Everythingwas different.
From the light in her eyes when she looked at him to the wider than usual smile, she struck him in a way she never had before. He swore his heart had stopped beating at the sight of her.
“I don’t know what changed that day,” he said. “Only that she was different.” He shook his head. “Or I saw her differently. Either way, from that moment on, she was all I could think about. I couldn’t get enough of her.” He thought back on those first few weeks. Saw them through fresh eyes. “While she returned my affections, some days were different than others. Sometimes I knew her heart was invested. Other times she seemed distant.”
“Ya think?” Trinity muttered, clearly her Múspellsheimr half still. “Glad to see your rose-colored glasses are finally coming off.”
“They might be coming off in regards to Revna not being herself all the time,” he replied, “but that doesn’t change the fact I loved her. Even when it seems she wasn’t possessed by Raven.”
“Why wouldn’t you when you thought you loved a single person?” Vicar asked. “It would have been poor of you to only love her when she seemed more drawn to you. She, on the other hand, is another story. She knew Raven was the one you really loved. It must have been very conflicting.”
“I would imagine,” Raven murmured. “So you think my silver scales are somehow connected to your feelings changing for the seer in the first place?”
“I do.” He shook his head again. “I just don’t know how.”
Nor could he possibly understand why Revna would have allowed Raven to possess her to begin with. She plainly felt she owed her but for what? It had to have been monumental.
He sensed Raven wanted to ask him more about his time with Revna but was taking it slow. She needed to process things and grapple with her emotions before asking the questions she really wanted to ask. Thankfully, what it was like lying with Revna would never be one of them.
“Where are we going now, sis?” Trinity asked, suddenly sounding like her sweeter side, no doubt for the benefit of Raven’s emotional state. Because it was as churned up as his was over Cian. The wizard had gone quiet during all this, but what could he really say? Things had to progress as they would, and Raven had to come back together with Tor, not Cian.
“I’m not entirely sure where we’re heading,” Raven replied to Trinity’s question. The way only grew narrower. The walls, damper. The sound of water dripping louder. “Only that I’ve been here before. That I used to look forward to what lay ahead.”
They were moving into areas of the mountain he and his kin had never been. Places undoubtedly riddled with more safeguards. Areas meant to keep dragons out. All but them, it seemed, based on moments of recognition that only grew stronger. More numerous.
He recalled racing through these tunnels with Raven as children. Laughing and chasing each other. Acting as young dragons should. She hadn’t been dark and mysterious but full of life and light, whether she was ethereal or not.
In fact, one such memory raced right past them.
They were little again. Raven flew, and he ran, roaring with laughter. Daring her to get there first.
“Where, though?” Trinity asked, clearly charmed by the playful dragons.
“It’s just ahead,” Raven replied. The sound of trickling water grew louder, backdropped by a distant roaring sound. The pungent dampness of the rock became stronger. More cloying. “He thinks he’ll beat me, but he won’t.”
Tor was glad to hear the amusement in Raven’s voice. It had been an exceptionally good memory. One of many, actually. Raven picked up the pace, pursuing their little dragons, who ended up proving her right. Little Raven burst out of the tunnel into a massive cave moments before little Tor.
“Double wow,” Trinity exclaimed. They left the tunnel behind and entered another space clearly under the influence of Vanaheim magic. “Look at this!”
The trickling sound had been a small waterfall that fed into a pond at the edge of a cliff that gave way to a far more sizable waterfall. Various totems made of small bones, rocks, and other odds and ends hung from a ceiling thick with glittering dark fog. Again, the walls were ultra-reflective.
“Seers come here often to practice magic,” Tor noted, taking in the various fire pits, delicate rock piles, and tribal wall drawings here and there. “It would be, above all others, no place for a dragon.”
“Yet there we are.” A small smile ghosted Raven’s face at the little ones’ antics. Her dragon had dived into the pond, then peaked one eye up to see if Tor could find her. He tooled after her so quickly that he lost his balance and catapulted right over the big waterfall.
“Oh, no!” Raven rushed to the edge as her little self dove after him. “That’s a long drop if you get caught in the water pressure.”
“Unlikely.” He chuckled, confident his dragon would break free considering how well he had always flown. True to form, his little dragon zipped out, only it wasn’t of his own volition.
“Look at that,” Vicar praised when a burst of dark mist shoved him free of the water moments before Raven broke free too. “You had magic even in spirit form.”
“So it seems.” Raven frowned at Cian. “How is that possible when I didn’t have it earlier today?”
Naturally, though he surely knew the answer, he only shrugged.
Raven sighed and waved him off, more determined, it seemed, to watch their little selves play. “Now that can’t be good.”
“Probably not,” Tor agreed when they swung from one seer totem to another as though they were rope swings. “Yet I don’t see any seers around trying to stop us.”
