The memory shattered like glass and the shards rearranged around me creating a new picture. This image slowly became whole as the fragments fell into place. Nazam was gone. Pink and blue flowers spotted my vision whilst dewy green grass tickled my cheek.

I am laying down? Wait, this meadow looks... familiar?

I have never been here before though. Have I? Perhaps in a dream? There was barely a cloud in the sky and the air smelled so sweet I could taste it on my tongue.

"Sienna! Come on, silly girl. It's time to go home!" Someone's voice called out. Who is---

"Mommy!" A little girl sprang up like a daisy from right beside me. I scrambled back startled.

The girl ran to the woman. I rose to my feet as it all clicked into place.

Mommy... tears filled my eyes. I had never seen--- no, I just don't remember seeing her just like I do not remember this place. But I have been here, and I did know her... once upon a time.

My feet started moving on their own. I sprinted ahead of the younger Sienna to the open arms of my mother. The portrait hanging in the southern corridor was beautiful but no painting could capture the way the sun lit her honey brown eyes or how the wind brushed her coppery waves.

I fell through her, my heart and tears hitting the ground. She scooped up the giggling three-year-old me. The toddler's arms came around her warm neck.

My heart yearned to feel my mother's warmth. Suddenly I could. Tears dampened my cheeks as I breathed her in.

"Baby, why are you crying?" She held me back cupping my chubby cheek in her palm.

I sniffled. I am crying? Mommy looks so worried. Did I do something bad again? I did not know how to say the words I wanted to. So, my arms wrapped around her again, snuggling my tiny body as close as I could. "I wove you, Mommy."

"I love you, too, my silly girl. Let us go. Rosie and your other sisters will be done with their lessons by now."

She walked with me on her hip. I glanced at the flower ring around my little finger. Mommy made it. I can't do it yet, but she said that is okay. She said one day I will. I just need to practice.

The magical meadow disappeared out of sight over my mommy's shoulder. It was my favorite place in the whole world! I hoped Rosie can come out with us tomorrow.

My eyes grew heavy as my mother's stride began to lull me to sleep. Right before I lost all senses, I heard a thumping sound. I raised my head to find where it came from. Mommy was asking what was wrong.

Something is wrong. The sound continued, pattering and echoing. From a distance it called for me. I had to find someone... but then I would have to leave her.

"Sienna? Sienna." A familiar voice pulled me out of my mystification. His voice was so anxious...

This isn't real, a bittersweet thought dawned. It is a memory. I do not belong here.

The image distorted. Glass shards reconfigured once more. I lost her again and I ran from the pain stabbing in my chest. I had to focus. I'm just not sure what I am supposed to be focusing on. I was leaping over dark roots and weaving between sparks of fire and metal looking for the anxious voice. The sound from before guided me and I knew now it was a heartbeat.

Reality bent around him... Tallis covered in black soot, his goggles still on, and the large metal piece stuck out of his leg painfully.

Before I could run to him, a shadow of me ran right through me like a phantom to the memory shadow of Tallis who sat up against a large piece of the destroyed airship.

"Oh my---you're hurt! It's okay---um-- I'm just gonna-"

I had kneeled beside him but realized I didn't have the slightest idea how to help him. I did not expect to find anyone injured. It did not seem like a good idea to move him.

"If you can just hang on, I'm sure some knights are on their way. They'll-ahhh!"

Sienna, focus. Tallis's voice came out of nowhere once again. Another memory, of course, and I was about to be immersed once again. I walked past the shadows going deeper into the forest.

What do I remember last? Think, Sienna!

"I-I don't know...," I stuttered to myself as the glass pieces swarmed around and different memories were trying to merge, voices overlapping. It was not just memories though. It was a hurricane of emotions, shifting and changing constantly.

"I was chasing you! I was just wanting to ride and have fun and travel with y-"

"And now when it truly matters, you can't."

"Must you act so shameless? I cannot keep making excuses for you!"

"From now on, I promise... so if I asked you to stay here and talk to me... will you?"

"... so impressionable. Sienna is at the age of transition. She needs our guidance now more than ever."

If I make things worse for Tallis, I will never forgive myself.

"...does your sorcerer not still practice the old ways and pay homage to the Blood Mother?"

"I am certain our suffering will be alleviated the moment you step foot in EgdirBėhThtėaneb."

"It's okay. You've got the right idea. A ship that sails on air... and stuff."

"... she didn't just sacrifice for her magic, she tortured. Her shadows fed on fear."

"I promise on my soul pinky! Thank you, Sienna."

"You know you have hay in your hair, right?"

"They say The First King was so intuned with Aislei that he was able to tame the heart of a dragon and ride through the air on his back!"

"Goodnight, Sienna." He smiled tenderly, the fire light dancing in his gray eyes.

"Y'reve man, wo-man, d'na deson-tons d'lih'c llahs maercs d'na yarp ot rieht Gods! Aislei llahs gnoleb ot uoy, y'm Srehtorb!"

Rancor's thunderous voice suddenly poisoned the air and the glass splintered to the sound of pixie screams. The shrill screams wouldn't stop. I held my hands to my ringing ears, willing an end to the agony. Sobs began to shake my body violently.

Tallis, where are you...

Suddenly, music broke through the chaos. Tallis's music box sang sweetly to me. I opened my eyes to a dark room. I had to blink a few times to adjust my sight. I did not recognize the closed space. There was a stale, rusty smell in the air.

As strange as it was to me, I felt a surge of familiarity about the place. It was the living quarters tucked in the Bronze District of Maru, where the majority of the guild's wards lived.

Seeing the glimmer of the fragments, I was reminded this was a memory. Only... it can't be my memory. I know I have never been to Maru. The quiet stillness of the scene gave off the sense it was in the middle of the night.

Not that it mattered. The compound didn't have enough windows to let natural daylight in.

I gasped. That wasn't me. Another's thoughts are in my head. Tallis?

"Tallis? Is that you? Is this your memory?"

Sienna, I'll find you. Just stay where you are. His voice echoed around me, all around yet so distant. I wasn't sure he could hear me.

I walked slowly taking in my surroundings. Bare, unforgiving walls encased the rectangular room that Tallis had once called home. Twenty to thirty beds with threadbare linens lined against the walls. The mattresses looked worn, stained, and stiff. I stopped short when I heard a child's voice. "We are going to get into so much trouble! Why'd you have to steal it?"

The boy who had spoken had dark hair, his nose sprayed with freckles and his doe eyes wide with fear. He anxiously peeked around the bed towards the door as if the warden would appear any second.

"I didn't steal it. I'm borrowing it," the other boy said defensively, narrowing gray eyes at the stolen book that was illuminated by only a small lantern. The flame was low as not to wake the other boys.

Tallis had snuck the book out of the Great Library so he could study more for their exams tomorrow. The exams would determine his position in the guild for the years to come.

Tallis. I studied his face. Aww, he is such a cute kid. And such a little rebel staying up past his bedtime.

I sensed Tallis groaning from wherever he was.

"To borrow you must have permission," the other boy, his name was Glinn, murmured to himself.

"Stop fidgeting!" Young Tallis chastised. "You're making me nervous. I told you Darbus headed out to the tavern earlier. If he does make it out of a slut's tits before dawn, he will be too drunk to actually do a bed check when he gets back."

"Language! Wait a minute! Tallis, you said you did not have friends. Who is Glinn then?"

I found myself in an earlier memory. We were still in Maru but back when Glinn and Tallis were only seven years old, not yet sorted into a guild.

At first, I thought I was still inside but then I felt the wind brush my skirts against my leg. Walking out from a clustered alleyway, I was nearly ran over by a strange beast in the crowded street.

Well, technically, I did get ran over. I just did not feel anything due to being intangible. The beasts roamed the streets in packs. They rumbled leaving smoky entrails. One made a ferocious sound, growling at a person for stepping out in the street as I had done. It screeched its rubber feet and veered off its chosen path. Upon closer inspection, the beasts had swallowed people.

I stood frozen in fear. Though everyone seemed to be in a rush, no one seemed terrified of the monsters. They merely stuck to the sides of the street. The one man who was almost devoured for entering the beast's domain didn't seem frightened, just angered.

Calm down, Sienna. They are just man-made machines. We call them landroamers.

The fear was replaced by intrigue. They're fake, like the Maruvian Dragon.

It was like I entered a whole other world.

I looked up thinking the sky should at least look the same but saw only permanent dark clouds. Gold ribbons of light flicked on and off through the heavy veil, but it was fighting a losing battle. The clouds were not really clouds at all. It was dense smoke that rose out of the metal towering structures. Tallis's mind supplied the word factories. Their fumes choked the sky.

Maru was huge and like nothing I could have imagined. It was also depressing, so much so that it wouldn't allow even the sun to shine. And Tallis grew up here?

An altercation in the alley drew me back to the center of the memory. Three older boys were kicking on the frail Glinn. They picked on him bad because he could not speak the common tongue. He came from Soaragas. His parents were dirt poor and had too many mouths to feed. They crossed the border into Maru to sell him. The details filled my mind as if this was all just background knowledge I already knew.

"What was that? Stop squealing like a pig. We just wanna play," Thyeo, their ringleader, taunted him.

"I heard the Saroagians like to play in the mud. He might be part pig. Hey, shrimp, is your mommy a pig?" Elias laughed. "Oink for us, piggy!"

Glinn kept wailing and jabbering in his foreign language. Somehow, I knew he was begging them to stop and offering them his food rations. No one on the street just twenty feet away batted an eyelash.

"He so dumb, he can't even speak right!" Thyeo snickered and both of his minions snorted.

Anger that I had never felt before rose in me. And it was not entirely my own.

Tallis appeared, launching himself headfirst right into Thyeo's gut. He shouted at Glinn to run. The small boy hesitated for only a second before doing as he was told.

Not that it mattered.

Before he got clear of the alley, the other two boys reacted. Fylor grabbed at Tallis and Elias dove for the retreating Glinn grabbing him by his shirttail. Tallis elbowed his captor then bit down on Elias's arm as hard as he possibly could. He tasted the coppery blood in his mouth as Elias howled releasing his hold on Glinn. He slammed a fist down on Tallis's head but Tallis had his jaw locked.

"Get the freak off me!"

They pried Tallis off and beat him black and blue... and red and white where the bone stuck out of his arm.

I was hardly aware of my own thoughts or even my own existence. All I could do was watch as Tallis was hurt by such low life jerks until he slowly lost consciousness. His last thoughts were wishing that darkness would consume him faster...

They left him in the alley. He supposed someone brought him to the infirmary since that was where he woke up.

The memory shards clashed around changing the scene. Some time went by. How long, I'm not sure.

Since the incident in the alley, Glinn stuck close to Tallis, but he would not talk. He just trailed after him and hid from view when Tallis looked in his direction. Tallis, who never cared much for friends, figured the small boy was using him as a shield against Thyeo's malice. Being used was something Tallis did not take kindly to.

"Well, that's something he didn't grow out of," I murmured to myself.

Tallis turned a corner, then waited for his unwanted shadow to turn it, too. He held him by the shirt front against the wall.

"What's your problem? You got a crush or something?" He nearly growled in the boy's face.

Glinn spoke in his fast tongue and was unsuccessfully trying to pry Tallis's fingers off.

"What? I'm not going to kill you, you weirdo." Tallis dropped the boy on the ground then answered his silent question. "Yeah, I can understand you. Sometimes."

Glinn was asking how, but Tallis didn't give an answer. He didn't have one.

"How do you not have an answer?" I asked. "Who is Glinn?"

An agony that I had only glimpsed on the surface broke through and his mind instantly grew very cold. He was trying to disconnect himself from the emotion, but didn't he realize it just made it worse?

"He was your friend. Your only friend and you lost him... how?"

A wave of sadness made my whole body shake. Tears began falling, sobs raked my body and though I did not know why I was crying ... it didn't matter. His pain was mine now. And he was in such pain...

I could feel everything. His thoughts, his feelings. But more than that, this was his soul, his very essence. And beneath a cool exterior, it was as warm as the fire was in the hidden cave. I reached for that flame, but it seemed to retreat further back.

"Please, Tallis. I want to be your friend. You don't have to hide," I begged, and my voice echoed off cavern walls. "Let me help you."

Stop. It will hurt. I don't want to hurt.

I was surprised by his vulnerability, but he was even more so. He cursed himself feeling so exposed. He didn't want to think about it. He was struggling to bottle up as much as possible. He didn't want to poison me with it. He thought about my privileged life with disdain and how I live unfiltered and just say whatever I please without fully thinking through the consequences.

Ouch. I felt every unkind thought he had about me from the time we met to even now. He threw them at me with no regard. I brushed them off not letting him shut me out.

I reached the flame and pulled it to my chest. It slowly became warmer. And the sound I had heard earlier, the heartbeat, now vibrated against my skin.

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More of Tallis' backstory revealed in the next chapter.

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