“Breathe daughter! Breathe!” Father’s voice breached the fog of pain.

  Memories of my incineration receded. I found myself lying on the dinner table with Father leaning over me. His hands were clamped over my throat and jaw, holding my head sideways.

  Drool trickled down the corner of my mouth. My raw throat burned with every ragged breath.

  I must’ve been choking on my saliva as I screamed.

  Mama and several maids stood beside Father, holding my arms and legs down. Horror and worry twisted their faces.

  Ben stood close by, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the table. His mouth hung open, and his chest heaved as if he had also been screaming. His face held that look of impotent despair.

  Elise hadn’t gotten out of her chair, but her eyes were wide, and her hands covered her mouth.

  Sweetness was everywhere around me, cloying and thick like nectar.

  The table was a mess of flipped-over dishes and scattered utensils. Juices from spilled meats and pasta pooled everywhere, including under my shredded dress. Trails of blood from my fingers and arms made the scene look like the aftermath of a savage battle.

  I had made quite the commotion.

  Father noticed the change in me. His grip slackened. “Is it over?”

  “For now.” The words scraped my throat.

  Already, I could feel another wave of memories and pain building up in the back of my mind. That virus, whatever it was, had found my weak spot, and it would be coming back for more.

  Even stronger this time.

  The hands gripping my arms and legs released me. Mama reached for me, but hesitated because of Father.

  He cupped my left cheek, where the cut was. “It’s that curse, isn’t it? I knew we should’ve done something.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t the cause, but it might’ve made things worse.

  Are the memories more vivid because of it? The pain certainly feels real, maybe even more so.

  I had tried hard not to remember those final moments.

  Mama pushed her way toward me. “Jo, you said you messed up. What happened?”

  I didn’t even know how to explain. Where to start, even.

  “I went back…”

  “To the dungeon?” Father cut in with a barrage of questions. “What happened? What monster did this? Was it a spell?”

  Maybe they had seen something like this before. Both Mama and Father had been to dungeons. Though, I knew it was a long shot that either of them had tried to break in the way the Demon Sword me did.

  “A wall… of really smooth stone…” Short breaths strung out my words. The undergarments that my girls had so meticulously layered on me were now torn and soaked with sweat.

  “A glass orb was on the wall, with a camera in it.”

  “A cam ra? Some artifact?” Father pressed urgently.

  Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, that worm, that virus, burrowed about, gathering more tortured memories.

  No time to explain.

  I forced my breathing to steady. “On the wall was a steel box with clear, square buttons. I tried to break in and it shocked me… Something got into my mind.”

  “What do you mean something got into your mind?!” Father screamed.

  Mama was shouting as well, and so was Ben, their cries of alarm clamoring.

  But static snow had distorted everything again. It buzzed even over my hearing. The wave of memories crested over me.

  I looked down at my shredded sleeves and blood-soaked hands.

  I need to get away!

  No matter how stoic I tried to remain, at some point, once the heat had seared deep enough, the baser part of me would take over. I’d fight to chew myself free like some rabid animal.

  I wasn’t strong enough to fully endure, always breaking at that last instant.

  My gaze met Father’s. “Tie up my hands, and gag me.”

  He stared down at me, shocked, not comprehending.

  “It’s coming again. I’ll hurt myself more if you don’t. And I don’t want to bite off my tongue.”

  My fingers grabbed the collar of his fine white shirt, staining it with splotches of red. I pulled his face down against mine. “Please…” I hissed up at him. “I don’t want them to hear.”

  Unlike the crowds that had jeered at me as I burned, here was everyone I cared about. And they cared for me in turn. They were distraught, their sweetness drowning me.

  Father shouted for rope and a towel. But I didn’t have time to witness the result.

  Already, the roaring flames consumed me.

  —

  My next moment of lucidity found me in bed with my hands tied behind my back. The rope was soft but tight. The chafe marks around my wrists burned as I shifted.

  Mama’s eyes caught mine and she quickly pulled the wet towel out of my mouth.

  “You should get some sleep, Mama,” my worn-down voice croaked.

  The rings under her eyes were heavy and dark.

  “Beatrice, the Duke, and I have been taking turns. But how can I rest when my daughter is being tortured all night?” Her hand wiped the sweat from my forehead. “Whenever we pulled the gag from your mouth, you’d scream in a strange language. The ancient tongue again?”

  Most likely.

  I moved my head over the plush, down pillow. “That thing in my mind is using my memories against me. It’s forcing me to relive the worst of them.”

  “You mentioned having lived lives before. What happened, child? Tell me the truth. Your screams are too harrowing. They tore at my soul.”

  “I…”

  This time, no unseen hands grabbed at me. Nothing constricted my throat. My [Tiara of Solace] must still be on. I had asked Mama and the girls to keep it on me at all times.

  But now, I had a different kind of hesitation.

  Still, this is Mama…

  “I was burned at the stake. The memories were my final moments when the fire got inside.”

  A sharp inhale of breath. Fingers dug into my shoulders. “Why? How many of those lives?”

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  “For heresy. For being a tool that needed to be discarded.” I lowered my gaze from the moisture pooling in her eyes. “As for how many… Over two hundred lifetimes, almost every one of them ending in flames. I’m not that young, Mama.”

  Her grip on my shoulders trembled. "Two hundred...? That... that isn't possible." She searched my face, and then our eyes met once more. "So that’s why your eyes look like that… even during that first night..."

  “Tell me, was at least one of them fulfilling?”

  I shook my head. “I lived from sixteen to nineteen for most of those lifetimes. During the last one, I had victory, but it wasn’t fulfilling.”

  “Nineteen… still so very young. You never even got to live. How could they?”

  I smiled up at her. “It seems I had drawn the ire of a sadistic god rather than the whimsical ones.”

  Snow covered my vision. A sharp buzz filled my eardrums. Pins stabbed at my nerves.

  “Mama, it’s happening again, and it’s getting worse. If I was out for an entire night this time, then I’m not sure how much longer the next attack will be. If I don’t make it…”

  Mama held a finger to my lips. “No. You pledged to live this lifetime for me, and I will hold you to that.” She pressed her forehead against mine. “And I will make a pledge of my own to you. I will not outlive another child of mine. If you’re gone, I will follow. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded my head bitterly as the fires engulfed me.

  —

  The memories that assaulted me came in a continuous sequence, which I could weather much better than the hot and cold of the cycle of lifetimes. There wasn’t time for me to sink into the rhythm of everyday life, fostering hope that things might be different this time.

  My psyche was growing calloused to the agony, but my body wasn’t. I ran a high fever, and drifted in and out of consciousness as I lay drenched in sweat in my bed.

  I wasn’t tied up anymore since my body was too weak to be a danger to myself, and my voice had been reduced to a hoarse whisper.

  Several different men and women came by. Healers of some kind, I presumed. They checked my wrist for a pulse, and felt over my head. Some hovered their hands over me. Others waved a wand or a staff.

  Invariably, they’d shake their heads at Father and leave.

  A few checked the open slash across my cheek as well.

  Once, the fever and the memories had receded enough for me to hear them talking.

  The prune-faced old lady turned to Father at the doorway. “Your Grace, that curse, if it could be called that, doesn't feel like anything I’ve dealt with before. And her affliction is no malady. I sensed no wild pathogenic growth in her.”

  “Are you saying she’s pretending? I can assure you her agony is real, this I know for sure.”

  She glanced cautiously back at me. “I had dealt with many extreme forms of magic, including the demonic. There are aspects of the young lady that feel…” Her voice sank to a low, trembling whisper. “Not of this world.”

  Beneath the hem of her robes, her legs shook uncontrollably.

  —

  Perhaps because I didn’t fully break from the continuous cycling of my inferno death, that thing dredged up other memories, even ones that I didn’t know I had.

  …

  Ally stooped over me as I cried over the single missing piece of a thousand-piece puzzle. She traced out an outline of the hole it left behind and cut a piece out of cardboard. When I complained that the colors didn’t match, she used a marker to color the piece and the surrounding pieces so that they did match, sort of.

  We found the piece later, and after that, it stood out against the surrounding pieces.

  …

  Then there was that noble. He had caught me by the arm as I walked through the market. I was wearing my usual boy’s clothes, but he called me, Mademoiselle. I had tried to forget that moment. Back then, I was still clinging to the belief I had been a boy, but his kind words, and his eyes broke me over the hope that maybe, just maybe he could save me.

  I gave in even though I knew deep down it was doomed.

  …

  I was trapped in another scripted garden walk with the Dauphin, when Tomas’ voice spoke up through the Dauphin.

  “Jo. Please get better.”

  The flowers of the garden changed into fine-grained wood of my bedroom. Tomas was sitting beside my bed, holding my hand. Tears trailed down his childish cheeks.

  An apparition?

  My head was hot and bubbling. A wet towel lay over it.

  This can’t be real.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I tried connecting with your messenger so many times. But you wouldn’t answer me.” His hands clasped tighter around mine. “No one would tell me anything. I didn’t know you were sick until I made one of the guards take me here!”

  He… feels real.

  “Are you going to be alright?”

  His boyish voice cracked, and melded into the Dauphin’s voice.

  “Jehanne, are you sure we can do this?” He turned to me from the field of flowers. Those large, pleading eyes of his staring into me.

  But this time, I wasn’t under its sway. I was no longer held down by the game script.

  “Was it always your intention to betray me?” I lashed out, finally free of my shackles.

  “What? I don’t understand Jo.” The Dauphin stumbled back, feigning innocence.

  I heaved my heavy body up into a sitting position. The swaying flowers flickered. But I wasn’t going to let him get away.

  “You just sent me out there as one last desperate attempt to corral the men. And when I succeed, and gain too much renown, you just toss me aside to the flames.” I threw my arms around him, my fingers closed in around his neck.

  “No, I’d never throw you away, Jo.” he stammered, crying.

  My fingers began to squeeze. “You had it planned! Didn’t you?! You were always going to give me away to them. I bet you never even regretted it!”

  “Jo… I can’t breathe!” he gasped. His face turned red as his small hands struggled to pull away my grip upon his neck.

  Another pair of hands grabbed hold of mine and forcefully pried them apart. Beatrice shoved me back into the bed, pinning my hands to the mattress beside my head. “My Lady, that’s his highness. You remember him don’t you? He was just worried about you. We all are.”

  I blinked, and we were in my bedroom. Tomas was crying, his neck red with my finger imprints.

  “I… am sorry Tomas. I’m not well. You should stay away from me.”

  He wiped away a sniffle and shook his head. His hands took hold of mine again.

  Is that thing mixing my memories with reality now? What if I mistake someone for an enemy? Or this whole place for a battlefield?

  “Watch me please,” I whispered to Beatrice and she nodded down at me.

  I’m glad I’m so weak right now. But no spells, definitely no spells!

  —

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, over what felt like eons.

  Another visitor came. A moment of lucidity broke through again when I saw her looking down at me. Green hair. Amber eyes. That cold face. There was no mistaking her.

  Long was standing by the door, and Mama was by the windows, her eyes drilling holes into the back of the Queen.

  “Sarsee, if this is your doing, please, spare her. Despite her deeds, she’s just a child. For all that we’ve been through together. For Priscilla’s sake. Please. Let her go.”

  My father was leaning forward in his seat, near groveling.

  Sarsee patted his shoulder.

  “Leopold. This isn’t me. I have need of her as well.” She moved a hand over my head, causing Mama to stiffen behind her. Sarsee turned to Father. “May I?”

  Father buried his face in his hands and nodded.

  “Sense Malignant,” she chanted. My senses were too off-kilter to follow the magic, but I did feel a light tingling.

  She pulled her hand back, shaking her head. “Nothing invasive, naturally…”

  “That’s what others had told me as well. But she’s been screaming about something getting inside her. A virus?”

  The Queen frowned. “Did she tell you where she caught it from?”

  “When she was still sound of mind, she mentioned a smooth door. A steel box with clear buttons on it. And… an orb? This thing she called a cam ra?”

  Sarsee’s head darted back to Long, before turning to me again. “Can she hear me?”

  “Sometimes," the Duke assured her. "But her answers aren’t usually comprehensible. It might be in the ancient tongue.”

  “Maybe you can use that other name.” Long, who had stepped closer, offered in English.

  Sarsee leaned closer over me, speaking in English as well. “Joan, can you tell me what happened? Where did you see a camera and catch that virus?”

  Hearing those words triggered an onslaught of other memories.

  We were all together again under the Christmas Tree. Allison and I tearing open presents…

  My mother was poking my stomach, making me giggle as she pushed me on the shopping cart. Father walked beside her holding Ally in one arm, her little hand pointing at all the produce stacked neatly on the aisle.

  We had been a happy, warm family living in the land of plenty.

  “They were broken.” That was what Sarsee had said.

  They were broken by the loss of a child, by losing me.

  It’s all my fault.

  “...You better go to bed soon as well. I promised Mom and Dad, I’d make sure you don’t sleep too late.” Ally’s last words replayed in my mind.

  I was sitting on that couch again, with my finger on the controller button. If I had just not pressed it. If I had not entered my name…

  Then none of this, not all the lifetimes of endless battles. nor all the deaths by flames, would’ve occurred.

  My hand shot up and grasped Ally’s cheek. Those hard amber eyes, the lines of her cold face. She had mentioned having to endure in Aaron’s diary. What must she have gone through to drive her into such extremes?

  The Ally that I knew, she’d play tricks, but murder… no.

  That face which was not hers stared accusingly down at me.

  Did I drag her in here?

  “I’m sorry, Ally. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have answered ‘yes’.” I shook my head away from her damning gaze, as memories of the family we’d been flooded me. “I should’ve gone to sleep like you told me to. I’m so sorry!”

  Ally’s fingers dug hard into my wrists.