“You ready to talk yet?”
I pushed myself to my feet, maybe a little more slowly than I had before. “Are you?” I asked.
For once, he didn’t resume attacking me right away. If anything, he looked surprised. “About?”
“Why we’re here.”
He sighed. “I’ve told you why we’re here, Sam. It’s about control—”
“Notice how I haven’t exploded yet even after you’ve insisted on beating me down. I would say that I have excellent control.”
He watched me warily. “Yes. I suppose you do have a point.”
“But that’s not what I was talking about, anyway.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “Why are we here, Randall? What do you have to show me?”
“You speak as if you have knowledge, but we both know that’s certainly not the case.”
I grinned at him. “There’s the Randall I know and who tolerates me.”
“Tolerates might be too strong a word. Why have you not lost control?”
“Maybe because you’re expecting me to.”
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Or maybe because I haven’t yet given you the right incentive.”
“That… doesn’t sound good.”
Randall began to smile, and I—
—HAD HEARD stories about them. The dragons. Every child growing up in Verania, regardless of their upbringing, knew about the dragons. They were legendary, maybe more so than any other magical creature that had ever existed. So little was known about them, aside from their general locations: the desert dragon, the mated pair in the Northern Mountains, the Great White in the Dark Woods, though it was more myth than anything else. Many had claimed to see it moving like a mountain in the heart of the Dark Woods, but there had never been any validity to those stories. They were drunken bar tales told to an enraptured crowd who’d forget them in favor of their hangovers the next day.
But it was strange, given how intertwined the dragons were with Verania, that no one knew that much about them. I suppose the argument could be made that it was hard to learn about a creature whose teeth were the size of a small human, but still. When I thought of them, the dragons, I found it odd that no one knew where they’d come from, or why there weren’t more of them, or what they were actually like. Oh, we knew they had names, but a dragon’s name was always a secret, something that wouldn’t be shared unless there was a reason to do so.
Then came Kevin.
Yes. Kevin. My dear, terrible Kevin. It wasn’t… disappointment per se, but more of a need for me to reconfigure my thoughts on how a dragon should be. But he roared his way into our lives, a dragon that was not known before, and then he could talk and just… exist, the way he did. After everything, the sexual threats, the kidnapping of the Prince, it turned out he was more like the rest of us than I first cared to admit. He just wanted to find a place he could call home.
And then he had to have loud, disgusting sex with my best friend and pretty much ruined dragons for me forever.
Mostly.
Now there’s Zero, the desert dragon who is one thousand four hundred years old but is mentally only fourteen. And who will only be awake for the next year. Zero, the snake dragon monster thing who worries about how he looks, if he will scare too many people.
Zero, the teenage emo dragon who just wants to be left alone so he can grow beautiful things.
And there’s the star dragon, David’s Dragon, who is a bit of an asshole, but apparently all dragons are, so he fits. I don’t know how genuine he is or why he feels the need to help me like he has… though “help” might not be the right word. He says he’s taken a liking to me, all the while still being vague about almost everything. He spouts about impartiality, but then he possesses Kevin or waits until I blow myself up to tell me that there will be sacrifices before all is said and done.
And the last.
I saw it.
In Vadoma’s vision.
The Great White.
I told myself it wasn’t real.
I told myself that Vadoma was orchestrating the entire thing, showing me what she wanted me to see.
And yet….
I don’t know.
Looking back on it, after everything I’ve seen, I can’t see how it could have been anything but real.
I truly believe I was there when the Great White awoke for the first time in only the gods know how long. I truly believe I was there when he spoke to me.
It was brief, really. Shorter than one would have expected. In the end, though, his point was made.
I have awoken, O human child. In this forest deep, in the dark of the wild. And I have seen what is in your heart. Take heed of my warning: you are not—
“—READY?” I called out. “I’m here on time, Randall. Where are you?”
It was right at eight in the morning, the middle of the second week since we’d left Meridian City. It was colder than it normally was, a snowstorm having blown in the night before, temperatures dropping and ice growing thicker. I’d dragged the sleigh bed over near the fireplace just to stay warm, huddled under piles and piles of thick blankets.
And even though I’d wanted nothing more than to stay curled up in the bed, I’d forced myself up and downstairs, where I’d met Randall almost every morning so far. But he wasn’t there. I tried to think if Randall had said anything the day before about canceling this morning’s ass beating but came up blank.
“Randall?” I tried again, voice echoing.
He didn’t respond.
Then—
“Sam?”
I tensed. Because it wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be here, not yet, not—
I turned.
Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart stood in the far doorway.
He was smiling.
It was the most breathtaking sight.
“Hi,” he said, voice carrying out over the ice. “Hello.”
“Ryan?” I managed to croak out, sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. “How are you—”
“I missed you,” he said, taking a step toward me.
I couldn’t move.
“Did you miss me?”
More than anything. More than I thought possible. I ached with it.
He looked so good. So warm. So real.
And he said, “Sam, I am so happy to see your face. I love—”
The doors behind him burst open. Dark wizards poured in. There were dozens of them. Hundreds.
And I still couldn’t move.
They came for him. They surrounded him.
He drew his sword. He called for me to help him.
“Ryan?” I whispered.
They descended upon him. With their magic. There was the crack of bone, a splash of blood.
And I could move then.
Every running step I took caused the ice under my feet to crack. I had only one thought: destroy them all.
There was green and gold.
So much of it.
Lightning arced around me, snapping brightly.
I was going to fucking kill them and—
They were gone.
There was nothing there.
The castle groaned and shifted.
Lightning smashed into the ground and walls, splitting the ice.
There was nothing there.
I was alone.
“Ryan?” I cried out. “Ryan?”
“Sam.”
I whirled around.
Randall stood at the other side of the room.