“What?” I asked nervously. “Please don’t tell me this is the point where you say it’s standing right behind me, because, dude. That would just totally suck my balls.”
“Your eyes,” he said.
“Uh. Yes? I have them?”
“They’re glowing blue.”
I blinked. “Oh. Shit. Yeah, that’s apparently a thing that happens. They glowed red when we were in the desert approaching Zero.”
“Did they change with Kevin?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The first time I saw him, I was getting knocked through an equipment shed after he said he wanted to fuck me. The second time, I was chained up by the Cult of Truth Corn Assholes in the middle of a field as a sacrifice. I really didn’t have time to find out if my eyes were changing colors.”
He stared at me.
“What?”
“Your life is very strange.”
“Why do you say that like it’s my fault?”
“Can you feel the change? In your eyes.”
I started to shake my head but stopped. “Not… not like you think. It’s more—I just know the dragons are here. They know I’m here. We can feel each other.”
“You are an odd one, Sam of Wilds,” he said before continuing farther into the cave.
It was only minutes later that it became difficult to see. The light had faded, casting the area around us in shadows. I bumped into a large column of ice, cursing under my breath as pain blossomed in my knee. Randall stopped in front of me, and I could barely make out when he brought his hands to his face, cupping them over his mouth and nose. He whispered something into his palms, and a surge of magic beyond that of the dragons burst around us. A light flashed brightly in Randall’s palms, illuminating the cave around us. Randall opened his hands and the light rose, flapping like it had… wings.
“Is that a butterfly?” I said, unable to keep the wonder from my voice. The light flitted around us, leaving little trails of sparks that hissed when they landed upon the ice.
“It is,” Randall said. But he wouldn’t say anything more about it, no matter how much I prodded.
We followed the butterfly farther into the cave. The light crawled along the ice, making it look like the crystals were glowing. We were heading up a slight incline and the air was growing warmer. I could hear the soft drip of water sliding down the columns and walls. It was eerie, hearing it echo around us.
“How deep does this cave go?” I asked after what felt like forever. “It can’t be that big.”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Randall said.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“Partly.”
“What the hell does that mean? How can you have partly been in a cave before?”
“When I came to Castle Freesias, I made an offering to the dragons here.”
“During your self-imposed exile,” I said without thinking. Then, “Uh. Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like—”
“You’re not wrong,” he said.
“Wow. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. I feel tingly. That might also be hypothermia and frostbite, but I’ll take it. Why did you leave an offering?”
“So they’d know I wasn’t here to hurt them.”
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“Because you were Randall of Dragons.”