They start putting together their stories, trying to make sense of all that has happened to them in the last four years, trying to understand how their lives have changed, and desperately hoping they can finally piece themselves back together. 

     After Nicolai went missing, she searched for answers. His mother didn’t know where he had gone. In fact, he was supposed to show up with things from the market for her, but never had. Kaeda questioned vendors, and some of them claimed to have seen him and sold to him, but none could say where he had gone after making his purchases. She searched every alley, praying to the Gods at every turn that she wouldn’t find him in any of them, and she didn’t. 

     He didn’t have many friends, as he spent most of his free time with her, but there were a few males he worked with on the docks whom he had become close with. She tracked them down during their shifts and questioned them, but none of them had seen him since the last time they’d worked together.

     What else could she do? Every time she came up empty-handed, the panic rising in her grew more overwhelming. It seemed that no one in all of Tavedor had seen Nicolia since he’d been in the market during dimming. 

     She knew he would never leave without telling her. Something terrible had happened to him, she just knew it. 

     She wound up at home, shaken and confused by the situation. Not knowing what to do next, she sat on the edge of their bed and cried into her hands. Where could he be? Would he come back? She decided she should stay there, in case he returned, and at some point she fell asleep.

     She shot out of bed at the sound of the door crashing open. Believing it was Nicolai finally returning, she raced across the room towards the silhouette in the doorway. Just as she was noticing the height and build were wrong, a terrible pain blossomed along her left cheek and temple. Her vision went blurry and she stumbled from the shock. 

     She’d been hit very hard with something that felt metallic, and she could feel blood slowly running down the side of her face.

     As she tells that part of the story, she can see the rage in Nicolai’s eyes when he hears someone had harmed her. It’s sweet to know he cares, but her story is just beginning and that was only the first of the abuses she had suffered

     “Don’t fight.” a deep male voice said, as he grabbed her roughly by the arm. “I’m taking you to the Queen.”

     What queen? There were three here in the Sun Lands alone, and more across the ocean. The kingdom of Basklon, where Tavedor is located, doesn’t even have a reigning queen - just King Raynar.

     She didn’t know what queen this male intended to take her to, but she damn sure wasn’t planning on going with him. Especially not after he’d hit her and manhandled her. 

     “I’m not going anywhere with you!” she spat. “Get out of my house!”

     He only laughed. “You call this a house?” he sneered, as he kicked over the stack of books she kept on the floor by her favorite threadbare chair. “This place hardly deserves to be called a shack.”

     She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he only gripped her tighter. She knew she would have bruises shaped like his hand across her upper arm, not to mention the marks that would be left by the blow to the side of her face. 

     The shock was fading, and she was steadily growing more enraged. How dare this asshole bust into her house and treat her and her things this way?

     He thought because he was bigger and stronger than her, that it would be easy for him to come in here and take her wherever it was he planned on taking her. Well, he had another thing coming. She would not go quietly or easily. She would teach this brute a lesson that he would never forget. 

     She kept the house dark with thick cloth over the single window, and used candles to light the space because it felt cozy. She enjoyed the soft smell of melting wax. She had left a candle burning for Nicolai when she’d fallen asleep and it was still burning, with hot wax spilling down its length onto the tray below it. 

     Without hesitating, she yanked the candle free from the hardened wax at the base and slammed it into his face. The flame had gone out as soon as she jerked it through the air, but the wax around the wick remained hot. He screamed and let go of her arm, putting both of his hands over his left eye. She got him good, and as soon as her arm was free from his grasp, She ran right out the door. She didn’t stop or look back.

     She ran until she made it into the tavern where she worked, thanking the Gods it was always open. She hurried behind the bar and into the stockroom in the back, where she finally stopped to catch her breath. What was happening? First Nicolai goes missing, and then someone breaks into her house and tries to take her away - not just take her away, but to a queen! Could it be a coincidence?

     “It wasn’t a coincidence, was it?” Nicolai asks her, staring into his nearly empty cup of tea.

     “No.” it hadn’t been. All the terrible things that had happened to them, she knew now that they were connected. They were all because of her. She doesn't know if he knows why yet. She’s afraid to know, so instead of asking, she just continues with her story.

     While she was catching her breath in the back of the bar, her boss, a short and portly old man, doddered in and asked her what she was doing there during her time off. His eyes grew wide as she explained that she had been attacked in her home and had run away and ended up there. 

     “Kaeda,” he said urgently, “there was a man in here asking about you earlier. He said he was looking for you on behalf of Queen Nola. It sounded important. I thought it could be something good for you. I told him where to find you.”