Page 79 of Thorulf

He frowned.“How so?”

“It created a memory that would remind me how mad I was at you and the purple dragon if I ever came across you again,” she said as her nightmare unfolded around them.“A memory that would divide us from the get-go while at the same time, remind me how much I hated her.”And she did. Churning hot blazing hate.“Hated her enough to want to destroy her not just because of your reaction to her but because she killed me.”

And so, the self-manifested memory unfolded.

Her young dragon ventured into the cave, only meeting Thorulf for the first time.

Gone was the clover patch and crazy trip through Helheim. Gone were their baby dragons meeting for the first time before Thorulf was born. Gone were all the numerous memories between then and now and all that would come. This memory became a seal, searing it all shut. Tucking it away until maybe, someday, the vault was opened again.

The negative memories of her sisters would have been there regardless because they were as much a part of her as the memory she’d just created. In the same vein, wholly controlled by her, they would no longer be visible to Thorulf. He would have no idea they were there as time went on.

“She never actually killed you,”Thorulf surmised, figuring it out when the purple dragon manifested. When she attacked young Jade, and she went over the edge of the cliff.

“No.”Jade met his eyes.“Not yet.”Her gaze returned to the memory. To just how much she’d been capable of before she forgot everything.“While this memory was certainly hard to deal with at the beginning, it served its purpose in more ways than one.”

“It did, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”She looked at him again.“Because the moment I created it, it shut everything down. Not just ours, Revna’s and your kin’s memories but Carman’s and Evil’s memories.”She shook her head.“They had no idea how far they’d gotten until you and I reconnected again. Until the Forge began.”

“Which is why it stayed away from me here,”Thorulf realized as his lair returned to normal and young Jade faded.

“Which is why it stayed away,”she echoed, pulling her hand away from his tat. “But it’s not staying away anymore.”

“No,”it roared into their minds moments before a black male and a female purple dragon appeared on the horizon.

Before they were thrust into one of the greatest battles of their lives.