Fay turned around. She did not see darkness. She stood in a wooden cabin, pine walls warmed with sun.

Green pressed against the windows. Beyond it the sky was blue, with sea of leaves and summer light.

Confusion hit her in a slow wave. Then a boy's voice rang out, bright with pride.

"Mom. Mom. Come. Dad caught something, look."

Fay's breath caught. She did not know this place. She did not know who it was. Still, her feet carried her toward the door.

Outside, the boy ran up and tugged her robe.

"Mom, what are you waiting for. Hurry up."

Fay looked down at him and went still. Blue eyes. Thin lips like her own. His hair, however, was like fresh ash.

Then a girl tottered up behind him, two or three years old, giggling wordlessly, wearing the face Fay had worn as a child, with the same pale hair.

The girl lifted both hands toward Fay, asking to be picked up with the certainty of being loved.

Fay's arms moved before her mind did. Then Radeon was there.

Not as her master. Not as a cultivator. He wore a brown fur coat suited for hunting, cheeks pink from cold air, eyes soft in a way Fay had never seen.

"Look, dear," he said, and lifted a bundle of rabbits by their feet.

Something tugged at the corner of Fay's mind. A loose thread. A warning. She reached for it and found nothing but fog.

"What's wrong," Radeon asked.

He stepped close and touched her forehead like he was checking a fever.

"No. No, it's nothing," Fay said, hearing her own voice come out too mild. "I just feel like I forgot something."

Radeon smiled and pointed to a table by the window. There were small beads made of bone, hemp rope for string, and half finished bracelets laid out in careful rows.

"You promised Ray and Feya you would finish these," he said.

Fay nodded without knowing why. Her eyes fell on one bracelet, a snake pattern worked into the beads.

A few wolf bristles were tangled in the cord. Fay brushed them away, thinking Radeon had dragged in dirt from the hunt.

Night came too quickly. Fay lay beside Radeon on a narrow bed.

The cabin creaked with wind. The children slept in the next room, breathing soft.

Radeon turned toward her and whispered, close enough to make her skin prickle.

"Fay, let's try for another child."

Fay's throat tightened. Not knowing what to say.

"What? How?" she uttered.

Radeon's hand slid to her abdomen and traced faint marks there, the kind the body carried after it had done something enormous.

"You've done it before."

He smiled like he was offering comfort.

"Fay, you're still the most beautiful. Remember how you cried, how you said you'd become ugly."

A sharp memory tried to rise. Fay could feel the shape of it, the sting of it, but it would not come.

Days blurred into nights. Weeks into months. Fay cooked, cleaned, tended the children.

She watched Radeon come and go with the calm routine of a life she did not remember choosing.

His advances returned again and again. Fay did not welcome them. Radeon did not fight for it either.

Fay only felt wrongness, she had no memory of how to please a man. No memory of childbirth.

She moved through it all as if reading lines from a script.

Then Radeon went to hunt again. This time Fay followed.

Her martial instincts woke without permission. Her steps went ghostly through the trees, quiet and sure, her body remembering what her mind could not.

She tracked him until he reached another cabin, one she had never seen.

Light spilled from its window. Laughter, low and intimate.

Fay saw him inside. Radeon's arms were around another woman. Challah.

Not as beautiful as the woman Fay was supposed to be in this false life, yet the closeness between them was not for show.

The woman clung to him with hunger and possession. Radeon's eyes slid shut, face slack with a pleasure that made Fay's stomach turn.

Rage surged up so hard it tasted like blood. Teal flame licked along Fay's skin. She lunged.

They looked up and smiled at her. Not startled. Not afraid.

Radeon moved faster than thought. In a blink he was in front of her, and Fay's world went dark.

When she woke, smoke still filled her lungs. A rush of smoke. Tobacco. Fay coughed. Her wrists felt heavy.

The air stank of sweat and cheap perfume. Women sat around her, scantily dressed, eyes flat, pockets hungry.

Radeon stood across the room speaking to a one-eyed fat man draped in jewelry, chains on wrists and neck, metal glinting on his teeth when he smiled.

The man's gaze traveled over Fay like she was an object set on a table. Merchandise.

Fay tried to move. Her body answered slow.

The fat man nodded. He handed Radeon a sack that clinked with silver and copper.

The sound landed in Fay's chest like a stone. Radeon took it and turned away.

He left with light steps. He even made a small skip as he went.

"Radeon. Wait. Wait. Please. Don't go." Fay cried.

Fay felt hands on her, unfamiliar and possessive, testing her like she was not a person at all. A man's weight shifted close.

She tried to pull away and found her body refusing to answer the way it should. She tried to scream. No voice came.

Tears slid down her cheeks. The room swam, smoke and perfume and laughter that did not reach anyone's eyes.

She would rather die than let this be real. She had no recollection, no warning, no clean path back to herself, only the sick certainty that she had been sold like meat.

The hands moved with intent. Fay could only sob, the sound trapped in her throat.

Yet somewhere in the corner of her mind a thin thread tugged, insisting that this was wrong in a way deeper than fear.

"Whatever you see in there. Don't fear it."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.