The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

“Dragons!” Ryan cried. “You have hurt the man I love. You will taste the steel of my blade!”

“Wow,” Justin snorted. “That sure showed them.”

“Babe,” I said, “that was sweet, but maybe cut back on the douchebaggery.”

“Douchebaggery?” he said, brow furrowing. “That wasn’t douchebaggery. That was how I normally talk.”

“Sure it was,” I said. “Because normal people say taste the steel of my blade.”

“I’ll be honest,” Gary said, “even though it sounded stupid, it did give me a bit of a boner.”

“It didn’t sound stupid,” Ryan muttered, kicking at the snow. “You all sound stupid.”

“Gary,” Kevin said, “I thought we agreed as part of our trial reconciliation that you wouldn’t get boners because of anybody else except for me.”

“It’s the beard,” Gary said. “I can’t help it. He’s a dude-bro now, and for some reason, that really just does it for me.”

“I can grow a beard,” Kevin said. “Okay, I can’t, but we can glue sheep wool to my face and pretend. You know how I feel about sheep, those fucking little shits who scream when they see me coming because I am their god.”

“Where do you come from?” the bigger dragon asked Tiggy. She, too, sounded almost breathless. “We have not seen your kind in centuries.”

Randall cocked his head, staring between Tiggy and the dragons, eyes narrowed.

Tiggy looked nervous. He glanced to me like he was unsure of what to say. I stepped out of the Line of Badasses, ignoring the way Ryan protested. I felt the feather dragons’ eyes on me as I moved toward my friend. Gary leaned forward and nuzzled my neck briefly as I passed him. I stopped in front of Tiggy. He looked down at me, a small smile on his face. I held my good arm up, and he bent over, picked me up gently, and cradled me against his chest. I was reminded of that day long ago in the Dark Woods when I found a half-giant and a unicorn on the run from a man named Koklanaris, the marks of a whip upon their bodies. We’d all been younger then and a bit smaller, but he’d held me just the same.

And he must have been thinking the same thing, because his smile widened a little as he said, “I keep you. You’re mine. I call you Steve.”

“Your face,” I said, leaning forward and rubbing my nose against his. He hummed happily before I pulled away. “You okay?”

“Now,” he said, and I knew what he meant. We were all together again. “You’re hurt.”

“Eh. I’ve had worse.”

Tiggy glared at the dragons over me. “You hurt Sam.”

“I thought he was Steve,” the smaller dragon whispered to her mate.

“Maybe he’s both,” she whispered back. Then, louder, “It was a test.” She didn’t sound apologetic about it.

“A test where you tried to eat me,” I pointed out.

“Randall,” she said, “tell him.”

And that… well. I was not expecting that. I turned my head slowly to look at Randall. “Yes, Randall. Please. Tell me.”

For his part, Randall didn’t even look remotely perturbed. In fact, he ignored me pretty much completely. “That was your idea of a test?” he asked coolly. “To what end?”

“To see his mettle,” the bigger dragon said. “The scope of his heart. The minds of men are a terrible thing. Just because the gods have put their faith in him doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of corruption. We have seen what men can do.” She glanced at Tiggy again, a shrewd look on her face. “What they can destroy. You, giant. Where did you come from?”

“He doesn’t remember,” I said when Tiggy looked unsure of himself. “Not really.” What had he said inside Zero’s forest?

Smells like home. Like before. Before you. Before Gary.

We didn’t know much about it. His before. What we did know was mostly assumptions. Tiggy was vague about it, and I thought it was more because he couldn’t remember rather than repression of some trauma. He didn’t act afraid, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. The closest understanding I’d gotten to his before was that he’d been cast out by the giants, along with his parents, for being a half-breed. Tiggy had the language to tell us, but either he didn’t want to or he didn’t know. He got frustrated when we pushed, and I could

n’t do that to him. Tiggy never seemed as if he were longing for something more. In fact, his speech in Zero’s forest was the most he’d talked about it in a very long time.

“Is it because he’s half?” the smaller dragon asked, sounding aggrieved.