Chapter 19: The Magic of Zero Ravyn Moonfire

 

 

EVERYONE WAS asleep except for me, Ryan’s hand lying loosely on my waist, Tiggy sitting up against Kevin with Gary in his lap. Ruv was lying a little ways off from everyone, but that was okay. The embers in the fire still burned, a tendril of smoke rising up toward the night sky. The air was cool but not uncomfortable. I felt small here in the middle of nowhere. Overwhelmed by everything that had happened and everything that would come.

I looked over at Ryan, whose mouth was slack, soft little snores on each exhalation. His brow was furrowed, like he was concentrating on something difficult. I reached over and brushed a finger from his forehead down between his eyes to the tip of his nose, the lightest of touches. He relaxed under the touch, and I hoped that whatever dream he was in didn’t hurt. I couldn’t stand the idea of him being hurt.

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.”

“I can imagine. It must be difficult, jumping through the years like that.”

It almost looked like he shrugged, but since he didn’t have shoulders, I couldn’t be sure. “I guess. It’s hard to make friends that way, given that they’d probably all be dead by the time I woke up again.” His eyes widened. “Not that I want friends or anything! I don’t need friends. I don’t even want friends. Friends are way lame.”

“Sure,” I said easily. “I totally get that. Friends are difficult, sometimes.”

“Right?” he said. “And even if they aren’t, they don’t live. One time, I made friends with a squirrel right before I went to sleep and thought I could keep it with me. When I woke up the next time, it was nothing but bones.”

“That’s… a really sad story,” I said. “Dude, what the hell.”

“Now you see why everything is about pain,” Zero moaned. “No one understands me, not even squirrels who die on top of me and leave their stupid bones for me to find when I wake up. I mean, who does that?”

“That damn squirrel.”

“Right? That damn squirrel. Whatever. I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anyone. I still don’t. I have my trees and flowers. That’s all I need.”

“I think everyone needs someone,” I said quietly. “It helps. In the long run.”

He didn’t say anything, just looked off into the dark forest around us.

“I need them,” I admitted. “The others. Maybe not Ruv, but then I don’t know him. He’s… not a part of us. And I don’t know that he will be.” I didn’t think that was any slight against him. It just didn’t seem like he fit. I thought maybe he needed to find his own path, if he ever decided to break away from Vadoma. But that didn’t seem likely.

Zero mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out.

“What was that?”

He sighed the weary sigh of the put-upon. “I said, Kevin seems all right. And the unicorn. And maybe the giant.”

“Have you… ever met another dragon before? You didn’t seem surprised to see him.”

“Aside from the star dragon? No. I don’t think so.”

I frowned. “What about your parents?”

He chuckled bitterly. “How can you not know anything about dragons when you travel with one? Ask your Kevin. He should tell you.”

He had a point, though I wasn’t going to let him know that. “What do you think about the knight?”

Zero huffed. “He’s full of himself.”

“Yeah,” I said fondly. “But he’s pretty awesome.”

“You love him, huh?”

“I do.”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, and I was sure he wasn’t going to say what he wanted. But then he blurted, “What’s it like? Being in love?” Then he groaned and turned his head to the side, curling his face against his serpentine body, hiding himself away.

I blinked at him. “Um.”

“Forget it! I don’t know why I asked that.” His voice was muffled. “I don’t care about stuff like that—”

“It’s pretty great, if I’m being honest.”

“It is?” he asked, unfurling himself, eyes wide. He moved closer until I could feel his breath on my arms. “Like, okay. Just… what’s great about it? You should tell me. Not that I care about that at all. Or anything.”

I tried to keep the smile from my face. I didn’t know how well I succeeded. It would be just my luck that my fourteen-year-old emo snake dragon was also a closet romantic. It seemed par for the course. Yeah, he fit. Somehow, he fit. “Well. I guess it’s… it’s the moment, you know, when you wake up first in the morning. You open your eyes and your thoughts are muddled. You’re still partly asleep and you’re warm and don’t want to move, but you know you have to get up anyway. So you stretch and it feels good, but your arm hits something next to you and you look over and… there he is. Still asleep. And it’s the first clear thought you have, and you think, Hello. Hello there. Hi. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re next to me. And then for some reason, he must feel you watching him, because he wakes up too, you know? And he’s blinking and looks all soft and beautiful and then he sees you and he smiles. Like all it takes for him to be the happiest he’s ever been is to see you there. Next to him. That’s… that’s what’s so great about it. That’s what it feels like.”

Zero was quiet for a long time. I let us sit there, next to his trees, lost in our thoughts. Me thinking that that’s something Vadoma could never understand. The love I had for Ryan. She could never know what it meant to me. What he meant to me. I felt sorry for Ruv, sure. But I would never give up something I’d worked so hard for. Vadoma wouldn’t win. Not in that respect.

Then Zero sighed and sounded just like any other fourteen-year-old I’d ever known. It was really rather startling. “That’s so cute,” he squealed. “Oh my gods, I want that. That’s what I want. Like, forever.”

I laughed. “What about your plants? The trees?”

“I can do both! I could. I know I could. You gotta believe me!” But then, amazingly, his eyes began to fill with tears. “But—but….”

“Oh no,” I groaned. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I am absolutely terrible when other people cry. I get so damn awkward that—”

“But no one will ever love me!” he wailed, throwing his head back and twisting his massive body until he lay on his back. “I’m going to be alone forever!”

“Oh,” I said. “Noooo. Noooo, of course not.” I leaned forward and patted the side of his head clumsily. “There, there. Oh, you. You’re just… swell.”

“Swell? I’m swell? I don’t want to be swell! I want to be in love!”

“O… kay. Uh. It’ll happen. When it happens? To you. It’s like, um. Your plants here. They. Grow. Like love does?”

“Wow! Thank you so much for the sound advice! Gosh, what would I have done without you!”

“Oh my gods.”

“Not that it matters, anyway,” he grumbled. “S’not like anything is gonna happen.”

“Oh. Come on, you. You got this. Why would you say that?”

“Have you seen me? I scare everyone.”

“Oh,” I said. “Noooo. Of course not. That’s not—noooo.”

He hissed at me, hood unfurling partially, spikes rattling.

I squeaked, “Kill it with fire!” Then, “I mean, wow. You’re—if only I was, like, seven years younger. And single. And a dragon. And into that.”

“See! I scare everyone!”

I tried to be as stern as possible. “You’re a little young for that, don’t you think?”

“No! No, I am fourteen years old. I know what I want!”

“I don’t think so, Zero. I’m pretty sure you’re not thinking very clearly about this.”

“I am thinking clearly! You just don’t understand what it’s like to be my age!”

“Uh, I was your age once.”

“Yeah, when the giant yaks roamed the earth. That was like, forever ago. You don’t get what it’s like to be a young person. My feelings are real and valid and everything I say comes from my life experience.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Life experience. Okay. Because you have so much of that.”

He glared at me upside-down. “Whatever. I don’t need this. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Now, you listen here, young man. I will not sit here and listen to you disrespect me like this. If you think that you’re going to talk to me like that, you’ve got another—”

“I don’t care! You don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You’re not even my real dad!”

“What? That hurts, Zero. That hurts. Do you know what I’ve done for you? I’ve—oh my fucking gods. What the fuck am I even talking about?”

“You’re trying to stifle me as a person!” Zero cried. “I am an individual. You need to respect that! I will spread my wings and fly, and there is nothing you can do about it!”

“No,” I said, standing up against the tree. “No, no, no. I am not going to turn into Gary and Kevin. I swear to the gods. This is some weird freaky-deaky parental magic shit or something. That’s all it is!”

“Maybe I’ll go out and find someone right now,” Zero growled. “Because I can do what I want.”

“Oh no you won’t,” I snapped. “You don’t know what kind of strangers are out there—how are you making me do this?” I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying to keep myself from vomiting more parenting all over the place.

“You can’t tell me how to live! I am a free spirit. I go where the wind blows!”

I had to resist the urge to tell him that I knew what I was talking about, that I’d lived a lot longer than he had, and that he should listen to me. But I realized how that sounded, and I hadn’t come here for this. For any of this. I didn’t need to be a parent to an emo snake dragon, especially when Kevin thought said emo dragon was his little brother while also thinking he was my stepfather.

I really needed to sit down and make a pros and cons list about the choices I’d made to get to this point.

“Look.” I dropped my hand, trying to regain control of the situation. “You’re… neat. You’ll find what you want with who you want when it’s time. Not before. And not before I ask you for your help.”

He cut off his whining almost immediately and opened one eye to look at me. “My help.”

I sighed. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh. Do I?”

“Zero.”

“Mr. Wilds.”

I groaned. “My name is Sam. And yes, you know. The star dragon. What did the he tell you?”

“Maybe that’s private.”

“Zero.”

“Your face gets really red when you get mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I said through gritted teeth.

“You sound kind of mad. Or constipated. I don’t know which.”

“Look. I just… we need to know.”

“What will you do for me if I help you?”

“What?”

He rolled over and laid his head near my feet. “It seems like you need me for this. What will I get if I help you? The star dragon said I had a choice. Said there was another too.”

And that… well. That’s when I stopped playing games. I told him what Morgan told me. About Myrin. About the end. About why he’d had to lock away his only family into the shadow realm. About what it meant to forsake a cornerstone once found. The corruption in the soul that came from it. The malice in the heart.

Zero remained silent while I spoke, understanding that I was no longer interested in placating him. He looked shaken by the time I’d finished. My voice was hoarse, and it was like I’d heard it all over again for the first time. I hadn’t said anything to anyone about this, not even Ryan. Randall and Morgan’s secret had become my own, but I was tired of bearing the weight.

It was quiet for a long while after I’d finished speaking.

Then:

“You’re serious.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you really need me?” His voice sounded small.

“Yes.”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But it must be something.”

“He told me. That a boy wizard would come. That he would need my help. That I would need to make a choice. That I could choose to help you. That I could choose to help the other. Or I could do nothing.”

“And he hasn’t been here? The other.”

Zero shook his head. “No. Just you.”

“Those are some serious choices you have to consider.”

“They are, aren’t they? I asked him what I should do. What was the right choice to make. Do you know what he told me?”

“No.”

“He told me that a dragon’s heart is a wondrous thing, capable of love and hatred. Of death and destruction. That there were dragons who had rained fire down from the sky. That burnt lands until they were nothing but ruins. That killed because they could, leaving nothing but wastelands behind them. And even though I was young, even though I didn’t know very much about the world, I knew that was wrong. That I could never be a dragon like that. I never wanted to be a villain. I just wanted to make things grow again. So I flew as far away as I could, far away from everyone else, and found a place that looked like a wasteland. That looked like it had already been burned and destroyed. And I stayed here to prove to myself that I could make it beautiful again, even if I could never be beautiful myself.”

Ah gods, how my heart ached.

He looked out at the forest around us, the trees swaying in a breeze, the birds that sang melancholic songs, the lights from actual fireflies, blinking lazily in the dark. “It was my gift,” he said quietly. “I thought it was my gift to a world that had lost its way. That if I could make a little corner of it better, then I wasn’t going to be like one of those bad dragons. That I could be one of the good guys. Does that make sense?”

“More than you could possibly know,” I said honestly. “You’re very smart. And very brave.”

I thought maybe he smiled at me, though it was hard to tell. He could have been just flashing his fangs, the cheeky bastard. “I don’t know about all that.” He hesitated. Then, “Are there… bad dragons?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “There aren’t many left. You’re only the second I’ve ever met. But maybe. I think that if you’re intelligent, if you can form thoughts in your head, there’s a chance that you could be a villain. And dragons are smart. So there might be some that are bad.”

His tongue flicked out. “I don’t want to be bad.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“If I help you, do you think I’d… do you think I’d be doing good?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you don’t know how yet.”

“Yes.”

“You’re asking me to take this on faith, wizard.”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in it? Do you believe in your friends? In your family? Do you believe in yourself?”

And I didn’t hesitate when I said, “Yes.”

“Your eyes,” he said. “They’re glowing. They’re…. It’s so pretty.”

I felt it coursing through me. “Red, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what that color is?”

“What?”

“I think it’s the color of your scales.”

He gasped. “Really? But it’s… it’s so. It’s so—”

“Beautiful,” I finished for him.

He reared up slowly, curling his body underneath him, eyes flashing in the dark. From the earth below that he’d created, those little lights began to glow again, flashing weakly at first, but then becoming stronger and stronger. He towered above me as the lights rose around us. Those musical notes I’d heard when they touched me before were louder this time around, more vibrant. More real. I didn’t know if they were in my head or if they echoed throughout the dome, but the song they sang was bittersweet and heartbreaking. I could feel Zero in them, feel his doubts and insecurities, his loneliness and desperation. I thought maybe this was a test, that he was showing himself to me, showing me all the different pieces that made the whole of him, the sum of his parts. And it made me wonder if he was seeing the same in me, if he was getting all of my pieces. If he was, what did he see? What did I show?

I was smart.

I did stupid things.

When I loved, I loved fiercely and with my whole heart.

I didn’t make friends easy. A lot of people liked the idea of me, but that wasn’t the same as liking me.

Sometimes I thought maybe Morgan had made a mistake and I couldn’t be what he thought I was.

I worried that I was going to disappoint my parents.

I was scared that one day Ryan would look at me and think he’d made a mistake.

I was angry at Randall, angry at Morgan, and I didn’t know how I was going to get over it. But I had to. I knew I had to and that they didn’t deserve my ire. But I didn’t know how to get past it, even knowing what Morgan had told me.

I wanted to keep my promise and help Gary find his horn. I didn’t know how to do that.

I wanted to keep my promise to give Tiggy a family he could call his own.

I wanted to believe my grandmother, that I was chosen for a reason.

I didn’t know how to do that.

I wanted to believe that Myrin could be saved, that he could be the person Morgan and Randall had loved again. That he could be a brother again. A cornerstone.

I didn’t know how to do that.

I wanted to believe that I could do this. That I could save Verania. That I could save the world. That the faith the King and his son had in me were not misplaced, that any villain that rose in opposition would be struck down because it was the right thing to do, that good would always triumph over evil.

I wanted to do what was right.

I didn’t know how to do that.

“You’re very conflicted,” Zero said, eyes glittering in the light of his magic. “Is that how it is to be human?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never been anything else.”

“You’re very brave. Like a hero.”

“So are you.” Because he was. Yes, he was a pain in my ass, but I had a feeling that anybody worthwhile would always be a pain in my ass.

“If I did this,” Zero said, “if I helped you, would you help me?”

“To do what?”

“Make the world beautiful,” he said. “I want the world to be beautiful again.”

I smiled up at him. “I think I can do that.”

He leaned forward until his face was inches from my own. His slitted nostrils flared, and he said, “The star dragon told me you would be good. And kind. A little foolish, but that your heart would be as big as a dragon’s. Do you know what he told me about the other?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

“He told me the other was your opposite. That he would bring this world to its knees. That he would lord over everyone and everything. I don’t want that. I just want to grow my trees and flowers. So yes, Sam of Wilds, I will side with you. Because of your dragon heart.”

And then he pressed his snout against my forehead, the lights exploding all around us, and—