A/N: Sorry for the delay! I will try to get the next chapter proofread and posted in a more timely manner. Long story short, life has happened and I've been dealing with a lot of things at one time. So, I just needed to take some time for myself... And I'm all the better for it! So, I'm happy to be back with my readers and these characters. You've been very missed.

Enjoy!

Feedback is always appreciated! :)


"Life's all about momentsof impacts and how they change our lives forever. But, what if one day you could no longer remember any of them?"
Leo, "The Vow"

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.:Serenity:.

It was the cold that eventually woke me from the thick, all-encompassing darkness of sleep, one which had been devoid of any light save for an occasional blue-hue flash that left me confused and disoriented. I struggled to emerge from this black prison, but remained trapped within its clutches, until the cold curled around my consciousness. But even with its persistent tugging it took me a while to emerge from the heavy fog.

I finally did with a violent shiver. I blinked at the fading light tumbling through the slit of the thick drapes in my bedchamber, not the rosy hues of morning but the orange light of dusk. A roaring fire cackled in the marble hearth, but its warmth did little for the relentless iciness encasing me in its chilling grip.

I groaned, drawing the attention of those at my bedside—my parents, my younger sister, Astraia, and Mina.

"Serenity?" Worry wrenched my mother's voice. I tried to answer but, instead, only managed another moan. A cool hand grazed my burning brow as Mother leaned over me, concern etching her frantic, yet delicate expression. "Serenity, dear?"

Her long, slender fingers became caressing, but even her soothing touch couldn't dispel the cold imprisoning me or ease the pain lacing my throbbing head. A violent shiver rippled throughout my body. "I—I'm...freezing," I finally managed.

The words spurred Mother into action. She had my father, Leonidas, carefully lift me from the bed to bring me closer to the fire, where she proceeded to bury me beneath a thick stack of blankets. Despite the extra layers the iciness continued to penetrate me.

Why am I so cold? I tried to remember what had occurred before I'd woken up, but it was as if the memory had vanished. I struggled to stretch my thoughts back as far as they would go, searching through the recesses of my memory, only to find nothing.

"What...happened?" It was a struggle to speak past my dry throat.

Mother paused in fluffing the pillow she'd propped up behind me to exchange a worried look with Father. "We were hoping you'd be able to tell us, Serenity. Four days ago you disappeared without even a note, only for Mina to return the following morning after having ridden all night with you. No matter how much we pressed, she has refused to inform us beyond the basics of what happened—no explanation of where you've been or why you're so ill and incoherent."

I turned from their worry-filled towards Mina, seeking some sort of clue as to what had transpired, only to find her continuing to avert her gaze. "What happened, Mina?"

She was silent a long moment before releasing a heavy sigh. "I'm afraid I'm under your orders not to divulge that information to anyone, Your Highness."

I frowned. I rarely, if ever, ordered Mina about. "Surely you're under no obligation to keep such an order considering I don't remember giving it."

She remained silent, but her gaze briefly darted towards my family, who watched the exchange with anxious expressions. I wondered whether her hesitancy was due to my wanting to keep the sensitive nature of our mysterious quest from my family's knowledge.

"Can you give me a moment of privacy with my guard?" I asked.

Mother looked reluctant to leave and made to protest, but Father wove her arm through his and rested a comforting hand over hers. "We'll leave you two to talk. We'll check back in with you soon."

Astraia nodded, as usual quiet, but even without words I can sense her concern. Mother continued to hesitate before finally relenting at Father's encouraging look. After brushing a kiss on my cheek, she followed him from the room, my sister trailing behind them.

The moment the door to my chamber closed I turned expectantly to Mina, but despite there no longer being an audience to our conversation, she still seemed reluctant to speak.

"Please, Mina, I need to know what happened."

She bit her lip and finally met my gaze, her own uncharacteristically apprehensive. "What do you remember?"

Once again I tried to search my memory, but it was as if I were fumbling in darkness. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed something faintly discernible, but without any light to illuminate my confusing thoughts, each object I handled had no meaning.

"Nothing. That last I remember..." I struggled to reach my thoughts further back, searching. "...we'd just returned from looking for a relic, a search that hadn't gone well. Something...happened on the journey home, which made me anxious in the days following our return, and you and I weren't speaking." I frowned at that, for I couldn't even recall the last time I'd been at odds with my guard. I glanced at Mina, hoping for an explanation, only to find her once again avoiding my gaze.

"We were at odds about something," she finally said slowly, reluctantly.

"At odds about what?"

She sighed. "Something I've since discovered you were right about and I was very, very wrong."

I waited for her to elaborate, but she'd once more fallen silent. "If I was right about something I'm even more interested in learning about it." I kept my tone light, but rather than my attempt at humor easing her tension her expression only twisted. My worry returned. "Mina—"

"What else do you remember?" she interrupted.

I scrunched my brow and resumed sorting through the chaos of the fuzzy, indiscernible images filling my mind. "We went somewhere important, and I feel whatever we were doing was equally significant..."

"We were searching for a relic."

I blinked. "We were?" I glanced towards the window, where the fading light glistened against the frost blanketing the world outside. "So soon after returning from our last search, and after the arrival of winter?"

She nodded. "You received additional information, and hoped to conduct one more search before winter fully descended."

Though that made sense, the image that Mina painted contained splotches of grey and blank holes, and without the missing colors filled in I was left with an incomplete picture. "The Relic of Abundance, correct?"

She stiffened and her graze snapped up, her eyes wide. "What?"

"I'm searching for the Relic of Abundance to aid Clariness after the devastating effects of the drought." I glanced back out the window where the sunlight glistened off the frost almost tauntingly, a reminder that no matter how cold the winter became we had yet to see any snow.

She stared at me with such shock and perplexity that my worry grew, pinpricking my skin with the chill still shrouding me.

"What is it, Mina?"

"You don't even remember...that?"

"Remember what?"

But she wouldn't answer.

My annoyance escalated, crowding my confusion. "Must you be so cryptic? I've just woken up sick, confused, freezing, and with no memory of what led me into such a state. If you have any information that will help me I must know. Please."

Mina seemed to fight an inner battle before finally relinquishing with a heavy sigh. "Very well, though I can only tell you what I know. We were searching for a relic, and it went badly. But you'll be alright." She said the last words hastily, as if trying to assure herself more than me.

"In what way did it go badly?"

"You encountered a curse." She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully, and I caught a glimpse of not only a secret, but guilt.

I frowned. "You're hiding something from me."

She stiffened at my words, and for a moment I wondered if she would confess and satisfy my curiosity, before she heaved a sigh, dashing my hopes. "It's...nothing."

It clearly wasn't just nothing. There was a gap in my memory, not just from the past several days but something much more, as if something was missing beyond the black spaces in my recollections. Emptiness filled me, a vid growing larger and more obvious the more coherent I become.

I cast my gaze around my room, searching the familiar surroundings. Everything seemed to be in its proper place, and save for the bottle of remedies littering my bedside, everything was as I last remembered. And yet...

"Is something wrong, Princess?" Mina's voice had taken on a strange tone.

"Something is...missing."

Once again she remained silent, one that felt more tense than the previous ones had.

My hand instinctively went to my throat, and stilled as my fingers grazed a chain. I peered down and noticed I was wearing a silver pendant I'd never seen before, carved in the shape of a candle, an unusual shape for a necklace. "Where did I get this?"

Mina shrugged, but I caught a glimpse of a secret as she hastily looked away. She knew exactly where I'd gotten this necklace and, for whatever reason, seemed determined to keep it from me. And no matter how much cajoling and pleading I gave her for the remainder of the afternoon, it was a secret she seemed determined to keep.

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I'd hoped the strange absence I'd woken up to would fade with time, slipping away as my health gradually improved over the next several weeks. But though my fever healed and the iciness that had seemed a permanent part of my skin eventually dispelled, the void not only lingered but grew. I felt as if something important had been cut from my life, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't even begin to recall what it was.

Along with this unexplainable emptiness came a sense of melancholy that settled over me along with the frigid darkness descending as winter deepened around us. This loss and unhappiness hovered over my constantly, a state that didn't go unnoticed by my family, whose concern only increased when I had no explanation as to what was troubling me.

I immersed myself in all manner of duties in hopes they would cause me to stop missing what I couldn't remember. Thankfully my duties provided ample ones, a distraction masquerading as a sense of purpose I took full advantage of as reports came almost daily from the villages and towns throughout our kingdom—ones containing news that food and fuel reserves were low, and the winter was proving to be long and harsh for our people. My sense of despair rose with each report, crowding out the emotions I still couldn't explain.

When I wasn't in meetings with Mother or helping Father and Astraia with their myriad of charity projects for our struggling subjects, I devoted all my time to searching for any information on the Relic of Abundance, the only thing I could think of that would rescue our kingdom from its current struggles.

However, there was very little information to be found, for my notes contained details not on the Relic of Abundance but another relic entirely: the Relic of Peace. With the vast amount of knowledge I'd gathered, it seemed I'd been obsessed with it, though I couldn't recall my reasoning, or even any memory, of searching for it; it was yet another blank blotch in my past.

"Why was I so obsessed with such a useless relic?" I grumbled to Mina one cold winter day as I shuffled through my stack of notes, my annoyance rising with each I perused. "Useless, useless, useless... How did I think this would help with the drought?"

Mina didn't answer from her usual position against the wall, a silence that seemed to have become her default state, as if she was afraid whatever secret she was keeping would tumble free if she didn't guard it closely enough. When she finally spoke, searching for the ones that wouldn't give away the information she remained determined to keep from me.

"I believe you found value in ending the feud between Elysion and Clariness."

I stilled in shuffling through my papers to glance incredulously up at her. "While the feud is terrible, it's not nearly as important as helping my people eat."

She hesitated. "At the time, the drought wasn't quite so bad."

That was a weak excuse for my having deviated so drastically from my purpose. Despite the blank patches in my memory, one thing was clear: I'd made the decision to find the Relic of Abundance at the very beginning of my relic search, only to discover now I'd scarcely searched for it all. How could I have become so distracted?

I had little time to wonder at what could have possibly possessed me to fail in my duties before Mother entered the room, her delicate and refined features grave, with a missive clutched in her hand. My frustration quickly shifted into panic. "What is it?" It seemed bad news had recently become as constant as the bleak weather.

"Another raid," she muttered. "From them."

My breath hitched. "From Elysion? Where—?"

"They attacked a bordering village," Mother sighed, her expression tight. "They destroyed much, including one of our reserves of grain."

I couldn't speak, my stomach twisting as if I was about to be sick.

Mother sighed, rubbing her temples. "It's my understanding that this is the first one led by the crown prince."

I froze, the name causing my heart to swell with an emotion I couldn't name. "Prince Endymion? He led the raid? Are you certain?"

Mother nodded gravely. "You're aware of the rumors about him from over the years, but the latest have been much more alarming. He seems to be following in the king's footsteps with exactness."

Heaviness filled the pit of my stomach, a sense of dread I couldn't explain. "I—Is that really true?" I had no explanation for my question, only that it seemed to burst free of its own accord and with a sense of urgency. I sensed Mina's gaze watching me closely but felt too stunned to even spare her a glance.

Mother watched me too, brows drawn in confusion. "Of course I'm certain. Our sources are infallible, Serenity."

I couldn't speak. Her expression etched in concern.

"You appear to be in shock, dear. Are you well?"

Shock... So, that was the word for my tumult of feelings, at least in part, for I felt something more. I struggled to sort through the strange emotions prodding me for their attention. What were they?

"I find myself surprised." I finally managed. Along with many more emotions.

"The prince is the product of King Eldas," Mother said. "It makes sense he'd continue his legacy, though it doesn't bode well for Clariness's future."

Though her words made sense when outlined logically, I couldn't shake the sense that something was terribly wrong—that Mother was even mistaken about Prince Endymion, despite there being no evidence to dispute her claims.

This news about the crown prince added uneasiness to the other difficult emotions already weighting heavily on my heart—the emptiness, the loss, the melancholy. They only escalated when Mother left, leaving nothing to distract me from their suffocating presence.

I found myself stroking the candle pendant I wore, one that, though I had no memory of receiving or why it was significant to me, I had a strange aversion to taking it off. With each touch, the strange emotions raging within me only deepened.

As if the candle pendant was an illuminator, with each touch I slowly recognized in part the heaviness pressing against my heart: sadness, despite there being no reason for me to feel such an emotion about the heir of our kingdom's greatest enemy who was turning out to be as horrible as my kingdom had always professed.

And yet, I felt sad all the same, and this realization only deepened the sense of loss that just wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to suppress it.

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à suivre...