Meleng opened his eyes to a view of an ice ceiling. A quick glance to either side confirmed he was in his room in the Guest Lodge. He was lying on the mattress there.

How had he got here?

For that matter, where had he been before here?

He couldn’t remember.

Except…

Yes. Yes, he could remember going through this before.

So many times. Illusion after illusion. Dream after dream.

Had he gotten so much better at them that he was recognising them right away?

“Are you there?” he asked. “I think you might need to start again.”

“You’re awake!” Sinitïa sprung into view, bouncing onto the bed beside him and making his head ache.

He hadn’t noticed her at first. But then, that was how these dreams usually started. She—or sometimes someone else—was always out of sight to begin with, by the window or something.

Though it was odd he could remember the other times.

Sinitïa grimaced. “I’m sorry. Mikranasta warned me that you might have a headache when you woke up. I should have been more careful. I’m just so excited to see you.”

He pulled himself up into a seated position, his head screaming in protest. The room spun a little, but his vision soon cleared.

Sinitïa put a hand on the side of his face. Her touch was electrifying, and shivers ran down his spine, arms, and legs. He closed his eyes, and her touch remained. It felt so much more real than in any of the previous dreams.

“Are you real?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Mikranasta said you might be unsure at first. What did they do to you?”

He put his own hand over hers and held hers there against his face. He didn’t open his eyes; he didn’t want to ruin the feeling with sight. “Just dreams that they wanted me to think were real. I usually woke up here, and you were usually here, though sometimes it was someone else. Jorvan or Akna. Felitïa a couple times. Even Captain Gen once.”

“Why?”

“There was a mentalist. He said his diare wanted him to practise on a human.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault. I always figured it out, which is the only way I was able to talk to him.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“Your eyes. Usually.”

“Huh?”

He opened his eyes and stared into hers. Her face was very close to his. Pale blue. And they didn’t sparkle. He closed his eyes again and waited a moment before opening them once more.

Still pale blue.

He smiled and clutched her hand tighter. “They’re still the same.”

She looked confused. “Shouldn’t they be?”

“Yes, they should. They absolutely should.”

“You’re crying.”

“Because I think you might actually be real. Oh gods, Sinitïa. It was horrible. So horrible. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

She put her arms around him and hugged him against her chest. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here for you.” She sniffled. “I’ll always be here for you.”

And then he wailed. It all poured out of him, the terror, the frustration, the anger. He sobbed into her chest for ages. It could have been hours for all he knew.

This was the kind of thing he had not wanted Sinitïa to see. When she had first joined him and Jorvan in Arnor City, he had been terrified of what the terrors they would face might do to her, and terrified that she would see what it had done to him. Now, here he was. Pouring it all out to her. He had never wanted this. She deserved so much better.

Perhaps that was what his captor wanted. Could he really be sure this was real?

He forced himself to stop crying and pulled away from her. She seemed reluctant to let go at first, but she did. He looked at her face. Her make-up was stained with tears, but her eyes…

Still pale blue.

And her hair: blonde, slightly curled, and tied into a pair of pigtails, each with a yellow bow.

Her hair had been like that the whole time, hadn’t it? He hadn’t really paid attention to that.

“Sorry,” he said.

She smiled at him. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

She was dressed him a sapphire-blue gown and wearing a necklace with a bear pendant. He hadn’t seen her dress so extravagantly on this trip. “You look…incredible.”

Her cheeks reddened. “You think so? I don’t have my handmaids, so I had to do everything myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at that the last month or so, but still not as good as they can do. Especially my hair.”

“Your make-up’s a little smudged.”

She snorted. “That’s what I get for crying. It’s okay. I can touch it up.”

“Is there some sort of special occasion?”

She broke into a wide smile. “I’m going to give a speech to the Lamdritta!”

“A speech?”

She nodded vigorously. “As an official Arnorin representative—kind of. I’ve never given a speech before, but I’ve watched Mother do it many times. And Cerus. Cerus is really good at speeches. So I’ll just be like them. Etiënne and Miana helped me write it. I’m going to tell the Lamdritta off—kind of.”

“Wow, that’s incredible. I can’t wait to hear it.”

Her smile fell into a frown and she broke eye contact with him, staring down at her lap instead. “I really wish you could, but it’s in just a little while, and Mikranasta said that even if you’re awake, you have to stay here and rest. You won’t have the strength to travel to the Governance Building. Sorry.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “That’s okay. I bet you’ll do great.”

She peered up at him. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

She smiled again. He liked it when she smiled.

“You really do look amazing.” A thought occurred to him. It was a little draughty in here. He looked down at himself. He was topless. He lifted the blanket over his lower areas just slightly and confirmed he had nothing else on either. He looked back up.

Sinitïa bit her lower lip. “Yeah, they found you that way. We didn’t dress you because...well…” Her cheeks reddened and she looked away again. “It was easier to clean up after you. You’ve been asleep awhile, see, and, well…”

He nodded. “I get it.” He shouldn’t be embarrassed. It was just natural bodily processes. But he was embarrassed anyway. He hated thinking of anyone else having to clean up his messes. “So, uh...how long have I been here?”

“Since we found you, two days. It’s been four days since you were kidnapped.”

He was terrified to ask who had done it. It was a strange terror. He was unlikely to recognise whoever it was. “Who...uh…?”

She caught on to what he was trying to say. “Darkers. Isyar Darkers. They’re called the Pundritta. Or well, their leaders are. There were a bunch of them holding you, but Nascanmat was the one doing things to your mind.”

“Nascanmat? Is that…?”

“Paydamat’s siare.” She scowled and her upper lip twitched. “I hate both of them. I hate them so much.”

“Paydamat’s a Darker?”

“Yep.”

It explained how she’d treated him, he supposed. “What happened to them?”

Sinitïa sighed. “Paydamat got away. Nobody knows where she is. They caught Nascanmat and one of the other Darkers, but…”

“But what?”

“Is it bad that I kind of wish they’d killed them? I know they want to question them, and they can probably learn something important, but I don’t want to be there because I think I’d want to kill them. I mean, if I saw Nascanmat right now, I’d… Am I a bad person?”

He took her hand. “Of course not. We all have bad thoughts sometimes. I’m having a few right now. About Nascanmat and Paydamat.”

She snickered.

He rubbed her hand. “You’re the best person I know.”

She blushed again, but she kept looking at him and smiled. “Melly, I, um…”

“Melly?”

Her hand tensed and she grimaced. “Oh. I...I sort of started using that at some point. I can stop if you don’t like it. It was kind of silly of me.”

“No, no. It’s okay. I don’t mind you using it.” Was that a lie? That was a bit of a lie. It wasn’t a name he would have ever thought of applying to himself, and he definitely wouldn’t like most other people using it. But somehow, it seemed right coming from her.

She smiled demurely.

“What did you want to say?”

“Oh, um…” She sat up straighter, wiped her eyes, and brushed back a few strands of hair. “When you were kidnapped, I got so scared, and so angry. I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for you. I almost did that magic thing which could burn me out. There were all these lights coming out of me. Chiansamorkin saved me, and she was even going to teach me how to use magic. But oh yeah, she turned out to be a Darker.”

His head swam, and his headache reasserted itself. “Wait, what?”

“Not one of the Darkers who took you, but yeah. She and Jorvan had a big fight. I was there at the beginning, but she knocked me out… But anyway, that’s not what I was trying to say.”

Meleng rubbed his forehead. There were obviously a lot of things he needed to catch up on, but he understood why he was supposed to rest more. He would question her or Jorvan about these things more thoroughly later. “What were you trying to say?”

“I love you,” she blurted.

He smiled and took her hand. “I know that.”

“No, I mean, like… There are different kinds of love, right? I love my mother and father, but that’s different to the way I love Annai. With Annai, I hate her and love her at the same time, which is really weird. But I love Felitïa, and Quilla. And I love Jorvan. And they’re all different. But I got afraid of some kinds of love because I thought they had to include sex. Or well, I always thought that was stupid, but everyone else seemed to think that, so I believed it. But Jorvan says it doesn’t have to. And I was talking to Etiënne and he said the same thing.”

“What are you getting at?” He had a pretty good idea what she was getting at, but he felt it a good idea to focus her.

“Melly, you’re my best friend, but I think you’re even more than that. I love you more than anyone. I realised that when you were gone, and I couldn’t tell you. I knew that I had to tell you when we found you again. I know it’s an Isyar thing, but I kind of want you to be my fomase. Jorvan said it’s okay for us to use the word. If you want to, that is.”

He stared at her. One of the illusions had gone something like this. No, there were several actually, just in one of them, she had even tried to seduce him. That had been what had given the dream’s illusory status away that time, not her eye colour. It had been one of the earliest dreams.

Her eyes were still blue, so either his captor had solved that issue or she really was real.

Of course she was real. This was real. Why did he keep doubting?

“Say something,” she said. “Please?”

“Right, sorry.” His captor had said she held a prominent position in his mind. And she did. More than prominent. He’d known that for a while now. His feelings for her confused him. Was he in denial?

He had never been interested in romance. Or rather, it wasn’t so much romance he wasn’t interested in. He had just never felt physical attraction towards anyone else. The idea of a close, loving relationship didn’t bother him; it was even kind of appealing. Like Sinitïa, it was the sexual aspect of romance that didn’t interest him. He wasn’t sure it disgusted him as much as it did Sinitïa, but it held no appeal to him.

So, what exactly were his feelings towards her?

Gods, he was being an idiot. He knew his feelings. He just didn’t want to admit them, even to himself. But what if this wasn’t real? What if it was all still an illusion? He’d be admitting to his captor that he…

He’d be admitting what his captor already knew, so it made no difference. Time to get over his fears and just tell her.

He took her hand again, wrapped it in both of his, and looked her in the eyes. Still that wonderful blue, but also filled with fear as they waited for what he was about to say.

“Sinitïa, I…” He was trembling and he wondered if she could feel it. Probably. “I’d be honoured to be your fomase.”

Her mouth slowly widened into a smile while her eyes filled with tears. She was trembling as much as he was.

“I love you,” he said.

She pulled her hand free and threw her arms around him, barrelling him over and squealing.

His head pounded. “Careful! My head, I’m still dizzy!”

She shrieked, let go of him, and sat back up. With a laugh, she wiped her eyes. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He lay on his back a bit longer before risking sitting up again. When he started to prop himself up, she offered her hand and helped him.

They stared at each other silently for a moment, apart from an occasional sniffle from Sinitïa. Her eyes were still blue.

She scrunched her shoulders. “So…”

He leaned forward and kissed her. He wasn’t entirely sure how to do this. He’d never kissed anyone before—not like this, not on the lips. He just sort of pressed his lips to hers and held them there. Something seemed not quite right, so he pulled away.

She smiled.

“I’m kind of new at this,” he said.

“Me too.”

He should have put his arms around her, should have been more… He wasn’t sure. More active maybe? Something like that?

He tried again, put his arms around her this time. He tried to make it something more. Did he need to move his lips in some way?

They parted again.

“That didn’t work, did it?” he said.

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“I’m trying to figure out—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Maybe...and this is just a thought that you can ignore because I know I’m not very smart, but—”

“Nonsense. Stop saying you’re not smart.”

She snickered and stuck her tongue out at him. “Just testing.” She grinned. “But anyway, you are smart. You’re the smartest person I know, which means you think a lot about everything, and that’s good. But maybe this time, you should just, I don’t know...not think? Just do it.” She placed her hand on the side of his head, ran her fingers through his hair, leaned forward, and kissed him.

He closed his eyes this time, let her lips electrify him like her fingers did. He just let it happen. And it felt right.

“That was better,” she said.

He nodded and breathed slowly, just remembering the moment.

Something rubbed against his mouth, but not her lips. Coarser and rougher.

He opened his eyes just as she sat back, a handkerchief in her raised hands.

“You got some of my make-up on you,” she said.

He stared at her a moment, then laughed.

She joined in. “It made you look kind of silly.”

He instinctively wiped his mouth with his arm. “So, what do we do now?”

“I have to go give my speech soon, and you should probably get more rest.”

“No, I meant more generally.”

She giggled. “Oh. I don’t know. I guess we just do what we’ve always done. Why should anything change? Except some kissing now. I kind of like the kissing.”

“Heh, me too,” he said.

They kissed again.

“Oh!” She straightened herself up. “There was something else I wanted to ask you. You know how Jorvan and Fevionawishtensen were going to do that fomaze thing. You know, the one with the zzz sound, not the sss sound.”

He nodded.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen because Chian...well, you know. Jorvan was really sad. Anyway, it got me thinking. It’s all about becoming family, right? About making friends part of your family, which I think is really wonderful. I wish humans had a way to add people you like to your family, other than just marrying someone. Anyway, you don’t really have a family. I mean, yes, you do, but you haven’t heard from them in years and years, so they kind of don’t count. Know what I mean?”

He nodded again. “Kind of. What are you getting at?” He knew what she was getting at, but, once again, it didn’t hurt to focus her towards it.

“Well, I can’t go back to my family, so I kind of don’t have a family, and Jorvan does, but I think he gets lonely wandering the rest of the world without them, so I was thinking…”

“You want us to do the fomase thing—”

“Fomaze.”

“Right, sorry, fomaze.”

“I finally figured out the difference.”

“You want us to do it with Jorvan.”

“And Fevionawishtensen.”

“Right, of course. Is it even allowed with humans?”

“Jorvan was unsure, but Fevionawishtensen says it’s allowed. It’s just never been done before.”

“Oh, so they know about this already.”

She grinned. “I asked them already, and they both said yes. You’re the only left to agree.”

“No pressure then.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re silly. You know you want this.” Her grin slipped into a frown. “You do want it, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I want it.”

She threw her arms around him again with another squeal. Then she kissed him.

He closed his eyes again to enjoy the sensations. He never thought he would enjoy kissing. It had always seemed so dull and pointless. Perhaps it just needed the right person.

There was a knock at the door.

He opened his eyes as Sinitïa turned her head to look at the door. She didn’t let go of him, though, and kept hugging him close.

The door swung open to reveal Miana Ting. “It’s time, your Highness.”

“I’ll just be a minute.”

Ting bowed their head, then pulled the door shut.

Sinitïa looked back at Meleng. She scrunched her nose. “You look a little...horrified.”

Meleng grimaced. “Oh, uh...it’s just, of all the people to catch us like this.”

Sinitïa giggled. “Miana can be kind of scary, I know. But they’re actually really nice once you get to know them.”

Meleng didn’t really doubt that, but it was the process of getting to know them that was the difficult part.

“I better go,” Sinitïa said. “I still have to touch up my make-up. I really wish you could come.”

“You can tell me about it later. I bet you’ll do great.”

She grinned. “Oh, there are Élite outside. They’re there to protect you. If you need anything, just ask them.”

“Will they understand me?” he asked.

She grimaced and shook her head. “Jorvan said they’ll go get someone who can though.” She kissed him again. “I’ll see you soon.” She jumped to her feet and headed to the door, stopping partway. She turned around, ran back over to him, and kissed him once more. Then she headed out the door.

Meleng took a deep breath once she was gone, took a moment to remember the feel of her hands in his hair and on his back, her lips on his.

He looked around the room, at the table, the window, his pack of things against the wall. Looking for anything that was just slightly off or out of place.

Everything seemed fine.

He really had to stop doing that. The illusions were clearly over. This was not a dream.

So why did he keep having doubts? He should be happy right now.

And he was. He was happier than he could remember ever being. He was in love with Sinitïa, and she was in love with him, and it was wonderful.

But he was terrified too. Most of it was the good kind of terror. The kind which was excitement for the future but with the added uncertainty of what to expect. But there was also just a hint of the bad kind of terror, the terror that this was still just a dream. And he couldn’t shake it.

He just needed time and rest, he told himself. The fear would subside and go away eventually.

It would, wouldn’t it?