The sensation of their fists pummeling my face awoke me abruptly and I sat up in my bed. I felt a pang of disappointment that I was not dreaming of the floating islands, but I supposed that even a violent memory was better than nothing. Still, if I closed my eyes, sometimes I heard the sounds of the water falling off the islands and the distant cries of the white birds. Of course, the travels with Paug and his friends were reality. I had to accept it. But hadn’t the islands been my reality for so long? Which was more real?

The bed was too soft and smelled of week old hay. I looked over at Iarin and Paug. Bright light from the two moons came through the windows and illuminated the room more than a torch would have. It was their first night in a real bed since their journey had started, so I was not surprised to see them in a deep slumber. We were in a small village on the south end of Brilla that seemed to specialize in cows, milk, and cheese. This was the only inn in the village, and we occupied two of their three rooms. From what Paug told me earlier, we still had a few days’ ride to Brilla's capital and about two weeks to Nia.

After the small encounter in the jungle at the height of the cliffs, our passage into Brilla had been relatively easy. After we progressed around the mountains and across a few small game trails, we ended up about a mile north of the guard post. Not wishing to draw more attention, we continued north on those small trails until we passed into this village and decided to stay the night. Nadea assured us that Vanlourn soldiers wouldn't pursue us up here at this unnamed village, but my companions still seemed worried.

I didn’t feel tired, but hunger pangs ripped through my stomach like angry glass. My appetite had returned with abundance in the last two days. It was angry enough to keep me from sleeping anymore, so I tossed aside the thin bedsheet and tugged on one of the tunics I had taken from the soldiers’ camp. It had a long front, so I tucked it into my pants. I then made my way carefully across the worn wood floor barefoot. I didn’t make a sound until I unlatched the door and sneaked out into the short hallway that led to the common area.

A large cauldron simmered over the glowing embers of the hearth, filling the room with the savory smell of beef stew. I secured a clay bowl and spoon, filled it with the warm stew, sat down at one of the tables in the corner, and sucked down a spoonful. It was spicier than I expected, so I dashed back into the kitchen and poured myself a tall mug of water from a pewter pitcher.

After my fourth bite I heard a door unlatch down the hallway and soft feet pattered toward me. It had to be Paug, Nadea, or Jessmei. The two men would have made more noise. A split second before she turned the corner I guessed that it was Jessmei.

“I didn’t think anyone else would be awake,” she whispered as she walked toward me. Her hair lay off to one side, too perfectly for someone that had been sleeping. Her pale blue nightgown clung to her body across her small breasts and flowed downward in a drape that concealed the rest of her body. The dress complemented her eyes.

“I am hungry,” I said while I pointed toward my bowl with the spoon. She nodded and I took another bite.

“Why are you awake?” I asked her after I finished chewing. It surprised me that Greykin hadn’t gotten up with her. He shared the room with the women and should have noticed her leave. Then again, he did snore worse than a bear. Especially after beer, which he had consumed in heroic fashion during our dinner.

“I couldn’t sleep at all!” She dropped her voice into an even softer whisper. “Can I sit with you?”

“Yes,” I said and pointed to the chair across the table from me. “Hungry?”

“No thank you. I am just happy and nervous about going home.” She smiled. I noticed she had charming dimples on each cheek. They framed her full lips and her perfect teeth.

“Ahh.” I wasn’t much for conversation at the moment, but one should always take advantage of a good situation. I glanced down from her lips to her chest and inhaled the scent of her body from across the table. She smelled delicious, and a different kind of hunger grew in my stomach.

“Tell me about your home. Do you remember it?” she asked. I glanced back up into her blue eyes as she fluttered her blonde lashes. Her cheeks darkened to a shade of pink, so I broke my appraisal of her body and looked down at the table.

“I don’t remember much. I recall horses and a stable.” Paug and I had gone over vocabulary almost every waking second while we traveled. I didn’t understand enough of his language to write a manual on running a stable, but I could get around a conversation. “A dream woke me. I was training for combat.” I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to her.

“Fighting? In an army or . . .” she trailed off. She seemed interested, so I continued.

“In the dream I fought a large man with a shaved head and an ugly scar that ran down his face. He was better than me, but I got creative and beat him. Our trainer got angry because I cheated.” I took the last bite of stew and then filled up the bowl again.

“How did you cheat?”

“Maybe it was not cheating. I let go of my weapon and it hit him. Then I was punished.”

“Punished?” she asked with worry on her face, the lines on her forehead made tiny creases into her creamy skin.

“The trainer put his sword through my stomach and cut my spinal cord. The other men I trained with dragged me back to the barracks and beat me into unconsciousness.”

I drained the water in my cup. “Can you get me the water jug from the kitchen?” I asked her as I took another bite.

"Ahh . . . sure. Okay.” She looked confused and got up from the table and walked into the kitchen. The nightgown was tighter in the back, and I easily imagined the shape of her hips and the delicate curve of her back.

“How did he stab you in the stomach and in the spine?” she asked as she came back, still whispering. “Wouldn’t that kill you?”

“I thought it was a memory, but perhaps it was just a dream. I am alive now, right? I wasn’t that worried about the injury at the time. It just made me mad. Thank you for the water.”

She hadn't seen the man shoot me with the crossbow bolt a week ago, when we camped above the cliff face. At the time I had barely felt it, and when I pulled it out, the pain had been minor. Paug didn't understand why I wasn't dead, and I couldn't explain it to him either. For some reason it just didn't seem unusual for me to heal.

"Do you remember how you hurt your hand?" she asked with concern. My left hand grasped the pitcher of water she brought me. The skin down to a few inches past my wrist was covered in a white, swirling pattern of scar tissue. It looked like I may have shoved my hand in fire or a boiling pot of oil, the heat branding my skin in raised whorls and spirals. Since the scar had faded to white, I guessed that it must have happened a long time ago.

“Want any?” I took the pitcher from her and poured it into my glass and ignored her question. I didn't remember how I got the injury, but I began to feel uneasy when I thought about it. Like when Nadea and I climbed down the face of the cliff and the rope severed above us. Vertigo and nausea mixed together with a sense of falling.

“Oh yes, I’ll go get a—“ I cut her off as I passed my cup to her. She stared at it for a few seconds after she took it from me. “This is your cup.” She seemed confused and forgot about the injury to my hand.

“Yes." I had two bites left of the stew and the sensation of a full belly made the rest of my body relax.

“I can’t drink from your cup. Can I?” she whispered to me across the table.

“Why can’t you? I just used it. It isn’t really mine; I believe the inn owns it.” I must have misunderstood something. She seemed very concerned over what to me was just a matter of convenience, saving her a trip to the kitchen.

“Oh, okay.” She hesitated and looked at the cup. After a few more moments she took a small sip and set it down on the table closer to me. Her cheeks were now a dark red and she looked at the ground. I finished the last bite and took the cup, draining all the water from it in a quick gulp. As soon as I set the cup down she filled it up again.

“Can I take your bowl to the kitchen? Are you done?” her voice was eager. I nodded and sat back in my chair. My eyelids were starting to become heavy. I closed them for a second and I heard her move to the kitchen and set the bowl somewhere.

“You are going to like meeting my father. He is a great man. I am delighted that you will come back to my home.” I opened my eyes and smiled at her in contentment. “You look tired!” she said with concern.

“The food makes me sleepy. I’ve been hungry.”

“You are rather skinny. You need to eat a lot!” she giggled, then realized she had spoken louder than a whisper, and she covered her pretty mouth with a delicate hand.

We were both silent for a moment.

“I’ve never actually been alone with a man,” she whispered. She looked to her side at the fire on the hearth.

“I don’t understand.”

"My brother, father, and Greykin don’t really count. I’ve never been alone with any other man.” She looked over to me and then back at the fire. I still didn’t understand what she meant, even though I understood the words.

“Alone like no other man or woman around, or alone like . . .” I realized I didn’t know the word for sex or mating. I opened my hands and slid them together, fingers entwining. Her eyes opened wide.

“Oh no! I haven’t . . . I mean neither alone nor that! I’ve never done that!” Her face was bright red and I could hear her heart beating quickly through her chest. I smiled at her and then leaned forward. My hand reached across the table and stroked the top of her hand that had absently played with the cup.

“Do you want to, with me?” I asked. My body needed some release and she seemed quite stressed all of a sudden. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth hung open.

“I can’t believe you. Did you really say that?” She looked shocked and her small body shook a little. I frowned. Maybe I had said it wrong?

“You,” I pointed to her, “me,” I pointed at my chest, “alone.” I rubbed the top of her hand with mine and smiled at her. She moved her hand away and laughed.

“Oh yes. We are alone.” She looked relieved.

“No no. Alone.” I made the movement with my hands where the palms came together and the fingers entwined. This would have been easier if I knew the word for sex. The language barrier was frustrating, but I didn’t feel the same amount of angst I had experienced in my memory when the silver-haired Elven skewered me.

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t think you know what you are saying. Do you understand what you are saying? People don’t say that.” She spoke quickly and glanced behind her at the hallway.

“I understand what I said. Yes or no?” I drank another swallow of water. The thought of running my hands and mouth over her body was appealing, but if I couldn't have her now, I wanted to go to bed. Sleep seemed almost the perfect lover right now.

“No! I mean. We aren’t joined and there isn’t a bed and my father doesn’t know and Greykin is in the next room!” she whispered. She turned her head back to the kitchen with her chin in the air. I could see she still looked at me through her heavy blonde eyelashes out of the corner of her eyes. “Wait. Where are you going?” she asked as I got up out of the chair and walked around the table.

“Bed. I am tired,” I said, a yawn escaped.

“We were talking,” she said, the words laced with disappointment.

“Alone?” I turned and asked her with an eyebrow raised.

Behind her shoulder I saw a shadow move against the window. When the door to the inn shattered inward, I had already pushed her out of the way into the corner of the room near the kitchen.

There were two men dressed in dark gray clothes and dark brown cloaks. One carried a small crossbow that he shot at me from the doorway with practiced ease. I knocked the bolt aside with the palm of my left hand and then rushed two steps toward them.

My right foot caught him in the ribs and two of them broke like wet wood. The force of the blow shoved him back into his partner, and they both went down in a cloud of dirt and dust. The one in the back let out a curse of panic. I planned to charge out after them, but then I began to puzzle through the motives of the attacking men. They must have been after Jessmei, and there might be more than two of them.

I looked back into the kitchen and saw another two coming through the back door that led to the stables. These two both carried slender daggers, but were still fifty feet from the startled princess. I didn’t relish the idea of being cut, so I grabbed the table next to me and yelled at Jessmei to get on the ground. She reacted instantly, collapsing downward in her gown like she had fallen in a hole. I supposed living her entire life as a hunted, valuable pawn had taught her to be alert to danger and quick to respond to her guardians.

The table flew through the air with a tiny spin. It hit the first man in the kitchen against his shoulders and head. The sound was like thunder fucking a mountain. The attacker didn't make any noise as his body flew into the dark-garbed man standing behind him.

I closed the door to the front of the inn and jumped the counter into the kitchen. The first man bled profusely from the gaping hole the side of the table had left in his skull. The assassin behind him was trying to crawl out from under the weight of the wooden slab and his friend’s corpse. I didn’t really want to kill him, but his neck snapped when my bare foot made contact with the side of his face.

I grabbed one of the daggers on the ground and sprinted the few steps back to the front door. As I did, Greykin emerged from the hallway, axe and shield in hand. Nadea followed right behind him along with Iarin. They were all in various stages of undress. I tried not to focus on Nadea’s half-naked body. There was killing to be done, after all.

“Two dead in the kitchen and two out front,” I said while I began to open the door.

The man I previously kicked in the ribs struggled to get to his feet, but coughed up a thick splatter of blood that drenched the dirt. Its sound swished around his chest, and I guessed that one of the parts of his rib tore through his lungs.

The other man was thirty yards away and was sprinting through the center of the town plaza in an effort to escape. I opened the door all the way and stepped into the dirt street. The moons shone painfully bright, and I had to squint my eyes to see people emerging from the small homes that flanked the inn.

Iarin’s bow string tightened and then the pitched twang echoed through the center of town. A white shaft of feathers appeared between the fleeing assassin’s shoulder blades and he flew forward.

Then it was over.

“What the hell happened?” Greykin demanded. Giant rifts of worry split his aged face.

“Two men came through the front door. I kicked them back. Two more came from the back door and I threw a table at them. Then you all came out. You have no pants.” He looked down at his undergarments and realized I spoke correctly. Iarin laughed and Greykin turned to scowl at him. The tall man shut up as if he had just received a punch to the throat.

“Was the princess out with you?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to get some water,” Jessmei apologized from the doorway.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Greykin demanded.

“You were snoring so loud that I didn’t think you would want to be woken. I didn’t think I would be gone for more than a few moments. Kaiyer was out in the room already so we talked for a bit. When these men showed up, he protected me.”

“You were talking?” Nadea looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. I was eating stew. I was hungry. Now I am tired.” I looked at Greykin. “I’m going back to bed. You take care of the bodies.” He nodded but didn’t meet my eyes.

I looked at Nadea and Iarin, smiled, and walked back to my room.

“Thank you,” Jessmei whispered to me when I walked past her. She still looked frightened.

I nodded at her and continued down the short, dusty hallway. Paug still slept in peaceful oblivion underneath the covers of his bed. Greykin had made him drink four flagons of beer with dinner and he would have a horrible hangover tomorrow.

I took off my shirt and climbed back into bed. Soon Paug and his friends would tell me why they woke me. I guessed they needed my help with these Ancients, but in what capacity? My only memories so far were of fear and failure.

And the islands.

When I had faced the eight soldiers outside of the tunnel, I was certain I would die. One man could not stand against eight crossbow-carrying warriors. It seemed that I didn't need to worry about humans, since my fighting skills were superior to most of the men living today. The thought was somewhat comforting, but my memories troubled me. I was obviously a slave of these Elvens, not their vanquisher.

The thoughts fought and twisted in my brain until sleep eventually took hold of my tired body.