A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania 2)

She arched an eyebrow at me.

“Because Randall erased him as much as he could,” I corrected. “Because he couldn’t bear the thought of the man he loved having done the things he did. So he erased him as much as he could from history, having banished him with the help of Myrin’s brother, Morgan. Morgan, who was Randall’s protégé.”

“The burn that must have run through them at the betrayal,” Vadoma said. “The pain they would have felt. For family, for a cornerstone, to turn as he did.”

I said nothing.

“I do not need a cornerstone,” Vadoma said, looking down at her hands. “I am not like you. I cannot create something real out of nothing. I can make you see, but that is the limit. I am not a wizard. I am not a witch. I am an old woman with an ability I never asked for, who has seen things she never asked to see. And yet, there is magic in me. And it has slowed down time. I have seen people come and go. Villages rise and fall. I have seen the weakness of kings. One, in particular.”

“The King of Sorrow.”

“Yes. I see someone’s been talking.”

I shrugged, not caring to answer.

“It was said that Randall pulled him out of his madness by the sheer force of his will alone. Tell me, Sam. Do you know why the King went mad in the first place?”

“No.” Which, I probably should have, given I was going to be the next King’s Wizard, but if there was one thing I hated more than anything else in the world, it was going through a thousand years of Veranian politics. It was the bane of my existence.

“The loss of love,” Vadoma said. She rubbed a bony finger over the bangles on her right wrist. “The King’s wife and daughter were killed. Burned to death in a fire. He lost himself to his grief. Randall pulled him back from the brink. But not with his will. No. He did it because he too understood loss. Pain. Suffering. That is not something that leaves you. Do you know that?”

“No,” I said slowly. Because I didn’t, fortunately enough. My parents were still alive. My friends were safe. The King and Prince I’d sworn to protect were guarded. Randall and Morgan were still around, even if I was pissed off at them. I’d never known loss. Not like she described. I didn’t want to.

Then she did it again, and I wondered if she was trying to catch me off guard. “And the Great White. He said nothing to you? Tell Vadoma.”

“No,” I said without wavering. “He said nothing. For all I know, it was just a dream.”

She laughed, dry and rusty. “Chava. That was not

a dream. I made you see.”

“You can see hallucinations,” I said. “That doesn’t mean they’re real.”

“That mouth of yours,” she said with a frown. “I blame the unicorn.”

“He is pretty sassy,” I agreed.

“And you will not banish him?”

I snorted. “Not hardly. And if I tried, he’d probably just laugh at me, call me a bitch, and then sit on me for a little while until I apologized. Just how he is.”

“Impertinent creature,” she said. “I knew a unicorn once. Backstabber. Literally. He stabbed people in the back.”

“Did those people deserve it?”

She waved a hand at me dismissively. “Not the point. Consider getting rid of him. For your grandmother’s sake.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

“This is the family I was given,” Vadoma said to Ruv. “Now you see why the gods mock me.”

Ruv was amused. “I think Sam has a point here.”

“Do you?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

“Unicorns are fiercely loyal creatures. And this one has bonded with Sam and the half-giant. He would do anything to save them.”

“He would,” I said, smiling at Ruv. At least one of them got it. Ruv, of course, smiled back at me, those dark eyes on me unnervingly. I wondered what he thought when he saw me, what he’d probably been told about me for years. Vadoma had probably built me up in his head somehow, a boy with a destiny of dragons and that Ruv would one day be the anchor for his magic. I thought maybe he was disappointed with what he’d seen in me and—