Page 19 of Silver Claws, Crimson Tears
I frown.
—Flew from where?I push myself up straighter, confusion cutting through my exhaustion.And where’s everybody? Vaylen and the others must have rations I could eat.
Zephyros goes still.
—Little one, there is no one else. I flew from Sky’s Edge. Don’t you remember what happened?
—Sky’s Edge?I shake my head, trying to clear it.But we’re in Hearthdale, the mountains. This is the lake, and we…
—That was a year ago, Rhealyn,he says gently.
The words hit me like a hammer blow. I stare at him, waiting for the joke, but Zephyros rarely jokes and not about things that matter.
—A… a year?My voice cracks.That’s impossible. It was just yesterday that… the mountain…I can’t finish.
—It was not yesterday,Zephyros says.You disappeared. For an entire year, you were gone.
I look down at my hands, noticing for the first time how thin they are, how the skin stretches too tight across my knuckles. My clothes hang off me like they belong to someone else.
—But I don’t… remember anything, I say.
—Let me look,Zephyros says, oddly tender for such a massive creature.I can search your memories.
I sense his power brushing against my consciousness.
—Wait! No poking around in my head again,I say, remembering what he uncovered the last time.
—I want to help you remember,he corrects.
I shake my head.
—A whole year of your life shouldn’t just be... gone,he insists with concern.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the lingering warmth of the day.
—Last time… what you uncovered… I can’t.
—If I find something unsettling, I won’t tell you unless you wish it.
—That’s supposed to make me feel better?I laugh, the sound brittle even to my own ears.Fine. Do it. Not like I have much dignity left anyway.
I close my eyes and lower my mental barriers, feeling the cool rush of his consciousness flowing into mine. He enters my mind fully now, his presence like tendrils reaching through my thoughts.
Memories flash like fragments of colored glass: my training at Sky’s Edge, the day I bonded with him, my hand on Vaylen’s chest, his lips... I push that one away quickly. Then Zephyros reaches for where the past year should be. I turn away, afraid of what he may find.
—Strange,he mutters.
—What?
I feel Zephyros’s confusion as he searches more thoroughly, probing gently at the edges of my mind. When he withdraws, the puzzlement radiating from him is so strong it’s almost palpable.—There’s… nothing. I think.
—You think?
—It’s muddled.
—What does that mean?
—I do not know,he says, his tone uncharacteristically quiet.There seem to be no memories locked away or hidden behind barriers like before. It’s as if that time never existed for you.
