The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 108

HERA

"Wake up...

Hera...

Your highness...

wake up!"

My eyes fly open.

Heart pounding, mouth dry.

I must have fainted. Again.

At this point, I am beyond convinced that knocking me unconscious has become a running joke amongst the gods.

I turn to the side or at least I try to.

My head hurts but I do not know why.

So I blink stupidly up at the thatch ceiling above my head.

Thatch and wood criss crossing in a manner that is achingly familiar.

There is a window to my right, directly above my line of sight and from it streams pale sunlight.

It's brightness even more obscured by the grey cloth fluttering in the morning breeze.

There is something familiar about it.

Something familiar about everything.

My heart starts to race even harder.

Gods above...

It could not be...

"Oh would you look who finally decided to grace us with her presence this morning.Welcome back to the Land of the living your highness."

I stare up at the figure looming over my bed.

Dark, wavy brown hair.

Eyes the blue of a summer sky.

She moves away from the bed, the laundry basket filled with freshly pressed linen perched on her hip.

"You know mother believes you are out feeding the geese already not lying in bed like some queen."

She places the basket on the floor, her back to me.

She does not notice that I am barely able to breathe.

That I am sitting up in bed, clutching my chest and shaking my head.

She fleets from one end of the room to another.

"Grandma made banana bread for breakfast while you were asleep. Straight out the oven. Oh it smelt absolutely divine. You are lucky Mira would not let me eat your portion." She is still speaking but I can barely hear her.

There is something at the back of my mind.

Something telling me that this is not right.

That there is a reason my heart feels like it might crack my ribs and beat Itself out of my chest.

Suddenly the room goes silent and she turns around.

"Are you even listening...Hera?"

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

Concern deepens the furrow of her brow and she come closer.

Sit besides me on the bed.

"You do not look so well."

No...No... something is definitely not...

The coolness of her palm grazes my forehead and just like that, the feeling of wrongness disappears. She pushes my hair from my face.

"Are you ill, do you perhaps have a fever? Shall I fetch mother?"

And before I can answer, my sister dashes from the room, calling for my mother at the top of her voice.

The feeling of wrongness is back but it is not as strong.

I try to shake it away yet t it remains, lingering.

Like a faint, bitter taste in the back of my throat.

I toss aside the covering cloth I did not even realize was across my legs.

I feel groggy.

The type of groggy one feels when they have been asleep for too long and have suddenly awoken, disoriented and with no clue that almost an entire day has passed. Except this does not feel like days.

It feels like years.

Like I have been asleep for an entire lifetime.

Somehow even my sister had looked...older?

Before I can think further about it she is back.

And she is not alone.

I stare up at four equally worried faces.

Their bodies clustered at the doorway, blocking out the sunlight.

The oldest one snorts. Her cane hitting the ground with a solid thump and her wrinkled frown wrinkles even more.

"The girl seems fine to me"

A woman, tall and slender steps out from behind her.

"Oh everyone is always fine to you Mother."

Her voice reaches out across the space.

It claws at my heart and frays the edges of my soul and when I finally do speak, my voice is tiny and small. "M...mom?"

She moves across the room and sits beside me.

"Greta says you are unwell."

Eyes I see everything time I look in a mirror stare worriedly back at me even as her hands gently cup my face.

She smells like the fields.

Like sun and feathers.

Like baking and warmth.

Just like I remember.

Her thumb swipes at my cheeks.

"Darling... you are crying."

I am?

I am.

They are all clustered around me now.

And as I look at their faces the tears fall even harder.

Gather and fall.

Gather and fall.

Like dark clouds on an endless rainy day.

I am crying because I remember.

I remember why.

They died.

All of them.

And yet, here they are.

"Hera. Whatever is the matter, come on you know you can tell us anything."

I look up at my sister Greta who had gone to bring everyone else.

I look at the fullness of her hair, the pink in her cheeks.

She looks alive. Alive and real.

They all do.

From my grandmother to my brother.

I shake my head, the tears still on my cheeks and in my voice. "How can this be?"

"How can what be darling?"

"The girl has lost her mind I tell you. This is what over sleeping gets you."

"Oh Grandmother do not be that way. I am certain Greta had a valid reason for bringing us all here."

I stare up at the face of my other sister Mira when she speaks. At the way her mouth moves and the very real way that she throws an arm over my scowling grandmother.

I am trying desperately to remember more.

To remember why I am so certain that they are not real when they so very clearly are.

Mother smiles softly at me, the worry never leaving her eyes.

"Oh sweetie did you have a bad dream?"

A dream...

Is that why I feel this way?

Yes. That makes perfect sense.

I must have fallen asleep and had a horrible, horrible dream.

One I cannot remember.

One that makes me think that somehow my entire family had died.

I throw my arms around my mother.

"Oh mother. It was just awful. You were all gone and I was all alone and...and..."

"Ahhh...it's okay. You're okay now."

I am still crying but I can hear the sigh of relief that escapes everyone's mouth.

Even my grandmother, the old grouch places a wrinkled hand on the center of my back.

"See lass, why I always say one must be up at the crack of dawn."

I laugh into my mother's shoulder.

Why in all the realms did I think anything was the matter?

Dead.

I shiver and push the words away.

Nothing but a dream.

So why do I still feel like there is something missing.

My mother pulls away and studies my face until I start to squirm. "So you are absolutely sure that nothing more than a simple nightmare ails you?"

No.

"Yes."

"Want to tell us about it?"

I twist my fingers in my lap. "That is the thing. I do not remember."

"Then how do you know it was bad?"

This from my brother who all this time has been quiet.

One would think being raised in a house of girls would make him more used to the sight of tears but he appears so out of depth, that were the situation different, I might have found it in me to laugh. He stands at the foot of the bed, somehow taller than he should be.

As a matter of fact, everyone looks different.

Almost like they had all aged overnight.

Grown in my sleep.

But everyone is staring at me now.

Eyes wide and wondering and waiting.

So I clear my throat and look away. "I just know."

"You do know we would never leave you don't you? Ever ever ever ever."

And there is a way she says it that makes me both want to shiver and laugh.

But then Greta is climbing over me and Mira is wedging herself between us.

"What about me mother?"

"Yes mother what about us?"

And my Grandmother is dragging Greta's shirt to get her off of me and laughter fills the tiny room in a way that is achingly familiar.

Nothing but a dream.

A dream thank the Gods, that I have finally woken up from.

The day passes much like all days with my family tends to do. Our tiny village robust and beautiful in the heart of summer.

Although, last I remember... was not summer come and gone?

Another thing to yet push to the back of my mind.

But try as I might, I am unable to stop feeling that something is wrong.

There is something missing.

Something I feel incomplete without.

Something...or someone.

And then an image flashes in my head.

The face of a man with eyes the color of liquid gold.

A bolt of pain that threatens to bring tears to my eyes races across my chest.

"Who...?"

Great looks up from where she is kneading dough for tomorrow's bread.

"Did you say something sister?"

I shake my head. Because how do I explain that I miss some imaginary image in my mind.

I reach for a piece of raw dough and she laughs and slaps my hand away.

"Ouch! Little kids today. No respect whatsoever for their elders."

She scoffs. "You are barely a moon's harvest older than me."

"Still. You think it is easy to have been the one who came first?"

A laugh. Loud and sweet in the quiet of the steaming kitchen.

"Gods am I glad you are back Hera."

I freeze, my stolen dough half way to my mouth. "What do you mean back?"

But she is kneading again.

Kneading and humming and seemingly unable to hear me.

"Greta...Greta..."

I reach for her.

To place my hand on her shoulder and once more gain her attention.

But my hand stops.

Hovering in mid-air even as my heart starts to pound again.

Many years ago, when we were but little children, I had convinced Greta to climb up a tree of honey sap with me.

It had been stupid and reckless.

But I was older and Great had been eager to please.

But the upper branches of the honey sap tree are slick and slippery and she had fallen.

Fallen hard.

And when she had gotten up, crying and screaming, her hand had been hanging limp from her body.

Her shoulder swinging in a manner that was frightening and unnatural.

It is why growing up she never joined in the heavy work.

Because even though the healers managed to "pop" it back, for that way the sound it made, the pain never really went away.

And it was something I had always blamed myself for.

Kneading dough and rolling her shoulders like it never happened.

And yet here she is.

Almost...almost like she might be a different person.

Just like that, the feeling of wrongness returns.

And with it, a pain in my head.

One so strong that it threatens to drown everything else.

"Who are you?"

She freezes.

Her hands, her body, everything, stopping in mid movement in the most impossible of ways.

And then, like she did not hear me, she continues to knead.

Kneading and humming.

"Say Hera, would you help me fetch that bowl of dried raisons?"

"Who are you?!"

"It is by the window sill. I must remember not to out it there again least the birds replace it."

Gods above...

What is going on?

I stumble outside, barely able to even stand.

They are all there.

All doing one thing or the other.

Smiling and laughing.

Exactly the way I remember them.

Exactly the way I had pictured them to be.

Over and over again.

As I cried myself to sleep and blamed myself for their death.

And then the memories come flooding back.

I stagger and almost fall.

She sees me first. The woman who looks like my mother.

Who smells and moves and speaks like my mother.

The woman who is most definitely not her.

"Hera! There you are. Come show mother how you are able to weave those flower crowns you like so much."

Oh Gods.

Tears spring to my eyes, my fingers tightening on the door frame.

Gripping so hard that it starts to hurt.

If this is a joke, it a cruel and heartless one.

"Where am I, who are you people?"

I step into the sunlight that suddenly now seems much too bright.

Unto grass that is so green, it appears unreal.

My mother....the woman reaches for me.

"Hera... darling..."

"No!... do not touch me. What is happening?! Why are you doing this to me?!"

I am screaming and crying now but I do not care.

Skies above...Midas!

"Where is he? What is going on!!"

"You are frightening them."

I whirl around, back towards the doorway through which I came.

But it is not Greta who steps out.

My eyes double in size and I take a step back.

"You...I know you."

"Do you?"

"I do."

And even before I say it, I realize that it is true.

Even though I have never seen her before. I know her.

I know the startlingly brightness of her eyes and the ethereal beauty of face.

Slanted eyes over a wide mouth.

And the fiery redness of her hair.

"But you are dead."

The Oracle of Daphne steps out into the light.

"No. Not dead. Not anymore. I am you now."

"Where is this place?"

"The realm of chaos and shadows. Where the past comes to rest. what could have been...what never was. Everything."

What

a load of poppycock.

"Why am I here, who brought me here?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it f*****g does!"

How in all the realms am I the incarnate of this woman?

She floats towards me, her face soft and smiling.

"You could stay here you know. Could spend a long and happy life with the family you thought lost to you forever."

"But they are not real."

She smiles softly at me. "Does it matter?"

This Hades blasted question again.

I open my mouth and close it

A fish out of water.

There was a time. A time where I would have given up anything... everything just to be able to see them again.

But that was before.

Before the dragon realm and it's King snuck their way into my heart and etched their name upon it's surface.

"I have to go back. He needs me."

"You would give everything up, all of them, to help the man who took it all from you in the first place?"

I notice for the first time how quiet this place truly is.

No bird song or noisy crickets.

No scurrying squirrels or snapping branches.

A place in my imagination. Limited to my memory.

"I love my family and if I could do anything to bring them back, hades help me I would do it without a moment of hesitation."

Daphne stops and c***s her head, her beautiful smile faltering

"And

yet?"

"I could not help my family when they needed me. Instead I chose to run away and took the easy way out. I will not do the same thing to him."

The Oracle is silent and I do not realize I am holding my breath until she speaks again.

"The Fates were right. Fine Human, have it your way."

She turns around and begins to head back into the hut.

"If you will leave you must do so now. It is almost too late."

"Wait! You cannot just leave me."

I am beginning to panic. But she turns around and smiles at me again.

"You are stronger than I was. You do not need my help."

"But I do...I really do."

"Wake up Hera..."

"What?"

"Wake up."

"How?! Tell me how?!"

"Wake up..."

"But I can't..."

"Wake

up!!"

My eyes fly open and I jerk up out of bed.

One smooth, violent motion into a sitting position.

"Oh praise the Gods.. Your Highness...your highness...wait!!"

But I do not wait.

I push past a panic stricken Henette and I rush out of the room.

The castle stone is freezing cold against my bare feet but I can barely feel it.

The servants step out of my way. Then stop and stare but I do not care.

I have never covered a distance so fast in my life.

Not stopping to breathe until I am standing in front of his door.

My right hand is shaking when I lift it to the knob and I have to hold it with the other hand to keep it steady.

"Midas?"

The room is dark. Dark and silent.

So dark that I do not even see it at first.

But my eyes adjusts to the light fast enough.

"No..."

Time has stopped for me many times before.

Slowing down until all that is left is the sound of my own beating heart.

Loud and deafening.

The only difference is this time, my heart shatters right along with it