Idelle didn't know exactly how much time passed, or whether it even was time that was whizzing past her. Noises and lights swirled around her, and fragments of memories-- or perhaps dreams for her future-- muddled together in her head. The pain was always constant, like a lion roaring, and she wondered if this was what death was like. A limbo, in betweenness. There was nothing to hold onto, just misty pain.

More of this not-time oozed in and evaporated, and then suddenly her mind snapped back into place like the sinews of a slingshot. With a crash she shifted from the nebulous kingdom she'd been floating in to one that was all too real. 

Noise flooded in, the sound of horses and jingling bridles, and crickets gossiping in the distance. Smells came too, like earthy manure and the metallic smell of rain that had just fallen. 

Next was feeling, where she realized that she was shifting back and forth, jostled along, like she was in a carriage or a cart of some sort. A breeze ran over her skin, cool and wet. 

Then came the pain, horrible and blinding, torching through her arm and along her chest. Broken ribs, she knew. Probably her arm was shattered as well. Below her shoulder, it felt like a crushing blow continuously assailing her. She almost wondered if the falling debris was still on her, and she was only imagining the smells and sounds of nature around her. Perhaps she was still trapped in Reynard's destruction, and pinned down and helpless. 

Steeling herself, she forced her eyes to open. It felt like running miles, the effort was so much, but finally she looked up and saw that she was laying on her back in a wooden cart, facing a sky filled with so many stars she couldn't even begin to count them. She exhaled, relieved that she was not under the rocks. They'd been the last things she'd seen, and the terror of being buried alive still flashed hot and frantic in her chest. 

To calm herself, she stared at the glittering stars a moment, trying to ignore the excruciating pain in her arm and sides. The night sky helped some. She'd forgotten just how much she'd loved it, and the sight of the stars. In Holmley, there were always buildings crowding out the sky. The fires and chimneys sent smoke into the air, clouding the view. She'd had to just trust the stars were still up there. Now that she saw them again, she almost felt like crying. 

Or maybe that was just her broken ribs.

Coughing against the pain, she lifted her head to take in the damage. She had a loose tunic on, but bandages peeked out the top, wrapped around her chest. She sighed and looked over at her arm, expecting to see it splinted and braced, immobilized for a few weeks to heal. But instead of a brace and bruised flesh, she saw nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

It took her mind a few seconds to process it. It stuttered over the fact multiple times, repeating in her head. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing?

She tried to sit up, but the pain in her chest, coupled with the fact that she now only had one elbow to prop herself with, added up to her falling back, her head knocking into the wood.

Her left arm was gone.

Nausea washed over her and if she'd had anything at all in her stomach she would have thrown up. Tears coursed down her face in rivers, splashing into her hair and along her neck. She reached for her left arm but found nothing there, just a large bandage halfway down her bicep. She rolled her head away, her mind suddenly shutting down, not wanting to think about it. Not wanting to believe it. 

Darkness claimed her yet again, gracing her with ignorant bliss for a few more moments. 

###

When she woke again, the pain was too much for her to focus too much on the implications of her arm. She barely could keep her eyes open, and the world spun around her. Sweat soaked her clothing, and she wondered if she could even breathe anymore. 

The cart slowed down, jostling her in an almost unbearable thunderhead of pain. She gasped, the only sound she could summon up, and closed her eyes. As she waited for her body to stabilize, she heard a symphony of familiar sounds. Wind whistling through wind chimes, and tree branches gently creaking up above. Voice speaking a different tongue than the one spoken in Wynherst floated along the air. It was an almost musical language, with a sing-song quality to it that Idelle knew from childhood. Her first language. Her mother-tongue. 

She was... home?

She opened her eyes just in time to see an arm reach over the side and rest on her right shoulder. It belonged to Sabena. She stared at Idelle with a deep crease between her eyebrows, her mouth a hard line. 

"I'm sorry, Idelle. I didn't know where else to take you," she whispered. "Yseult convinced Aelga that you were responsible for the fire mage attack. She has a bounty on your head now, and no one can find Torran. There are no friends left for you in Wynherst. So I brought you to the only friends I knew you had."

Idelle squinted against the pain that muddled her mind. Sabena's voice had sounded delayed and echoed in her mind, taking longer than normal to penetrate into her consciousness. "Where are we?" she managed to croak out, or at least she thought she did.

Sabena didn't answer right away, but when she did it was full of guilt. "Eccleswold," she answered. 

Idelle's head rolled back, defeat washing over her. Ecclewold. The old ally of Glastonbex, and the place she had called home up until a few years ago. She thought she'd never see the forest or fields again, and yet here she was. Dragged in, broken and destroyed, against her will.

She looked down the length of her ruined body to see out the back of the cart. Sure enough, the cart was parked in the middle of the village square. Thatched buildings, built out of grey stone and covered in moss, circled around, tight and friendly. Cottages, medicinal huts, the school for bards. All sights she'd known intimately, but which now seemed foreign.

People soon began to file through the roads, woken by the strange occurrence of visitors in the middle of the night. They spilled into the square in their nightgowns, staring at the cart and Idelle in it. Some held their hands aloft, tiny glowing spheres dancing in the air just above their skin. A man, trying to gather in all his house-pixies from their cages outside his shop, stared at the cart with suspicion, perhaps thinking they might want to loot and pillage. Little did he know, they were not here to steal, but instead to return something of great importance that had been lost.

A moment later, someone approached Sabena, just out of Idelle's view. A woman's voice spoke, and after a brief conversation, the figure peered over the edge.

Alicya's mossy-green eyes ran over the length of Idelle's body, and then rested on her face with such gentleness that Idelle nearly burst into tears at the sight. They had once been friends, so long ago. Alicya had nearly been a sister to her, until Drystan jilted her with no explanation. It was to Alicya's credit that she had helped Sabena when Idelle had sent her to ask about the love potion. Leave it to Alicya to help the runaway, even when she betrayed her own country. 

Idelle's pain built, unfocusing her mind once again.

Alicya's cool hand touched her forehead. "She's burning up. Take her to the manor. Her brother is our best healer."

The cart jerked forward, but Idelle barely registered it anymore. Her mind turned into waves, coming and going. She only felt the cart stop, and then heard voices she never thought she'd hear again. With an effort, she opened her eyes again and saw the brown eyes of her mother and brother staring over the edge of the cart at her. Her mother's black hair, tied into a braid, fell down and brushed Idelle's cheek. Drystan was talking to someone else, urgent and angry, but her mother only paid attention to her. Her soft hand cupped Idelle's chin, her other hand holding aloft one of the glowing spheres to given them light.

"Bring her inside," her mother said.

A man answered her. "Yes, Your Majesty." His voice turned, talking to his comrades. "Bring her inside."

A young voice, perhaps a child just barely stepping into manhood and able to serve, answered in an awed and perilous tone. "Who is it?"

The first voice answered, hushed and almost reverent. "Princess Idelle Helewise Gunnora Lymarc."

The young voice never answered. How could he recognize what was left of Idelle? She was nothing like the girl who had runaway so long ago. She was a bruised and bloody pulp, writhing in pain. Barely alive. Barely anything.

And then Idelle let go, slipping away into the bliss of unconsciousness, knowing that she was home and safe. Whatever happened, her mother and brother would protect her, and for once she didn't have to hide anymore. She was Idelle, soldier, Captain of the Wynherst Queen's Guard, and the runaway Princess of Eccleswold.

THE END of Book 1.