“It’s all I ask.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “I guess… I mean, I don’t know how to do this, but I guess it would be best if you can clear your thoughts. Don’t concentrate on anything and just zone out if you can.”
Thorin mumbled something affirmative, and his warm breath rushed over my face. He had kept his walls up so long, he had probably forgotten how to let them down, and I saw nothing, at first. But slowly, slowly, I sank through a gray fog and dropped into the light of a recent memory. I saw myself from his point of view, the day we’d first met, when he picked me up from the airport in Anchorage.
Maybe it’s all coincidence, and I sincerely hope it is. This isn’t the first time the past has reincarnated. Some players from the original game have reappeared from time to time only to experience a violent death in a way that suggests history is prone to revisit some of its more… thrilling moments.
But this girl, coming here after the brutality committed on her brother—she’s either stupid, brave, ill-fated, or some of everything. I should have sent her flight back home before it crossed the first time line, saved us all a mountain of trouble. Now Val and I are burdened with watching over her, surreptitiously keeping her safe until I find out if her brother’s murder is happenstance or omen.
Thousands of years of peace have blessed me and my kind, but all existence is based on cycles. If the end of this current phase is near, I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure I am a part of the rebirth, just like last time. Solina Mundy will not get in my way.
Ah, there she is, fighting through the crowds at baggage claim. She’s a golden-skinned, blond-haired elf. Sol was the predecessor of their kind—the Ljósálfar—and this girl has definitely inherited the genes. Hmm, she sees Val now—recognition lights in her eyes… and attraction.
I feel sorry for her already.
Thorin’s first perception of me was interesting, but unhelpful. I pressed forward, or backward, receding through Thorin’s timeline. Flashes of things jumped out at me—history retreating in bursts of colors, thoughts, sounds, smells. So many smells. Rain, of course, gun smoke, wood smoke, spicy pine needles, roasting meat, salt water, forest floors and decaying leaves, decaying bodies, blood, blood, and more blood.
I stopped and slowed my breathing. Like a deep-sea diver halting her descent, I floated, weightless, in a vast ocean of memories, thoughts, words, conversations, emotions. They piled around me, eager like street beggars, demanding attention, crying for consideration. Shoving. Pushing. Suffocating.
All of his thoughts at once—it’s too much pressure.
Which way is up? Which way is out?
Can’t hear….
Can’t think….
Can’t breathe…
Buried beneath a pile of blankets, I hunkered in the corner of the sofa and clutched a steaming mug of coffee. Thorin had stoked the coals in the fireplace and added more wood. Flames roared and crackled across from me, but I still trembled.
Thorin sat a few inches away, a stolid sentinel, his gaze never wavering from my face for more than the few seconds it had taken to make a cup of coffee for me. “I’m guessing you’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
“Huh-uh.” I shook my head.
“I thought—” He paused, swallowed, and started again. “For a minute, you stopped breathing, and you went pale as a corpse, and you were cold. You’ve never been that cold.” And he should know. I had lost count of how many times he had moved my limp and unresponsive body after one trauma or another. It’s too many times, that’s how many.
“I felt like I was drowning,” I said. “I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know which way was up, which way to go to get to the surface. Everything went dark, but I heard you calling my name. It was a lifeline. I followed it back.”
Thorin leaned forward, teeth grinding, jaw working. His hand balled into a fist on his knee, white knuckled, imperative. “I don’t want you to do anything like that again. Ever.”
I set my mug on the end table next to me and withheld the dramatic sigh trying to escape my throat. “It’s another tool, like my fire. It may take some time and practice to master, but I need to learn to use it.”
“No, Sunshine. I—”
I raised a hand, stopping him. “You wouldn’t discard your hammer just because you smashed your thumb with it one time, right? I’ll only get better if I practice, but I think I’ll stick to working with people whose memories are a bit shallower. Don’t ask me not to, because I’ll refuse.”
Thorin huffed. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s pointless to argue with you when you’ve made up your mind, isn’t it? Your ability is a tool, possibly even a weapon, and maybe you should learn to control it.” He raised a finger, stopping me before I voiced my agreement. “Wait, I’m not done.”
Of course he isn’t.
“But we’ll do it carefully, and we’ll do it together, even if you’re practicing with someone else. Don’t try this again on your own. Not without me.”
I nodded. “Okay. I won’t, unless you’re there to watch. You’ll be the lifeguard. You can pull me out when I get in over my head.”
Thorin exhaled and relaxed his shoulders for the first time since I’d regained consciousness. “After all that, I still have to ask: Did you see anything useful? Any memories of Rolf?”
I sank into my blankets and momentarily put aside his question. The worst of my shivering had eased, but a half-frozen slurry still seeped through my veins. I reached for my fire and brought it up to a low, warm roast.
Thorin sucked in a startled breath. “What are you doing?”
“I’m tired of shivering.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Well, don’t burn down the cabin. Baldur won’t get his deposit back.”
Saying his name must have worked like an incantation because Baldur chose that moment to reappear in the middle of the living room. A cowlick of cinnamon hair stood up on the crown of his head like tail feathers. He looked at me, glanced at Thorin, and asked, “What did I miss?”
Thorin and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Long story,” Thorin said after recovering his composure.
“Did you learn anything useful?”
“Only that it’s dangerous to journey through an eternity of memories,” I said. “Otherwise, no.” I gave Thorin an apologetic smile. “Nothing about Rolf.”
“Maybe you have no memories of him,” Baldur said. “Maybe he means to take his revenge against someone else by hurting you.”
