While brief and fleeting, she remembered racing after Tor in dragon form as a little girl. She had never felt so happy. So free. It had been like a constant amusement park ride with him. Never a dull moment. There had been so much laughter. Something she rarely, if ever, experienced back home because, as a rule, she was a victim to her negative energy and too angry or depressed.
“Not here, though,”Tor said telepathically, not speaking aloud, she realized, to spare her sister’s feelings.“Here, you could be happy. Alive in a way you couldn’t be there.”
She didn’t respond. Mainly because she wasn’t ready to. Wasn’t ready to admit that she had shared a forgotten life with him that seemed so full of excitement and joy. Because if she did that, it would only make her frustration about Revna grow. It didn’t matter if he had somehow been forced to forget his time with Raven. She couldn’t stop her human response. It didn’t even matter that she sensed he now knew with certainty she’d possessed Revna. Without all the facts, her heart wasn’t convinced of much of anything.
“So you’re remembering your way around here,” Trinity stated rather than asked, pulling her back to the here and now. “That’s good, sis. Really good.”
It was. So good that Raven had to fight her emotions the whole way up the path. It grew treacherously narrow sometimes, and the wind shear down the steep cliff daunting, but it didn’t faze her like it should. Usually, she would find this kind of danger exciting, but instead, she just felt nostalgic. Like she was coming home to this outstanding life and a best friend she had completely forgotten. Hell, if it didn’t make her irritatingly weepy.
“Yup, it is good that I’m remembering,” she managed briskly in answer to Trinity’s comment. “It would have been better, though, if I had all my facts upfront.”
“And you said as much at one time,” Cian kicked in.
It hadn't gone over her head that Tor kept Cian behind him rather than behind her, so the Irishman couldn’t check out her ass.
“Yet, in the end, Raven,” Cian went on, “you knew following your trail of memories was best. That playing by the rules of the Forge was wisest.”
“So I knew about the Forge.” She didn’t miss a beat. “And it sounds like I had a more intimate knowledge of it than my sisters if I’m reading you right, Cian.”
“You knew what you knew,” he replied, irritatingly vague. “And you were right.” She didn’t miss the fondness in his voice. “You were very wise.”
“Of course, she was,” Tor growled.
“How do you know?” she growled right back. Ignoring the dangerously narrow path, she stopped and frowned at him over her shoulder. “You don’t know me well enough to make that statement yet.”
He arched a brow. “Am I wrong?”
“I have no idea.” She frowned. “Any more than you do.”
“I do, though.” Not frightened by the terrifying height and elements in the least, he put his warm hand over hers on the rock. His gaze never left her face. “I know you every bit as much as you do me. Who you really are.” He shook his head. “I might not be able to back it up yet, but I’m right, and you know it.”
“Or at least you will soon,” Trinity echoed, but it was lost on the wind. Or maybe drowned out by the slam of Raven's heart. It was hard to know. Something about Tor’s warm hand over hers, combined with the conviction in his eyes, made it impossible to think clearly.
“We should keep moving,” he counseled, somehow keeping a more level head than her. “Lingering here too long is unwise.” He squeezed her hand. His pupils flared in alarm. “You remember why,ja?”
While she didn’t, she somehow did.
“Time-sensitive,” she replied instinctually, frowning. “Eventually, this safeguard becomes a death trap.”
“That’s right.” He gestured ahead, issuing everyone a dire warning. “Move fast and move now!”
No sooner did he say it than the power of the seers’ safeguard slammed into her hard. Holycrap. She’d never felt anything like it. Crazy power. Death right around the corner. Not missing a beat, knowing they had mere seconds, she raced forward. While Trinity and Vicar could probably handle it due to their outstanding power, she wasn’t so sure about Cian and Tor.
“C’mon!” she roared. “Right the hellnow!”
Positive they had no time, she bounded the last few feet to the ledge beyond the path, swung back, shifted into her dragon, and of all things, roared fire at them.She wasn’t sure why. Just that her dragon told her to.
It was the only way.
“Whatthehell,” Trinity exclaimed as pearly white fire mixed with black cocooned them seconds before the pathway crumbled and the cliff face went smooth, allowing for no handholds.
“As I said,” Cian said softly, pride in his eyes when he looked at Raven through the fire. He left his sentence unfinished because there was no need to go on. She was remarkably powerful and only just remembering. Only just able to feel it for how it could be used for good, when back home it was a drag on her soul. A pit of draining negative energy.
Yet, now she was bringing everyone to safety with positive energy. Powerful dragon seer magic. Or so she kept telling herself as she ensured they made it the remaining distance.
More specifically, as she ensured Tor made it.
It was far too irritating and telling that she put him before her own sister but deep down, where her inner beast ruled, where it held sway, she knew he’d been the driving force behind her protective nature. Better yet, her stark fear that he might die caught in something as simple as a seer’s safeguard.
