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I waited for my mind to explode with memories. I willed detonation after detonation of knowing her, loving her, living a life where we were one.
But...nothing.
Her name meant nothing.
It was just a word.
Hiding my heart-fisting disappointment, I cocked my head. “Runa?” Perhaps speaking it would trigger something. Anything.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I remembered just before I woke up in the grasslands.”
Runa.
I rolled the letters over my tongue, letting it soak deep into my mind.
My heart skipped. “That word...it’s not just a name. It also belongs to—”
“Bees.” She clasped her hands against her bare belly. “I know. It was them who gave me back my name.”
“It also means life giver,” I murmured, my mind whirling with everything I could recall. “Bees are the pollinators of the world. They give life. Without them, there would be nothing.”
She nodded almost shyly. “To be named after them is an honour.” Her voice faded to a whisper, “I don’t know why I wear that name or who gave it to me, but it is my name, of that I am certain. They swarmed me. Stung me. Became a part of me.”
I narrowed my eyes at her unblemished skin. No redness, no swelling. “You weren’t stung, Runa.”
She jolted, as if the use of her name did something to her.
What must it feel like to be called by something that linked a forgetful present to your hidden past?
How would it feel if she used my name?
A name I hadn’t cared about until this very moment.
I suddenly wanted her to speak it. Badly.
Her lips parted as she raised her arm, running her fingers along her skin, searching for the stings she’d felt. She didn’t speak for a while; her shoulders slouched as she struggled to accept what was real and what was not. With a quick inhale, she turned up her palm and dropped her other arm. Closing her eyes, she pursed her lips.
“What...what are you doing?” I asked, reaching for her outstretched hand.
Pain bit into me.
Fire seared my fingertips.
Ripping my fingers back, I glared at the small flame flickering in her palm. A fire that wasn’t natural, wasn’t mortal.
She tensed all while her eyes widened at what she’d created. “The fire said I could now summon its children. If the trance wasn’t real, how do I have such a gift?” Squeezing her fingers together, she snuffed out the flame, leaving tendrils of smoke to curl around her knuckles. “How can you summon shadows when you’re supposedly as mortal as me?”
I straightened with wariness. “Shadows?”
She crossed her arms. “You summon them. I’ve seen it. You used them to push Aktor off me when he...” She stopped speaking with a wince.
A spot between my shoulder blades itched. I didn’t want to lie, but I had no answers to give. I settled on the truth, as frustrating and unhelpful as it was. “I don’t know how I summon them. But you’re right...they appear for me. Just like that fire appeared for you.”
“If you don’t know how to manifest them, then how did you turn them into a weapon?”
“I didn’t—they just...acted as an extension of myself.”
“But...”
“They appear at will.” I shrugged. “Usually when my emotions are high.” I recalled the first time they’d appeared: when running with Salak and the adrenaline-coursing joy at winning. They’d pooled then, drawn by sheer happiness, but they’d also been summoned by pain from the lynx’s bite and rage at the hunters hurting her.
“I think any heightened emotion brings them forth.” I stepped closer to her, rubbing my thigh as it burned as keenly as the fire she’d branded my fingertips with. “Just like the mark on my leg reacts whenever you’re near.”
Her own hand slapped over her upper thigh. I waited for her to deny it. Braced myself so she wouldn’t see my pain at her refusal—her denial over the connection between us.
“A warning,” she breathed, barely audible.
“What did you say?” I drifted closer.
“Nothing.” Slowly, she lowered her hand, her chin tipping upward. Defiance glittered in her stare as if she’d chosen to accept that we shared far too many things not to be fated. “Mine reacts the same way. It bled when we first met, but now it just...hums.” She gave me a shy smile. “It vibrates to a different frequency when you’re near.”
That smile arrowed through my heart and made me weak at the knees. “And you still think we aren’t linked in some way? That our forgotten pasts aren’t intertwined?” I took her hands, grateful no more fire burned. “We share something, Runa. Something worth discovering. Something that might lead us to whatever we’ve forgotten.”
Her fingers curled around mine before she pulled them reluctantly out of my grip. “If that’s true, why did the fire warn me to stay away from you?”
I mulled over her question. “Because the more you grow to trust me, the more you’ll remember me. If you let me kiss you, your memories might unfurl in one messy moment.”
