And it wasn’t as if I had a choice in the matter.
(Which of course led to thoughts of the mated mountain dragons and the Great White, but I pushed that away—one day at a time. That’s all I could do, because anything else would become too much.) I found Zero coiled up toward the south side of the dome. He was awake, but he didn’t turn his head toward me, even though I was making enough noise to make him aware of my approach, just to be safe. I maintained a careful distance, because even if I thought Zero wouldn’t hurt me, he was still a large fucking snake dragon with big-ass fangs, and I didn’t want to take the chance. Plus, he scared the shit out of me, though I was trying to keep that at bay as best I could.
The pulse was brighter now, that light I’d seen from outside the dome. And now I could see where it came from, my heart felt like it was stuck in my throat.
There were little balls of light, almost like they were fireflies (terrible, terrible things, those), flitting about in front of Zero. There were dozens of them, and they brushed along Zero’s face, swirling around the spiked horns on the hood. The lights were of varying sizes, some as small as specks of dust, others as big as a coin. There wasn’t anything ominous about them; in fact, the exact opposite was true. They felt warm and safe, like they wouldn’t—couldn’t—hurt him or me. Or anyone, really. I was sure of that, though I couldn’t say how.
I also didn’t know if they were sentient. It didn’t seem like the right way to describe them. I thought maybe the lights were a part of Zero, his will or dragon magic manifested into something tangible. I thought the lights were Zero, like my magic was me.
And as I looked on, they began to move. The lights began to gather together, slipping off Zero and gathering on the forest floor in an open space where nothing had grown. The lights started to spin in a slow circle, a glowing corona that took my breath away. It reminded me of a long-ago day in the forest when I held a dead bird in my hand, telling myself that it wasn’t fair, that nothing about it was fair.
I wondered if Zero was thinking the same thing.
His eyes were open, glittering in the dark, trained on the spinning lights.
I waited, wanting to see what they would do.
It happened only seconds later.
The lights began to rise off the ground, still moving at the same slow, deliberate pace. While the air above the corona remained empty, the air below it did not. As the lights rose higher and higher, they left behind the trunk of a tree, the roots fused into the earth. The lights began to expand the higher they rose, widening the circle in which they spun. The tip of a branch appeared once they were eye level, wide green leaves seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
And when it was finished, when the lights exploded outward silently and rained down around us, a large tree stood in front of us, healthy and full of life. It was as tall as any tree I’d seen in the Dark Woods. Without looking at Zero, I walked to the tree and put my hand on the trunk. The bark was rough against my skin. Rough and real.
None of this was an illusion. I was in awe of it. Of him.
A few of the lights fell on me, on my cheek and arm, and each light made a sweet sound in my head, like a musical note that echoed faintly.
I heard Zero shifting slightly behind me. “I like making pretty things,” he said quietly. “It makes me feel safe.”
“I can see that,” I said. “You’re very good at it.”
“You don’t have to say that,” he said bitterly. “I know you don’t mean it.”
I looked back over my shoulder. He’d raised his head slightly off the ground, staring straight back at me. “I don’t often say things I don’t mean.”
“But you do sometimes.”
“Diplomacy calls for it.”
“Is that what you are? Diplomatic?”
I gave him a small smile. “I don’t think anyone would ever use that word to describe me. When it comes to diplomatic situations, my mentor usually asks that I remain quiet.”
“Oh,” Zero said. And then, in a flat voice as if he couldn’t care less, “Who’s your mentor?”
“Morgan of Shadows.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. He’s been around for a couple of the years I’ve been awake.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Is he? He’s a wizard. Sometimes wizards aren’t good people.”
“I know. But sometimes they are.”
“Are you a good person?”
“Most of the time,” I said honestly. “I try, but it can be hard. Can I ask you a question?”
He tensed, like he’d been expecting this. I didn’t know what he thought I was going to ask him. “I don’t—”
“Do you do this every time you wake up?” I asked, waving my hand toward the rest of the dome. “Do you make all of this by yourself?”
Zero looked surprised at that, like he was expecting something else from me. Which, to be fair, I could have gone in a million different directions. He didn’t know me, but then I didn’t know him either. “Yeah,” he said, sounding a little petulant. “I can make things, you know. I know I look scary, but I can—”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it before. It’s impressive, Zero. You must be very strong.”
If it were possible for snake dragon monster things to blush, I thought maybe he would have been right there. He averted his eyes and made this strange snuffling sound out his nose. His forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air, and I wondered if this was a way for him to know that I was telling the truth, if honesty had a weight to it that he could pick out amongst all the other notes in the air. I didn’t think it likely, but I knew it would be better for him to hear nothing but the truth from me rather than find out he could catch me in a lie.
“Thanks,” he finally said begrudgingly. “It’s not that hard.”
“How do you do it?”
“What?”
“How do you make everything?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I’m curious. Magic, it… baffles me sometimes.”
“But you’re a wizard.”
“Apprentice, but yes, I’m a wizard.” Gary would be proud.
He sounded confused. “But then you do magic all the time. How can you do something without understanding it? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Too right, but that pretty much summed up my life: able to do things that didn’t make any sense. “I don’t think anyone understands my magic, least of all me. I’m what you might call a special case.” I grimaced. “Yeah, that didn’t sound like I wanted it to. I’m just… different.”