Page 41 of Thorulf
“You mean the same land,” Jade said. “Ireland?”
“No, I mean magic,” Thor reiterated. “Magic born of the Celtic gods. Thorulf inherited it from his distant ancestors Fionn Mac Cumhail and Goddess Brigit, and you, Jade, from Goddess Étaín. For her sun goddess magic wasn’t just a big part of the Forge but part of many things in the immediate vicinity, including the clover patch you were so fond of.”
“So I...soaked up Celtic magic before I was born?” Jade asked.
“In a way.” Thor nodded. “Hopping into that clover patch, or by all accounts being born into it, gave you as much Celtic godliness as Thorulf.”
Jade snorted, wondering if she understood him correctly. “Italmostsounds like you’re saying I’m a demi-god like him.”
“Because I am.” Thor smiled like he wasn’t dropping a bombshell on her sense of identity. “You might have inherited it in a most unusual way, but youdopossess some of Goddess Étaín’s godliness via the clover patch. You are, by all accounts, as much a Celtic dragon as Thorulf.”
“That’s why I was so drawn to him,” she murmured, sensing it clearly now that Thor had put it out there. “He was...a beacon.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she recalled zipping through the woodland away from Hel. Yes, Thor’s presence had set her in the right direction, but it had nothing to do with how her little dragon had felt. “Thorulf was...home. Safety and excitement all at once. That's why my dragon looked solid in the cave. My godliness was already connecting me to his location...a means to find my way back after I was born.”
She only meant to glance Thorulf’s way, but their gazes snagged. Held. For a moment, it felt like she was looking into his dark chocolate eyes for the first time all over again. That their dragons were just meeting. It had been as profound then as it was now. Feeling the unique connection. There had been great comfort in finding him. Being with him.
Until all that changed, her inner voice reminded.Until he turned his back on you.
“No.” Thorulf narrowed his eyes, startling her when he closed the distance and crouched in front of her. He clasped her shoulders and searched her eyes as though searching for her very soul. “That wasn’t you, Jade. That voicewasn’tyou.”
“What are you talking about?” She frowned and meant to pull away but couldn’t quite find the willpower. “What voice?”
“The voice in your mind,” he replied. “It might have seemed like a thought to you, but I heard more.” His eyes narrowed. “I heard another female.”
“You did?” Maya sounded concerned. “I didn’t sense anything strange in her mind, and I’m her sister.”
“Her sister,” Thor conceded softly, his gaze on the raging storm outside. Bubbling black clouds sought him out. Dared him to come fight again. “But you’re not her other half, Maya. You weren’t the first dragon she connected with. One just like her. A dragon as suited to her as you are to Dagr.”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t feel anyone else in my mind,” Jade managed. “Those were simply my justified thoughts.”
She had just managed to tear her gaze away from Thorulf when his warm weapon-roughened hand cupped her cheek and forced her gaze back to his face.
“No,” he ground out. His dragon eyes flared brown initially before they sparked green. The same emerald green as the clovers tiny Jade dove into. “I might not remember all of our time together yet, Jade, but my dragon knows yours.” A vein ticked in his temple. “My dragon knows yours almost better than it knows itself, and that wasnotyour own thought.” She could tell he didn’t want to say it but said it anyway. Needed her to know how serious this was. “It washer. The purple dragon.”
She could tell by the cautious pained look in his eyes that he feared her anger would come screaming back, and he was right. It did. Or it almost did before they were interrupted by another memory happening right beside them. One where anger clearly almost got the better of little Jade. Slightly larger now, she plunked down on the rock beside big Jade, notched her chin, and refused to look at little Thorulf, who was also slightly larger.
“I just don’t understand,” she complained. “Why can’t I go to the Fortress? Go to your home? Why don’t you want me to meet your dad and stepmom?” Her wobbly voice gave away her hurt feelings. “Is it because I don’t have parents anymore and don’t deserve more?”
“No, of course not.” Little Thorulf’s worried, sad eyes never left her. “I don’t know why I can’t bring you home. I just can’t. You know that. Every time we try, it doesn’t work.”
“But have we tried hard enough?”Jade followed her little dragon when she leapt down, tromped over to the edge of the cave, and looked down over the cliff.“Maybe if we try a new path? Or fly straight down once we get directly overhead.”
Jade froze when she reached the edge—nearly the same spot the purple dragon had pushed her over—and looked down at the sprawling Viking village far below. While fear and anger blew through her, mimicking the emotions she’d felt in the nightmare, looking down at something she’d gazed at so often and longinglyalmostaffected her more.
“There are no paths left we haven’t tried.”Little Thorulf joined little Jade as big Thorulf joined her at the edge. As he clearly felt what his younger self had at that moment based on his troubled expression.
“We’ve tried everything,” little Thorulf went on. “From the tops and sides and front gate.” He sighed, sitting when she sat then standing when she stood again, restless. “For some reason, I can’t bring you there.”
When little Jade finally sat and hung her head, he sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
“I’d never felt so sad,” Thorulf murmured, eyeing his younger self. “And mad because I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t bring you home.” A small smile suddenly hovered on his mouth. “Until it occurred to me, I could...in a way.”
Seconds later, little Thorulf perked up and looked back at the cave. “How about here then, Jade?”
“What do you mean, here?” she whispered on a choppy sigh.
When she tried to hide a fiery tear, he wiped it away with the tip of his wing and gestured behind them. “I can’t bring you home there but maybe here.”
“Ja.” Thorulf grinned and slipped his hand into hers when little Thorulf perked right up and nudged little Jade away from the edge.
“What do we need with a Fortress?” Little Thorulf made a sweeping gesture with his wing encompassing the spacious cave. “When we have this?” He scurried behind little Jade and kept nudging her along. “Just look how big it is! All the memories it has waiting for us.”
Memories? Startled by the odd turn of phrase, she and Thorulf glanced at each other. Was little Thorulf somehow talking about Jade’s future memories? Those Maya and Dagr saw running around this very lair?
Moments later, they found out.