“I give you my word. No harm will come to him.”
And even then, Ryan hesitated. Then he bowed. “My King.” It was said begrudgingly, as if it came at great expense. But before I could follow it, before I could chide the man I loved for being his usual self (and possibly fawn over him disgustingly for having my back as he did), I became distracted by these bright and shining threads that burst from my chest.
“Sweet molasses,” I managed to say. “This is some fucked-up shit right here. I’m made of glowing strings.”
“Yeah,” Gary said. “Really fucking tripping balls. Everyone watch out for pirate ships.”
The first strings were white and shining, thick and strong. There were a couple of them, and they curved through the air until they latched on to two different people.
My mother and father. There was a love to them, a bond that I didn’t think could ever be broken.
The next set of strings was red and powerful. There was a sense of duty in them, of loyalty that came from responsibility. There was love in them too, but it was of a different sort. It latched on to the King and the Prince. The King’s thread was like that of my parents in that I knew it would hold. The one with Justin was more tenuous, but I knew it would get stronger if we let it.
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 agains
t 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.