Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 39

“Trust the Eternal and fear the immortal?” Rune repeated, lying back on the bed and crooking one arm behind his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” Teresa said.

“Focus your power. Aim the lightning at me.”

“And if I hit you?”

“You can’t kill me.”

She threw a white-hot bolt at him. But he had already flashed away. The lightning hit the cave wall instead, making the crystals buried there light up like neon.

“I’m an Eternal and an immortal,” Rune reminded her unnecessarily when he popped back in just a foot from her.

“That’s what I told her.” Teresa spun, dropped and threw one hand out, spitting sparks from her fingertips.

Rune grinned and disappeared.

“She wouldn’t—or couldn’t, maybe; I don’t know which—explain any further,” Teresa said when Rune flashed back to her side. “She just said that there was danger and that the immortal wanted me, specifically. And not just for the witchcraft.”

“She was right about that, anyway,” Rune whispered, reaching out to grab her.

Teresa jumped away, swung one hand in the air and reached for her magic. “You’re not worried?” she asked.

He flashed to stand behind her, wrapped his arms around her middle and held on. “Worried, no. Interested, yes. Now don’t depend solely on your magic. Conjure a knife. Like I showed you. You never know what you’ll have to fight with.”

Teresa held out one hand, focused her gaze on her palm and in a moment a long-bladed knife, gleaming silver in the torchlight, lay in her hand. She smiled, curled her fingers around the hilt, then swung it experimentally through the air.

Admiration for her swelled inside Rune. She’d been practicing. This time together had been good for her. Time to mate. Time to focus on her growing power. Time to connect to each other in a way that they hadn’t over the centuries. Her magical skills were impressive. She hadn’t needed teaching—only to remember her own past and what she had once done as easily as breathing.

“Good. That’s good,” Rune said, and crooked one finger at her in challenge. “Now come at me.”

She did. She charged across the room, holding the knife blade low and deadly. He swiped her arm out of the way and she spun quickly, dropping into a crouch while swinging her knife in a wide arc. Rune flashed out. If he hadn’t, she would have had him.

“That’s cheating,” she called out to the room.

“If you expect your opponent to fight fair, you’ll die,” he told her as he appeared again just a few feet from her.

“Then I should just use magic,” she countered, walking in a slow, wide circle around him.

“Use whatever you have,” Rune told her, dodging her next attack, then smiling when she whirled in time to take another swipe at him. “Stay alive. No matter what you have to do.”

She took a breath, looked down at the knife in her hand and said, “That’s what this is about? No matter what? Shouldn’t there be rules, Rune? Didn’t we screw up royally when we didn’t believe in rules?”

“Yeah. You did.” He flashed out, then appeared again right beside her. He pulled the knife from her hand and tossed it aside. “And we all paid the price. Now we work together and we’ll do whatever the hell we have to do to succeed.”

“So, then, we learned nothing?”

“We learned what we had to learn,” he told her, noting the worry in her eyes. It was good that she considered all sides now. She hadn’t once and they had spent centuries paying for it. “Now, tell me. Elena said you should search for new spells? In the library?”

“Yeah. Rune, what library? The one in Sedona? She said search for Serena’s spells … and I don’t know any Serena. We can’t go back there even if I knew what to look for and—” She stopped, tipped her head to one side and said, “You know what she was talking about, don’t you?”

His eyes were fierce now, flashing with the warrior gleam she was coming to know so well.

“You’re sure she said Serena.”

“Hard to mistake that name. It’s pretty different.” She stared into his eyes. “You know who she is.”

“So do you,” he muttered. Just hearing that name opened up a treasure trove of memories inside him, thick as tar and just as appealing. “You just don’t remember yet.”

“What’re you—” She stopped and took a breath. “I knew her then? In the past?”

“You could say that,” he replied. “You were Serena.”