Leah opens her eyes to yelling and the clash of metal, sharp in her ears, jolting her out of her sleep. Someone is tugging her arm, to lift her off a hard platform. The air smells metallic and dusty.

She remembers having been resting in bed, not quite ready to sleep yet but not energized enough to remain up, and supposes she must have fallen into a very sudden dream – except this is too vivid, and solid, and noisy.

The woman trying to pull her off the stone table is unfamiliar to her; golden skin and short black hair held back with a leather band. She wears very dark chainmail, and a long narrow sword hangs from her belt. Leah meets her eyes, blinking heavily, and the woman yells something at her over the noise, which Leah is too groggy to understand.

Another woman, tall and pale with dark brown hair tied back in a bun and armour carved with angular motifs, comes over to help pull Leah up, swinging a war-hammer at a soldier in red-and-black armour to keep him away. Her pale eyes gleam fiery gold as she does so, and when she turns back to Leah they still have a bit of the same intense glint and apparent glee in the violence of the scene.

As more of the details of the scene filter in, so too does sense, and Leah feels a spark of panic building in her chest. She fights back against them, feebly, in a body that doesn’t react the way it ought. The slow-motion blur and dizziness of deep sleep wearing off, she looks around to get her bearings, to find some clue of where she is and why. She sees stone-brick walls, woven carpets on the floor, shelves all around the room, and a few corpses. One man in red clothing is being backed into a stairway by a redhead wielding two swords, and he seems ready to flee. He meets Leah’s eyes, and seems startled to see her awake, half sitting up.

In the doorway across from the strange man, a dark-skinned archer with wavy black hair and brown leather armour is shooting into a hallway. She turns back in, her face narrow with a strong nose and sharp black eyes; she calls that the coast is clear.

“What’s happening?” Leah asks. The words come out slow and slurred, her tongue heavy in her mouth. “What the hell is…”

The war-hammer woman and the golden woman drag her out of the room and down the hall. The golden woman draws her sword, holding it in a fencer’s pose, then takes a spear leaning on the wall of the corridor and pushes it into Leah’s hands. Leah uses it as a cane, for balance, still trying to get her bearings. War-hammer has picked up a shield and a small dagger from the room while the redhead, apparently the leader, yells at her to hurry up.

An enemy soldier in red and black steps into the doorway to block the exit, and war-hammer pushes past him using the shield, then swings her hammer at his head when he falls on his back. There is a very loud crunch of metal and bone and flesh; Leah inhales sharply for a scream, but passes out before she can make a sound.

*

She next wakes up on the back of a cream-coloured horse with a white mane. The others are all mounted as well, riding slowly but steadily. She is strapped into the saddle, the shield at her left hip and the spear at her right, the small dagger in her belt. Her armour – I’m wearing armour? Since when? – seems to be helping her keep upright. She sits in silence a while, watching the trees go by; no-one seems to notice she is awake, though the fencer is riding close beside her, apparently to catch her if she starts sliding.

Tentatively, Leah clears her throat, and all heads turn back to her. “Why am I armed, if I’m all tied up?” she asks, hoping the confidence of the question disguises her ignorance. “I mean, you know I could probably break free, right?”

The archer falls back to ride on her other side. “Kain tied you in so you wouldn’t fall off. Seemed kinder than just slinging you over the saddle like a sack of grain.”

“We did just sling you over the saddle for the first bit, though,” War-hammer says brightly. “Only way we could gallop without losing you. Sorry if your gut’s a little bruised. We sat you straight as soon as we were clear.”

The leader looks over her shoulder, giving Leah a careful look. Her red hair is tied back in a low bun, and what little of her skin is visible under her armour – face and hands – is speckled with freckles. A scar runs down her right cheek, ending just under her jaw. “Why do you think you’re a captive?”

Leah struggles for words. “I was in bed,” she explains, “Trying to fall asleep. I’d spent all day canvassing, looking for places for work.”

“Canvassing?” War-hammer asks, half looking back with a confused, cheeky grin. “You decided to take up weaving while you were gone?”

“Everything is alright, Leah,” the leader says, reassuringly but not overly friendly to Leah’s ears. “You’ll be back in bed when we reach base.”

Leah rides on a little bit, jostled every step as the horses follow the barely-there trail through the woods. “Is this a dream?”

“I promise, you are awake,” the leader says gently. “Whatever he put you through in that castle? That was the dream. You’re safe now.”

She silently follows them, the horse occasionally reacting to her untrained attempts to ride it. When she stops thinking about what to do it seems to go better, so she decides – pun-wise and actually – to ride this dream out.

The birdsong is quiet and unfamiliar, notes in random patterns that resemble nothing she grew up listening to, and the forest, though obviously just emerging from a winter, with most trees sporting a faint green haze of young leaves, looks more tropical than the ones she grew up exploring. The group is silent until they stop to water the horses, and Leah waits for them to reveal where this dream is going.

“Do you feel strong enough to be let down, stretch your legs?” the fencer asks. Leah nods, and is untied and helped down from the horse. She notices everyone is looking at her, but figures that is not unnatural for a dream.

War-hammer is filling a tin cup at a creek and drinking from it; she offers a sip to Leah, who accepts with shaky hands and flinches at the cold water. Springtime blossoms are blooming along the water, and Leah reflects that it was early summer when she lay down to sleep.

“It’s weird seeing you like this,” War-hammer says, snapping Leah out of her musings.

“Like what?”

She shrugs. “Helpless, I guess. You couldn’t even get off Beeswax by yourself.”

Leah is silent, hands the cup back, and goes over to the horse. “Beeswax?” she asks, reaching a hand out, and the horse nudges it. “Why is it called Beeswax?”

“You named her,” the leader says, then looks at her in concern. “Are you having trouble thinking clearly?”

“I just…” Leah shrugs “I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember heading in to the castle?”

“I remember my home.”

“In Ie Stasse?”

“Where?”

Everyone stops and looks up at her. This time it is not the feeling of being passively watched in a dream; Leah is growing sharply aware that they are looking at her.

It’s the archer who finally breaks the stillness, approaching her and taking her hand. “Do you remember your name?” she asks.

“Leah.”

“Do you remember what this place is called?”

“No.”

“Do you remember who we are?”

Leah pauses, and suddenly sees how tense everyone is. She digs her nails into her arm until it hurts. She decides that this dream is something more than a dream.

“No.”

The fencer bites her lip. The leader’s spine straightens and she inhales sharply

“I’ll kill him,” War-hammer says, bouncing her right hand against her thigh in agitation. “Whatever fucking magical influence he used to do this, I’ll kill him for it. Quickly, no time for a mercy plea.”

Leah shrinks away from her, remembering the sound of the crushing skull. “Please don’t talk like that,” she whispers.

“No!” War-hammer points back up the trail towards the castle, no longer visible. “He stole you from us once with that trap, and now we have you back, only to find that he’s stolen your mind from us as well? Not that yours was ever a very impressive mind, but—”

“This is not the time for ribbing!” the leader interjects. Leah collapses to her knees, scratching the back of her hand until it almost bleeds.

“I don’t want this to be real…” she mumbles, “Come on, come on, please wake up…”

The fencer gently takes her arm and coaxes her back to Beeswax. “It’s too soon,” she says simply. “She hasn’t fully shaken off his influence over her. Whatever spell he was trying to perform, we must have interrupted him in the middle of it. He might have taken over her mind completely and turned her against us, as Wellen warned us might happen if we didn’t arrive in time. He might simply have wanted to kill her. There’s no knowing.”

“There never will be, if I get to him first,” War-hammer mutters.

“Give her time to recover; this is more than any of us has ever been through before.” The fencer looks to the leader for confirmation; the leader nods slightly, then goes back to her horse and mounts up.

Everyone follows suit, and in silence they finish the trip to “base.”

Over the hours, Leah dwells on what might have happened. Things are progressing too evenly for this to be a dream; no fast-forwards, no random jumps, nothing that warps over time. She pricks her finger on the dagger to confirm that she is real and so is the world, and a bit of blood wells up. She holds the stinging cut to her mouth and tries to remember what happened before she woke up on the stone platform.

I was home after a day of looking for work. Mum had insisted I “hit the pavement” even though everything is done online these days. What next? I made myself a supper of macaroni from a box, with chopped-up bits of hotdogs. Were the hotdogs bad? Is this a fever dream?

“My name is Leah,” she says eventually, as they begin to pass farmland.

“Yes,” the archer prompts.

“You all know me, well enough to…rescue me.”

“Of course,” the archer reassures her, riding alongside her and reaching out to take her hand. “We’re a team.”

“Oh.” Leah looks down at the spear. “We fight.”

“Yes,” the archer says, with an encouraging smile that does not warm Leah the way it is obviously intended to.

Leah considers this. “Who do we fight?”

War-hammer shrugs and gestures vaguely. “Whoever we’re paid to fight. If the fight’s right.”

“We’re mercenaries?”

“We’re adventurers,” the leader says firmly, then looks back over her shoulder. “And we’re your friends; of course we rescued you.”

Leah takes this in, mulling it over. “What are your names?”

The leader looks hurt, and does not try to hide it. “Meredith.”

Archer: “Vivitha.”

Fencer: “Kain.”

War-hammer: “Iris.”

Leah tries to remember them, running it over a few times in her mind. “And where are we going?”

“To our current home, in Valerin.”

“Okay,” Leah says, committing this to memory. If there are discrepancies later on, I will know this is a dream.

They ride through farmland, past a few communal buildings, then rather abruptly into a city. There are no walls, just a sudden increase in the number of buildings and the quality of the roads. As they ride through, Leah notes the geography and the architecture. What is the setting of this dream? Medieval Europe, colonial North America, something entirely different? Pre-industrial, definitely.

A river bisects the city; about half a kilometre wide, and with many docks. It smells like rotting seaweed, but not overly polluted. The river splits at one point into three courses; the nearest is about two hundred metres and slow, the next fifty metres and fast, the third hidden by the bulk of a large island covered in buildings. There are two long bridges, broad and made of stone and some sort of cement or mortar, which both lead to the large island.

Between the two visible courses of the river is a long, narrow island, on which stands a low, sprawling estate of stone, accessible only by a circuitous route over one of the long bridges, then a short one doubling back. This is where their group heads, Leah watching everything curiously as they pass.

Locals notice them and call to them as they ride by. Leah hears her name occasionally. She pretends to be non-curious.

They arrive at a stable just outside the estate, and Leah again needs help dismounting. The stable-hands notice, but say nothing. Leah sees the others paying for the children to take care of their horses, and she checks herself for pockets.

“I doubt the bastard left you any,” Iris said, patting Leah on the back. “I’ll cover you.”

“Oh,” Leah mumbles, “Thanks.”

They lead her down the length of the stables and out through a pair of heavy wooden doors, opened wide. From up close the estate looks more like a castle, but it still lacks the classic spires and crenulations Leah thinks of a castle as having. Even the turrets appear flat on top. She decides this is evidence of faulty dream logic.

In the courtyard, a number of servants rush out of doors to meet them; it is late afternoon, and they are led up to their rooms to change out of travel gear and armour. A page asks Meredith if he should announce their return, and she confirms.

Leah allows herself to be led to her room; once alone inside, she looks at herself in the small hand-mirror on the desk. She has a few scars on her arms and one on her shoulder, travelling a short way up her neck. Her face otherwise looks the same; round-ish, blue eyes, slightly crooked nose but only if you look at it from a certain angle – which of course she finds herself doing, frowning at it critically. Her hair is the right shade of brown, but a bit shorter than it ought to be. She looks her regular age, about twenty-six. The dirt and sweat from the trip coat her skin, and she decides to take off some of her outer layers, unsure of how to clean herself but certain that anything is better than staying in the stiff armour she is wearing.

A few minutes later Kain checks in on her, and sighs to see Leah struggling to remove her leather armour.

“Umm…” Leah says, one hand fumbling at the buckles of a leather chest-piece, the other tugging at the bottom.

“Here,” Kain says, stepping in and helping her. The fencer has already taken off all her armour, and wears simple burgundy and brown clothing. With her help, Leah gets out of the many layers of her armour in only a couple minutes.

“Take your towel and come along,” Kain says, gesturing to a closet; inside Leah sees a number of simple outfits, and a soft linen towel about half the size of a standard bath towel. She takes it and follows Kain down a series of steps, then through a warped and water-stained wood door into a grotto-like bathing area.

The arching walls are brown stone, polished smooth but running with rivulets of condensation. Around the edges of the ceiling are chimneys that channel up steam from the hot water and smoke from the glass-covered oil lamps spaced around the edges. Within the room are a series of round baths, between ten and fifteen feet in diameter, filled with an ever-renewing supply of hot water spewing from a green copper spout in the wall. There is a sort of redirector that seems to be capable of changing the flow, to fill or empty certain pools; also copper, and also gone green from the constant water exposure.

Okay, not medieval Europe, Leah decides. Possibly ancient Rome? God, what’s that smell? The air has a faint hint of sulphur and smoke. Hot springs? Damn, nice. Do you get to cross something off your bucket list if it only happens in a very realistic dream?

Kain strips down, and Leah uncomfortably follows. The baths are largely unoccupied, and the steam offers some meagre privacy, but it is still far more cosy than, say, a public gym’s shower rooms. Leah notices, as they climb into one of the carved stone craters filled with water, that Kain’s body is very scarred, to almost the same degree as her own is. Taking a second look at her own body, without clothing, Leah realizes she has a large scar on her stomach.

“Where did I get this?” she asks Kain, who shrugs.

“Sometime during the Gael’s Gree mountain campaign. I think when we raided the thieves’ den.” Kain takes a bar of soap and starts cleaning herself off.

Ignoring the sulphur smell, Leah washes off the dirt and takes the soap bar offered to her by Kain to clean her hair and skin. The water constantly empties and refills through channels carved in the stone, little clumps of soap bubbles spilling over the edge and disappearing down a drain at the other end of the room.

They dry off, dress in the same clothes they arrived in, and leave by the same door. Kain drops Leah at her rooms. “Will you be okay to dress yourself? You’re not too stiff from your time in captivity?” Kain asks teasingly.

“In what clothes?” Leah asks, looking through the wardrobe at the various shades of brown and green.

Kain sighs patiently and enters with her. She helps Leah pick out a plain brown dress, woven and heavy, with a split down the middle so she can walk and ride in it.

“They expect us to look dainty yet militant,” Kain says, looking at the clothing disdainfully. “It’s not a very easy mix.”

Leah does not offer a comment on this, and dresses when Kain leaves. She is confused by some of the laces, but eventually gets them evened out and tied off. She puts on the boots she arrived in, towel-dries her hair, and ties it back with a band of cloth lying on the dresser, which seems designed for that purpose; the fabric has the creases of frequent knotting at just the point where it reaches the back of her neck.

Tentatively exploring the area around her room, Leah finds a wash closet, a short way down the hall. Dreading what she will find inside, she opens to door to reveal a private cubby, locking from the inside, with a hole in a stone seat. To the side, a bowl of muscle shells. What in God’s name are those for? She looks around for toilet paper, or any sort of paper, and sees none. Oh. Oh. Great. Fantastic. She leaves.

Kain fetches her half an hour after leaving her – dressed in deep red with silver trim – and nods approvingly at Leah’s outfit. They head down a hallway and down, then up, some stairs. The air smells like food, and Leah’s interest is piqued. They arrive in a dining area, already filled with people sitting at one long U-shaped table filling the room. They sit near the short side, next to the rest of the team. Leah takes the opportunity before food is brought out to look around.

Conversations seem to be carried out entirely in English, with no noticeable accent variations. Two well-dressed people sit at the head of the table, next to – presumably, based on facial similarity – their son. To their right sits what looks like a family, two parents and their adult daughter, all adorned in finely-wrought gold. The daughter looks up at Leah’s arrival and seems happy-sad; Leah smiles at her, and the girl looks away instantly.

Leah’s team sits to the main couple’s left, within speaking distance although with a space of about one empty seat separating them from the actual ‘head’ table. Leah sits in the middle of the others to minimise her chances of having to talk to a stranger. Or, well, a stranger-than-stranger. These people are strangers too, but at least they seem friendly.

The couple at the head, Leah extrapolates, are the hereditary leaders of the city, with their young son who will succeed them some day. The patriarch is early forties or thereabouts, with shoulder-length brown hair and a strong nose; the matriarch about the same age or a little younger, with long straight black hair and burgundy-brown eyes that glint in the candlelight and whenever she smiles. The son’s age is harder to guess; he seems either on the verge of or at the end of a growth spurt, uncomfortable in his body. His face is a mix of his parents’ and his hair is entirely his mother’s, straight and black, though cut short.

The family to the right seem to be visiting dignitaries or people with wealth or status of some sort. They have a somewhat more Mediterranean look, to Leah’s eye; wavy dark brown hair, slightly more tanned skin – and in the mother’s case, almost a very light black skin tone. The father in particular has impressively strong cheekbones, which his daughter seems to have inherited to a lesser degree. The daughter’s face is covered with freckles, and her light brown eyes look around the room at everything, curious and shy.

The food is brought out, and Leah tastes everything with an appraising attitude. Carrots and parsnip she recognizes easily. The spices are harder to place, but they definitely use bay leaf. The meat, a type of poultry of which there is only a small portion per person – and none at all on the plates of those lower down the table – is a bit harder to identify, until eventually she recognizes it as squab. All in all, standard enough medieval fare, crops from mild climates, under-spiced but hearty. Probably a lot of rye and potatoes, more of the former than the latter. Spring harvest isn’t ready yet, and when it is there’ll be more variety.

Towards the mid-point of the meal, the male head of the city rises and gives a speech about the five warriors, their bravery in defending the border from someone called Seffon, and their return from the rescue of their acclaimed comrade Leah, “thought lost to us after their last raid of Seffon’s fortress.” Leah listens blankly, searching for information but finding little.

People turn to Leah at the end of the speech and applaud her; she looks to Meredith to see how she should act, and Meredith simply smiles at her and pats her shoulder.

After the meal is cleared away, Leah asks Meredith if it would be alright for her to clear her head out of doors. Meredith points the way to the courtyard and Leah tries to follow it, but ends up repeatedly waylaid by guests congratulating her safe return and cursing Seffon.

Finally the daughter in gold approaches her. “I wanted to say,” she begins bashfully, “On behalf of my family, that we’re glad of your safe return.”

Leah is stressed and headache-y at this point, and desperate for the chance to think things over in silence – or at least, less noise. “I appreciate it, my Lady,” she says haltingly, guessing at the title, “And if I could bother you for an answer, do you know the quickest way to the courtyard? I need to breathe fresh air…too long trapped inside…”

The young woman buys it completely, guiding Leah through the tunnels down to the ground level. Once outside in the darkness Leah can breathe easy.

“Thank you, my Lady,” she says, improvising once again as she has no idea the ‘proper’ way to talk to someone who is probably nobility. “Surely a Lady of standing such as yourself doesn’t want to remain out here breathing in the smell of the river and the stables.” She says it in the hopes of being left alone a moment; instead, the woman reaches out a hand and takes Leah’s own, tears brimming.

“I was so afraid…” she whispers, and Leah freezes in confusion, wondering if she’s supposed to know who this woman is.

“It’s alright now,” Leah says, and gives her hand a squeeze. “I’m a little confused by what’s happened…my memory, is…”

A noise behind them frightens the young woman, and she drops Leah’s hand quickly. Saying something vague about a wish for her swift recovery, she flees back up the stairs as Vivitha descends.

“Who was that?” Leah asks.

“Jeno Auzzo, daughter of the duchy of Ben-Lia in Cheden, soon to be the betrothed of Samson Valerid of Valerin.” Vivitha pauses, looking Leah over carefully. “You know her.”

“Maybe, but I don’t remember her.” She muses that faces in dreams are supposedly ones you’ve seen before, and can’t believe she’d ever forget seeing that face.

Vivitha looks concerned. “Maybe after a good night’s sleep…”

“Maybe, yes,” Leah agrees, privately wondering if she has found any more contradictions that would prove this is a dream.

Meredith comes down the stairs a few moments later. “We need you two back inside; the Valerids want the run-down of what happened during the rescue, and of what Leah experienced while prisoner.”

“I still can’t remember. Can’t we put it off until tomorrow at least?”

Meredith considers. “It’s best for you to rest easy for now. The rest of the team will deliver the report on the battle… you were unconscious for most of it, anyway.”

Vivitha says goodbye and they both retreat up the stairs, Meredith again telling Leah to go back to her rooms and get some rest. Leah takes a few deep breaths before starting up the stairs.

“The west way is quicker,” a voice says from behind her. Leah turns to see a young blonde serving woman watching her.

“Oh,” Leah says, trying to decide which way is west. She picks a direction and points weakly with an uncertain look on her face.

The woman smiles. “I’ll show you,” she says, and starts walking. Leah follows.

They pass through many halls, up a flight of stairs, and finally reach the living quarters that Leah recognizes from that afternoon.

“Thank you, Miss…” Leah trails off, and the woman looks at her curiously.

“You really don’t remember?” she asks. “I heard you talking, but…”

Leah shrugs. “Sorry, no.”

The woman looks down the hallway and listens a moment, then turns back to Leah with a smile. “Perhaps this will help remind you,” she says, then stands on tip-toes and pulls Leah’s face down for a deep but brief kiss. The moment it ends she leans back with fire in her eyes, then turns and vanishes back the way she came.

Leah is left gasping and leaning back against the doorframe. She licks her lips, closes her eyes, and decides that this is something a little different than a dream.