A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(73)

“It’s a lot to take in for anyone,” Morgan said. “To find out you have some prophecy hanging over your head.”

Yeah, and that maybe everyone in this room aside from myself knew about it.

Randall snorted. “Back in my day, we didn’t let things like prophecies knock us on our asses. We actually listened to what they were about and faced them head-on rather than mope around like a little bitch.”

I was going to turn so many things of his into penises.

“And I suppose there’s the feeling that he thinks we lied to him,” Morgan said. “Like I lied to him.”

Bingo.

“Of course he would think that,” Randall said. “Because he’s selfish. He doesn’t think of anyone but himself. He can’t possibly see anything as being for the greater good. Can you imagine having to tell an eleven-year-old boy that one day, he’ll be facing a potentially insurmountable obstacle? Even now, I don’t think he has the faculties to grasp the extent of it. And it’s not lying, per se. It was more of an omission of the truth.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Morgan said with a sigh. “I couldn’t have actually told a child that his grandmother he’d never met had told me of his birth beforehand and that he would be responsible for a great many things.”

“Why, that way would just lay madness,” Randall said wryly. “Could you imagine the ego involved in hearing such a thing? Granted, he obviously didn’t need that to have an ego. Maybe that Lady Tina had a point. Sam might just need to be knocked down a few—”

“She did not have a point, oh my gods,” I exclaimed shrilly. “Are you insane? She was created for nothing but the sole purpose of waging war against me, and I will see her vanquished on the battlefield with her blood squelching between my fingers, mark my words.”

Randall and Morgan gaped at me.

“I went to a very dark place,” I said. “I admit that freely. And I don’t feel sorry about it at all.”

“Told you it would work,” Randall said to Morgan. “Just had to get him riled up is all. He’s so predictable.”

“You manipulated me!”

“Gods, maybe I liked it better when he wasn’t talking,” Randall said. “It all has to do with the volume. It’s either nothing or too much. There’s no in between with him.”

“You can’t hide from this, Sam,” Morgan said lightly. “I know you want to, I know that your first instinct is to try and ignore it until it all goes away, but you can’t do that now.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, refusing to look up from my Grimoire. “Maybe I’m just—”

“I know you,” Morgan said. “As well as anyone does. I have watched you grow up from a little boy to the man you are today. I have seen your successes. I have witnessed your failures. So, yes. I know you. And I know how you think, Sam. And I know your first instinct is to push this away.”

He had me there, and all of us in the room knew it. I didn’t know what kind of relationship Morgan and Randall had when it was just the two of them, if it’d been any different when Randall had been Morgan’s mentor, however long ago that’d been. I didn’t know why I hadn’t worked up the courage to ask about them yet, not sure if the bond between a mentor and his charge was meant to be private. I didn’t tell Gary or Tiggy or Ryan everything that Morgan and I talked about, and they didn’t ask. They knew a wizard was meant to have his secrets and so far hadn’t yet put me in a place where I had to lie to them. Lying was different than withholding the truth, or at least that’s what I told myself. I hadn’t told anyone what the Great White had said the first time Vadoma had whammied me. I hadn’t told anyone everything that had happened the second time, either.

I really needed to stop getting whammied by my grandma.

And Dad was right. That phrasing was terrible.

“Okay,” I said begrudgingly. “Maybe there was a small chance I was considering trying to ignore the whole… destiny thing until it went away. But that doesn’t mean that we still can’t do that, right? If we all collectively agreed that it doesn’t exist, then no big deal. We’ll forget it ever happened and go on with our lives like nothing changed. Maybe start a bowling league. I don’t know.”

“Until this dark man comes,” Randall said.

I glared at him, because of course he’d have to bring that part up. “So you believe her now? What happened to her fortune-telling being a scam?”

He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. “You believed it. The moment you came to in the field, you believed. Whatever you saw, whatever she showed you, it scared the hell out of you. That’s enough to make me believe that being cautious is better than being dismissive. You can’t hide your head in the sand without expecting your ass to get burned.”

I didn’t want to admit that he had a point, so I said nothing.

“We need to be prudent about this, Sam,” Morgan said. “If there is any truth to the matter.”

“And you don’t think that it’s just Vadoma having ulterior motives?” I asked. “She obviously made plans for me with Ruv that Ryan disrupted. How do we know this isn’t all just a ploy to bring me back to the homestead? I would make a terrible gypsy. I hate bracelets, and I don’t like the desert.”