“Am I one of you now?” Ophelia asked with a curt, tilt of her head.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the man she knew as death scoffed and finally pulled her out of the carriage. “You’ll never be welcome here,” he said.

“Then why…” Ophelia’s question lingered on the tip of her tongue. The man spared no time leading her towards the castle by the shackles around her wrists. She winced as they nicked her thin skin. “Forget it,” she said. “Is this place not your home? Is that why you cannot welcome me?”

He paused. Behind them, a trail of footsteps had created dented marks in the fresh soil; some of boots, some of feet. “We kidnapped you, woman!” He turned towards her with an angry motion of his arm that sliced the air in two. “Why would you even want to be welcome by us? Are you mad?”

“Kidnapped?” Ophelia said the word as if it was the first time she had ever heard it. “You helped me,”—she reached out for his hands and gave them both a tiny squeeze—“I wish for us to be friends, um...” Ophelia averted her gaze. The fog she stared into reminded her of her own—and current—mental ordeal.

“Kris,” the man supplied; he shook off her touch until it was faint, faded entirely, and the only thing which remained for him to do was march forward—always forward—without ever stopping once. The light disappeared from the horizon. He pulled on the chains that connected the shackles which surrounded Ophelia’s wrists.

When Ophelia glanced back at the castle, it had gotten bigger, and bigger. And, as they approached, she felt a certain sense of nostalgia once the last of the torchbearers disappeared behind the tall walls of impenetrable stone.

Images of a distant past clouded her mind—but it was too late now, too late to remember as her memories were once again blown away by the words of another. “My father desires to see you,” Kris said. “Do not even think of angering him.”

I wasn’t thinking of that at all, Ophelia wanted to say; though the phrase was soon lost to the night once her eyes found a familiar face amidst the crowd before them.

She gasped.

Elian.