“I would hear you speak it.”
I was barely able to restrain the eye roll as I began to list the reasons rapid-fire. “The short version? Prophecy, villain, bad-touch grandma, sexy wannabe cornerstone, snake dragon monster thing, mated lesbians, my boo, best friends, adventures that are capitalized so you know they’re true, saving the world, best friends 5eva, the King, Pete, my parents, the people who hate me because of Lady Fucking Tina who I loathe with a fiery passion that will never cease, my home, my country, Morgan, Myrin, Randall, who, by the way, told me to tell you that I can be as annoying as anyone or anything you’ve ever seen before in your long, long life. I think that about covers it all.” I frowned. “Wait, no, also, I’m here because I need your help, and it’d be super cool if we could just do this thing without the whole rawr-I’m-going-to-pretend-to-eat-you-but-it’s-actually-just-a-test thing that dragons seem to do to me for reasons I still don’t quite understand. Okay, now that’s all.”
There was a beat of silence. Then, “It would appear Randall was correct,” the Great White rumbled. “For once in his life.”
“Because that’s what you took away from that whole speech,” I said. “And I take offense to that. I was bad-touched by my grandma. Come on, dude. Priorities.”
“I warned you,” he said. “In the woods. I warned you. And yet here you stand.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t know me and all, but seriously. Telling me not to do something is a surefire way to make me do it. I’m kind of an asshole that way. Also, not to be repetitious, but four out of five dragons. That’s gotta count for something.”
“I see your heart, apprentice,” he said. “There is strength within it. And goodness. Even now, after everything you’ve done, after everything that’s been done to you, you have not allowed yourself to be consumed by the darker path of magic. That is to be commended, given the power you wield. But still I stand by my prior decree: you are not ready.”
“That’s fucked,” I said, a little angrier than I’d been just a moment ago. “That’s fucked, and you know it. I have done everything that has been asked of me. All of this was pushed down upon me, all these secrets and lies and a godsdamn destiny that I never asked for, and I have done it all. I went to the desert. I went to the mountains. I have faced Myrin and survived. These are not my sins, but I’ve taken their burden upon me. You don’t get to tell me I’m not ready when I’ve done everything I’ve been told to do.”
“You have fire,” the dragon said. “And strong wits about you. But you are reckless. Arrogant. You do not understand the weight of sacrifice, the power in facing what is lost.”
“And you do?” I demanded. “You turned your back on Randall when he needed you the most! He had you, and then Myrin came and you left. You were his mentor. You should have been there for him. You should have been there when Myrin fell into darkness, but you hid yourself away in the woods, sleeping the centuries away while he and Morgan suffered—”
“Don’t you speak to me about suffering,” the Great White snarled, and there was a burst of pure white magic all around me that I could do nothing to fight. I was rooted in place, unable to move. “You know nothing about suffering. I warned him of the path that leads to darkness, and he made his own choices. He is human; therefore, he is fallible. He fell prey to the entrapments of his kind, of love and loyalty to one who would bring him to ruin. And here you stand, speaking of a unicorn and a half-giant and a knight. Tell me, wizard. If you could end this now, if you could save the world and all its people, would you sacrifice the ones you love?”
“I would find another way,” I snapped.
“And while you are finding this other way, the world descends into chaos and madness. Villains will rise and heroes will fall because you cannot make the decisions necessary. There is no place in this world for love, not while it stands upon the brink of destruction. I warned Randall. I told him of the dangers of giving his heart unto another, and he ignored my counsel.”
“Myrin was his cornerstone! You can’t ignore that kind of magic!”
“You can,” the Great White said. “You can, and if you hope to succeed, if you hope to fulfill your destiny, you must do what Randall could not, Sam of Wilds.”
“What?” I breathed, skin buzzing.
The dragon’s wings suddenly folded into his sides as he tilted his head downward. I was knocked off my feet and landed on my back against the inside of the crown. I was pinned in place by sheer force as he hurtled toward the earth. The sky disappeared into a mass of swirling clouds. Thunder rumbled around us, and lightning flashed. Rain slashed down as I closed my eyes, waiting for whatever end was to come.
His great wings opened, the air causing them to billow like sails. The pressure against my body increased exponentially until I thought I would be crushed under the weight of it, but as he slowed to land, it lessened quickly, and I slid from the crown back down to his neck.
I knew the moment he touched down, hearing the felling of trees, the branches and trunks cracking and splintering under the sheer mass of him. I ran for it, moving out from underneath the crown toward his right side. The rain hit hard, and I was instantly soaked as my feet slid out from under me, sending me sprawling. I landed roughly on dragon skin and began to slip off his side. There was a moment that I was freefalling before I was snatched out of the air and clutched against a familiar chest.
“Kevin?”
“You fucking idiot,” he snarled at me as he landed a ways off from the Great White, who made no move to follow. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Honestly? I don’t know that I really was.”
“No shit. There’s going to be no end to how much Gary, Tiggy, and Ryan are going to murder you.”
“Eh. We were above the clouds. They didn’t see anything.”
“Oh, trust me, they’ll know.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said, glaring up at him.
He bared his teeth. “Watch me, pretty. Think of it as payback for the heart attacks you almost gave me. I have six of them, Sam. Have you ever felt a heart attack coming on in six hearts?”
Maybe that made me feel a little guilty. “What would I have to do to make you keep this to yourself?”
He grinned. “Oh, I’m sure I can think of something.”
I grimaced. “Dude. Stop leering at me. It’s disturbing and gross and—”
“Are you quite finished?”
“Eep,” Kevin and I both said.