer the question: who are you?"
He spoke again, in that same unfamiliar tongue. The sounds of his speech seemed thicker than air. And with them, everything changed: the tension in the air slowly dissolved, yielding to calm.
The chestnut knight, he stepped between me and the woman in armor.
Turned his back to me, like a shield.
Adel silently moved to the door. Her gaze lowered. Without challenge. Without hostility.
"She will not interfere," said the old man. "And Eiron will see to it."
My breath caught.
Too many words stood in my throat, unsaid, stuck.
My heart beat not from fear, but from expectation.
Eiron…
The name rang in my mind like a quiet chime. One more name now in my awareness.
I looked at them all. Strangers. Those who held my fate in their hands.
I bowed my head, trying not to think, not to feel, only to breathe. But then, a rustle. Soft, like a scratch on glass. Footsteps. Boots on carpet. Adel!
I raised my eyes, and saw.
From the old man's mouth poured blood. A great deal. The crimson stain rolled down his chin, dripping onto his robe. But he did not lower his hand. Did not retreat.
I jerked, but his fingers gripped my head, firm, leaving no chance to break free.
He began to whisper. The language, alien, like stone against bone. And then, a lightning bolt: a strike in the chest. My heart lurched and lost its rhythm. A rasp tore from my throat, and blood.
I choked. The old man's hand trembled, yet remained firm as stone. He did not let go. He continued. Whispering. Holding. Drawing…
I felt something leaving me. Not just blood. Life. Essence.
Is this the end? Like this? Without a name? Without memory?
My eyes burned, my body twisted, and inside, only panic.
And then, movement. Adel. With a sword. With water gleaming in her hand. She was rushing at me.
I could not scream. I saw her in a dream. Her hand raised,
A clash. Metal on metal. Eiron. He stood between us. The blades, two flashes of light, locked against her weapon. He was shouting. I did not understand the words, but I felt: he was defending me.
The old man whispered the last words. Too softly. Too late. His body sagged. He fell to the carpet. Heavily. Lifelessly.
I froze. Cold swept down my spine. Nausea rose to my throat, warm, salty, eager to expel everything that was left in me. I choked on the sound. Lowered my eyes.
Blood. I was covered in it. The bed. The carpet. My skin. Mine. His. Another's. Merged into one.
I turned.
Adel. Her hand outstretched. In her palm, a blue light. Her eyes burned. I will kill you, shouted her entire body.
I could not move. No pain. No fear. Only, ringing silence.
There was nothing left in me… No soul. No strength. No will to live.
Slowly, as though underwater, I slid back onto the bed. The sheets were sticky. Warm. Foreign. But now, mine.
I saw him. Eiron. He turned.
His face… Fear. And something else. Sorrow?
" Damn… No!" he breathed.
And then - nothing!