1 For The Restless Heart

Her lashes fluttered slightly, lost and confused, as her fingers brushed over the sheets soaked in cold blood.

She was not hurt.

But she remembered dying.

The numbing raw fear of losing herself―the desperation, the helplessness―was all she could recall, everything else was shrouded in her mind as if buried and forgotten.

Alyssane brushed those thoughts away, 'I cannot be seen here.'

It was not her room. She was never supposed to be out of her room.

But as soon as Alyssane tried to move, a sharp pain erupted across her, the hurried beatings of her heart started echoing so loud that they drowned out all other sounds. 

The more she fought against the ache, the worse it became.

With each pulse, each movement, a surge of smothering heat was coursing through her veins, leaving her limbs heavy and leaden.

"What… what's wrong?" Her vision grew hazy, and the room spun in a nauseating blur. Alyssane clung to the sheets, hands trembling.

'Poison.' She thought.

But who would care to kill someone like her?

She was no one.

Alyssane forced herself off the bed, the deafening sound of her heart was all she could hear, and all she could see was her vision dipping in and out of a drowsy haze.

She winced when her feet met the floor.

It was painfully cold, and damp.

"Is that…?"

There were shattered pieces of glass on the floor that nearly cut her, surrounded by dark blood. With hesitation, her gaze trailed the slick wetness of the man lying dead. His empty eyes were open, staring at her in silence.

Before Alyssane could grasp the situation, heavy footsteps hurried outside, and three guards burst inside the room. They froze instantly, eyes flickering with shock and fear as they looked from the dead man to Alyssane.

"What did you do?" One of them demanded, his voice shaking with fury.

She tried to speak, "Nothing, I don't even know how I―"

Another guard sharply cut off her words, "Silence!"

He strode over to her, roughly pulling her arm and nearly dragging her out of the room.

Alyssane, weakened by the poison, could barely resist. She half stumbled, half forgot what was even happening as cold iron shackles were clasped around her wrists.

The guards did not touch her after that, they only shoved her forward.

Some onlookers peered out of their rooms. Some remained in their bliss, their faint moans serving as an odd backdrop to the haunting night.

'What the hell was I doing here?'

Alyssane silently walked, the cold wet fabric of her dress sticking against her skin. Her body was numb, her thoughts frozen in a haze she could not fight through.

"What's wrong with her?" A new guard, Mason, wondered aloud, staring at Alyssane. "No smell of alcohol, but she seems high."

The elder knight, Gavin, scoffed, "Probably drugged herself. No one goes near her."

"This looks different…"

"Well, shut it, Mason! Do I look like I care?" Gavin snapped, "We're in deep trouble because of this crazy woman!"

The guards of the Pearl Manor were there only to keep the slaves from escaping, nothing more, nothing less, but now they faced severe consequences for failing to protect a noble.

Everyone in the manor was at risk of losing something or another, all who knew of the death that night, were anxious. The brothel could be shut down in an instant, and Alyssane may not be the only one to get executed for such a crime.

The crown was never fair to their kind.

Hateful gazes and murmurs were thrown their way. Everyone was staring at Alyssane, whispering among themselves, some louder than the others.

"Look at her, not a shred of guilt!"

"We can kill her right here."

"Who would care if she dies?"

Mason, growing pale, hesitated. "Shouldn't we first take her to the physician first?"

Gavin's voice turns more bitter. "We lock her in the tower, everything after that will be dealt with by the royal knights."

Despite being the city's wealthiest and largest pleasure house, the situation was far out of Pearl Manor's reach.

Mason glanced at Alyssane, who calmly stared at the distractingly beautiful moon. "Is there nothing you want to say?" he asked, tense.

Alyssane offered a numb smile, knowing her words would fall on deaf ears.

The pain lingered, but her mind was thinking more clearly now… remembering a few fragments of her recent memories.

None of them useful.

"Don't bother." The oldest guard interjected, his voice weary, "You don't want to get mixed up with this one."

"This might not be a simple murder," Mason argued.

Gavin sneered. "She's trouble through and through. Believe us, it has to be her doing."

"Really?" Mason found it hard to believe. The alarming amount of blood aside, Alyssane seemed so calm and quiet. 

"Always running away, vandalizing things," Gavin glared at Alyssane, "Sweet one moment, violent the next. And lo, this time she even killed someone!"

Alyssane was never violent towards Gavin, he fled before she could do so.

The eldest guard sighed. "She does not have a sound mind."

"Then why keep her here?" Mason frowned.

Some would say Madame Juan pitied Alyssane. Sold to the brothel as a child, if Madame Juan had abandoned her back then, Alyssane would have to suffer in the harsh streets of the city.

They might become more confused once they see her face. But truth was more complex, the market had many admirers of oddities, some far more insane than one could imagine.

The guards escorted Alyssane to the northern tower of the Pearl Manor. An old fire had charred its grey walls turning them a haunting black.

'In the darkness, the walls were like demonic shadows from afar.' Alyssane remembered a voice from her dream, she remembered watching the same tower from an unknown place.

'But I have never ventured that far from the manor.' She thought, 'And the night sky feels disturbingly familiar.'

Her memories resurfaced, remnants of a dream, too vivid to be just that… she remembered how real it had felt as if her reality itself was weaved from imagination, the dream was so long she felt she lived another life.

The night's moon was a rare shade of blue, something she had never seen before. But she felt like she did. Alyssane's steps fall slower. It was too similar, distinct yet…

'Then… there were fireworks…' some glimpses of her dream were becoming clear.

Fireworks burst overhead, in clouds of vivid shimmers. Her memories surged forward.

'And the town bell rang for the first in years…'

Soon after, it does―ominously, impatiently.

Fear gripped Alyssane's heart like icy tendrils, her pulse quickening with each passing moment. She was remembering… something, wrong things… she remembered dying, a bone deep ache that completely shattered her.

But she was alive, and nothing made sense.

The dream, her memories, and her waking world.

Everything was crashing together.