More . My heart raced with yearning and pleasure at the thought. There needed to be more. More fire. More blood. More screams .
I took a step forward, and a twig snapped beneath my foot. Peering down, I lifted my boot. The leaves and sticks were still wet from the morning, not crisp and charred.
Swallowing, I watched as the leaves flickered. Burnt and brittle, then back to untouched. Something wasn’t right.
It took a great deal of effort for me to squeeze my eyes shut and shove the images and the need from my mind. It was difficult, as if the thirst for death tried to cling within me. I didn’t want that obliteration. I didn’t .
I pulled in deep breaths through my flaring nostrils and slowly opened my eyes. I was back where I belonged. The forest was unburned, filled with reaching maple trees. The briars still tangled through the undergrowth. Beneath my feet, the trembling, moaning ground was still.
I lowered my arms. My fingers were still clenched around my knife. Another vision, and this time, the key had not been within my grasp.
How had it happened?
The man rose slowly, smoothly. His long cloak flowed to the ground, though the fabric made no noise on the leaves. He wore a tunic that fell nearly to his feet, with a wide sash wrapping around his middle. More silvery runes were patterned along its length and contrasted sharply with the dark color of his clothing.
Every muscle along my body tightened as he reached up and pulled down the deep hood, letting it spill onto his back. Awareness tried to flicker to life in my mind. Somehow, I knew this man.
His eyes, violet in color and glowing unnervingly, glared at me under sharp, slanted eyebrows. Dark hair swept back from his smooth, pale brow, wings of silver at his temples. Several days of stubble peppered down his narrow face, past his hollow cheeks to his sharp chin.
Unexplainable abhorrence billowed from deep within, as ancient and powerful as the man standing several feet beyond me. A tingling sensation shivered just beneath my skin, and energy came to my hand, licking across my skin and curling around my fingers.
I was still with uncertainty. I didn’t understand the strange power buzzing through me. It was dangerous and formidable. The strangeness of it set me on edge, but I also didn’t try to smother it out. Letting it go would be a mistake.
I clenched my teeth. I couldn’t let this unusual energy go, not with my enemy in front of me.
Enemy ?
I couldn’t dwell on the intrusive thought for more than a couple of heartbeats. The man had finally broken his stare with me and was peering at the aged fabric in his hand. With deft fingers, he quickly unwrapped it, letting the cloth drift to the forest floor. His thin lips quirked at the corners, and his violet eyes gleamed bright with triumph.
The key. Blood pounded faster in my ears. He had the key .
My heart sped with panic as cold dread trickled between my shoulder blades. More than anything else, I knew I had to get the ancient relic back.
Instinct clawed its way up inside of me and settled into my bones. Uncurling my fingers, the knife fell from my hand. Energy rippled through me, and I moved without thought. I pulled my arm back and whipped my hand forward like an all-star pitcher. A writhing sphere of luminous energy rolled from my fingertips and cut through the air in a blur.
The man tilted, rocking easily back onto the heels of his boots. His mouth turned down in a grimace, but it seemed more of disappointment than worry. In a burst of light, the energy I had hurled smashed into a tree behind him, bits of bark falling away and leaving the trunk charred black. Above, the leaves shivered from impact.
I blinked. How had I done that? I didn’t have the key. Did that mean the magic had purely been…me ?
But if that was true, did that mean the desire to see death and destruction was me, too?
Laughter reached me, and the familiarity of it raised bumps on my skin. The man’s eyes swept from the damaged tree and back to me. Then, he started speaking.
The syllables rolled from his tongue. It was not a language I should have known, but incredibly, I understood every word.
“You seem to have lost your touch,” he said. Even his voice was ancient, the words echoing up through his chest. They fell on my ears strangely, as if he were speaking in some large, empty cathedral.
My eyebrows lowered. “Who are you?”
“And you have forgotten much, as well. Perhaps my circumstances were not so unfortunate.” He took a step toward me, and there was something strange about the movement. It took another step from him for me to realize, though brittle fall leaves were beneath his feet, his footfalls made no sound. No snapping twigs or crunching leaves. Merely silence. “You have dwindled to this weak being with a memory of nothing more than dust, while my memories and my knowledge remain intact. This is almost too easy.”
What was he talking about?
“Who are you?” I repeated.
“Who are you ?” The man was steadily moving closer. Why wasn’t I trying to get farther away from him? I couldn’t bring myself to move. “You do not know any longer, do you?”
“Of course I know who I am. I’m—” I bit down on my tongue. What was I thinking? I couldn’t tell him my name. I shook my head. “Look, I don’t care who you are. Just give me back the key. ”
I put my hand out, as if I were expecting him to just lay it in my palm.
The stranger held the key aloft, inspecting it as it slowly rotated on the fine chain. A wisp of shadows lessened above, allowing a slant of sunlight to slice through the canopy and fall on the golden relic.
“Why would I do that?” the man murmured.
My eyebrows pinched together. “Because it’s mine.”
He had stopped and was no more than five feet from me now. A few swift steps, and I could be on him, snatching the key from his hands. How fast was he? Would he catch me if I ran?
Those gleaming indigo eyes bored into mine. “I think not.”
It was insane, and I didn’t quite understand why or how I was doing it, but that energy wrapped around my hand. I charged forward and barely made it two steps. Raising his arm, the man turned his palm toward me. Shadows twisted from his hand and punched me hard in the chest.
Grunting, I stumbled back, losing the energy. I barely managed to catch myself on a nearby tree.
The forest darkened around us. The man tucked the key into the folds of his clothing. His chin lifted as he smirked down at me. “You will not win this time.”
With that, he left in a swirl of leaves and shadows.
I hurried forward, head whipping back and forth. Pivoting, I searched the trees and squinted at the brush. He had to be nearby. People didn’t just disappear. Right?
The sunlight quickly returned, along with the morning chatter of birds and the distant hum of traffic. There was no sign of the man. He truly had gone just as silently and suddenly as he had arrived.
For a moment, I stood, rubbing my sore chest where he had hit me with that shadowy energy. What was I supposed to do now ?
The sense of being watched had vanished with the strange man, but I couldn’t find any relief in its absence. I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs and pulled in a shaky breath.
I walked back several feet and stooped to pick up my knife then shoved it roughly back into my bag. What had I been expecting to do with it anyway? Stab the guy? Yeah, right. I would have only done such a thing to protect myself. At least, I thought so…or used to think so.