A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(58)

Randall’s string was yellowed, like the pages in an old book. It was stiffer than the others, but it held.

Morgan’s was a swirling green, and it came from just below my throat. It shook with magic that curled with my own, slow and familiar. It almost felt like my parents’, but there were minute differences to it, differences that I couldn’t quite parse out. For a moment, I thought I felt his sadness, his hurt over a perceived betrayal, but before I could follow it, it was gone.

Three more strings came forth, centered around my heart. They were blue, like the sky in the height of summer. Each one was firmly anchored within me, and they led to Gary and Tiggy and Kevin. It was friendship and brotherhood, the sense that I would die for these fools, if there was need for it. Gary’s and Tiggy’s were stronger than Kevin’s, the years between us binding us together in ways it couldn’t with the dragon. But the dragon’s had something else mixed into it that no other string had, a shot of heterochromia, the colors shifting so quickly that I couldn’t name a single one. It was at the core of his thread, and I felt it call to me, saying here, here, here, this is why you are here, this is providence, this is the future.

I didn’t like that part very much.

Nor did I like the threads, weak as they were, that reached toward Vadoma and Ruv. Vadoma’s was sickly in color, a pale orange that pulsed faintly. The thread to Ruv was a little stronger, a little healthier, though not by much, yellow like a muted sun. My magic reached for it tentatively but shied away before the connection could be made.

But it was the last thread that commanded my attention. It came from the center of my heart, bright gold and fibrous. I felt the pull of it, the way it tugged against the bonds in my chest. It had fastened itself securely in me, and even as I watched, little arcs of electricity shot through the thread like lightning in a storm. It crackled down the length of the thread until it reached Ryan Foxheart. My magic was not shy here. It didn’t pull away. No, it sang as the runes on my skin burned, as the world began to melt around me, the colors all bleeding together.

And even though my mind was a blurry place, where specific thoughts eluded me, I knew one thing to be fact above all others: that if these were the threads that tied us together, then Ryan was the tether that held me earthbound. This was the cornerstone, the building block, and I marveled how bright it was.

“It’s so much,” I whispered in awe. “It’s all so much, oh my gods, if you could only see how much this is—”

But everything else faded when Vadoma stepped in front of me, hand raised in front of her, palm up. Her eyes were dark and deep, and when she spoke, it came in crisp and clear, as if we were the only people left in the world.

She said, “I’m sorry for what it is I am about to show you.”

Then she pursed her lips and exhaled sharply. Her breath hit a pile of lavender powder in the palm of her hand. It covered my face, and I inhaled in surprise, a low gasp. The granules hit my nose and mouth and tongue, and I was breathing, I was breathing, I was—





Chapter 9: The Vision


IT WAS night. The stars above were shining, brighter than I’d ever seen them before. I could see the Lightning-Struck Man. The Pegasus. Vhan’s Fury. David’s Dragon.

And it was this last that was the brightest of them all.

I knew the story that came with the constellation. How David had found the dragon as a hatchling. How he raised it as his own. How they leaned on each other. How they loved each other, inseparable for all their days.

And how David was taken from the dragon by death. It was said the dragon mourned so loudly that the stars trembled above until they changed into a dragon, permanently etched into the heavens to scour the skies for his lost friend.

Like most legends, there was a romantic notion to it. A bittersweet longing. Whether it was true or not, I didn’t know. I’d never really considered it before.

Now? Now I could believe.

I could believe because the stars began to move.

The dragon began to move.

It was slow at first, as if awaking from a great slumber.

It stretched its wings, the tips brushing against Vhan’s Fury, causing it to pulse.

The dragon began to move across the sky, and it—

It fell.

I cried out as the star dragon plummeted toward the earth, wings folded at its sides. At first it was just made of stars, but as it fell, lightning began to arc between them, outlining just how massive this dragon truly was. The dragon itself didn’t make a sound as it hurtled downward, but the lightning snapped off it in loud cracks, burning the air around it.

It was coming straight for me.

I took a step back. And then another. But I couldn’t run. I couldn’t make myself look away.

Right before the dragon would have crashed into the earth, it spread its wings, catching an updraft that slowed its descent. The ground shook beneath my feet as it landed, its lightning claws digging into the forest floor and— No. Not the forest.

Sand.

The trees were gone. The grass was gone. Beneath my feet lay red sand, heavy and thick. Sand dunes rose as high as mountains all around me. I was in a valley of sorts, alone with David’s Dragon. There was a lone tree, bone-white and stunted, growing off to my left. The moon caused its shadow to stretch long across the desert floor, the branches reaching out like spindly fingers.

Then the dragon spoke.