A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania 2)

“Are you running away?” he asked lightly.

I was. A little. “No,” I said. “Or at least that’s not the main reason.”

“But it is a reason. That, and I believe it to be coupled with the protests that took place in the streets.”

I shrugged, because he wasn’t wrong. “Even if it hadn’t happened the way it did, even if he wasn’t who he is, I would still believe now. That he can do what he says he will. And I can’t let that happen.”

“Because you love Verania. Regardless of what it thinks about you.”

“No,” I said. “Because I love you.”

The King took in a great shuddering breath as he shook his head. “Do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you? I thought, here is this boy, loud and bright, and I believe he will change the world. I just didn’t expect you to change mine too. I am proud to know you and call you my own. Please, stop this formality. Come

here and hug me.”

I did. Because I loved my King very much.

Later, after the King was gone with a kiss to my forehead, Justin and I remained. We didn’t say anything for a long time.

Surprisingly, he spoke first. “I didn’t feel the same way when you first came.”

I snorted. “I know.”

“I didn’t like you. In fact, I hated you. I still do sometimes.”

“I know that too.”

“You have to come back.”

I looked up, startled, only to find Justin looking more vulnerable, more determined than I’d ever seen him before. “What?”

“You have to come back. You have to be safe and come back and be my Wizard. I could do this without you. I know I could. I am smart. And I can be kind. Sometimes. My father has taught me well. I’ve learned a lot in the past year. I can do this without you. But I don’t want to. The King of Verania needs his Wizard. It’s how it’s always been. So come back, and in one piece, or I swear to the gods, I am going to put you in the dungeon where you’ll poop in buckets for the rest of your days. Do you hear me?”

KEVIN AND Ryan were scouting ahead while Gary, Tiggy, and I hung back. I held my summoning stone in my hand, running my thumb over it. It’d remained dark since we’d left the castle four weeks before. No one had called me. I hadn’t called anyone either. I didn’t want to, afraid of what I would say that I couldn’t ever take back. And I thought if I had to hear Morgan’s voice right now, I would have.

“So,” Gary said.

“So,” Tiggy said.

I sighed. “Say whatever it is you have planned.”

“Planned?” Tiggy asked, feigning surprise. “No plan. Tiggy no got time for plans.”

“Damn right,” Gary said. “We don’t need no plans. Everything we do is executed perfectly and without complaint and/or death.”

They were idiots. “I heard you practicing whatever you were going to say to me last night.”

“Told you,” Tiggy said to Gary.

Gary glared at me. “Spying, are we? How uncouth.”

“You do it to me all the time.”

“I do not.”

“Gary, one time you had your face pressed flat against a window watching Ryan and I have sex.”

“I wasn’t spying. I heard you making this awful banshee wailing noise and had somehow convinced myself that you were either passing a gallstone the size of a lemur, or you were getting murdered by an actual lemur. I was coming to save you.”