Page 8 of Vicar
Chapter Four
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE forVicar to describe how he felt when a tiny ethereal dragon the color of Trinity’s eyes, half flew, half stumbled into the cave. Smoke curled off her like she’d just been subjected to a great deal of fire. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
“Oh my God,” Trinity whispered, her present-day self just as wide-eyed. “What on Earth...”
Jade grinned and patted her shoulder when she trailed off in shock. “Welcome to where you began, sis.”
“Not began,” Vicar corrected, noting they were witnessing a memory in Helheim. “But passed through.”
“Right,” Jade agreed. “Because just like me, Trinity was born onto another world before passing through Helheim and being reborn onto Earth or Midgard.” She frowned at tiny Trinity’s smoking scales and horrified expression. “Something tells me it wasn’t a particularly pleasant world, either.”
“What am I doing?” Trinity murmured. Her tiny dragon had stopped, glanced back in fear, then zinged deeper into the cave only to hide behind the very rock she hid behind when first arriving here.
“I don’t know,” Jade replied, “but you’re terrified.”
“Of what, though?” Thorulf’s brows shot up when Vicar’s tiny dark crimson dragon skidded to a halt at the entrance. He frowned at his brother. “You?”
Still caught by the sight of Trinity’s tiny dragon, more so his overwhelming sense of familiarity and connection with her, Vicar couldn’t manage much more than a shrug. He didn’t need to ask to know this was what Dagr and Thorulf had felt when they first saw their mates as babies in Helheim.
“Aww, you don’t look that threatening, Vicar.” Jade watched tiny Vicar as he sank low, kept to the shadows, and tip-toed forward. “If anything, it looks like you’re playing hide and go seek.”
“It does,” Trinity conceded. “But I don’t get the impression my dragon was playing.” She frowned and shivered a little. “If anything, I’m trying to get away from him...or away from something...somewhere.”
“Somewhere that left you smoking,” Vicar noted, sensing something in that. “Somewhere that attracted my dragon to yours in the first place.”
“Oh, noway,” Jade exclaimed, looking at Trinity in shock. “Múspellsheimr? Because what other world would attract Vicar than the one his previous incarnation is from?”
“Múspellsheimr?” Trinity managed, just as shocked. “Why would I be born on such a terrible world?” She flinched at Vicar, her gaze apologetic. “Sorry.”
His Múspellsheimr side would likely bristle at her contempt, but his current Sigdir side couldn’t care less. He understood her disdain. “You need not apologize. Outside of those who were born of that world, most feel the same way about Múspellsheimr.”
“So Trinity was possibly born of Múspellsheimr,” Tor mused, eyeing tiny Vicar as he crept along, his excitement at odds with tiny Trinity who visibly shook in fear. “Yet if that’s the case, why is Trinity so comfortable in this cave? One in direct odds with Múspellsheimr? Easily the polar opposite?”
“More curious still,” Vicar finally tore his gaze from tiny Trinity and looked at her present-day version, “how could you possibly help balance your sisters’ energy if you were subjected to Múspellsheimr from the start? If anything, that world would have made your energy more like Raven’s. Your general negativity, intense. Likely permanent.”
“Good point.” Jade considered Trinity. “And that’s not you. Never has been.” Her attention returned to the memory. “Not now and certainly not your tiny terrified self.”
