Chapter 9 Seed of Memory

The silence in my room was a living thing. Thick. Suffocating. I tried to sleep, to escape this emptiness, as I heard what I felt was a recovery from my body. However, the memory of the alley. Of the power. That had surged through me, keeping me tethered to the waking world. I was overthinking it, I knew, but the questions became a relentless tide towards me.

"You cannot fall asleep, can you?"

The voice. Soft. Ethereal. Came from the foot of my bed. I sat bolt upright. My heart hammering against my ribs. "WHO'S THERE?" I called out. Even in my scream, my voice became a pathetic squeak in the darkness of my room.

"I wonder."

A figure began to appear. Standing near the balcony doors. Her form bathed in the moonlight. She was solid and real, with long blonde hair that seemed to capture and hold the moonlight. She wore a simple white robe, and her expression was a gentle one. Melancholic beauty.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

"Don't be afraid, Aurelia," she said, her voice soft and melodic.

"Who… who are you?" I finally managed to regain my voice.

"I am a friend," she said, taking a step closer. I could see her eyes now, one the blue of the deepest ocean, the other the green of a sun-dappled forest. "I have come to return something to you. Something that was lost."

"Lost?" I asked, confused. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to understand, darling," she said, her voice filled with a strange pity. "You only need to remember and memorise it."

She was beside my bed now, her presence both calming and deeply unsettling. She reached out a hand, her finger long and elegant. "Forgive me, darling," she whispered. "This may hurt a little."

She gently touched her forefinger to my forehead.

The moment her finger made contact. Sharp. A cold jolt shot through me, as if a needle of ice had pierced my head. There were no images. No sounds. Just a sudden, violent pressure building inside my head, a feeling of something strange being forced into the empty spaces of my mind.

I started to cough. Deep. A wracking cough that shook my entire body.

"Cough…Cough…" I doubled over, spitting a spray of dark blood onto the pristine white sheets of my bed. My nose began to bleed. The pain in my head was immense.

The woman pulled her finger back, her expression one of deep sorrow.

"What…cough…have you…done to me?" I asked, my voice a ragged whisper…

"I have planted a dianoia…" she said softly. "What grows from it is up to you." She turned, and from her back, a single, magnificent wing of pure white feathers unfurled, catching the moonlight like spun silver.

My breath caught in my throat. The statue in the town square. The timid goddess with one wing.

"Be careful, Aurelia darling," she said, her form beginning to glow translucent. "A story that deviates from its path invited the attentions of its creator."

And then she was gone, leaving me alone in the silent, moonlit room, trembling and bleeding…

The door opened silently. It was Adel. Her eyes, sharp and observant. Took in the scene in an instant. My trembling form. The blood on my face. The horrifying stain on the bed. For a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of shock in her expression, yet it was gone as quickly as it appeared. Replaced by a mask of calm.

"My lady," she said, her voice low. "Stay right there. Don't move."

She moved with silence. She fetched a fresh bowl of water and a cloth and began to gently clean the blood from my face and hands. Her touch was firm, grounding.

"I must tell this to Sofia, my lady…" she said.

Hearing that, I grabbed her hands. I glared into her eyes. "No," I said, my voice low and fierce, my grip on her wrists tightening. "You can't."

Adel's calm expression didn't waver. "My lady, you are bleeding for no discernible reason. It is my duty to inform the physician. I must."

"For this one, just don't tell her or anyone, Adel," I insisted, my voice trembling with a desperate urgency.

Adel's gaze remained locked with mine. The silence in the room became so stretched, thick and heavy. I could see the conflict warring in her eyes, the rigid lines of duty battling against something softer. Something more personal. Her loyalty was a tangible thing, a shield she held for the family, but right now, I was asking her to aim that shield against them, to protect me from their protection.

Finally, she let out a slow, measured breath. The tension in her shoulders seemed to dissolve, replaced by quiet resolve.

"To conceal something of this magnitude from Madam is a grave dereliction of my duty," she said, her voice low and even. "If they were to find out, the consequences for me would be severe."

My heart sank. It was a refusal.

"However," she continued, "my first duty is to you, my lady… I will not speak of this," Adel stated, her tone leaving no room for argument. "On one condition."

"What is that?" I breathed.

Her eyes bored into mine, demanding and absolute. "You will tell me what happened. Right now, I cannot protect you from dangers I do not understand, my lady."

…

How did I tell her about it…

The question hung in the air. Silent. Impossible demand. I looked into Adel's eyes, searching for a flicker of doubt. A hint of an escape. There was none. She had offered her loyalty to me, or did she?

Taking a shaky breath, I began, my voice barely a whisper. "It was a woman. She was here, in this room."

Adel's expression remained unreadable, but I saw her posture shift, her body becoming instantly more alert. "A woman? How did she get in?"

"I don't know," I admitted, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush. "She just… appeared. Near the balcony."

Adel listened. Her gaze never leaving my face. She didn't interrupt and didn't show a hint of disbelief.

"She said she came to return something that was lost," I continued. "She touched my forehead… And she said she planted something inside me. A 'dianoia'."

The word felt so strange on my tongue. Adel's expression remained unchanged, but I saw her hand, resting on her lap, clench into a fist.

"And then… the blood," I finished, my gaze dropping to the clean sheets she had just placed on the bed.

"This woman," Adel said, her voice quiet but sharp. "Did you see her face?"

I hesitated, then nodded. "She had… one wing."

Adel's composure finally broke. For a fraction of a second, I saw a look of pure. Unadulterated shock on her face before the mask of the perfect maid slammed back into place. She knew. She understood the significance of what I had just said.

"The goddess Gennaia," she breathed, the name a whisper of awe and disbelief.

The silence that followed was different. It was the silence of two people confronting a truth that was far beyond the scope of their ordinary lives.

Finally, Adel spoke, "We are no longer dealing with an illness, my lady. We are dealing with the attention of a goddess. This 'dianonia' is maybe a key to understanding it…"

She looked at me, her dark eyes filled with a new, chilling seriousness. "From this moment on, you will not be alone. You may tell me everything, no matter how small or strange it may seem. As I cannot protect you from an enemy whose motives I do not understand, especially with the goddess."

…

The secret I shared with Adel that night, fragile and dangerous, became the new foundation of my existence. In the six days that followed, a strange, surreal calm settled over the household. The nightmare did not return, and the voice in my head remained silent. But its question lingered, a constant, unsettling hum beneath the surface of my new life.

Sofia visited me daily, her enquiries about my mental state a gentle but persistent probing. I told her nothing of the goddess, only that the dreams had ceased. She seemed cautiously pleased, attributing my recovery to rest and the peaceful environment. My parents, too, seemed relieved, though a subtle tension remained in their eyes whenever they looked at me, a mixture of hope and a fear I couldn't quite decipher.

During those six days, my lessons with Lady Octavi began in earnest. She taught me about the history of the kingdom, the intricate web of noble politics, and the workings of the calendar. I learnt that the current year was 754 in the New Era, or NE, a system of twelve months, each with thirty days.

But the most significant change was the four children. They were given rooms in the servants' quarters and, for the first time in their lives, names. I was the one who named them. The boy, with his fierce, protective spirit, became Felix. The triplets, so identical yet so distinct, became Aelia, Alicia, and Alecia. We gave them ribbons to tell them apart: green for the mature, thoughtful Aelia; blue for the calm, possessive Alicia; and red for the bold, active Alecia. They were six years old, and their lives were beginning anew.

They were integrated into the household with surprising ease. The twins, who had once clung to me for attention, now had a new circle of friends. From my balcony, I would watch them in the courtyard below. Aurelio and Felix became inseparable, their days filled with the clash of wooden swords as my father, true to his word, began their training. Ophelia took the triplets under her wing, a miniature duchess instructing her new ladies-in-waiting on the finer points of etiquette.

The four children were also given tutors, learning alongside the twins. Aelia, the thoughtful one with the green ribbon, showed a remarkable aptitude for history and literature. Alicie, the quiet and observant one in blue, was a different case entirely; she seemed most fascinated by my mother, often watching her with a quiet intensity that was both unnerving and impressive. Alecia, the fiery one with the red ribbon, often abandoned her lessons with Ophelia to join the boys in the courtyard, her small frame a whirlwind of determined energy as she swung a wooden sword that was almost as big as she was. And Felix, like Aurelio, was drawn to the sword, his determination a match for my brother's own enthusiasm.

I found a strange, bittersweet pang in my heart as I watched them. I was happy for them, for the new lives they were building. But a part of me felt a twinge of loneliness. The twins no longer needed me in the same way. They had their own world now, a world I had given them, but one in which I was no longer the centre.