Chapter Thirteen

" W E'RE THERE," SAVANNAH said softly, reverently, her fear fading along with Múspellsheimr. They now stood in a warm, blustery, verdant forest surrounding a cluster of magnificent standing stones. "We've arrived at the stones."

"Yet it's warm out," Magnus noted. "Another memory then?"

"Given we are in the Forest of Memories, I would say so," Rafe confirmed. He looked at Zane and Savannah. "Do you see the runic symbols aglow in the stones?"

"We do," they said at the same time.

"So many of them," Savannah went on, marveling at all the unique shapes that seemed to tell a story. She said as much, too. "I feel like I should be able to read them like an ancient language, but I can't."

"Yet I suspect you will in the end," Rafe said. "All of us will."

"I think you're right," she murmured, drawn to the tallest stone. "Do you hear that?" She drew closer and smiled. "It sounds like...happiness...contentment."

As if her words invoked it, a dragonly female purr reverberated somewhere close by in the woodland. Following the sound, they made their way through the forest to a sizeable clearing, only to find Savannah's incarnate lounging in a big pool of sunlight.

"Despite coming from such a hot planet, I loved the gentle warmth," she reflected, feeling what she'd felt then, relishing the sense of peace that filled her. "I loved not being so frightened anymore."

"And I loved that for you." Zane rested his warm hands on her shoulders from behind and stood close enough she could feel his strength and body heat. "Loved that for both of you."

No doubt he did as his mighty incarnate appeared in the shadows and admired her dragon for a time before he joined her, cushioning his great form around hers. She turned enough that she could rub her neck against his affectionately, revealing the obvious bulge in her belly.

Savannah was caught off guard by how hard that hit her, and she bit back tears yet again, leaning back against Zane, never more grateful for his support in both lives. "I can feel him," she whispered, her throat thick. "I can feel his tiny life inside me."

"As could I," he rumbled in her ear, just as emotional. "Felt him as if he were my own."

"Because in this world, he would be." She felt the joy of her incarnate. "A world where he wouldn't be ripped away and traded." Even as she said it, she felt loss, not to mention a renewed sense of frustration with Zoey she by no means deserved. "Yet I get the sense and it was proven on Magnus and Zoey's adventure, that we couldn't mate in the end." She inhaled deeply, trying to control her errant emotions. "That you could not raise my, our , offspring as you'd hoped, and now we know why."

Though Zoey remained quiet, respecting the moment on several fronts, Savannah felt her confusion at that, along with everyone else's, as the memory faded.

"I think it would be wise to seek shelter in my Realm until we know where to go next," Rafe finally said after a heavy silence, noting how the weather shifted between winter, as it actually was in Norway in their era, and a more temperate month. Snowflakes floated on warm wind one second then lush green leaves swayed in an icy wind the next. "It could be Athena's magic is fluctuating, and I think—"

"No," Zane rumbled, cutting him off, seeming to sense along with Savannah that they should head northeast toward the coastline. He took her hand and walked. "We should go this way. Toward the rocky shores between what are now your two kingdoms, Rafe and Magnus."

"We walked this way countless times," Savannah realized as they traveled through the woodland. She couldn't help a small smile, remembering them frolicking together, outright playing in a way they never could before. "You and I in our previous life, Zane."

"We did walk this path many times." He met her smile. "You were...much changed in little time."

"I think you're right." She pressed her lips together against a fresh wave of emotion. Against a sense of happiness that had been so very new to her.

"Do you remember what happened between arriving here, as I can only assume that's where the circular door in Múspellsheimr led all of you, and the memory we just saw," Magnus wondered, his repressed alarm at the sight of Zane's former beast in this era on this world rather than in Múspellsheimr not lost on Savannah and Zane. "The red dragon we just saw is much changed when he confronts me on my ship in that life. Far more enraged. Fury that makes little sense, given his love for a dragon from his home world. One that might have been more accessible to him after Zoey's death, given the dragon he was supposed to marry was gone."

"Would Savannah have been more accessible, though?" Zoey wondered. "Typically, marriages of convenience for political purposes, like I'm positive ours was, don't just go away. If Zane were truly looking for peace for his people, and that certainly seemed to be the case, then another marriage would be arranged."

No doubt it would, sadly enough.

"I remember when I arrived here," Zane said, eyeing the woodland around them. "There were Múspellsheimr dragons already here. A community of sorts that was born of others who had come years before. Those told in the stories of our youth."

Remembering along with him, Savannah was about to add to that, but the area ahead caught her attention. The forest had parted, revealing a sweeping view of a choppy aquamarine sea, and they found themselves standing on towering cliffs.

"These are not nearly as impressive in our era," Magnus exclaimed, taking in the daunting drop to the rocky shore below. "They must have eroded over time."

"No doubt." Rafe seemed to sense something about them. "Yet how fortunate they were this grand then. They offered much shelter for a breed that was shunned more than they were accepted. Vicious aliens to this world who were neither shifters nor human."

"Yet still, this was home, and I loved it," Savannah murmured softly, drawn to the cliff's edge so strongly she thought nothing of leaping right off the edge and shifting into her dragon as if she'd been doing it her whole life.

"Careful, mitt hjertes flamme ," Zane's dragon rumbled into her mind, adding to the pleasure she felt as she swooped down. As if she'd done this hundreds of times before because she had, she flew effortlessly and enjoyed the warm, then icy wind beneath her wings before she took a sharp turn into a gaping cave high above the sea, knowing right where it was.

"No need to be careful." She landed in the spacious cave with its sparkling array of mica where black, sooty burnt rock would have been on her home world. "I'm home." She looked at Zane's great red beast and into his magnificent fiery eyes when he landed beside her. For a flicker of a moment, she saw the dragon he'd been before. How had she ever forgotten him? "We're home."

Although alarmed at first, undoubtedly reflecting on her behavior when she'd first traveled back in time in dragon form, the longer he gazed into her eyes, the more relaxed he became. Eventually, he stepped closer and eyed the enormous cave with the same sense of recognition. Between his initial cautiousness and how the others behaved when they landed in the cave, she realized just how wary they still were of her dragon. So said the way Zane's position became more protective of her as everyone formed a wide semi-circle around them. She couldn't help but note Rafe and Magnus remained particularly close to her friends, eyeing Savannah with trepidation.

"I was that bad, wasn't I?" she said into their minds. Obviously, she was. She'd slain five powerful dragons with a mere look. And while she understood everyone's response to her now that she'd shifted again, her dragon felt their wariness in a deeply emotional, personal way. In a fashion that told her just how much she had begun liking the bond she'd felt forming between them all. One born of a previous life and the undeniable role their inner Valkyries had played in that day and age.

"I'm so sorry." Savannah cocked her head this way and that, meeting all of their eyes, wanting them to trust her. She needed them in her life just as much as she had needed the dragons that once resided in this cave. "If I could have stopped what I did...if I could give Zane's dragons back their life, I would in a heartbeat. I'd—"

Before she could get another heartfelt word out, Quinn and Zoey's dragons bypassed their mates and were beside her seconds later, rubbing necks against hers.

"You don't have to say another word, my friend," Zoey said. "That wasn't you. And we will always stand by your side. Always be your family."

"Yes, we will," Quinn agreed.

"Us too," Keira and Athena said into her mind, their voices coming through much like static, without a doubt because of magical interference. "Always."

"As will I," ?se declared, surprising everyone when her dragon stepped close as well and nuzzled Savannah. "How could I not for such a mighty warrior? One who stood up to the fiercest dragon I have ever seen?"

Then, much to her pleasure, Magnus and Rafe stepped close as well, showing their support and trust. Not that close, of course, given the low rumble of warning from Zane's dragon, but close enough to make her feel truly accepted by all. Even Ulrik and Tyr were there in her mind, as well as Mea, Ulrik's sister, who she had yet to meet but still stood by her just the same. A dragon, typically a peaceful, mystical sort who apprenticed under Rafe, who was just as willing to fight whatever tried to get ahold of Savannah.

"As am I," whispered through her mind. "As are both of us always."

"Rune?" she replied, certain it had been the seer. But who else was she talking about? Who was the masculine presence she'd felt brush her mind. All of theirs, based on Zane's surprised response.

"J?rn?"

His question went unanswered, and the presence vanished. Savannah's draw to the cave, however, had not, and she shifted back to being human with as much ease as she'd embraced her dragon. She wasn't sure why she shifted back either, when this was very much a place for dragons, only that she wanted to experience it with her human senses rather than her inner beast's. Almost as if it might be too hard to go on as a dragon and recall a life that had to have had ended badly despite how happy she'd been.

Did end badly based on her nightmare.

"It was J?rn, without a doubt," Zane went on, shifting along with the rest of them. He looked at Magnus. "Did you feel anything else from your brother? Where he might be now?" He shook his head, clearly as caught off guard as his brethren by the brief contact. "It has been too long since I have felt his presence, and I'll admit I missed it. Him, however distant he became over the years."

"I could not agree more." Magnus shook his head as well. "And no, I sensed nothing more than you, but then he's always been very good at evading via magic, has he not?"

"He has," Rafe agreed, eyeing the location through wizardly eyes before nodding once. "Wherever we are, caught between times and still within the Forest of Memories, we are safe here for now. Safe until the next memory carries us onward and no sooner." He eyed the black-bellied clouds rolling in from the sea. "Until then, the weather will be too volatile, whether it be a blizzard or lightning storm or perhaps a bit of both, lending a higher chance of being vulnerable to our own era and enraged dragons who might be seeking Savannah out at this very moment."

"Then we eat, rest, and continue sharing what we can remember of the life we left behind." A small fire sizzled to life, and Zane gestured at a newly manifested table laden with food and drink. "Perhaps discover more answers through talk and what might come to us in this place so we are better prepared for what lies ahead."

"Because you are remembering more things the longer you're here, aren't you?" Zoey said as they sat. She looked from Zane to Savannah, who sat across from her and Magnus. "Both of you."

"We are," Savannah confirmed, answering for them both while staving off the endless waves of emotion this place invoked. "And so far, they're all good." She gazed at the cave and turbulent sweeping sea beyond and squeezed Zane's hand when she looked at him. "Really, really good."

"They were." He squeezed her hand in return. His gaze lingered on her face as if he loathed looking away before his attention returned to the others. "When we first arrived, it was..." He searched for the right words as he poured mead into Savannah's cup and manifested himself a horn of ale. "Far better than where we had come from with its blue skies and breathable air, yet not as peaceful as we might have hoped."

"No," Savannah agreed, recalling the joy of bursting into a whole new world only to realize they weren't welcome. "Granted, it was nothing like Múspellsheimr. The terrible atmosphere was gone, and the monsters within it, yet there was an iciness from the natives we didn't expect. Humans and shifters were working toward peace but were still very wary of full-blooded Múspellsheimr dragons because the ones who were already here were largely unstructured in their community."

"Then there were the seers," Zane said darkly, downing half his horn. "Their hatred of us knew no bounds."

"No," Rafe and Quinn agreed at the same time, having dealt with them firsthand.

"They hated dragonkind no matter the form," Rafe went on. "Did not want us in their world and certainly didn't want peace."

"No." Savannah sipped her mead, shivering at the thought of them. "Yet as much as our kind found them disagreeable, for the most part they let us be."

"At least in the beginning," Zane went on, eyeing Savannah with as much love as she felt for him at this point. Love she wanted to scream about out loud, but this wasn't the time.

"At the beginning," Zane continued, "the seers kept their distance." He wrapped his arm around Savannah's waist and pulled her close to his side, making clear with his low telepathic growl of approval that he'd caught her thoughts. He was pleased she loved him, too. "Yet as time went on, as we all know, the seers became far more troublesome in their disdain for anyone with dragon blood, be they shifter or full-blooded."

"So, even though we don't know the end of your story yet," Rafe said, "we must assume, as it was for Quinn and I, that a seer is our unseen enemy, given the monster you two dealt with on Múspellsheimr is no longer a threat."

"I would say so." Zane narrowed his eyes. "A seer who also claimed to be a Viking dragon king."

"Claiming is one thing," Zoey said. "Actually being what one claims is another." When everyone looked at her curiously, she shrugged. "I saw it all the time in my profession. People would say they were one thing but be another. Especially in war-torn countries with less money. You never really knew who was in charge in some areas. More often than not, it was someone unseen, lest they put themselves in the line of fire." She looked from Rafe to Zane and Savannah. "So what says our unseen enemy wasn't lying about their true identity? That they wanted us to think one thing rather than another, so we didn't get too close to the truth?"

"Nothing says they weren't lying," Savannah murmured, sensing Zoey was on target. She nodded at her best friend in thanks because her words felt right. Needed. "I don't think they... he was a dragon at all." She ground her teeth against the feeling of him skirting her mind in her nightmare. "I think he was deceptive and full of hate and prejudice."

"So you feel all that?" Quinn said softly, eyeing Savannah curiously. "You remember how he felt when he lured you toward that door because he did lure you."

"He did," she concurred, somehow caught in Quinn's eyes as her friend's healing ways felt like they tried to protect her and make her better, yet the only way to do that was to help her see clearer.

And that, as it turned out, led to an avalanche of truths and, sadly enough, all-too-familiar pain.