“You sound just like my stepson,” Kevin said fondly.
“I’m not your stepson!”
“See what I mean?”
“Why have you come here?” the Great White asked.
The others fell silent. The fairies hovered above us.
I took a step forward. “You say that you’ve seen my heart. That I wasn’t ready. Please. I ask that you look again.”
“Do you think yourself changed?”
I bowed my head and tried to breathe. “Yes.”
“Look at me, child.”
I did.
His eyes seemed like they were endless as they narrowed.
I didn’t look away, even as tears slid silently down my face.
His face softened. “Your heart has been broken.”
“Morgan is gone. My cornerstone is….”
“You have learned suffering.”
“Yes.”
“Sacrifice.”
“Yes.”
“These are not lessons I wish someone so young has to learn,” the Great White said, not unkindly. “But you are not like everyone else, Sam of Wilds. The forest shines a little less with the loss of Morgan of Shadows, but you must not let his sacrifice be in vain. He gave himself so that you may live. So you could become what this world needs. I ask of you, Sam of Wilds, will you hear me once again?”
I hesitated.
Of course I did.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
I whispered, “Yes.”
He nodded, and when he spoke again, I felt the overwhelming curl of his magic as it began to pull within me. Only this time, it was combined with four other pinpoints of light that burned as brightly as the sun.
For the first time, the dragons of Verania stood with each other.
And I felt them all.
The Great White said:
Come away with me, O human child.
In this forest deep, in the dark of the wild.
Where in these woods, you’ll face your fear,