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“Where did you come from?” she asked, her voice husky and fragile at the same time.
It sent a ripple through me, settling between my legs. “Across the grasses.” I waved in the direction of Salak’s den. “A day’s run from here.”
She sucked in another breath. “I still don’t understand how I can speak to you.”
I did my best to let go of my frustration. “I can understand you now, but before I could not.”
She pressed a palm unthinkingly over her bloody mark. Did it continue to burn like mine?
“Before I spoke Firenese,” she said quietly. “The language of the Nhil clan who live in the Quelis borders.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what that means.”
She opened her mouth as if to explain but then crossed her arms and sighed. “It doesn’t matter.” Inhaling, she braced her shoulders. “Who are you?”
I blinked.
Pain wriggled its way through my stupid, hopeful heart. “You truly don’t remember me?”
Her brows came down over worried eyes. “I’ve never met you before.”
A sharp breath escaped me as if she’d torn into my belly with vicious killing teeth. Her conviction unsteadied mine.
Icy sleet replaced my burning blood. “You don’t feel anything? Anything at all?”
She hugged herself tighter. “I felt fear when you grabbed me—”
“That’s it?” I moved stiffly toward her, despising the way she backed away, forcing me into an unwilling dance of never getting close. “You don’t feel anything else? No burn when I touch you? No current, no spark, no flash of something, someone, you’ve been missing?”
Her eyes glimmered with something I couldn’t decipher. “You speak as if you do.”
“I do.” I looked her blatantly up and down, letting her know I saw her. I saw everything about her and despite the missing pieces of my shrouded past, I was willing to fight to keep her.
She had the same mark.
Her hair was white like the girl in my thoughts.
I didn’t know her name, her origins, or anything else, but...I had to believe I’d found her for a reason.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry if you’re mistaking me for—”
“No.”
“No?” Her eyebrow quirked. “No what?”
“I won’t accept that it isn’t you. It is you. I can’t remember a single thing about anything, yet...” I exhaled hard. “I know you. I’m choosing to believe that. Just like I’m choosing to believe that you know me too. Otherwise—” I cut myself off, struggling to keep defeat from my voice. “Just...look at me. Look at me and tell me you don’t feel something.”
Slowly, her arms unwound from around her waist. “I won’t lie and say you don’t feel...” She sighed. “Familiar is not the right word. But...there is something.”
“There is?” My lonely heart leapt.
She shivered a little as her gaze went to the crescent-moon on my thigh. “Where did you get the mark?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I told you. I don’t remember anything.”
She made a small noise, inhaling sharply. For the first time, she walked toward me.
I held my ground even as my heart soared all over again.
“How long have you not remembered?” Her question was as quiet as a breath.
I dared to step nearer, shivering as the spark between us magnified. “Since I woke and wandered, trying to find who and what I’d lost.”
She choked on a swallow. Her eyes widened, clouding with so many amber-tinted things. She acted as if she wanted to ask a thousand questions. Instead, she repeated, “Why can I suddenly understand you?”
My pulse surged, sensing her opening to me, tasting the same desperation that drove me. “The same reason I can understand you.”
“Which is?”
“We’ve remembered something we’ve forgotten.”
She shivered with a gasp. “I-I don’t know how this is possible.”
I reached for her, desperate to feel the sense of rightness and connection again. “It doesn’t matter. I was summoned by the smoke. I came because I couldn’t ignore the unbearable urge to—”
“The flames summoned you?” Her forehead furrowed as another flash of fear filled her wary stare. “Are you like Solin? A Fire Reader?”
“Solin? What’s a Solin?”
She pointed toward the silver smoke not too far away. “The Nhil have a Spirit Master. He claims he can speak directly to the fire.”
“Wait.” A chill soaked into my back. “There are others? More like us?” My eyes shot toward the lazy curl of danger staining the horizon.
“I was surprised too.” She gave me the tiniest smile. “But...they found me.”
“Found you?”
“By the river. I was dying and wolves were stalking me and—”
“Wolves?” I went deadly still. “Wolves helped you too?”
“No. I meant, the Nhil saved me from wolves. The wolves knew I didn’t have much longer and every night they hunted closer.” She shuddered. “They would’ve eaten me if the Nhil hadn’t—”
“They wouldn’t have eaten you,” I said, stalking forward and grabbing her hand. “They chose you. Just like they chose me.”
She flinched as my fingers twined with hers.
