“And then I shoved him off a cliff,” I said with a wince. “That might not have been the best first impression.”
Pat snorted. “That was… unexpected. But you did what you did to keep him safe. You are a curious creature, Sam of Wilds. I did not expect you to be as you are.”
“I get that a lot,” I admitted. “Both good and bad.”
“You’ve seen much in your short life.”
“That might be an understatement.”
“And you have a long road ahead.”
“Again, understatement.”
“What do you hope to achieve?” Pat asked. “When all is said and done, what is it that you wish for most?”
And wasn’t that the biggest question of all. Because in the end, no one, not Randall, not Morgan, not Vadoma, not the star dragon, no one had asked me that. I’d been told this is how things were. This is how things were going to be. This is what I had to do to ensure everyone I loved was safe. This is your destiny, Sam. This is your path, Sam. This is the reason you were born, Sam.
What did I want? Out of everything, what did I wish for most?
“To do everything I can,” I said, “that in the end, no matter what happens, I’ll be able to look back on my life and say I did my best. That my family can be proud to call me their own because what I did mattered.” I shook my head. “The gods can say what they wish. They can set me on a path. Carve the course of my life into stone. But stone crumbles. It can fall into dust and swirl like snow in a storm. I make the choices. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not. But even when I make mistakes, it’s because I thought I was doing the right thing.”
And I knew Morgan and Randall had thought the same thing. They’d hidden the truth from me because they’d thought it was for the best. They had the hopes of foolish men with foolish hearts. Theirs had been broken. They had tried to keep mine whole. I was done with my anger. It left me as if it hadn’t ever been there at all. Of course it wasn’t that easy. There was much to ma
ke up for.
But first, there were other matters to attend to.
The dragons’ eyes began to glow blue.
Magic started to build around me.
There was green and gold.
And blue.
I felt the moment my eyes began to shine in response. It was warm and sweet, and it felt right in the way Zero had in his dome in the middle of the desert. In the way that Kevin had when he’d curled around me atop his keep, the heavens shining down upon us, the dragon whispering to me that he’d never seen one look at another the way Ryan looked at me.
One day I’ll believe you.
And one day, maybe I could be there to tell you I told you so.
I was caught then, in a swirl of magic and snow, the feathered dragons looming above me, and the moment they slid into place, the moment I felt their power align with my own, I knew I could take it from them. I could take it for myself and lay waste to my enemies. I could rip their dragon minds from their dragon bodies and take their strength and become more powerful than the world could possibly imagine.
What will you choose, wizard?
It was intoxicating—
My feet left the ground as I rose into the air.
It would be so easy.
It would be so easy.
And it would be mine.
All I had to do was take it.
I could—