Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(3)

The Nameless End did not get bored. She was what she was.

“Ah,” Brohomir said. “But have you ever tried being something else?”

What a stupid question. What else could she be?

The dragon grinned. “Mine.”

The Nameless End paused.

“This place is a nothing,” Brohomir went on, looking around blindly in the dark. “Everything here is already dead and done, assuming it ever was, but my world is still in motion. There are still surprises there, things yet unknown. I can share them with you.”

The chains curled in interest. How?

“Come with me,” the dragon said, putting out his hand. “Come back to my plane as my consort and ally, and I will give you a front row seat to the most marvelous show you’ve ever seen. Something more spectacular than all the other eternities you’ve eaten, because unlike those stale, dead histories, my story is alive. The future I’m offering you is still being written. It might end in tragedy, but we won’t know until we get there, because until the present becomes the past, anything is still possible. That’s what I have that you do not, and it’s what I want to share with you.”

Brohomir stretched his hand out further. “Be surprised with me,” he beckoned. “Everyone else trades you futures they don’t want in exchange for sure bets, but I’m offering to share my present, which is still infinitely possible, and thus infinitely better. So leave this dull emptiness and run away with me. Come and live all the things you’ve only seen in other people’s finished stories, and when it’s over, you’ll have had something that no one else has ever cared enough to give you: a life of your own.”

He was panting by the time he finished, his lungs gasping for the air he knew had to be still rushing through the portal behind him even if he couldn’t feel it. He wasn’t sure how much time he had left, but he didn’t dare look back at Amelia. Even if he couldn’t see it, his eyes stayed locked on the place in front of him where he could feel the Nameless End watching in wonder.

No one had ever offered her anything like this before.

“I’m an out-of-the-box thinker,” Brohomir said proudly. “Anyone can give up a future, but there’s only one present, and I’m offering to share mine with you. I can’t promise it will always be pleasant, but it’ll never be boring, and so long as I live, you will never be alone.”

He felt the Nameless End’s temptation like a shiver around him. She was very lonely. All ends were, but it couldn’t be that simple. The little creature would not offer something so precious unless it wanted a very great boon in return. What did it want?

“There’s an End coming to my plane,” he explained. “I don’t know when or how yet, but I know it arrives during my lifetime. If I’m to beat it, I need an ace of my own. I came here thinking that was you, but now that you’re in front of me, I realize I was thinking too small. I don’t just need you to come back with me to beat another Nameless End. I want you to come with me, because I’m lonely too.”

That was far more personal than Brohomir usually liked to go, but he only had one shot at this, and the truth was always more compelling than a lie.

“I’m a seer,” he said. “Every time I meet someone, I can’t help but see their death. I see all the ways they could betray me, even if they never do. That’s why seers go mad. When you’re always evaluating every possibility of every individual you meet, it’s impossible to interact with others like normal dragons do. But you’re different. You have no future as I know it, so when I look at you, all I see is this.” He waved his hands at the darkness. “Emptiness. Nothingness.” He sighed. “Do you know what a relief that is? How beautiful you are?”

The Nameless End flipped her tendrils. That was foolish. Endings could not be beautiful or ugly. They simply were.

“I disagree,” Brohomir said with a smile. “I think you’re marvelous, and impending apocalypse aside, I’d very much like to have you with me. I think we’d be good for each other. I think you’d be good for me.”

Already, he could feel her calm in his mind, helping him focus, which was an enormous relief. He’d seen what life as a seer would do to Estella, and it had terrified him to the point where getting dumped by the most beautiful dragoness he knew he’d ever meet was almost a relief. The shadow of that same madness and paranoia was always lurking when he looked at his own future, but in the new timelines where the Nameless End was with him, the stain was lessened, or missing entirely.

That gave him enormous hope, which was why, even though he knew his time here had to be almost up, he didn’t step back toward the portal. He moved closer to her instead, walking into her tentacles with his mind open in the hope she could see what he saw.

“Come away with me,” he whispered. “Share my present until it becomes past, and so long as I live, I swear, we will never be alone.”

The words shook. This was his final gamble, but it seemed to work. He could actually feel the Nameless End in his head now, her vast presence sliding over his thoughts like silk over a topographical map, followed by a question.

What should I be?

“Anything your heart desires,” Brohomir said, his heart leaping even as the portal behind him started to cave. “It’s your life. So long you spend it with me, I will be happy.”