SOMEWHERE IN THE back of her mind it occurred to Princess Romelle that it was right it should be raining, that it was perfectly appropriate the sky’s tears should mingle with her own, running down her cheeks and darkening her hair so that it clung thickly to her neck and shoulders. Dully, she watched as the medics lifted up the covered stretcher and carried it down the ramp from their transport and away toward the castle, barely visible through the sheeting grey rain.

     It’s not fair, her mind wailed. After all this time…don’t we deserve a little peace?

     Three days it had been. Three days since her Sven had been pulled from the freezing, fetid moat surrounding the ruins of Castle Doom after his terrific fall from the tower following his mortal struggle with Prince Lotor. Three full days they had been stuck on Doom while Arusian doctors decided whether Sven would ever recover from the severe injuries he had sustained.

     It’s not fair, Romelle wailed silently, and watched until the stretcher was out of sight before turning.

     Her younger brother, Prince Bandor, stood behind her, his expression grave. Wordlessly he went to her, put his arms around her waist and held her comfortingly. They stood there silently for a time, then Bandor put her at arm’s length and said, “It’s all right, Romelle, really. Well, it will be.” His somewhat plain, freckled face broke into a decidedly fierce smile. “Trust me! Now that King Zarkon and Prince Lotor are dead…everything will be okay. Our celebration is just…delayed for a little while.”

     Romelle sought to muster a wan smile, but her mouth sank back to its former grim expression. “I just want it all to be over. And, Bandor, it should be over, it should be over now. But it isn’t…” She looked back over her shoulder toward the castle which glimmered through the grey rain like the inside of a seashell.

     Bandor had no words for her. In silence, arms around each other, they walked up the path of broken cobbles toward their home.

     He woke slowly, the dredges of a dream still clinging darkly to his brain. His head swam. Images floated before his eyes…memories or dreams born of his own fevered imagination, he never knew. One image lingered briefly as others flew past, but when he sought to concentrate on just that one it slipped away like a shadow when the light goes out. Gradually shapes began to become more distinct, and the shadows melted into real, familiar objects, not the frightening, unfamiliar landscape of a dreamworld. He was staring at an austere, white-tiled ceiling, lying in a bed that was flat and thin and uncomfortable. His body, swathed in soft bandages itched and ached in various places and his legs felt stiff and useless. He frowned, then struggled to sit up, his efforts eliciting a soft cry from someone somewhere in the room. There was a rustle of skirts and then his view of the ceiling was replaced by two very wide, dark-blue eyes set in a pretty, but pale face. A long dark blonde braid swung into his face, and a long, slender hand hastily swept it away as he spluttered.

     “Sven, Sven,” she was saying. Her voice was unusually low for a young woman's, rich and husky.

     “Is that who I am?” he tried to say, but his voice was muffled by her hair which flopped back into his face.

     She kept saying the name, over and over like a chant, even as she kissed his hand and wept.

     Another figure moved in the room and he heard a man’s deep voice saying, “Please, your Highness. Really, you must come away; you’ll only tax his strength further…”

     Your Highness? Where the hell WAS he?

     “This-is this-Pollux?” he gasped, frowning at the girl’s attentions and wishing whoever else was in the room would be more assertive in shooing her away. His head swam.

     “Oh, darling, yes,” the girl gushed. “Oh, darling, you’re safe, you’re home…”

     He turned his head, hoping to catch the eyes of the man in the room and send him a silent appeal for a rescue. The man, who wore the sterile white generally associated with doctors, read his look and came swiftly to the weeping princess’s side. “Come away, now,” he said. “Your Highness-Princess Romelle-please come away. Don’t you see he must rest?”

     Eventually Romelle did allow herself to be extricated from the room, but not before shooting over her shoulder such a burning look that Sven felt slightly uncomfortable.

     There was something he was supposed to remember, something vitally important, but once the girl was gone, all his strength left him and he sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

     The Princess Romelle did not return in the set of days that followed and for that he was grateful. Something was nagging at his mind, something he had to remember, something that would not let him rest, but it seemed the shadows of whatever it was only came to him while he was alone and undisturbed. Words kept skittering across his relaxed mind, something someone had said to him, long ago it must have been. The memory grew clearer every day, and he eventually attributed his memory loss to whatever drug the doctors had given him to dull the pain of his injuries.

     His injuries. Now, that was a murky area. It was clear he had sustained some critical injuries for his recovery was long and slow. Yet just how he had received them came up blank. All he could remember was falling, falling from someplace very high to someplace very cold and a darkness that sought to choke him and draw him under. Then he would shake his head and try to expel the memory. That wasn’t what he was supposed to remember.

     For a time he saw no one but the doctor who had been with him when he first woke up. A quiet, unassuming man with a closed, saturnine face, he spoke little, asked no questions that did not pertain to his patient’s physical well-being, leaving Sven space to think and recollect…whatever it was…before Romelle returned, as he knew she would eventually.

     When the doctor at last proclaimed him recovered enough to leave his bed and walk-almost unaided-to the chairs on the other side of the room (“Some progress,” he thought bitterly, as he grabbed for a bedpost to steady his shaky gait), it was not the flustered princess who came to see him first, but a short, freckled young man who, despite his obvious youth (Sven guessed him to be no older than sixteen), wore the noble attire of a prince. Poking his little round face around the slightly opened door, the boy exclaimed, “Hey!” with a broad smile which turned to an expression of dismay as Sven, confused by the familiarity of the greeting, for he was having trouble putting a name to the face, attempted a slight bow and promptly lost his balance.

     Hastening forward, the boy righted Sven and helped him to the nearest chair, then pulled up the other and sat down opposite him. He sat so stiffly that it was clear to Sven he was struggling to maintain a regal bearing, but he gave up after a moment with a sigh and slumped in his chair very much like a young boy. Sven wracked his mind for a name.

     The boy was saying in a voice that had not yet fully matured, “Doctor Gorma says you’re going to be okay…but you probably know that. Sven, we were so worried! You should have seen Romelle-“

     “Where is Romelle?” Sven interrupted, glancing up to assure himself that the princess was not behind this visitor.

     The boy laughed. “Oh, I forbade her to see you until you were well. Gorma said she was bothering you before. Well, sis can be a bit…over ex-exuberm-oh, you know what I mean. Especially,” he added brightly, with a somewhat wicked smile, “around someone she, well…” Catching Sven’s sudden flush, he shrugged. “Anyway, she may be my big sister, but being Prince has its privileges, you know!”

     Prince Bandor.

     “My lord-” Sven began.

     The young Prince’s eyes went wide. “Sven, it’s Bandor!” A look of utter concern flooded his face. “Are you OK?”

     No, I’m not. Sven watched the hurt in the boy’s face in bewilderment. I remember your name, and who you are, but nothing of what all that means to ME. Who ARE these people, really, and what am I doing here? He managed a smile he hoped would reassure Bandor, then put a hand to his head as if in explanation. “I’m all right…Bandor,” he said, “I’m just so tired, and a little confused…as to how I got here. The last thing I remember-”

     “I’m sorry,” said Bandor, sounding truly chagrined. “Don’t you remember?”

     “No,” said Sven, honestly.

     Bandor frowned. “You and Prince Lotor…you were fighting on top of a tower. He was trying to melt Voltron, but Princess Allura’s mice-in their little plane-distracted him and you…I didn’t see, but you stopped him somehow. That’s when you fought…and you both fell off the tower and into the moat, just before the tower exploded. Keith and the others fished you out, and we brought you here, to Pollux.”

     Too many names spun through his head at once. He grasped at one-- “Lotor-?”

     “We didn’t find him, though we did search,” Bandor said, fortunately misinterpreting his query. (From the way he had been speaking, it occurred to Sven that he ought to know who this Lotor was. The others sounded familiar, but again, there were no solid images. Was this a result of having been under medication for so long? No, for from what he grasped from Bandor’s speech, this Romelle was an important part of his life, and he could remember little more than her name.)

     “I think he must have died, and we just couldn’t find him. The water was awfully murky… I hope he died,” he added, sounding very young and a little frightened.

     There was a long moment of silence, then during which Sven took the opportunity to attempt to sort out all Bandor had told him, and what he remembered. Finally, Bandor cleared his throat and came to his feet abruptly. Sven tried to do the same, but Bandor put a hand on his shoulder, shook his head. “Oh, never mind that, my friend,” he said. “I should go tell Romelle you’re all right. She’s going to kill me for locking her in her room-” He laughed at Sven’s startled glance. “Well, she wouldn’t listen to me,” he said defensively, then grinned. “You have to go see her when you can walk. Don’t worry; I won’t let her bug you before then. Although she won’t like that, cuz then you can run away from her if you want-”

     “Bandor!”

     The Prince chuckled wickedly, again. “Fine, fine, I’ll stay out of it!” He allowed himself another burst of laughter, then sobered abruptly. “She was nearly stark mad with worry, you know,” he said. A pause. “I think she…well…” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’ll leave you alone, now. I’ll come back later, I guess. Good bye, Sven.”

     “Goodbye, my l-Prince Bandor,” he said and waited until the young Prince had left and closed the door softly behind him. In the silence, Sven sat, knowing he was not alone. A chill, thin draft wafted across the room, though the windows were shut tightly.

     “Show yourself,” he said, softly.

     In the corners of the small room, shadows gathered, swirling slowly, rounding in on each other until they almost seemed to form a solid figure.

     Oh, not yet, I think, a voice, like the rustle of a breeze through dead leaves murmured from the shadows. I have not yet the power. But soon, soon… And then you must fulfill your part of the bargain.

     “Bargain? What bargain?” he demanded of the shadows. “Who are you, and why can I not remember anything?”

     Oh, your memory will return. And then you must do as you were bid.

     “Who-?”

     Not yet… The voice was breaking up, the shadows losing shape. Remember!

     Like a mist breaking up before a rising sun, the darkness lost its shape entirely, reverting back into the corners of Sven’s austere hospital room, and this time he knew he was alone.

     A few days passed before Doctor Gorma pronounced Sven well enough to leave his room and wander freely about the castle. He had seen Bandor only once since his last visit and Romelle not at all. He had received a message from the blonde princess in the form of one of her attendant ladies, a slim, very pretty girl with long brown hair and wide dark eyes. The girl had been instructed to tell Sven that the princess was very anxious for his recovery, that her heart was with him, and that she would be with him as soon as she kicked her baby brother down the stairs.

     Sven silently wished Bandor the best, then smiled up at the girl who was blushing under his frankly appraising look. “That’s nice to know,” he had said in regards to her message, then surprised her completely by catching her little hand in his own and bringing it deftly to his lips. The girl gasped and pulled away while Sven looked up at her innocently. “That’s very rude, my lady-”

     “Casia,” she had stammered, and, flushing an even deeper crimson, curtseyed hastily, and fled the room.

     The next day Bandor arrived to escort him back to the palace. They spoke little in the groundcar ride along the crumbled Polluxian streets, though Sven did inquire about Romelle’s absence.

     “Oh, I didn’t tell her you were coming home today,” he said airily. Sven raised an eyebrow and Bandor exclaimed indignantly, “She kicked me!”

     Back at the palace, Sven was shown back to his “own rooms,” but that meant nothing to him. He remembered nothing of the palace, not these rooms which were supposedly his, not the winding hallways Bandor had guided him through deftly, not the guardsmen and servants who had nodded in greeting with such familiarity as he had strode by. Restless, he waited until he heard his escort’s footfalls receding down the corridor, before he opened the door, glanced down each side of the hall to make sure no one saw him, and then hurried in the opposite direction of his escort.

     He really had no idea where he was going, but he had no desire to return to his room, or to see anyone. His fear was that Romelle would come seeking him, and he had no wish to see her until he sorted out the jumble in his mind.

     Unfortunately, as it turned out, this was not the case.

     Rounding a corner abruptly he nearly ran over Lady Casia, who cried out in surprise at his unexpected appearance. He put a finger to his lips, indicating silence. Deftly then, he took her arm and drew her aside. “Well, Lady Casia,” he said with a grin, and kissed her hand again, while she blushed brightly.

     “Sir, you really shouldn’t,” she began.

     “Why not?” he asked her, frankly. “Call it courtesy, good manners, whatever you will. Or are you afraid your boyfriend will see?”

     “I haven’t got a boyfriend,” she said quickly and then blushed even deeper.

     “Good,” he said, smiling down at her.

     “Sir,” she said, completely flustered, “that is-I…well, my Lady Romelle sent me to find you.”

     Sven’s grin evaporated. “Romelle?”

     “Yes,” said the girl, brushing a strand of dark hair back behind her ear, then glancing down at the hand he still held. “Ummm… Well, she wants to see you. She’s really very anxious to see you, sir. She’s in the garden.”

     “I hope she likes it there.”

     “You’re not going?”

     “Does it look like I have any intention of going anywhere?” He was stroking her fingers, which she clearly found distracting.

     “Um…” biting her lip, she tried to wriggle free. He let her go abruptly, and she fell back against the wall, glaring up at him.

     “Fine,” he said, “I’ll go see the princess. If,” and he held up his hand to forestall her reply, “if you promise you’ll have dinner with me. Tonight. An hour after sunset. In my quarters.”

     Casia gaped up at him.

     “What about my lady?”

     “What about your lady?”

     “Well, isn’t she, um…”

     “What if she is?” he asked impatiently. “I’m asking for you. Now, is it yes, or no?”

     Casia ducked her head swiftly. When she lifted it, her face was composed and she flashed him a quick smile. “All right; I’ll be there.”

     “Good. Now… Where are these gardens?”

     “I thought you-”

     “Refresh my memory.”

     She pointed him in the correct direction, then, gathering her skirts, she stepped away from him hurriedly and scurried down the corridor, though not without a backwards glance.

     He found the gardens with relative ease. They were located in the central courtyard, which was open to the sky. It had rained recently and the ground and plants were still damp. Despite this, Romelle was seated on a bench under a small tree with drooping purple blossoms. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and she kept glancing up at the entrance, a nervous expression on her pretty face.

     Sven hesitated, then sighed with resignation and stepped out into the courtyard. The sudden brightness caused him to blink though the sun was almost entirely hidden by clouds. The instant she saw him Romelle gave a little cry and hastened to his side. Taking his arm she guided him back toward her bench, and sat down beside him. Somewhat to his dismay he saw she wore a very flattering wine-colored dress with a low-cut bodice. Her burnished-golden hair was gathered at the nape of her neck in an attractive fillet laced with shimmery white beads. Her perfume was delicate, pretty, but she had used a bit too much of it and he tried to lean away, as much to avoid its proximity as hers.
     Which wasn’t easy. Once she had him beside her on the bench, he had little warning before she was in his arms, burying her head against his shoulder. Her body shuddered and, frowning, he patted her back awkwardly, thinking she was sobbing. But when at last she pulled away and gazed down at him, her dark blue eyes were dancing and on her lips played a smile of utter joy.

     “Oh, Sven!” she exclaimed, her laughter rich and throaty. “Oh, it’s been so long! And there’s been so much I’ve had to tell you!”

     Desperately trying to disentangle himself, Sven regarded her questioningly.

     “Oh, I could just murder my brat of a brother for not letting me see you,” she went on breathlessly.

     “I heard you kicked him.”

     “Oh, I did, and well did he deserve it,” she laughed. Her expression softened then. “Are you truly all right, now?” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “You look-I don’t know. Like you’re not entirely yourself.”

     Perceptive, he thought dryly, and continued to regard her. Why can I think of nothing to say to this woman? he wondered. She means nothing to me now and yet somehow I feel as if she SHOULD.

     Romelle was watching him now, a curious expression on her face. “Are you truly all right?” she asked.

     “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “That is, I’m still a bit tired, but I am all right, now.”

     “Good,” she said, then paused. As he continued to watch her, her eyes darkened and she lowered her head, staring at her hands, which where clasped in her lap. “I’m so sorry,” she said at last, without raising her head. Her voice shook, and Sven wondered if she were crying this time. But then she lifted her chin, and he saw her face was dry. “I should have gone with you,” she said with sudden vehemence. “If I had, none of this would ever have happened.”

     Oh, great, he thought. WHAT would never have happened? WHY can’t I remember?

     “I don’t know why I didn’t go even when you told me not to,” she went on. “I should have. But you were so adamant about it being your fight. I think…I think I felt you felt you had to be the one to kill Lotor, and I didn’t want to take that from you. Or…I don’t know,” she trailed off miserably.

     He squeezed her shoulder in what he hoped would be construed as a gesture of empathy. He really had no idea as to what she was talking about! “You shouldn’t…you shouldn’t worry,” he found himself saying. “After all, hey, it’s over and done with, right? I mean you can’t go back and change history, so don’t worry about it. I’m okay now, right?”

     “That’s right,” Romelle said, her voice softening and, before he could react, she placed her slim hand over the one he had on her shoulder, brought it to her lips, and kissed each finger slowly while he tried desperately to think about the weather. Releasing his hand, she slid even closer to him on the bench and said, very low, “We really should talk about us…in the here and now.”

     She was practically in his arms again, and this was going a bit further than he had foreseen. As she leaned toward him he slid hastily off the bench and came abruptly to his feet. Romelle looked up at him in surprise.

     “What’s the matter?” In her eyes there was bewilderment and the beginnings of genuine hurt.

     “Nothing is wrong, Princess Romelle,” he said curtly.

     “Then why-” she began, putting up a hand, which he caught up and brought to his lips in a gesture that spoke everything of courtly formality, but nothing of friendship or of intimacy.

     “Good day, Your Highness,” he said coldly, releasing her hand, then pivoted on his heel and strode away swiftly.

     Alone in the garden, Romelle brought the hand he had kissed to her cheek as if he had bruised it. She was stung not only by his words, but what she had seen in his eyes. She had seen nothing in those dark depths of the man with whom she had faced danger after danger, to whom she had vowed, Wherever you are my heart will be with you and meant it. That had been just before he had plunged back into the crumbling ruins of Castle Doom in search of Lotor, and he had given her then a look of such yearning and desire and protectiveness…a look she had taken for the unspoken avowal of his love. Had she been wrong? Had he truly never cared for her in such a way and had she just made a complete fool of herself this day? Her jaw clenched, but she raised her head proudly. No, she could not have misjudged. Something was wrong, NOW. Well, whatever it was, she would find it out!

     Sven was doubly irritated: first he had gotten completely lost trying to find his quarters and he knew he would have to deal with Romelle again, eventually.

     “Damn,” he muttered, striding about his chamber indecisively. He had to act. He was sick of being cooped up in this world he did not know, sick of these people he could not remember who presumed to know his heart. A flash of movement caught at the corner of his eye-he had thought he was alone! Whirling, he found himself gazing not at an intruder, but at his own face, glaring at him from the depths of the mirror that hung over his dresser. Frowning, he leaned toward it, studying the face that stared back at him.

     The face was achingly familiar, but he almost sobbed in frustration and slammed his fist against the dresser because it was not right. The height was correct, as were the lean, broad shoulders and the thick black hair. But the face, the face…! He pressed his hands to the high, prominent cheekbones as though he could mold them back into what he remembered. The chin was too wide as well, the nose the barest breadth too long. The eyes, thank God, were his own. Dark and deep as a sea at night, and with that slightest of lifts at the corners. He knew he would have gone stark mad if the eyes staring back at him had been a stranger’s. But that small, sharp scar undercutting the corner of his right eye… Where had that come from?

     It was like being in a dream and seeing himself, but everything was skewed.

     A savage sneer sprang to his mouth, but on his mirror image it looked somehow…off, as though that face were not accustomed to such an expression. “Why should I not recognize my own face?” he shouted, and made to seize the mirror and yank it off the wall, when a sudden chill thread laced through his hair, over his shoulders, and seemed to hover above and behind him. He whirled around. A familiar laughter, like dry bones splintering, sounded in his ears, though he could see no one. In a moment of utter clarity, he turned back to face the mirror.

     His image no longer looked back at him, but had been replaced by a heavy black mist that rolled and curled like great combers striking a shore, in slow motion. As he narrowed his eyes, two slits the color of melted wax came into prominence and the laugh sounded again.

     “What, speechless and forgetful, pet?” the voice rasped in his hear. “Surely you remember me.”

     “I remember you,” he said in a clipped voice.

     “And our bargain, your promise?”

     “I’ve not forgotten.”

     “Good,” the voice said in a pleased tone. “I was certain you’d forgotten. You’re certainly taking your time.”

     “I-I have not been myself, lately.” For some reason the voice and eyes found this amusing.

     “Kindly tell me why I can remember only certain things,” he said when there was silence once more.

     “You remember what is important for you to remember,” the darkness reminded him. “When you get to the next phase of our…plan…you will know what you have to do.”

     “Yes.”

     “And do it, soon.”

     “Yes.”

     “Tonight.”

     “Now, see here-”

     All trace of amusement vanished. “Do you dare toy with me? You will act tonight. Or have you forgotten my powers?”

     “No-”

     “Let me remind you…” The dark mist slid from the mirror like a snake, parting around Sven, then rising in increasing volume in impenetrability until was nearly as high as the ceiling. Then it turned down on him, blocking out light and the room about him, sealing him in a cage of pure night. Vainly he fought, scrambled for a handhold, but the darkness bore him down, chilling him to the bone, filling his nostrils and lungs so that he could not breath, tangling in his hair, searing his eyes until at last he lay huddled in a heap on the floor, gasping and panting. After an anguished, endless moment he felt the chill leave his body and when at last he opened his eyes, he was sprawled not in a cloud of darkness, but on his own floor. The eyes in the mirror glowed.

     “There, you see? You’ve not forgotten, after all.”

     Sven climbed wearily to his feet. “No, I’ve not forgotten,” he said bitterly. “I said I would help you, witch. But you also promised--”

     “And the sooner you fulfill your end of the bargain, the sooner you will receive what was promised you. Tonight?”

     “Tonight,” he agreed bitterly. The darkness in the mirror was receding, but there was still something he had to ask. “Wait,” he said. The eyes blinked back at him. “Who is Sven?” he asked.

     “Ah,” said the voice from what sounded like a great distance. “Is that really important?”

     “No, I suppose not,” he said with a sigh.

     A moment later the dark mist had vanished entirely, to be replaced with his own image.

     Clutching her cloak about her tightly, the Lady Casia hurried along the darkened corridors. Once she ran into a servant, who put out a hand questioningly, but she only flashed him a quick smile and ran along, hoping he hadn’t noted her nervousness. And she was nervous. Not that there was anything wrong about going to see a young man if he had asked her, of course, she thought, trying to persuade herself this mad act wasn’t pure folly. But this particular young man…well, her lady had shown him such preference… Still, if it was she he wanted to see, her lady couldn’t really do much about then, now, could she? Casia tossed her hair and stuck her chin up in the air. No, of course there was nothing she could do.

     A bit more confidently she strode along.

     So dark and silent were the halls, it seemed the entire palace was asleep. The clatter of her heels rang in her ears, as did the thudding of her heart.

     It was for precisely this reason that she failed to realize when she was no longer alone in the corridor, a fact she continued to be unaware of up until the moment a hand clapped down over her mouth and she was shoved roughly against a wall.

     “Sorry I’ve had to cancel our date, sweetheart,” Sven said in her ear in a hushed whisper. “But at the moment I really need to get to a ship.”


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