Gold armor glistened and creaked as the man who had dragged me out of the water sat next to me on the black sand. Together, we watched the water roll up to our ankles before passing back down, the tide constant, the measureless flow of waves without variation.
“Taxus,” he finally said, raising his voice above the sound of the waves. Salt water dried on my lips. I licked them, my voice cracking. “What?” “Aemmory Percyval Taxus.” He dragged his gauntlets across the sand.
“That’s my name.”
I blinked, sand in my eyelashes. “You… you are…”
When he looked my way, his yellow eyes tugged at my lost memory. “You’ll remember soon enough.” He glanced back at the dark horizon. “There is little else to do here but remember.”
My name was Elspeth Spindle, and I knew it only because he, Taxus, called me by it. I tested it out loud. It came out a slithering hiss. “Elspeth Spindle.”
Taxus was gone, though I hadn’t seen him leave. I turned my head both ways, searching for him, but he had left no footprints in the sand.
I looked out onto the water—ran my hands through sand until my skin was raw. My long hair was stringy with brine. I pulled a strand from my scalp and wrapped it around my finger so tightly my fingertip turned purple.
I didn’t eat—didn’t sleep.
Time didn’t find me. Nothing did. And the nothingness was cavernous. When Taxus returned, looking down at me like he knew me, my brow twisted. “You’re wrong. I don’t remember who you are. I can’t—” I looked back out onto the water. “I can’t remember anything.”
“Shall I tell you the story?” “What story?”
“Ours, dear one.” I sat up straighter.
“There once was a girl,” he said, his voice slick, “clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King—a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two were the same:
“The girl, the King, and the monster they became.”
