by Lisa Lace
"Your Highness!" Mynee broke in. "They approach!"
"Promise me," his mother repeated urgently.
"I promise. I promise," Asher sobbed, clinging to her. "Mommy, I want you to come!" That was a sure sign of the boy's distress. He usually had no problem using the more formal 'mother' when he spoke to her, but now he was just a little boy, not a prince. Just a little boy who wanted to stay with the person he loved most.
His mother was crying now, too, but she let Mynee take Asher from her. She let the guards who came in take her son from Mynee and watched as they walked away, as her son waved his arms and cried, though he fell silent when one of the guards shushed him.
Mynee stood with her for long seconds, even after the guard had disappeared around the corner with the prince.
"Your Highness," she said softly. "To the tunnels?"
Helene, sister to the king of the Nalyi clan nodded and drew herself up. She pushed her fiery hair back out of her face and wiped her eyes. "To the tunnels."
In an apartment in North Carolina, some twenty years later, a man who was once a boy and a prince opened his eyes to the darkness of his bedroom ceiling. He turned his head and looked out the window at the pitch blackness. There was no moon that night, and so the trail of amber light that disappeared up into the clouds was easy to spot since he knew what to look for.
How many times was that now? A hundred? A thousand?
The Shaddoc were clever, using humans in the way they did, and though it had made Asher angry from the moment he'd learned of it, he hadn't been permitted to interfere.
"There are too many of them," his uncle had said.
"Too many Shaddoc or too many humans?"
"Both. And more when you add them all together. I know that you wish to help them, and I applaud you for the desire, but it's not time yet."
"When will it be time?"
Ever since he'd left his mother's arms, he remembered her words and his promise to her. He had to go back. He had to find his people.
Especially since he had no idea where his uncle was anymore.
A missing king and a prince with no power. The Nalyi deserved better, but he supposed they were all that they had.
Asher got out of bed and leaned out the window, dragging in deep breaths of the warm summer air. Fall would be upon them, soon enough. Already he could feel the winds of change in the air.
His uncle's note was pinned to the wall next to the window, and Asher's eyes traveled over to it. It was too dark to read, but he knew all the words by heart now anyway. It had been four years, and he'd read them obsessively since then.
Find her. And then find me.
We will go home when the time is right.
A breeze kicked up through the trees, sending just a hint of the chilly autumn to come through his window. The note fluttered and then went still, and Asher ran fingers through the fire of his hair.
The time was now.
Chapter 1: Chosen
Amelia opened her eyes, staring at the familiar ceiling. She was in her computer room this time, where she worked and took care of paying bills and all that, instead of her bedroom, and she didn't even have to wonder to know how it had happened.
Not again.
For as long as she could remember, she had been waking up in strange places, with no recollection of how she'd gotten there.
The floor of her computer room was hardly the strangest place, at least, she thought to herself as she sat up with a groan.
Her back was stiff from lying on the hardwood floor for who knew how long, and her head ached. But at least that part was normal, too. Well. Normal for whatever was happening to her. She always woke up with a pounding headache and a chunk of time missing, and she still didn't know why.
With a sigh, she pushed herself up on wobbly legs and tried to fill in the blanks of what she'd been doing before she just... turned up somewhere else.
She'd been in the living room, she was fairly certain. Watching TV? No, she'd been on her laptop, that was it. Looking at dresses to wear to her cousin's wedding in two weeks. The details started trickling in slowly as she held a hand to her head and made her way into the kitchen to hunt down some painkillers.
She'd found a nice dress and had been comparing it to another one and contemplating getting the less expensive one. But... but what?
Amelia filled a glass of water at the sink, frowning hard at the counter top.
But she had realized that her purse was still in the car when she needed to get her credit card, that was it. So she'd gotten up and gone to the front door and then...
And then....
No matter how much she tried to focus on what had happened next, it was just a stretch of blackness. She remembered putting her hand on the doorknob and then nothing else up until the point where she had woken up on the floor.
Several hours had passed at least because she remembered that it'd been just after dinner when she'd settled on the couch with her laptop and it was well after nine in the morning now.
So that was a huge chunk of time that was just... gone.
With jerky motions, she downed three painkillers and followed them with most of the glass of water, slamming the glass down on the counter when she was done.
It was so frustrating. This had been happening to her since she was a little girl.
She'd be doing something, playing with her toys or sitting alone in her room, one minute, and then the next she was waking up somewhere else. It only happened when she was alone, and for the longest time no one had believed her. Her parents weren't inclined to think that there was anything that could be wrong with their pretty, perfect daughter, and they advised getting more sleep and spending less time playing video games or running with the neighborhood kids.
But the condition had continued into middle school and high school, although it only ever happened when she was at home.
Even after she'd moved halfway across the country as an adult, the problem persisted, and Amelia was finally tired enough of it that she was considering going to see a doctor.
It was an idea that had been thrown out there by the only teacher Amelia had ever told about this. Ms. Archer had been her favorite teacher in middle school, and she'd confided in her one day that she was worried something was wrong with her.
"You should go speak with a professional, Mia," the woman had said, concern in her voice. "What you're describing isn't normal. I think it would be different if you were already asleep and started sleepwalking to other places, but it sounds like you're always awake when this happens."
Hearing someone validate what she was saying was amazing, and honestly, that had been enough for eleven year old Amelia.
Unfortunately, Ms. Archer had been very concerned and had ended up calling Amelia's parents to recommend a doctor she knew.
Her parents were furious with her when they found out that she had been spreading "that old story" to the school. Amelia didn't think she would ever forget the way her father had grabbed her arm and shook her, yelling in her face that she wasn't to go around trying to make teachers think she was crazy. That wasn't watch Hatchers did. There was no mental illness in the Hatcher family, and what did Amelia think she was doing?
Amelia had ended up in tears, assuring her parents that she was sorry, that she would never do it again, and that she wasn't crazy.
"Tomorrow you are to go and tell this woman that you made all of this up for attention," her mother had said, cold anger radiating in her eyes. "And make sure she hasn't told any one else. Do you know what something like this could do to your father's reputation?"
She'd cried herself to sleep that night, and the next morning, she'd made her way to Ms. Archer's classroom to tell her in a muted voice that she'd made it all up.
Even to this day, she could remember the way the teacher had looked at her, that mix of surprise and disappointment on her face as she assured her there was no harm done and sent her off to her first class of the day.
From that mome
nt on, Amelia hadn't mentioned it to any one else, other than her best friend who already knew. What was worse, was that there was now a little seed of worry planted in her that maybe she was crazy. Maybe there hadn't been any mental illness in the Hatcher family until she came along.
It hadn't been easy, growing up with a senator for a father. Having to watch her step all the time and never getting to be a normal child had been hard, but having to keep all of this a secret when she'd been scared had been the worst part.
Amelia wasn't scared anymore. Now she was just angry and frustrated.
Frustrated enough that the first thing she did after a hot shower was fire up her laptop and start looking for doctors in the area.
She noticed that she had missed a Skype message, and when she clicked on the icon, she saw that there were a bunch from her best friend that she'd probably been passed out for.
Hey sorry, she typed when she saw that Cassie was still online. I was knocked out when you sent these.
A moment or two passed and then Cassie replied.
CC: went to bed early last night?
Amyface: Not exactly.
CC: oh. are you okay?
Cassie Carpenter was the only person who Amelia still talked to about what happened to her. The two of them had been best friends since before they could even read properly, and even though Cassie lived on the other side of the country now, they still talked on the phone and online as often as they could.
Cassie knew all about her problem and had been encouraging her to go see someone about it for years.
It was no secret that Cassie had always thought that Amelia's parents were too hard on her, and she'd been outraged when Mia had finally told her what had happened the last time she'd even considered going to the doctor.
Mia already knew what was coming when the little moving pencil icon showed that Cassie was still typing.
CC: mia you know i try to stay out of this because i understand why you don't want to see a doctor, but this has been going on for too long. how do you know you don't have brain damage or something? or some kind of serious condition??? i'm literally begging you to go see someone. your parents can't do anything to stop you now, and who actually cares about their reputation if it means finding out what's going on?????
It wasn't anything Cassie hadn't said to her before, but this was one of the first times that Mia was actually considering it. Because Cassie was right. This had been going on for close to twenty years now, and it didn't seem like it was going to stop any time soon.
What if she did have brain damage? What if letting it continue unchecked was just making it worse?
The diagnosis didn't have to be that she was crazy, when there were so many other things that it could be, and Mia knew that she wasn't going to get anywhere near a solution if she didn't go speak to a professional.
Amyface: I know, Cass. I'm actually looking for doctors right now. Because I really am tired of this and it's starting to worry me.
CC: i can't believe it's only JUST starting to worry you. i've been worried since we were kids.
Amyface: I know. I just. I'm worried about what it might be.
CC: do you want me to come down there??? i can you know. i've got loads of vacation time saved up and I can come hold your hand or something.
Mia smiled at the screen. Having Cassie come be with her while she did this would be wonderful, but she knew it was something that she was going to have to deal with on her own.
Amyface: Thanks, Cass. But I think I need to handle this alone for right now. Just until I know what's going on. Then maybe I'll come see you? I could use a vacation too.
CC: or maybe we meet in Hawaii and have a real vacation.
Amyface: Now you're talking. Anyway, I'm going to do some research on these doctors and then maybe try to get an appointment. I'll let you know how it goes.
CC: i'm proud of you. take care of yourself, doll. <3<3<3
Amyface: I'll try. <3
Somewhat encouraged by her friend's support, Mia spent the next several hours going through the lists of doctors that worked with her insurance and were nearby. They all had a little blurb about them, but that wasn't really helpful.
She didn't even know what to call what happened to her, so how would she even know who to look for?
Her head was telling her to go to a medical doctor who would run tests and take blood and all that, but her gut was telling her that maybe there was something more psychological at work here.
And ugh, that was what she had always been afraid of.
Chewing on her lip some, she sighed and just decided to go for both options. If the doctor found something, then she could always cancel the appointment with the shrink. And if neither of them found anything, then...
Well, then she didn't know what she was going to do.
She lived alone now, and it had gotten much worse since she'd moved out of her parents' house, almost as if the presence of her parents had been holding back whatever this was instead of exacerbating it, like Mia would have assumed.
The thought that no one would be able to figure this out scared her, but she didn't dwell on it. Instead she made the phone calls, making an appointment with the medical doctor for the next day and the shrink for the end of the week.
Once that was done, she went to the kitchen and cooked to clear her head. She hadn't eaten since the pizza she'd had for dinner (and for some reasons she was always famished after one of her "episodes"), so she made a large breakfast with pancakes, eggs and sausage. Then sat down and demolished it.
Aside from her episode and the fact that she was a senator's daughter, Amelia Hatcher thought she was a pretty normal woman. She liked to listen to music and spend time with her friends. She cooked when she was stressed out, and she worked as an illustrator for children's books. Her parents had been upset when she'd moved from their sprawling house in Maryland to a cute little town house in North Carolina once she'd finished with art school (and of course, they'd been upset that art school had even been a thing at all), but she wasn't worried about disappointing them as much once she was an adult.
Her mother complained that they never saw her enough, and her father seemed to take the move as a personal insult, complaining that he couldn't very well talk about family values if he didn't have his family close by, but Amelia hadn't cared.
She'd spent a very big portion of her life suffering in silence thanks to her parents, and she didn't think that the kind of emotional pain that had put on her was going to go away any time soon.
And she wanted to be on her own, anyway.
It was for the best, even if it did mean that her condition got worse.
Mia was the kind of woman who never put very much effort into her appearance (the days of having to be dressed up and made up perfectly every time she left the house because someone might want pictures of Senator Hatcher's daughter were gone, thank goodness), and she made herself look good by her standards and her standards alone.
There were very few things in her life that she had direct control over for so long that it made her almost anal about controlling the things she could. She worked for herself, technically, so she wouldn't have to answer to a boss. She lived on her own so she wouldn't have to deal with roommates, and she went where she wanted, when she wanted, with the exception of when her body wasn't under her control.
If she thought too long about it, it started to get scary. After all, she had no idea what she was doing when she was asleep and losing time. She assumed that she was asleep, but then, she never felt rested afterwards and her head ached for hours later.
For all Mia knew, she was robbing banks or leading some double life.
All the more reasons why she needed to find out what was going on sooner rather than later. Putting it off for as long as she had already was doing nothing but making things worse, most likely.
The next day, she had her appointment with the first doctor. She had a general practitioner that she went to for physicals and check
ups, but for some reason she didn't want to go to him with this.
She wanted to start clean with a new doctor who didn't know her and wouldn't have any preconceived notions about her.
For some reason, she wanted to look nice for this, so she got dressed in a nice sweater and dark jeans, spending some time brushing her hair and putting on light makeup. Plenty of people had told her that she was attractive (not a beauty queen like her mother, but she would do). Mia was a Hatcher through and through with the bright green eyes that came from her father's side of the family as well as the strong nose and full cheeks. Her hair was almost black, it was so dark brown, and it was thick and shiny, falling in a curtain down her back, almost to her waist.
Even though her mother had hounded her about getting contacts for years ("Why would you hide those lovely eyes behind glasses?"), she mostly kept wearing her glasses, liking the way they made her face look.
She was average height and curvy, which Cassie said made her even hotter than her mother who was model thin and could wear a size zero. Mia had no opinion on it, really. She'd been on a few dates before, but with a secret like hers, there was no way she could really get close to anyone. How would she even explain what happened to her every other day just about?
Shaking her head, Mia grabbed her purse and the list of symptoms she had written down the night before. Maybe it would be good to be able to explain exactly what was going on.
"We'll have to wait for some results from the lab, Ms. Hatcher," Dr. Chung said. "But I don't think we're going to find anything that would explain your.... situation."
Somehow, Mia wasn't surprised. "Oh," she said. "Alright."
"You're perfectly healthy from what I can see. The only think I could think that would cause something like you describe is a psychological issue. As I said, we're still waiting for some scans and tests to come back, but." He shrugged.
Mia tried very hard not to slump in her seat. It was a little silly how hard she had been hoping that it would be a medical condition. Something she could treat with medicine or something and then be done with.
