Heart of Fire

Dreams or Memories

"What book is that?" I ask as I sit next to him. Ember is clinking the pan as she cooks our left-over meat for breakfast. She has some green leafy looking things and what seems to be berries. I don't know, she has always been in charge of our food, she knows what is edible and tastes good and not. I focus back on Enzo.

"It is a book of majic, but there is a section in here about dreams." He tells me, as he continues to read through the book, I peak over to the book, and it is in a language that looks more like scribbles made by a baby. I just sit and listen to the sounds of the forest, and the rushing water from the river. Ember brought me a plate of food, and I ate it absentmindedly. I must have dozed off, because Enzo shook my shoulder to wake me up,

"Jade, I found what I was looking for." There was a slight excitement to his voice. I opened my eyes and yawned. I focused on him waiting for him to make sense. "The dream has gotten more frequent the further we get into the forest, correct?" nod at him "The changes to the dream only began after you turned eighteen, correct?" Again, I nod at him. "As I thought, the dream is a memory surfacing." He finished.

"But why now, simply because I turned eighteen." I asked maybe the forest has gotten to his head.

"It could be a repressed memory, or maybe it is a memory breaking through from Callisto's previous lives." Enzo explains. I just stare at him and nod my head, I don't know what I am supposed to say here, he nods and goes back to his space by the campfire.

I wish Callisto had not gone away from me. I want to ask her about this and hear what she has to say. But something in me feels like she knows more than she is telling me. We have never kept things from each other, so this is a strange situation. Enzo went on to tell me what his theory was as we packed up. I listened and made my list of things I wanted to talk to Callisto about.

We followed the river for weeks, Enzo talking about his theories, and me discussing with Callisto. She promises me she does not know anything else, just that when the dream changed, she understood it was a memory and that our death was traumatizing. I felt that when she told me why she distanced herself it was perfectly understandable. I felt similarly when she told me. I had told Enzo all of this and he just kept to his books at night. Ember was a ray of sunshine after we found the river. Her hopes and positivity were infectious, and I found myself lighter and ready for what came next.

Except there was nothing that would prepare us for what came next. About a month after following the river, the forest seemed to thin out a bit, and that was when we started to notice the onyx. It was littered all around the forest floor. The terrain was still wooded but there were now rocky mountainous areas that required us to climb. It made our progress slower than it had ever been, as well as the mountains we had to scale were made up of the onyx and cut our hands open every time we climbed. I was feeling slightly hopeless one night as we were camped on a cliff outcropping that had a cave attached.

The cave was mostly onyx, and the fire bouncing off the shiny walls was mesmerizing. Ember was cooking the meat Enzo had caught two nights before we started climbing this particular mountain. Finding food was once again becoming scarce. As she told stories about her home I was pulled into sleep.

DREAM

Fire! Fire was all around me. I can see the flames dancing though the trees. The ground was shaking, and the trees were falling as flames consumed them. It was so hard to breathe, the air was heavy with smoke and ashes. The sound was deafening, the crackle and roar of the flames as they consumed the forest. I could feel the heat it was unbearable, as the flames surrounded me, I was going to die. Death by forest fire and utter destruction was not how I imagined my life would end. I mean who would image this... I can smell burnt fur; my tail is on fire. I twist and stamp on my tail with my front paws to put it out. I'm not sure what good that will do me when the rest of the fire catches up to me. I look around again looking for a way out. The wind shifts and I can see a break in the fire, I could make it through if I ran. I take off into a sprint for my life, I can see the path to the break, and I am digging my claws into the earth to give me traction as I dart for my escape from a fiery death. I see the outline of a wolf; he is just beyond the break. I felt my heart hammering in my chest as I dug my paws in deeper to reach the break to reach him, just as I was about to breach through the fire, he turned and all I could see were his electric blue eyes in darkness. The flames enclosed me, and my fur once again was alight with fire and then I fell as the earth opened. I started to scream in agony as the fire engulfed me . . .

The scream that tore through me as I jumped up and began patting my body as though I was still on fire echoed off the forest. Ember grabbed my arms to prevent me from trying to pat the imaginary fire. The pure terror in her eyes brought me back to my senses. I fall to the cave floor and break down in a flood of tears. Neither Enzo nor Ember says anything to me as I cry my soul out.

"Cal . . . "

"I'm here Jade."

"That felt so real."

"I believe it was real, once."

"So, Enzo is right it is from your past life."

"Not just my past life, but yours too."

"But Enzo said it was only the wolf that was reincarnated."

"I know, but I just know it was us, not just me."

"Who is the wolf? He feels so familiar?"

"Our mate"

"Why is this memory changing so much now."

"Because I think we died in the fall of Lythea."

©2023 Lisa Enstrom / @JadeFyre2018. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission from the author. This body of work is available exclusively on Wattpad. If you are viewing it on a different website or platform under a different username or title, it has been illegally stolen, and you may even be at risk of malware. Please do not support these sites, as writing is hard work and effort on the original author's part. Head over to Wattpad and let me, the original author know if you have encountered this situation by finding me @JadeFyre2018