by T. J. Klune
I sighed and was about to close my eyes to try and force away the whirlwind of thoughts in my head when I saw a pulse of light coming from inside the dome. It was soft and low and it pulled on my magic, but not in the way I’d felt when we’d first come to the island. This was a caress, a question instead of a demand.
I carefully shifted away from Ryan, putting my small straw pillow in his arms so he had something to hold on to. He frowned in his sleep until I leaned down and kissed his forehead. At the press of my lips, he made this little hum deep in his throat that squeezed at my heart. Maybe I had lied a little to Ruv when I said I’d still be here for everyone even if they’d turned against me. Maybe I would. But I was mostly here for him. Because I refused to believe the future was written in stone.
The light pulsed again.
And the whispers in my head began again.
I rose and left my friends behind, moving toward the dome.
The closer I got, the more it pulled, but it remained gentle, even as the magic in the air thickened. I wondered if my eyes were red again, wondered how Zero was able to do what he did. Because I thought maybe the forest inside the dome was his doing, that he grew the trees and the grass and the flowers the moment he started to wake. That he made something beautiful out of a place of ruins.
He had to know I was coming. I knew he felt me as much as I felt him.
If I’d had any doubts remaining about this whole destiny thing, that was the moment I finally began to believe.
I hesitated, briefly, at the entrance to the dome.
But there was no reason I could think of to not continue on.
So I did.
There was the moment, that little pinprick in time, when I passed from the desert into the dome. Where the air changed, became damp and cool, the smells of a wild forest all around me. I didn’t know how Zero did this, how it was possible for something so frightening to make something so beautiful, but I didn’t know that it was my place to ask. I needed Zero. I knew that now. He fit somehow. Even if he was already a pain in my ass. The rest of them were as well, but I loved them fiercely. Surely I had room in my heart for another.
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.”
“Why?” He looked less tense now. Not comfortable, exactly, but not as on guard as he’d been. He sounded younger too, and it was strange to think that he’d only been awake for thirteen full years before this, if he’d been telling the truth. And I thought maybe he was. Would I still be alive the next time he woke? Would I be alone, with everyone I loved nothing but dust and bones? Or would it all be gone?
“No one is quite sure how my magic works,” I said. “I can do things other people can’t. Sometimes, I do things that I’m not even trying to do.”
“The mermaids,” Zero said. “I… felt it. It was bright. And smelled like…. I came here to this place in my sixth year. I wanted to be alone, you know? The mermaids let me pass. I don’t know why. It was like they didn’t even care that I was there. I didn’t question it. Then, that night, there was a terrible storm. It rolled over the desert, and everything flashed in the sky. I’ve never heard something like it before or since. I thought I was going to be blown away, that the gods were so angry they were going to bring fire down on the world. But it passed, eventually. You smelled like that storm. You felt like that storm. Like lightning.”
“I’m sorry about the mermaids,” I said quietly. “They were going to hurt my friends. I couldn’t let that happen.”
He rolled his eyes. “They were jerks. I didn’t talk to them. I even ate one once.”
I laughed, a little shocked. “You did what?”
Zero looked rather pleased with himself. “It tried to come in here,” he said. “It wanted to hurt my plants. My trees. It wouldn’t leave. So I ate it. It was… chewy.” He deflated a little. “But I suppose they weren’t any worse than I am. They were monsters, like me.”
And that hurt. I barely knew this… this thing in front of me, and that still hurt to hear. Maybe it was because I knew what it felt like to be an outcast. Maybe I knew what it felt like to have people scared of me. I didn’t know. But it hurt.
“They were nothing like you,” I said quietly.
His head snapped, tail twitching dangerously. “You were scared of me. Just like you were scared of them. I felt it.”
I nodded. “Yes. But then you’re huge and you have really big teeth and you pointed them in my direction.”
He grinned at me, or as much as he could. The top two fangs descended slowly, glistening in the dark. “These teefs?” he slurred between the fangs.
My throat clicked as I swallowed, fighting every instinct I had to take a step back away from him. “Yeah. Those teefs.”
The fangs ascended again, and he cocked his head at me. “You’re strange, even for a human.”
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“And how are you speaking to me? How did you all learn to talk like me? I’ve never had anyone be able to do that.”
I scratched the back of my head. “Yeah, see? That’s one of those things that we don’t quite know. It’s not us speaking like you. It’s you speaking like us.”
He looked offended. “I’m speaking human? That’s terrible. You’re all so… chewy.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Really.”
“Well, it’s true. How is this even possible? Gods, I don’t even want to open my mouth anymore.”
“It’s proximity,” I said. “Something about me. We don’t really know why. Dragons just suddenly seem to be able to speak like we do when I’m around. It’s kind of my thing.”
“Maybe you should just go away, then. I don’t want to speak human.”
“Sorry, dude. I don’t know that I can do that. It’s actually important, the reason I’m here.”
He groaned and laid his head back on the ground, blinking at me slowly. “I just want to grow my plants and be left alone. It’s why I came all the way out here, so I didn’t have to see anyone.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Far away,” he said stubbornly.
Which gave me an idea, something Mama had taught me a long time ago. She’d even used it on Ryan once to find out what she wanted to know. It had been illuminating, to say the least. “That’s interesting. I’ve come from far away too. Can I ask you some more questions? Just about your plants,” I added before he could refuse.
“Sure,” he said slowly.
“Cool. Which is your favorite?”
He nodded toward a large orange flower that blossomed to our left. “That one.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I saw it once in—I saw it once.”
“Why is it your favorite?”
“I like the color. It smells good.”
“What does it smell like to you?”
“The wind.”
I began to speak faster. “Do you like to fly?”
“Yes.”
“Do you stay here every year?”
“Yes, I don’t like to leave.”
“How do you eat?”
“I store up the oxygen put out by my plants and trees. It helps me sleep.”
“Have you ever met wizards before?”
“Yes, and I never wanted to see them again.”
And then, “Did you know I was coming?”
Without giving himself time to think, he said, “Yeah, the star dragon told me.”
My eyes widened.
“Motherfucker,” Zero growled. “How did you do that? Mind control? Are you trying to take me over, wizard?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, no. It was just—the star dragon. Really?” I sighed. “Godsdammit. This is just getting more complicated as it goes.”
“It’s not my fault!”
“I didn’t say it was. It’s just… I didn’t know about any of this until a few weeks ago. It just makes me wonder how everyone else knows more about me and my destiny than I do. It’s annoying.”
Zero scoffed. “You try minding your own business and then, out of nowhere, get told that someday, a wizard was going to come for you. That I would have to make a choice between doing what I wanted or doing what was right. And that what was right wasn’t always going to be obvious.”
“Yeah, I can actually relate to that. Except mine was my long-lost grandma who I’d never met before.”
“Weak,” Zero breathed.
“Dude,” I agreed. “So weak. Mind if I sit down?”
Zero hesitated, but then said, “I don’t care. You can do what you want. Wizards usually do. You’re all terrible people. Really terrible people.”
But I got the feeling that if he didn’t want me there, I sure as shit wouldn’t be there. I took a seat at the base of the tree he’d grown when I’d found him, my back against the trunk, facing him.
I waited until I could gather my words, wanting to say the right thing without sounding too rehearsed. It was important, maybe as important as anything I’d ever had to say before. I needed him, I knew, and I had to make him believe I needed him. How I needed him or why, I couldn’t exactly say. But I did. My magic didn’t exactly mesh with his, but it didn’t either with Kevin right away. And it still didn’t, not completely. But it wasn’t the same. Gary had magic. Tiggy did as well to an extent, given he had giant’s blood within him. It
would never mix like mine did with Morgan’s. We weren’t the same. I was human. They were not. Magic was different to different species.
But I could feel him, like I could feel them, though nowhere near as strong. And I didn’t think I could convince him to leave this place behind to give us time to bond like I’d done with the others. I thought it would be too much too soon. I didn’t know how much time we had, so when I spoke, I wanted it to be the right thing to say.
“You said you knew Morgan of Shadows,” I said finally. “Or knew of him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Randall?”
I didn’t miss the way he twitched. “Yeah—yes. Um. He’s scary.”
That gave me pause. “Have you ever met him?”
He shook his head. “No, but the year after the star dragon came to me, I woke and heard whispers of a wizard unlike any that had ever existed before.”
And that— “How old were you when the star dragon came?”
“Oh. Uh, I was… seven. Seven years old. Just a kid. I’m old enough now, if that’s what you’re thinking!”
I closed my eyes. “Seven hundred years ago, the star dragon came to you. About me.”
“Yes? Why?”
Why. Why, indeed. Why had the star dragon prophesized me to Zero seven hundred years ago, well before I had been born, before Morgan, before Myrin, even before Randall had been born? And if that was the case, why couldn’t Myrin have been stopped the first time around? What was it about this time that was different? Why now?
Why me?
“Did I break you?” Zero asked, stretching out toward me. He moved slowly, as if unsure, his hood tucked to the side of his head. He didn’t look as fearsome now. Still snakelike, but he reminded me of Kevin in a way, and it’d been a long time since I’d been afraid of Kevin.
“No,” I said, but it came out as a croak. “No. Just… surprising, is all. It’s not what I expected to hear.”
He didn’t pull away, just rested his head on the ground, closer than he’d been before, eyes on me. If I stood, we’d probably be eye level, given how big he was. “It’s the truth,” he said. “Time is different for me.”