Rowan glanced at Gavriel as they ran. The Lion was known for his generally quiet nature, but the fact that he hadn't spoken a word all day illustrated in no uncertain terms his anxiety at leaving his carranam behind this morning. Lorcan had promised to make his way toward Mistward, the nearest civilization on this side of the mountains, but at the pace he was travelling it would take him three days on foot. Rowan wondered if Lorcan had only promised to do so for Gavriel's peace of mind: a promise that he would not go quietly, that he would fight death as long as he was capable.

No, he would die before he reached Mistward, but at least for Gavriel's sake he was willing to try.

Rowan pulled up and Gavriel skidded a few feet ahead of him, snapping around in question.

"We've been running all day," Rowan panted. "Do you need to rest?"

"No," Gavriel panted back. "We keep going. I can't stop now. Not when-" he didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. They couldn't stop now, not when they'd left Lorcan behind to die for the sake of their time.

Rowan nodded in silent understanding and they set out in a run once again.

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Lorcan told Gavriel he would head for Mistward and with the Lion's healing he'd managed to make it a few hours before he had to stop. If he spent every last bit of strength he had left he still wouldn't make it that far, and he had no intention of spending every last bit of strength. Not with Maeve's wolves and gods knew what else were roaming the territory.

He stopped by a river to drink and rest, pain tearing through his middle.

Lorcan? Gavriel's magic brushed up against Lorcan's mind, sensing his agony.

I'm fine, Lorcan answered, gasping for breath after an especially long drink. Although the Lion didn't seem to be convinced he left it at that, withdrawing again. The other two males had made good time without him, and it took considerable effort on Gavriel's end to reach him.

Suddenly a scream ripped through the deceivingly peaceful foliage of the forest.

"Lorcan! Lorcan! Please! Please! No! No no no no-"

Lorcan spun around, still crouched on his haunches, heart smashing against his chest.

"Lorcan!" A woman screamed.

He should know that voice… but he didn't. He didn't know that voice so he hesitated in answering. Was it Elide? No, it didn't sound like Elide it sounded like-

His train of thought was interrupted by an all-too-familiar emptiness. He had been reaching for someone his entire life, someone who was not there.

"I think she's taken something from you." Essar's voice echoed through his memory. "I think Maeve took someone from you."

Lorcan swayed dizzily and a fresh wave of pain, accompanied by an overwhelming ache of emptiness swelled across his equilibrium.

"Lorcan!"

He sprinted into a black forest, trees like tombstones fire blackened and branchless.

Lorcan fell on his hands and knees and vomited as the world spun. Blood painted his lips and his whole frame shook with the force of trying to throw the poison up.

"Lorcan!" she screamed.

He spun around desperately and caught a fleeing figure. He was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating.

He began to crawl to a nearby cove in the rock face along the river. He needed to get to cover if he was going to lose consciousness again.

"Lorcan!" she was barely whispering now. He remembered a body in the snow. A thick black braid slick with blood. Cold, unmoving fingers. Nearly as white at the snow they had gripped at before they slackened. Before the breath left those lips and the light left those dark eyes.

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He didn't make it to the cove before he toppled into the waiting arms of unconsciousness or death. He did not know the difference.

Elide and Asterin had been flying over the sea for a full day and Asterin figured they still had a day left to go. She was hoping they would come across an island of some sort before then. Nerene might be able to fly for two days straight, but it was exhausting her and Asterin was worried over the wyvern.

Elide had been trying over the course of the last few days to trace Maeve's memories in hopes of figuring out how she'd infected Lorcan with the valg-like poison, but she'd had no luck. Trying to trace Maeve's memories was like trying to hold water in one's fist. Everytime Elide closed around an isolated memory, outside Aelin or Rowan or Lorcan's memories, and she tried to pull it open like she did everyone else's, the memory slipped through her fingers. It was almost as though Maeve's memories were immune from Elide's power.

Some of Lorcan's memories were elusive like this as well, especially surrounding Veradis for some unknown reason, but mostly they were straightforward although obviously jumbled and out of order at times.

"I think she's taken something from you," Elide's power honed in on a lovely voice, warm and husky, in Lorcan's memories.

Where? She asked her power. Who?

It was dark and took some time for Elide's eyes to adjust to the room she was in. It smelled like Lorcan, earthy and dark, like midnight rain.

"No!" Lorcan cried out.

Elide spun around, squinting in the dark, trying to find him. Where was she?

"Lorcan?"

Elide froze at the sound of that lovely voice. Oh.

Oh no.

"No!" Lorcan cried out.

A flame sparked, illuminating a soft hand and forearm as the fae female in Lorcan's bed lit the bedstand lamp with her finger. Clothed only in a pale silk nightgown, the female reached over to Lorcan who was sprawled out on the other side of the bed.

Elide shook her head, backing up, face heating and gut knotting. This was too far. She had gone way too far. She should leave. She should leave now. But the sound of a name kept her rooted in the memory.

"Veradis!" Lorcan thrashed in his sleep. Calling for his twin. "Vera!"

He was shirtless and bathed in sweat.

"Lorcan," the woman with the beautiful voice set the now-lit lamp back on its stand and reached over to her lover. Elide felt sick. "Lorcan wake u-"

As the woman's hands made contact with Lorcan he roared awake, swinging a massive arm and striking the female. The female was small, no bigger than Elide herself, and the blow sent her bodily flying across her room. Her head struck the corner of a dresser and she didn't get up.

Elide gasped, hands coming up to cover her mouth, eyes huge.

"Essar?" Lorcan blinked in confusion. His gaze landed on the unconscious female across the room and he swore, scrambling out of bed and dashing for her. "Essar!" Gently he rolled the female over. His swearing reached a desperate pitch as his gaze fell on the blood wetting her temple.

"Essar, wake up! Gods, what have I done? Essar!" Lorcan's gaze fell on a glass of water on Essar's bed stand and he lunged for it, splashing the female in the face. Sputtering, Essar came too, eyes unfocused and confused.

"Thank the gods," Lorcan sounded like he was genuinely afraid he'd killed her and honestly, with how far the female had flown, Elide had wondered for a moment herself.

"Lorcan?" The female, sputtered as Lorcan scooped her up and carried her back to his bed. Or their bed. Elide didn't know which and she wasn't thrilled at the contemplation. "Why am I wet?"

"I woke you up with your water," Lorcan said, settling her on the bed and propping her up against the headboard, cradling her face in his hands. He turned her head to the side to inspect the wound. "I hurt you," he explained to her confusion. "I'm sorry."

"I don't remember…"

"I knocked you out," Lorcan sounded like it physically hurt to admit it. "Can you follow my finger?"

He ran a finger in front of her eyes.

Elide should really leave this memory.

"You were having a nightmare," the female said in her beautiful voice. "I tried to-"

"Next time," Lorcan grabbed a shirt, his shirt, from the end of the bed and used it to wipe blood away from her temple. "Get out of bed and throw something at me."

Essar gave a pained laugh.

"I'm dead serious," Lorcan insisted.

"Who's Veradis?" Essar asked quietly.

"What?" Lorcan squinted at her.

"The woman you were calling for," Essar asked softly, as though afraid her question might scare him away. "Who is she?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lorcan's brow creased with confusion. Elide moved around to the other side of the bed to get a better look at his face. She was so far beyond the bounds of ethicality at this point there was no going back anyways.

"Veradis," the female said as though that explained everything.

"Who?" Lorcan was perplexed.

"Lorcan! The woman you kept calling for," Essar was getting frustrated. "Veradis."

"I'm going to get Gavriel," Lorcan was looking at her like she was spouting gibberish and Elide felt like she'd been punched in the gut. He didn't know Veradis's name. "You need a healer."

"No, I'll be fine," Essar shook her head in frustration and then gripped Lorcan's forearm like the world was spinning and he was an anchor. Lorcan used his free arm to pull a throw blanket from the end of the bed and wrapped it around her slender shoulders.

"I'm getting Gavriel," he insisted.

Elide shook her head, pulling out of the memory and searching along the threads of thought and time. Lorcan had probably had many lovers over the course of his very long life. And they were fae, like he was, so of course they were beautiful. She shook her head. Whatever made him take notice of her? An illiterate, crippled human girl with a temper to rival Helas himself?

"I think she took something from you," the beautiful female was seated in a veranda, overlooking a garden. She wore a yellow gown, her chestnut hair and dark eyes mesmerizing in the evening sunlight. Lorcan was seated at a glass table next to her, overlooking the blossoming garden. A million beautiful scents and colors wove a tapestry of paradise around them. Elide looked on with envy and a twinge of pain. Her mother's gardens in Perranth had been burned in the invasion all those years ago. She hadn't seen them since they were on fire.

"I think Maeve took someone from you," Essar clarified.

Lorcan rolled his eyes, "I don't understand why you hate her so much, she's-"

"She's cruel and merciless and violent!" Essar snapped.

"Those are all things that have been frequently said about me," Lorcan shrugged.

"Yes, but you aren't like her," Essar frowned.

"Aren't I?" Lorcan raised a pair of dark brows at her. "You know full well the things I've done in her service."

"Because she forces you to!" Essar sat up straight, cheeks flushed with anger. She was so beautiful. Elide bit her lip, ashamed of her jealousy. She shouldn't even be watching these memories in the first place, she had no right to feel jealous.

"I swore the blood oath willingly," Lorcan insisted.

"I will never understand how you can love a female who's so cruel to you," Essar snarled.

Lorcan eyed Essar carefully, as though she were showing dangerous symptoms of some deadly disease: attachment.

"And what's more," Essar continued, "I think she's been in your head. I think that's why you love her so-"

"Do you really think me so pitiful?" Lorcan snapped back. "The only way I could possibly care about someone is if I were duped into it? I could only love Maeve if she planted the idea in the first place? Then why would she refuse me?" He stood up in frustration and stalked over to the flowering archway leading out of the veranda. He looked out of place in this garden with his dark garb and sword at this hip. Even his scar flecked, glaring expression seemed in defiance of the beauty flourishing around him.

Essar followed him stubbornly."She refused you for the same reason that she forces the others into her bed, Lorcan! Power! She is trying to find ways to manipulate each of you-"

"We're done talking about this," Lorcan snarled picking up his pace so the tiny Essar had to practically run to keep up.

"Lorcan, stop!" Essar grabbed his arm and the warrior begrudgingly stopped turning to look at her with warning and anger in his dark gaze. "The female you call for in your sleep, Veradis, she was someone to you. Do you really not remember her?"

"No!" Lorcan snapped. "Why should I?"

Elide found herself yelling at Lorcan, "She's your twin! How could you not remember her?!"

"She was precious, I can tell by the way you say her name in your dreams-"

"Dreams I don't even remember having in the first place, so obviously aren't that important." Lorcan yanked his arm away from the female.

"What if she was your mate?!" Essar pleaded. "Or you carranam? Or you sister?! What if she was as precious as I think she was and Maeve took her from your memory? You've seen her manipulate memories before, you know what she's capable of-"

"Is this all some jealous ploy?" Lorcan all but roared.

"No!" Essar snapped, chestnut eyes blazing. "I'm bringing this to you not as your lover, but as your friend: you need to figure out if she's done something to your memory. When you think of Veradis, does nothing happen? Listen to your instincts. What do they say about her name?"

Lorcan was looking at the female like she's lost her mind, but he glanced to the side as though actually trying to do as she said. After a full second he threw his hands in the air. "Nothing! There's nothing there! It's empty."

"Like an empty space?" Essar pushed. "Like someone should be there?"

"I'm done talking about this," Lorcan glowered at her. "In fact, don't bother coming by this evening."

A blush brushed the female's gold-toned face. "Fine."

Obviously hurt, she spun on her heel and stalked off in a billow of yellow silk. Lorcan growled in frustration and stalked off in the opposite direction.

Elide felt nauseous as she pulled out of the memory stream and pieces of the puzzle started clicking into place. The loyalty that Lorcan gave Maeve, despite everything, was stolen from a sister he wasn't permitted to remember. Elide bit the inside of her cheek, surprised to find tears stinging her eyes. Maeve had taken Veradis from him. In one way or another, she made him forget his own twin -just like she'd tricked Rowan into thinking Lyria was his mate. Maeve had twisted Lorcan's instincts to love her in Veradis's stead.

She'd taken his memory of his twin.

She'd taken half of his soul.

Elide only hoped that she reached him in time to show him his own memories. She was going to do everything in her power to save him, but if she failed, he would at least know who waited on the other side of death for him. Elide could promise him that much.

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