_Your hand_, the voice cooed. _How did _**_that_**_ happen?_

_ _"You don't know?" Havard faltered. He had thought she could see... everything. If he was imagining her, wouldn't she know? She laughed.

_You thought I could see your memories?_

__

"You can read minds," he muttered bitterly. He didn't know why he was humoring her. How did she know so much about him, then? It barely mattered. He was making it all up, anyway.

_Hardly._ More laughing.

Havard winced and wished that covering his ears would be enough to block her out.

_So, how did it happen?_

Havard glanced at his hand. The large, dark scar spread across it, ugly as ever. It ached with a pain long gone, as old as his hate. He hoped she felt his pain.

_Being secretive? Want me to guess?_

"No," he muttered, but it didn't matter.

_The boy? _**_The queen?_** She cackled. He wanted to shut her out desperately.

"Shut up." She kept laughed. "_Shut up._"

_Why? Punishment?_

_ _Why? Because she had hated him. Because she could.

"You're not real," he gritted out, "so why can't I get you out of my head?"

More laughing. She was always laughing. Then, it stopped.

_Because I _**_am_**_ real. You know it, in your gut. You can feel it. I'm terribly, _**_terribly_**_ real."_

_ _"_No._"

_Yes._

_ _Havard clutched his head, praying for pressure, or pain, or anything at all to take him out of his own head for a moment.

_But I want to help you. I do. To do that, I need to know you._

Suddenly, it was like she was softer. What could he do besides be dragged into her? He had nothing to grasp. In his silence and stillness, she read his defeat. He broke.

_Is it a burn?_

"Water," he muttered. Silence.

_Did Cleon notice? Did you tell him?_

__

"It was an 'accident.' My fault. Clumsiness." Another, longer pause.

_How old were you?_

__

"...Seven." His voice broke as he said it.

_Why? _She asked again. He swallowed. Inhaled.

"Cleon brought me out. That night. To speak to one of the houses, his favorite. It went... _well._ They... they _saw_ me." He swallowed again. "She made sure it would never happen again."

_She wanted to taint your memory._

__

"She just wanted to hurt me."

He could have sworn the voice had sounded strained for a moment.

_All for that brat._

_ _"All for him," Havard repeated listlessly.

_Think of who you could have been, what you might have had - if not for _**_him._**_ _

_ _"I don't need to. I know." Crown prince. The thought played on his mind again and again, day in and day out. His rightful place. What they had stolen. What he wanted, more than anything.

_Take it. Take back what she stole for him._

__

"How?"

_I'll help you._