Ancient Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress #1)(2)

“Then what do we remember?”

“Run,” said the dark-haired girl. “We’re running, but I don’t know from what.”

“Is that how we got into the field?” I asked.

“Maybe.” Her voice shook. “Run was all I remembered. When I woke, it was the only thing in my mind.”

“Hide,” I said, thinking back. “That’s what I remembered. We must hide. From a bad man.” I rubbed my temple. “Or woman? From someone very bad.”

Just the shadowy memory made tears pour down my face. My shoulders shook. The trembling traveled down my arms and legs until my entire body quaked.

I couldn’t remember who we were hiding from, but my body remembered. Hiding from evil. Bad. Bad, bad, bad.

The green-eyed girl threw her arms around me. “Hey, hey, calm down. It’ll be okay.”

I gasped through my sobs and realized I’d been saying bad out loud. I didn’t believe that it’d be okay—not really—but her words made me feel a little better.

“What do you remember?” I asked.

“FireSoul,” she whispered. “We are FireSouls.”

I gasped and jerked out of her arms. “No, we’re not. We can’t be.”

I might not have remembered my own past, but some knowledge of the world still seemed to be intact. FireSouls were bad. Even the word sent a shiver of panic through me.

Run, hide, and FireSoul were my only memories? That couldn’t be. In my mind, I poked for the biggest, most important pieces of information. I wanted to know something.

What came was that I lived in a world full of magic. Thoughts burst in my mind. “I’m one of the Magica—you two feel like Magica as well.”

I could feel their power now that I tried. Could smell it and taste it. The green-eyed girl’s power felt like water on my skin and smelled like flowers. Tasted like vanilla. The dark-haired girl was just as powerful. Her magic felt like soft grass beneath my feet and smelled like fresh laundry. It tasted sweet, but I couldn’t place it.

“Magica?” the dark-haired girl asked.

“Magica can create magic!” the green-eyed girl said, excitement in her voice. “I remember now. But I don’t remember what kind I am. Witch, or sorcerer, or… mage.”

“Or shifter, demon, or fairy,” I added as the memories flowed back. “But they aren’t Magica. They are supernaturals like us, but they don’t use magic the same way we do. But they know about us. Unlike humans. The Great Peace keeps us hidden.” It came back to me in pieces. Though we lived alongside humans, the Great Peace—the most powerful bit of magic ever created—hid us from human eyes. It took the powerful spells of hundreds of Magica and shifters to create the Great Peace. “Humans can see us but not our magic, which we shouldn’t use around them anyway.”

“Right, I remember now,” the dark-haired girl said.

“I feel your power too. But you don’t feel evil,” I said. “Not like a FireSoul would feel.”

“We’re not evil,” the green-eyed girl said. “We haven’t killed…I don’t think. But I do remember that we’re FireSouls. I know it.”

“Everyone hates FireSouls,” I whispered. They were the bogeyman because they stole the magical gifts of others by killing the original owner. Was I the bogeyman? Me and these two girls? Had I killed another Magica to steal his gift? Wouldn’t I remember something as terrible as that?

“Is that why we’re hiding?” the dark-haired girl asked. “Are we hiding from the Order of the Magica and the Alpha Council?”

“No,” I said, though the two supernatural governing organizations would be after us if they knew we were FireSouls. “We’re hiding from someone worse. But if we really are FireSouls, we can’t tell anyone. They’ll throw us in prison.”

“We are FireSouls,” she said. “When I woke, I knew it. It was my memory. As strong as yours.”

I swallowed hard, remembering how strong that urge to hide had been. I’d woken confused, but when the dark-haired girl had said run, it had burst back into my consciousness.

“Are we really FireSouls?” the dark-haired girl asked. “I don’t feel like a FireSoul. I don’t feel evil.”

I didn’t either. I felt hungry and cold. My stomach growled and I shivered. If only I had something to eat. If only I was warm. I wanted it so badly.

A strange feeling tugged at my middle. As if there were a string tied around my waist that pulled me to the left. A sense of food and warmth flowed from the invisible string.

“There’s food and shelter nearby,” I said. “I feel it.”

“Treasure,” whispered the green-eyed girl. “You can sense treasure.”

Treasure. Of course I could sense food and shelter. I coveted them. They were treasure to me right now.

I was a FireSoul. That was proof.

FireSouls were given that name because they shared a piece of a dragon’s soul, though no one knew how it had happened. If dragons still existed, they were hiding. But legend said that all magic descended from dragons. FireSouls somehow shared a part of their soul.

That’s why we could steal powers and find treasure. Dragons were covetous. They coveted treasure of all varieties—including the powers of others. The greatest treasure of all could only be obtained through death.