woman she had just seen and spoken to.
After all, she’d seen for herself what she and her sisters had done centuries ago. The call of the power had been so seductive, they’d only wanted more. And they’d surrendered to something dark and evil. She couldn’t yet see it all. Couldn’t find the mental key to that lock, but she felt the danger in her bones. And that worried her.
If she’d been tempted to evil before . . . what would keep history from repeating itself?
Maybe it was because she was already charged magically. Maybe her defenses were down after her encounter with the woman in the shadows. But whatever the reason, one memory suddenly rose to the surface of her mind, sweeping Shea into a past that was still alive with power.
The cold, dark night was lit only by the occasional whips of lightning darting across the sky. Clouds covered the moon, but its brilliance still managed to stain the edges of its covering with silver ribbons. Wind howled and the nearby sea crashed against the rocks on the shoreline.
Torin grabbed her arm as she walked up the hillside, her steps sure, her features set in an expression of grim determination. She stopped and glared at his hand on her arm.
“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice deep, urgent. “Can you not feel the darkness hovering close? The air itself screams.”
“You worry too much,” she said, with a shake of her head as she slipped past him on the path. “My sisters and I know what we’re doing.”
“No, you don’t.” He flashed into flames and blocked her way. “Your thirst for power is making you all blind to what is really happening.”
“What do you know of power?” she demanded, gathering her cloak and pushing past him once more.
Overhead, clouds gathered and lightning crashed. The wind was cold and sharp and the sigh of the sea droned like the heartbeat of a restless god.
“As Eternals,” she reminded him haughtily, “it is your duty to stand beside us. To defend. Protect. Not to mewl about danger when you lose faith.”
His pale gray eyes flashed and swirled with explosions of magic as he reached out to take hold of her. He shook her hard, until the cowl of her cloak dropped away. The wind instantly lifted her long, dark red hair into a tangled halo around her head.
“My brothers and I stand as warriors. We are chosen to defend you all, even from your own arrogance.”
“Arrogance?” She echoed the word with a wild laugh. “Is it arrogance to know who and what you are? What you are capable of? No, Eternal. It’s you who are arrogant. To think you could stop us from what we know we must do.”
“I am not the mewling weakling you think me, cowering in the night,” he told her, face grim, eyes still swirling dangerously. “I am the warrior who has never failed to be beside you in times of danger. Yet I’ll not be silent when I see you walking blindly into disaster.”
The icy wind tossed her hair across her eyes and she paused to pluck it free. Staring up at the giant of a man who was both lover and guardian, she forced a smile and fought for patience.
“Torin, do you not understand how much more we will be when this is completed? We have left the cloister of Haven to draw the magics through the Artifact for the good of all of us. Can you not see the lure of the knowledge we will gain?”
“At what cost?” he countered. “Do you barter your soul?”
She frowned, out of patience, out of time. “If it comes to that, it is my soul to do with as I will. Come with me or don’t, Eternal. But do not think to stop me. I go to the stone dance to join my sisters.”
“Shea?” Torin’s hand on her shoulder drew her up out of the memory and she shivered as it faded.
“God, you tried to warn me, didn’t you?”
“What?”
She was shaking. Trembling from head to toe in the aftermath of that memory. She could still feel the bite of the wind, hear the ocean, see the banked fury in Torin’s eyes.
“Back then,” she said. “Back in the Dark Ages or whatever, you tried to warn me. You tried to stop me—us—from opening that damn door. I wouldn’t listen.”
Still naked and damp from the shower, he drew her to the edge of the bed, sat down, then pulled her after him.