A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(163)

I knew this man, though I’d never seen his face before in my life.

He stopped some distance away, a smile playing on his lips. Now that he was closer, I could see the similarities between him and his brother were an illusion. Yes, he had the eyes and the beard, yes, they were from the same blood, but that’s where it ended. Morgan’s eyes were kind and strong. He held himself high because it was what was expected of him. The power that emanated from him was there because of the sum of the parts that made up his life, both the good and the bad. Morgan was my friend. He was my mentor. I trusted him with my life.

This man couldn’t be further from Morgan had he tried. Morgan’s magic had always meshed well with mine. It came from our years together. This man’s magic tried to do the same, but it felt slick and oily and wrong, and I could only think of how my magic had felt around Ruv, how there was a recognition there since he could have been a cornerstone. But it hadn’t been right, because I already had Ryan.

This wasn’t right, because I already had Morgan.

There were shadows curling around him like liquid smoke. I wondered if that was his magic. I saw the green and the gold. The colors of the world I’d been brought into.

It looked as if all he saw was black.

“Sam of Wilds,” he said, his voice softer than I’d been expecting. It had a lilt to it, almost musically so. It was… calm. Soothing. And oh so wrong. “How lovely it is to look upon your face free from the confines of a dream. I shall remember this moment for an eternity.”

“Myrin,” I breathed.




ONCE UPON a time, there was a wizard who was loved deeply by two different men.

One was the love of a brother.

The other was the love fated by the stars.

It was a bright and fierce thing, their love. Capable of such wondrous things.

But in the end, it mattered not.

The wizard lost himself on a path that those who loved him could never understand. He descended into the Dark, consumed by the temptation of a magic that should not have existed. But boundaries had been broken; barriers had been shattered. There was poison in his words, poison that was dripped into the ears of the weak of heart. Follow me, he whispered. Follow me and I will show you the way.

And the weak of heart had followed.

The brother begged him when they met in a clearing in the Dark Woods. The brother pleaded with him. Think of Randall! Think of our parents! Think of me! Gods, please, Myrin, I beg you. Think of me.

But the wizard known as Myrin did not.

The love fated by the stars was a great wizard in his own right, and did not beg. He did not plead. Instead, Randall gave an ultimatum, though it broke his heart: Turn away. Turn away and renounce your magic. End this nonsense, Myrin, and I will see to it that you are brought home.

And for a moment, it looked as if Myrin would consider it. There was a flash in his eyes, a crack of the mask. The brother saw the man that had once been before all of this. He saw his brother before him, and he thought it’d be enough. That this would end here as the Dark Woods burned around them and they wouldn’t have to go through with what they had planned.

Stone crumbled. It always did.

But Myrin did not.

I cannot do that, he said. I am too far gone to ever return.

Then so be it, Randall said. Morgan.

And Morgan said, I can’t.

The air stilled around them.

Myrin cocked his head. Second thoughts, little brother?

But Morgan only had eyes for Randall. Please. There has to be another way.

There isn’t, Randall said. You knew it would come to this.

But—

Morgan. As my pupil, I am commanding you.

Morgan hung his head.

Myrin laughed. What’s all this, then? You think you can defeat me? Oh, Randall. Love. You have no idea what I’m capable of.

And Randall looked into the eyes of his cornerstone and said, I know. I know what you’re capable of. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that you underestimated what I am capable of.

There was a crack in the sky.

A crack in the air.

A crack in the earth.

Randall’s hands were raised before him, palms toward Myrin.

And with a song of sorrow in his heart, Morgan did the same.

At first, Myrin laughed.

He said, This is nothing. You both are nothing. You won’t kill me. You don’t have it in you.

And in that, he was right: they did not have it in their hearts to kill him. They couldn’t find it in themselves to destroy the one thing they both loved most in the world. Call it a weakness. Call it their undoing, but they could not kill Myrin.

Myrin, for all that he’d become, underestimated the one thing he should not have: Randall’s and Morgan’s love for the man he once had been.

It was this love that tore a hole between the worlds. That opened the gateway to a realm steeped in shadows. Magic such as this hadn’t been seen in the real world before. And it took a piece of their soul to do it. But as the gateway widened, as the shadows whipped out and curled themselves around Myrin’s legs, knocking him to the ground, they knew in their soul-struck hearts that they had made their choice, just as Myrin had made his.

He screamed at them to save him. He told them he could change. Don’t do this, he begged them. And when he saw they were not coming to his aid, he stopped his pleadings and snarled at them both. I will return. I will have my revenge. And this time, you won’t see me coming. I will take everything precious from you. Everything you hold dear will be torn away. This I promise you.