where were my guards when I needed them?
“Please, can you explain more to me? I don’t have any memory of what you speak of.”
My mind raced with all the possible answers, perhaps I was dreaming and cried out in my sleep? Maybe I was
sleepwalking and hurt myself? Or maybe this again was my mind playing tricks on me and I wasn’t standing in the woods.
Turning me around, he took hold of both my hands and led me to sit down on a log and brushed away some hair from my
face, looking at me with sorrow in his eyes.
“I took the memory from you. That night, you begged me to save you and that was all I could do. You made me promise
never to tell you what happened.”
“But I need to know, for me to understand why you are here and why now.”
He lowered his gaze from me again but held both of my hands tightly. If he wasn’t able to be near me then, why was he able
to do so now? I became more confused than ever before, unsure of what was real or what was not.
“Your uncle,” he paused, and I could feel my heartbeat grow faster while ringing filled my ears. “You’d just had your
seventh birthday. I tried to pull him off you. I tried to even break his neck, but I was young and inexperienced with my magic.”
I felt it then, the pieces that had been missing fall into place and as the memory of that terrifying night played out I felt my
heart shatter. And why I’d always been so worried and creeped out by him, whenever he looked at me, stood next to me, every
single time I felt a feeling of dread snake up my skin.
The feeling of his hand over my mouth as I tried to scream out, to claw at his face—My Uncle Dorian. The feeling I had at
the pit of my stomach wasn’t something made out of rumours. It was real.
Tears swelled in my eyes as the emotions all came flooding back at once. I heaved over trying not to be sick, to try and
keep myself from breaking. My protector let go of my hands and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly against his
chest as he lifted me up onto his lap. He didn’t move a muscle as I cried—as I broke down.
“I’m so sorry, my princess. I have wished since that very day, I could have saved you. I tried my best to stay with you. I
appeared in a different form and each time he did what he did, I took away your memory of it. So, he did not break you,” he
paused, holding me tighter as I sobbed in his arms. “When he was sent away, I was eventually called back to my home. I left,
only when I knew you were safe. And now, he has returned, as have I.”
My heart sank a little more as his words went through one ear and out the other. I wanted to scream, to shout and curse out
the world. I understood why he did what he did, to protect me, to keep my mind from exploding on itself, but now the memory
was there, and I couldn’t escape from it.
“Please, I need to know your name. I need to know how you are here and why now.”
I managed to get a few words out as I sat up, cupping his face in my hands. Up this close I could see that he had a scar