Previously

Seph walked back to the tree and picked up a long black cloak with armoured shoulder pads and a silver hem. He shrugged it on before watching me tie up my boots.

"You got a name aswell?" he asked strangely, as if he didn't really need to ask.

"Call me Rin. A friend gave it to me, as far as I remember..."

He stood there, watching me, before walking in the general direction we had been going in before I collapsed a while back. His expression had turned hard again.

"Hurry up," he said without looking back.

And I did.

No words were said for the rest of the journey, but my curiosity was growing as the minutes passed. I realised that I had never actually asked where he was leading me, and I had no idea why either.

The mood seemed far too heavy for asking questions.

He stopped abruptly, and reached into the second pouch on his belt. In his hand was a stick. About the width of my finger and the length of three. A wand?

I noticed he had closed his eyes and was muttering something under his breath.

I felt myself being pulled towards him, and his arm wrapped tightly around my waist. There was no distance between our bodies, but somehow it didn't feel awkward at all. In fact, it felt right.

Suddenly a darkness engulfed us and I felt a surge of magical power. I froze, which he obviously noticed.

"Don't panic, it's me," Seph whispered into my ear, his breath slightly ruffling my hair.
Two seconds later, the darkness was gone and I found myself in a candlelit room with no windows. There was a door at the far end and beside it was a table, holding a few books.

I felt him take a few steps away from me. It made me feel lonely for some reason. I missed the warmth.

Mentally slapping myself, I looked around again. This time I noticed that the stone walls were smooth and some had magical markings. Taking a closer look, I realised that they were extremely complicated Shield and Stealth spells. Only a very powerful magician could do something like this. Someone like me, though I did not boast about it. I knew I had used markings like these before, but like a lot of things from my past life, I couldn't remember when or why. Everything was fuzzy, and I felt some things were missing.

I absently traced one of the marks with my finger. Then I felt my eyes go hazy, my breath hitch and it went dark. Another vision.

I was kneeling on a floor of beach wood, in a large room with stone walls. Beside me was one of the walls. It seemed I was drawing something.

Then I started shaking, I realised I was actually laughing. I turned my head to the side to smile at something.

A figure in a long black cloak, the sleeves and the legs of his trousers were rolled up and he was barefoot.

I focused on his face, it was blurred and fuzzy, but I could tell he was smiling too. He set down whatever tool he had been holding and walked towards me, pulling me into a hug and murmuring something into my ear. I smiled before answering whatever question he had asked.

"Forever," was all I heard myself say before everything faded.

I opened my eyes to find myself lying in a bed, a quilt covering me. It was a different room but it had the same stone walls with the same markings carved every now and then.

I got up slowly, my head feeling worse than it usually does after a vision. 'Visions?' I thought to myself whilst walking towards the door, 'they seem more like memories... Who is the other person and how come they keep appearing?'

I opened the oak door and found myself in a hallway. On the right it was a dead end, but the other way seemed to open out into a large space. There were two other doors, both on the opposite side of the corridor, and I guessed that they were other bedrooms.

The left of the two doors opened and revealed Seph, carrying a glass bottle with a dark red potion in it. Potions had always been my downfall, so the different colours meant nothing to me.

He gestured for me to follow him as he walked into the large space at the end of the hallway that happened to be a living room and a study mixed together.

On the immediate right, there was a large desk with two seats. On the desk there were a few books and papers. In front of me was a large corner sofa, made with red leather, and an oak coffee table with held a few flowers in a vase. There were bookshelves covering the far corner of the room and an enchantment table between them.

I noticed Seph had sat down on the sofa and seemed to be waiting for me to do the same. So I sat. He handed me the reddish brown potion, which I had been dubiously eyeing, and smiled slightly.

He said it softly but my ears still caught his words, "Still not good with potions.."

What did he mean by 'still'? I didn't have time to think it over because he cleared his throat and told me to drink the potion.

"It's a strength potion, you seem to have been blacking out a lot and it's easy to brew anyway."

I brought the bottle towards my lips and smelled it before taking a sip. It was fiery in both appearance and taste. I had drank about half the bottle when I felt a tingling feeling in my chest. My body felt lighter, my muscles loosened up and I generally felt a hell of a lot better, especially after draining the bottle.

I quietly thanked him, to which he smiled and replied,

"Anything."