“Containment. Compression.”
“Morgan.”
“Yes.”
“How is it that you can’t do that?”
“How is it that Morgan cannot travel as I can? How is it that I do not have a lightning-struck heart as you do? It’s…. Magic is a fingerprint, Sam. It’s unique to the person. You can do things that I have never thought possible. There are things that I can do that you might never achieve, but I can’t be sure of that. You are… different. Than all of us that have come before you.”
“But you said that we’re the same, you and I.”
His smile was a fragile thing. “We were.”
“But not anymore?”
“I am far too old to have the wonder you carry for the world. And I don’t want to see that wonder burned from you.”
He fell silent after that, allowing me to process everything that had been said. I didn’t know what to do with most of it. I didn’t know what to say. I was angry at him yet again, but the anger was muted by the fact that I understood. I couldn’t blame him too much if I thought I’d have done the same thing had I been in his shoes.
We were human. We breathed. We lived. We laughed. We broke. And in the end, we loved each other down to our very souls. We moved with a strange grace, the dance of life that pushed us together, and didn’t we just cling to each other? Didn’t we just hold on as tightly as we could in fear that at any possible moment, we’d be torn away?
We did.
Randall had danced his life. He had made his choices. And now he sat across from me, slouched and weary.
“I don’t want to live forever,” I finally said.
“You won’t.”
“I don’t want to live as long as you.”
“You won’t. My heart beats because I am forcing it to. Apparently I can be quite stubborn when I need to be.”
“Or as long as Morgan.”
He closed his eyes. “Sam—”
“I don’t want longevity. I want—”
“Your magic will keep you alive.”
“Then maybe I don’t want it.”
His eyes snapped open. “How can you—”
For the first time in my life, I said, “I want to be normal.”
“Sam, if there is one thing you are not, it is normal. Normal does not have its fate written in the stars.”
“I can’t leave him,” I said. “I won’t. If stone crumbles, then I want to crumble right along with it. If we… survive this. If we defeat Myrin, I want to age like a human. I want to live a normal life.”
“You are meant to be the King’s Wizard,” Randall said, sitting up higher. He squared his shoulders. “You have a duty to the people of Verania. To the Crown.”
“I will find a way,” I said. “I will help you with your mistakes, but I will find a way.”
“Why?” he breathed, shaking his head.
I threw his words back in his face. “I love him. Maybe more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world, before and after. He is this light. This beautiful light that I think I can be consumed by. That’s what he—”