"Mmm. Wha?" Eleanor stretched and yawned until her jaw cracked. Sunlight fell warm across her face. She rolled onto her side and buried her face into a fluffy pillow.

"I said: it's time to wake up, Mother." The words were accompanied by small hands shaking her shoulders. "Grandmother was looking for you. She says you're late."

Eleanor sat up slowly and looked around. She felt as if she had awakened from a strange dream, but this was her room at the palace. The bed was piled high with rumpled and uneven quilts and pillows she had sewn herself in an effort to be more ladylike. The tall arched window let in the bright morning sunlight in the same way it had always done, in a long shape that traveled from the wardrobe on the far wall to the floor, across the bed, and finally to the red-gold carpet under the window.

"Mother, are you well?"

A girl of about ten years sat on the edge of the bed, her brow creased in worry. Eleanor could tell she had been awake herself for some time, judging by the state of her dress and hair.

"Yes darling, I'm fine," she replied. "I just had a bad dream. Come here; let me fix your braid. You look a fright."

The girl sighed and turned back to. Eleanor untied the knot holding the braid and began combing her fingers through the tresses. The movements were soothing to her and came out of memory. She ran her fingers slowly over the soft curls and began to plait them again. This was familiar, but something nagged at the edge of her mind. She closed her eyes tight and shook her head to chase it away.

Suddenly she found her fingers holding a knife and fork. She started and opened her eyes. She was seated at a long table full of people enjoying a rather large and fancy meal. Everyone was dressed extravagantly and soft music floated above the chatter of cultured voices.

Only the girl was watching her. Eleanor caught her eye and smiled. The girl smiled back and resumed poking a vegetable around her plate. No one else had noticed her jump.

Absently, she forked a bit of the meat into her mouth and watched the people around the table. On her right was the girl from her room and on her left a large man with dark hair. He had his face turned away from her and was talking to someone on his other side. His tunic was rich green velvet, embroidered along the collar and cuffs with gold thread.

"My husband," Eleanor thought. A gold ring flashed on his left hand as he gestured. She turned to the right and looked at the girl who was now carefully handling a glass goblet full of water. "My daughter."

She frowned. A feeling of wrongness began to gather in her mind, but before she could do more than acknowledge it, a loud laugh rang out from the head of the table. Her eyes went unbidden to the source of the sound.

"Father," she whispered.

Alistair was laughing and holding up a cup to be refilled. The sight of him sent a sharp pain through Eleanor's heart, but she didn't know why. She stared hard at him. Something was different, wrong about him. What was it?

As he turned to speak to the nobleman on his other side, the idea came to her suddenly. He was old. The laugh-lined face she remembered had been replaced by one that was definitely wrinkled; not careworn but aged. His hair which had been only moderately threaded with grey was now entirely white. Alistair glanced her way as she sat staring at him and dropped her a wink without pausing in his conversation.

Eleanor dropped her eyes to her plate. Two feelings fought in her: acceptance and strangeness. She looked up again, scanning the faces of the people around her. She recognized none until she came to the old woman sitting at the opposite end of the table. Her mother's blue eyes looked out of this grandmotherly woman's face and her white hair was bound in a thick knot at the back of her neck. The woman smiled as she watched the king chat and laugh.

"That must be Mother," Eleanor thought. "She still looks at him with such love in her eyes."

The feeling of confusion swept over her again and she put a hand to her forehead. Abruptly, the noise of voices disappeared and she was leaning against a wall in a candlelit corridor.

"Easy dear," someone said behind her. Strong arms circled her waist and held her up as if she had stumbled. Looking down, she saw a strong hand and a sleeve of green and gold.

"I feel so strange," she said.

"You didn't have too much wine again, did you?" The man laughed softly and threaded her arm through his.

"No. I suddenly feel like things aren't as they should be. This morning, at dinner, and my parents…"

"Not as they should be? They are as they have been for almost ten years now, wife. And what's wrong with your parents? They are the picture of health and happiness, always spoiling their granddaughter rotten. Everyone is peaceful and happy. What more could you ask for?"

Eleanor hesitated, the strange feeling returning, stronger now. She looked up at the tall man that felt so familiar and actively recalled to mind their courtship, their wedding. It all seemed like a…

"A fairytale," she said. She looked up at him but realized she couldn't see his face. Candles lined the corridor and lit it to sufficient brightness during the evening hours, but somehow a shadow fell across his face. His features were obscured.

"Where is D—," she began. The word would not come out. "My brother?"

"Brother? You have no brother."

"No…? Of course I have a brother. His name is D--." Again she stopped.

"I thought you told me he died when you were children. Are you feeling quite well? What's wrong?" The man reached out to grip her shoulders but Eleanor stepped back. She shook her head from side to side, a wild terror starting up in her.

"Stay back." She pressed her back against the wall. "This is wrong. I'm not married. I have no child. My parents will never be old."

The man took one step forward and then halted. The dancing flames of the candles stopped their perpetual movement and the light became something rigid and fixed like glass. The very air and every small sound in it hardened and stopped. Still the man's face was in shadow.

"All you had to do was accept it." A woman's voice, cold and clear, rang out in the hall. "Accept what your heart desires and sleep. It would have been so easy."

Eleanor swept the passageway with her eyes, tensing. She wore a formal gown, a frippery of a thing all lace and ruffles, but still her hands went to her waist as if expecting to find daggers on a belt there.

"This is a dream, isn't it?" Why had it taken so long to realize the truth of what she had been seeing? "I'm in the Fade. You're tempting me but I am no mage; I cannot become an abomination."

"I am no demon." The woman stepped from behind the frozen man, stepped through him with a dizzying swirl of mist.

"You," Eleanor hissed through her teeth. The sight of the woman from the Chasind camp brought all that was forgotten back in a rush.

"Yes, 'tis I." Kellan smirked and stood with her hands on her small hips. "It would have really been easier if you hadn't fought me. You could have slept here and not awoken. Now I'm afraid I will have to bribe you into good behavior."

She walked lightly to a door in the hall, her robes trailing on the floor. Placing a hand on the handle, she swung it open and stepped behind it, hiding herself from view. Eleanor began to push herself off the wall when Duncan ran through the open door and almost collided with her.

"Thank the Maker I've found you." He was breathing heavily. "I've been all over this place looking for you and I was beginning to lose hope. Something was keeping me confused; I kept turning in circles." He grasped her by the arms. "We have to get out of here. Now." He began to pull her down the corridor.

"Where?"

"Away. It doesn't matter." Duncan looked back over his shoulder, worry etched on his face. Eleanor noticed that he was wearing a mud splashed nightshirt and his feet were bare. There were scratches on the back of his hand.

"It began as a dream but quickly turned into a nightmare. If you don't do what she wants…" Duncan trailed off and turned to run, holding Eleanor's hand firmly in his. He had only taken one long stride when he crashed into something obstructing the corridor and fell heavily. Eleanor put her hand out and felt a crackle of energy just ahead, invisible to the eye but as strong as steel.

Kellan stepped out from her hiding place. Her hands still glowed with the magic that created the obstacle.

"Who is she?" Duncan asked. He got slowly to his feet, wincing with pain. Part of his face was bright red from contact with the magical barrier and his nightshirt was scorched across his chest. Eleanor had never seen her brother this frightened. "Why does she hate us so much?"

"Hate. Yes." Kellan walked toward them slowly, deliberately. Her lips curled in a disdainful smile. Folds of her red robe fell away from her slender arm as she raised it to point at them. "You have no idea." Eleanor blinked, feeling more and more like this was a dream and not real at all. She started to turn toward Duncan, to grasp his arm and run toward the open door, but there was a thick resistance in the air. Too slow, too slow.

"I won't let you hurt her," Duncan shouted. Before Eleanor could stop him he launched himself toward her with his hands curled into fists.

Kellan smirked as Duncan slammed into another invisible wall. He bounced off and stayed on his feet this time, but as he tried to back away, hit another barricade that the girl had created directly behind him. Left then right he turned, only to be blocked in each time.

"It was you," he panted, pressing against the magical prison that confined him, "that I couldn't see. You were the darkness."

Kellan laughed, the throaty sound bouncing off the close walls and filling the hall. She leaned her head back on her long neck and laughed until she was short of breath. Eleanor stood transfixed, screaming at herself in her mind to move, save her brother, run, claw down this frightening woman in front of her. Her body listened to none of these urgent commands but sank slowly into warm rigidity. She raised one hand slowly to her throat and clasped a pendant there that she had forgotten about until now. It was cold to the touch.

Duncan turned his head to her slowly. She could see the cords standing out in his neck. His eyes were huge with panic and fear.

"Eleanor," his voice was hollow and seemed to come from far away, "you have to—"

Kellan waved a hand lazily and he stopped, completely frozen now. The magic encasing him gave off a crystalline shimmer and then hardened into an unyielding mass.

"You," Eleanor gasped. It was so hard to breathe. She fell back against the wall behind her as her vision began to grey at the edges. Before her eyes closed completely she saw Kellan step forward and caress the smooth edge of the solid magic that held her brother.

AN~ This story wants to be really long. I hope you don't mind reading it. What do you think so far?