Chapter Sixteen
" T HEY DARE TO come close to me," Zane growled when two hooded seers melted out of the woodland shadows of their last life and approached his mighty dragon, where he mourned beside his mate's ashes. Beside the last fiery embers that were once Savannah.
"We come in peace, King of the Dragons," the woman said respectfully, her features hard to make out.
"Only ever peace," the man beside her echoed softly, his features just as obscured. "And with a hope to fix this. We want to help you find the peace you seek and one day reunite with your mate to reverse the curse designed to end dragonkind so that we might ultimately save it."
"Why should I trust you?" His dragon rose to his full, towering, intimidating height and fanned his great wings before lowering his massive, spiked head and baring his long, lethal teeth. "I should kill you both now and then go end all of your kind."
"Yet you will not," the woman said, her tone as gentle as the man's. "Now those who hated you most are no more, you will embrace a future with shifters, humans, and seers alike." She twirled her wrist, and a familiar fiery ring rose out of Savannah's embers into the air above the stones. "And you will do this because you know it will once again lead you back to her. Back to a life where you can finally be together."
"Because you are her destiny," the male seer said. "All our destinies if you let us help counter this curse."
Savannah's eyes moistened all that much more when a vision of her at eleven years old appeared inside the ring. She had looked up sadly from her perch on a swing when a boy her age approached with a caring smile and asked her what was wrong.
"It was you," she managed, as memories of their time together flooded back. "It was always you."
"It was," Zane said, just as emotional, remembering that moment all too well, along with several other memories flickering in the fiery ring. Rune might have warned him to stay away, but he just couldn't. Not when Savannah had looked so sad. "And it seems my incarnate knows that too." He could feel the pure elation rushing through his inner beast. "He knows exactly who we are."
Something seen clearly when his dragon moved closer to the ring, and his eyes flared with hope and unmistakable love. Not just that, but outright fascination as he took in their new forms and realized they would someday become more of this world than they ever could have imagined.
Zane's incarnate watched the memories longingly until they faded, leaving just the fiery circle. However wary his eyes were when he looked the seers' way again, his dragon no longer seemed determined to end them. "Tell me more."
"This ring made of your mate's embers will gather the memories other Valkyries experienced near these stones," the woman said. "Valkyries also targeted by the dark seers' curse."
The female seer lowered her hood, revealing an eerily beautiful face, and the male did the same, showing a masculine face nearly as striking before the female went on. "Once the ring gathers its magic, or final flames from the embers of its memories, it will reignite someday along with the curse." She kept her gaze on Zane's incarnate and gestured at the ring. "When that happens, you and the others will be reunited with your Valkyries and fated mates. Moreover, you will stand a chance against a powerful curse determined to end dragonkind."
"It's Rune in that life," Savannah exclaimed softly, certain of it, blinking back unexpected tears. "And I knew her. She came to me as much as the dark seer did. She genuinely tried to help me through my grief, yet I fear, in the end, only made me trust seers all that much more." Her gaze drifted to the man. "I never met him, but I felt him within her. Sensed how much she loved him, and that reassured me she understood the feelings you and I shared."
"No doubt it did," Zane said, sensing the two in a whole new way. Everything was clicking into place. "Because the male seer by her side is J?rn in our last life. Unquestionably in love with her and just as eager to see peace."
It seemed they had seen all they were meant to see because the memory faded, and everything transformed around them until they were standing back in their lair at the cliffs between Magnus's and Rafe's kingdoms. The weather outside was a strange mix of thunder and lightning, then snow and ice and balmy winds, then frigid gusts. Of the past and present struggling against each other as Athena and Ulrik worked to keep time slowed down.
"It's lifted entirely now," Zane murmured, cupping her cheek. "You are free at last, mitt hjertes flamme ." He took in her soft golden glow, never so happy to have found her again. "The curse has lifted."
"It has ." Savannah clearly marveled at how she felt. "I feel lighter. Out from under a weight I had no idea I carried." She swallowed hard. "A terrible need I barely understood to extinguish dragons, whether male or female, because I'd been cursed by creatures with nothing but hatred in their hearts." She rested her hand on his chest, shook her head, and blinked back tears. "Hatred that drove you away when we were teenagers. I'm certain of it."
He wasn't just certain but outright knew it and was about to confess what else it had done, but the weather became volatile, switching more rapidly between eras.
"Athena and Ulrik's magic is weakening." Though he wished he could carry Savannah back to bed and reunite with her properly for days, if not weeks, they were running out of time, so he brushed his lips across hers and pulled her after him. "We need to rouse the others and tell them what we learned so we can figure out how to convince our people you weren't yourself when you ended my dragons."
It seemed the others already sensed the changes happening in the weather and perhaps already picked up the changes in Savannah because they emerged into the main cave at the exact same moment. Emerged to the last thing they expected to see, but in retrospect, made perfect sense.
"J?rn?" Magnus exclaimed. Everyone slowly approached Rune and J?rn, who stood holding hands near the mouth of the cave overlooking the sea. "Is that truly you?"
"It is," J?rn replied roughly, emotional as he welcomed his brethren into a tight embrace, then held him at arm's length. "It has been too long, brother, and for that, you have my apologies." He eyed Magnus fondly for another moment before his gaze swept over everyone but ultimately landed on Zoey. "And you, my new sister, for not greeting you sooner."
Other than filling out more like male Viking dragons did as they aged, J?rn had changed little. He still possessed an impressive bearing and a beard to match Magnus's, but his hair was darker than Zane remembered. It also had wisps of silvery white as if he'd aged faster and seen more because, no doubt, he had.
J?rn's gaze went to Rafe and Zane next, who had both been enemies until recently. "I cannot tell you how much I longed for this day, cousins." His pale, sage-green eyes swept over everyone. "Cannot tell you how glad I am to see you have made it this far."
"Because you have," Rune said softly, her voice full of heartfelt emotion. Her gaze swept over Quinn, Zoey, and Savannah specifically. "With help from Valkyries, I have missed so very much. Goddesses who helped achieve something, whether they realized it or not at the time, that will not only save dragonkind but bring peace to yet another era that needs it so very much."
As if Rune's saying such triggered it, a veil was pulled away from everyone's eyes because not only those present but also their kin and Valkyries, who were not with them, finally understood just how much Rune and J?rn had done for them. Understood their sacrifice.
"You had to go your separate ways," Rafe murmured, seeing things as clearly as the rest of them. He looked from J?rn to Rune. "The only way to bring us back together was to no longer be together, or the curse wouldn't have ignited, allowing your power within the curse to work its magic."
"That's right." Rune went to Savannah first. She cupped her shoulder with one hand and Savannah's cheek with the other, looking at her with a genuine affection they all felt. "I'm sorry I couldn't answer your questions sooner." Her gaze flickered from Quinn and Zoey back to Savannah. "But now, as you begin recalling the many moments I shared with all of you in another life, ones that could not be revealed until now, hopefully you will understand why things had to happen this way. Why it was crucial we waited until you all came back together properly and the dark seers' curse lifted from you, Savannah." There was no mistaking the sadness in her gaze. "A curse I fear cost you so very much, and I cannot tell you how sorry I am for that. How sorry I am for the suffering you experienced not just in this life but your last."
"Because so much of it either led to the curse or was a result of it," Savannah realized. She looked at Rune in gratitude. "But still, you were there, not only in mine but all of our pasts and in our present, trying to guide us from the damage your own kind had created. Hatred and evil aimed at change. At beasts, they were unwilling to try to understand."
Before Rune had a chance to confirm that, Savannah pulled her into a tight embrace, only for Quinn and Zoey to join them as well. While they couldn't be there now, Zane felt the mental embrace and deep thanks from Keira and Athena as well.
He also felt Athena's inner struggle.
"We need to help Athena," Savannah exclaimed, wide-eyed as the women ended their group hug. Her gaze remained on Rune. "And we can now, right? The curse is lifted, so all we need to do is resume time and explain what happened. Let everyone see we're reunited now, and I was cursed." She looked from J?rn to Rune. "Let them see I didn't cause the illness taking down our kind. I'd think everyone would see it, anyway, with the lifting of the curse and—"
"The curse hasn't been lifted," Zane said gently. "Not entirely...not yet."
He had dreaded this moment for far too long. While beyond grateful his mate was free of the curse, things hadn't gone as he'd hoped. He knew it almost the moment they walked into the cave and sensed what the others couldn't from Rune and J?rn.
"No, the curse is not lifted entirely yet," Rune confirmed, giving Savannah a compassionate look before she and J?rn worked great magic indeed because one cave vanished only to be replaced by another. He and Savannah were alone with Magnus and Zoey, undoubtedly because Zoey was Savannah's closest friend and because there was no better couple to be there at this moment.
"What's happening?" Savannah frowned and visibly shivered as she took in the cave in which she'd first arrived, no doubt recalling the dragons she'd slain through no fault of her own. "Why are we here?"
"Because things are not as they have appeared for a long time, mitt hjertes flamme ," Zane said softly. Though he'd thought endlessly how to go about this when the day finally came, the moment felt inadequate, he felt inadequate, as he pulled her close, kept a firm arm around her, cupped her cheek, and came right out with it, praying she didn't hate him.
Worse yet, shun him.
"Savannah, your son was not stillborn," he managed. "Nor was he a son."
She shook her head, clearly in denial, as he, with Rune's help, lifted the veil within her mind so her inner beast could sense the truth.
In more ways than one, a truth that would change everything.
A truth that might mean he would lose Savannah forever.