Valencia

    “Mydy, mydy, wake up!!” I heard a familiar voice, but my brain couldn’t recognize who it belonged to.

    I was also vaguely aware of the soft hands on my shoulders shaking me a little.

    “Help please! Somebody help me lift her on the bed!” I heard that voice say.

    It was filled with concern, and I knew the owner of that voice cared for me. But why did I feel like I wasn’t really there?

    It was this odd sensation – that my body was somewhere else and my soul was in apletely different ce.

    Was I hallucinating?

    The tug on my navel was still insistent. Something was telling me to stay, to wait for more, to isee /imore.

    But I couldn’t.

    Something was pulling me back to wherever that voice was.

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    It felt like I was being pulled in two different directions at once. My eyes were glued to that cradle and the baby that had my face as an infant earlier.

    That other face had been very distinct and had sharp features. But I could not remember it clearly anymore.

    All I could remember were hazy details of a beautiful face. And that it was a girl.

    I wasn’t sure how I knew it. I just knew it.

    On one side, I was aware of the hands touching me and lifting me up from the cold floor and on the other, that tug also kept pulling me towards the cradle.

    The symbols were marked all around the cradle but nowhere else on the floor or the walls. It was as if the cradle was the only specific thing littered in those weird marks.

    What were they?

    Suddenly I see a hand reach out to the cradle, a long spindly one. The skin was a pale grey, almost ck, and the nails were pitch ck.

    The veins on the hands, which were also ckish grey, were visible clearly as they rose against that pale, translucent skin.

    That hand reached for the cradle, and I heard myself scream, “Nooooo!”

    “Not yours, never yours!”

    A voice said.

    And just like that, the tug at my navel disappeared as if it was broken away mercilessly. I felt myself m into my body as if I had been physically hauled from the top of a mountain andnded on rock hard concrete.

    “Blood!”

    Somebody screamed, and that shrill cry jolted me awake.

    But my eyes couldn’t adjust to the brightness around me, so I closed them again. I tried to move, tried to raise my hand but

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    could not.

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    I felt trapped inside my own body, as if it was some alien vessel I couldn’t control. I couldn’t adjust to being confined in this shell when I had been roaming freely carlier.

    I groaned or tried to as something soft dabbed against my nose.

    “Somebody call a medic or a healer,” I heard that same concerned voice a second time as well. I tried to focus on that again.

    Tried to recall who it was.

    And my mind came up with an answer.

    “Mary,” I said weakly, and she immediately sat beside me, still dabbing at my nose and mouth.

    “We had been looking all around for you, and Prince Killian nearly lost it.” She was mumbling more to herself than talking

    to me.

    My head hurt. My body hurt, and my soul hurt too.

    I wasn’t sure which pain to focus on because everything was hurting.

    My brain was foggy, and it was a struggle to even keep my eyes open.

    The door to the room opened again, and the bright light almost blinded me. Luckily, it closed behind whoever had entered.

    The creaking sound of the footsteps thudding against the wooden floor was suddenly amplified, and I cried out to block out the pain.

    “Hold her hands,” I heard someone say.

    A pair of hands opened my mouth. They weren’t warm to the touch, and something cold touched my lips as my mouth was forced open.

    And some bitter liquid fell on my tongue. The tip of the cold vial was tilted, and its entire contents poured into my mouth.

    I struggled against the hold as that bitter and acidic liquid traveled down my tongue and throat. It seared its way down towards my stomach, and I felt like I was being dowsed in ice.

    It was cold, bitter, and it felt like my insides were being frozen.

    My body and mind grew numb due to that cold, and I forgot about everything else- the pain, the vision, the hallucination, whatever it was.

    I just got knocked out again.

    The next time I woke up, I felt silky sheets over me and a soft mattress under me. The sun wasn’t shining too brightly, but there were the moon and the stars bathing me in their soft light.

    Mary was sitting beside me, chewing on her nails worriedly, but she immediately got up when she saw me awake.

    “Oh, you are up. The royal healer said you wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow, but I guess you can eat a little and rest again.”

    “Water,” I croaked, and she immediately helped me sit up to drink water. But it felt like I was swallowing needles, and I coughed hard.

    My hands were shaking too, and I spilled the water all over myself.

    “Don’t bother, I will help you change,” Mary said as she pulled the wet sheets off along with the flimsy white temple robe I

    10:56 Tue, 26 Aug 06.

    was wearing and began to dab a wet cloth all over me.

    “The royal healer said you should rest for a few days and that you exhausted yourself beyond measure.”

    I wasn’t the one to do that. I suddenly recalled.

    “Sarah, how is she? Is she okay?” I asked in a raspy voice that sounded like somebody was rubbing sandpaper on a wall.

    “I dont know who that is, mydy,” she said, and I threw the new sheets away that she had just reced.

    I didn’t even bother that I was just in an undergown and not wearing proper clothes.

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    “Sarah, she works at the temple as a Novice. She was sick and had a fever. I have to…” I tried to speak, but my legs suddenly gave under me and I would have copsed on the floor if not for a pair of hands that caught me midair.

    “Now, where are you running away beautiful?” I heard a voice, but it didn’t belong to Killian.

    So, I looked up to see who it was.

    And to my utter dismay, it was his eldest brother, Martin!!

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