Marie woke with a gasp, her eyes flying open.
She was lying on a cot in an unfamiliar tent, blankets tucked around her. Candles flickered, casting dancing shadows on the canvas walls.
Her whole body was shaking, trembling violently as though she were freezing despite the warmth.
Disoriented. Confused. Wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
Two figures sat beside her bed.
Marcello, his face grave and concerned.
And Bess—sweet, familiar Bess—who immediately leaned forward with tears streaming down her face.
"My lady!" Bess sobbed, reaching out to embrace her. "Oh, thank God! I am so happy to see you awake!"
Marie clutched at Bess desperately, her hands fisting in her dress, her breathing rapid and shallow.
But even as she held Bess, confusion swirled through her mind like a fog she could not penetrate.
She was married. She knew that with absolute certainty.
She was in love. She could feel it—that warm, precious feeling sitting in her chest, making her heart ache with longing.
But when she tried to picture her husband's face, tried to remember his name, tried to grasp any memory of him—
Nothing.
A blur where a person should be.
An empty space in her mind that felt wrong, like a missing tooth her tongue kept probing.
"Where is he?" Marie asked suddenly, pulling back from Bess, looking around wildly. "Where is my husband? I need—I need to see him—"
Marcello moved closer, his expression carefully neutral but with something troubled in his eyes.
"My lady," he said gently. "Who are you asking for?"
Marie's brow furrowed in confusion and frustration.
"My husband," she said, as though it should be obvious. "I am married. I know I am married. I can feel it. Where is he?"
She looked between Marcello and Bess with growing panic.
"Why can I not remember his face? Why can I not remember his name? What is wrong with me?"
Marcello and Bess exchanged a worried glance.
"My lady," Marcello said carefully, "what do you remember? Start from the beginning."
Marie pressed her hands to her temples, trying to organize the chaotic jumble of memories and gaps in her mind.
"I remember my childhood. My family. The estate. Ann and my brothers."
She spoke quickly, desperately, as though proving she could remember would make the gaps less terrifying.
"I remember meeting William. being engaged to him. I remember thinking he was handsome, charming."
Her voice grew more agitated.
"I remember being taken from my home. Kidnapped and claimed by my husband."
She looked up at Marcello with desperate, confused eyes.
"But I came to like my life with him. And somehow, I fell in love with him. I know I did. I can feel it inside me—this ache, this longing, this certainty that I love him deeply."
Her voice broke.
"But I cannot see his face. I cannot remember his name. Every time I try to think about him, about our time together, there is just... nothing. A blur."
Tears began streaming down her face.
"It is like he has been erased from my mind, but the feelings remain. The love remains. But the person is gone."
Marcello then asked Bess to leave them so that they may speak. Bess bowed and left. She trusted Marcello to be able to help. Being a soldier, he may be able to help her cope with the violence she witnessed.
Marcello's expression was pained.
"My lady," he said quietly, "your husband is Lorenzo de' Sforza. The Italian prince. Do you remember him?"
Marie's brow furrowed deeper.
"Lorenzo," she repeated slowly, testing the name.
And then something surfaced—not the warm memories she was desperately seeking, but something else entirely.
Something dark.
Her breathing quickened, panic rising.
"I remember Lorenzo," Marie whispered, her voice shaking. "But not as my husband. Not as someone I love."
Her eyes went wide with horror.
"I remember blood. So much blood. I remember bodies torn apart. I remember Lorenzo covered in gore from head to toe, eyes glowing red like coals."
She was shaking violently now, the memories crashing over her.
"I remember Matthew screaming as Lorenzo held his face. I remember his eyes bleeding. I remember seeing things through him, horrible things, battlefields and death and centuries of violence all at once—"
Her voice rose to near-hysteria.
"And then Lorenzo bit him. Tore out his throat with teeth that were too long, too sharp. Like an animal. Like a monster."
She looked at Marcello with wild, terrified eyes.
"That is what I remember of Lorenzo. Not love. Not marriage. Just... horror."
Marcello closed his eyes briefly, grief crossing his face.
"What else do you remember, my lady?" he asked gently.
Marie forced herself to breathe, to think past the panic.
"I remember Lorenzo telling me something before everything went wrong. In a clearing. We were arguing."
She pressed her fingers to her temples harder, trying to grasp the fragmentary memory.
"Lorenzo said... said she was not what I thought. That she was not a man. That she was a woman who had been living as a man since childhood."
Marie looked up suddenly.
"Because of a curse. Because female heirs in her family are executed. Because she carries something dark in her bloodline."
She laughed—a broken, slightly hysterical sound.
"I remember that. I remember the monster. I cannot remember tender moments or shared laughter or any reason I would choose to be with someone like that."
Fresh sobs wracked her body.
"I remember hearing Ann's voice. She was talking about a plan to sell me to the King. I remember running."
Her breathing was becoming ragged.
Marcello reached out slowly and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"The physicians believe it is the shock," he said quietly. "When the mind experiences something too terrible to bear, sometimes it protects itself by hiding memories. By erasing things that conflict with the trauma."
Marie stared at him.
"I am saying your mind is trying to protect you," Marcello said. "By keeping the warning—the knowledge of what Lorenzo is capable of—while removing the context that might make you vulnerable to that danger again."
Marie pulled away from his touch, wrapping her arms around herself.
"So somewhere inside me, buried where I cannot reach it, are memories of falling in love with a monster," she said flatly.
"Memories of falling in love with a person who would become a monster to protect you," Marcello corrected gently.
Marie shook her head violently.
"I do not care about the distinction,"she said, her voice rising. "All I know is that when I close my eyes, I see red eyes and blood and death and that can not possibly be my husband.
She looked at Marcello with desperate, pleading eyes.
"How am I supposed to reconcile those two things? How am I supposed to love someone when all I can remember is being terrified of them?"
Before Marcello could answer, the tent flap opened.
Lorenzo stepped inside.
And Marie's entire world narrowed to that single figure.
She recognized Lorenzo immediately—not with the warmth of love, but with the sharp, visceral recognition of prey seeing a predator.
Every instinct screamed at her to run, to hide, to get away.
Marie's body moved before her mind could catch up—she grabbed onto Marcello, clutching him arm with bruising force, pressing herself back against the far side of the cot.
"It is alright, my lady," Marcello said soothingly, though her voice trembled slightly. "His Highness just wants to speak with you."
But Marie could not hear the reassurance through the roaring panic in her ears.
All she could see was Lorenzo.
Lorenzo, who looked so calm and human now in clean clothes with clean hands.
Lorenzo, who had been covered in blood and gore just hours ago, eyes glowing red, fangs dripping crimson.
"Marcello," Lorenzo said quietly, her voice strained in a way Marie could hear even through her panic. "Could you give us a moment alone, please?"
Marie's grip on Marcello tightened to the point of pain.
"No," Marie said, her voice high and frightened, trembling. "No, please do not leave me alone with—"
She could not finish the sentence.
Do not leave me alone with that thing.
Do not leave me alone with the monster.
Do not leave me alone with someone I supposedly love but cannot remember loving.
Marcello looked between them, clearly torn.
"Your Grace," Marcello said gently to Marie, "His Highness is your husband. He will not hurt you."
But Marie could not reconcile those words with the images burned into her memory.
How could that creature be her husband?
How could she have ever loved that?
"Please," Marie begged, tears streaming down her face. "Please do not leave."
Lorenzo's expression crumpled with visible pain.
Then, slowly, he stood.
Marie made a small, desperate sound—a whimper of pure terror—reaching for her.
But Marcello gave her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
"I will be right outside, my lady," Marcello whispered. "You need only call and Bess and I will come."
Then he left.
The tent flap fell closed with terrible finality.
Marie pressed herself as far back against the tent wall as physics would allow, her whole body trembling violently, tears flowing freely.
Lorenzo took a single, careful step forward.
Marie flinched so hard she nearly fell off the cot, a small whimper of fear escaping her throat.
Lorenzo froze immediately, raising both hands in a placating gesture.
"Please," Lorenzo said, and her voice was breaking now, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. "Please do not be afraid of me. I would never hurt you. Never. I swear it on everything I am, on everything I hold sacred."
Marie stared at her with eyes wide with terror—the look of cornered prey facing down a predator.
"I remember you," Marie whispered, her voice shaking so badly she could barely form words. "I remember what you did to those men."
She could hear her own breathing, too fast, too shallow, on the edge of hyperventilation.
"The blood. The screaming. The way you tore them apart like they were nothing. Like they were made of paper and you were scissors cutting through them."
Her hands pressed to her head as though she could physically hold the memories back.
"I remember Matthew. I remember you holding his face and something happening—something wrong and terrible—and his eyes started bleeding. And I could see through him somehow, see all these horrible things, battlefields and bodies and death everywhere—"
Her voice was rising, becoming hysterical.
"And then you bit him. You tore out his throat with your teeth—teeth that were too long, too sharp, not human—and there was so much blood, it sprayed everywhere, and you just stood there covered in it and you were smiling—"
"Marie—"Lorenzo started, desperation clear in her voice, taking another small step forward.
"Stay back!" Marie screamed, pressing herself so hard against the tent wall that the canvas bulged outward. "Do not come closer!"
Lorenzo froze, hands still raised, tears now streaming down her face.
Marie was sobbing now, her words tumbling out in a rush she could not control.
"And I know you are not what you pretend to be. I remember that too. You told me. Before everything went wrong. You are not a man. You are a woman wearing men's clothes, hiding what you are."
She laughed—a broken, slightly unhinged sound.
"You said something about your family. About a curse. About female heirs being killed. But I cannot remember the details clearly, just fragments, pieces that do not fit together properly."
Her expression twisted with frustrated anguish.
"Every time I try to think about anything involving you—anything before the forest, before the blood—there is just nothing. A blur where memories should be. Like trying to remember a dream hours after waking."
She looked at Lorenzo with desperate, pleading confusion.
"Marcello says we are married. That I love you. That you love me. But I cannot remember any of that. I cannot remember falling in love. I cannot remember tender moments or reasons to trust you or anything that would explain why I would choose to be with someone who can become... that."
Fresh sobs wracked her body.
"All I have is the knowledge that somewhere inside me, buried where I cannot reach it, I supposedly love you. I can feel it—this ache in my chest, this certainty that I love my husband. But when I look at you, all I see is a monster. Not a husband. perhaps it was someone else"
Lorenzo's face crumpled completely with grief.
She sank slowly to her knees as though her legs could no longer support her weight, overcome with the crushing devastation of it all.
"I know," Lorenzo said, her voice barely above a whisper, broken and raw. "I know what you saw. I know what I became. And I am so sorry you had to witness that. I am so sorry."
She looked up at Marie through her tears.
"The physicians say shock can do this. That when the mind experiences something too terrible to bear, it protects itself by hiding memories. By erasing things."
Lorenzo's hands clenched into fists against her thighs.
"You saw me at my absolute worst, Marie. You saw what the curse makes me when I unleash it fully, when I stop holding back. You saw me become the monster my family has spent generations trying to hide."
Her laugh was bitter, self-loathing.
"And your mind could not hold both versions of me. Could not reconcile the person you were falling in love with and the creature you saw covered in blood with glowing eyes and blood-stained fangs."
She met Marie's terrified gaze directly.