“As in king of everything,” Dragon Sees the Beginning said, turning back toward them with a smile that sent shivers down Julius’s spine. “Think about it, young Heartstriker. Between your mortal and Brohomir’s machinations, you have enough potential here to buy any future you desire,withoutsacrificing your own. With one chain, you could defeat everyone who’s ever looked down on you. All of your problems, the things that bother you, we could make them all go away and give you a lifetime of custom-made paradise in their place. Power, respect, fear, wealth, everything a dragon desires could be yours with the click of a claw, and all for the price of a future.” The dragon’s smile widened. “What do you say? Would that not be glorious?”
“Maybe,” Julius said. “But not at that price.” He looked at Marci, who’d gone very pale. “Marci’s future isn’t mine to trade. Same goes for the ones Bob wrapped around me and anything else you see in there. Even if I could trade my own future for everything you just mentioned, I wouldn’t, because it was thinking like that that messed everything up in the first place. Also, I’m not actually interested in all that stuff.”
The dragon blinked in surprise. “You’renot? But you would be a king! Don’t you want to see your enemies crushed before you?”
“Not particularly,” Julius said. Honestly, he was having a hard time imagining a future he wantedlessthan the one Dragon Sees the Beginning had just described. Sure, being all powerful soundedfun, but Julius had met a lot of dragons with a lot of power, and with the exception of his Mother, whom heneverwanted to be like, not a one of them had seemed actually happy.
“Thank you for the offer,” he said. “But minus the current crisis, I’m actually pretty content with my life as it is. If you could just please find me a chain that will let me stop Estella’s, that would be great.”
He’d tried to word all of that as politely as possible. Refusing gifts was the fastest way to insult a dragon, and offending the only force who could possibly help him with this was the last thing Julius wanted to do. By the time he finished, though, Dragon Sees the Beginning was looking at him with a strange mix of horror and wonder.
“I knew you were odd from the beginning, but now I think I see why.” The dragon smiled its terrifying, toothy smile. “I’m beginning to understand why my brother sent you here, Julius the Nice Dragon.”
“I don’t believe I’ve met your brother,” Julius said nervously. He’d remember if he’d met another dragon like this.
“Perhaps not yet,” Dragon Sees the Beginning said. “But youwill,and to the dragon of the future, that’s the same thing. Besides, no one makes it back to this place without Dragon Sees Eternity pulling the strings in some way. Most of the time the reasoning is obvious, but you were a real puzzle. Now, though, I see. If a dragon can come here and turn down unlimited power, there might be hope for us yet.”
The dragon said this like it was a revelation, but Julius had no idea what was going on. “I—”
“Right, right,” the dragon said, snaking its huge head back around to the wall of chains. “Now that we’ve established you don’t want to rule the world, what sort of futureareyou looking for? I’m not as good at this as an actual seer, but there’s plenty here for me to work with. Given the materials at hand, I’m reasonably certain I can fashionsomething that will force your plan through.” The dragon glanced back. “Youdohave a plan, right?”
Julius did, actually. It was a pretty long shot, but it was the only situation he could think of that defeated Estella’s objectives without actually having to go directly against the four chains she’d paid her entire future for. It took a while to explain exactly what he wanted to Dragons Sees the Beginning, but by the time he finished, the guardian was smiling wider than ever.
“It certainly is thinking outside the box,” the dragon said. “Not to mention you’ll be creating a paradox.”
“Is that a problem?” Julius asked.
“Only if you don’t enjoy watching seers lose their composure,” Dragon Sees the Beginning said with an evil grin. “No, this is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for when you showed up. I’m only sad I won’t be able to see it myself until the next visitor brings it in as part of their past.”
Julius let out a relieved breath. “So you’ll do it?”
Rather than answer, the dragon lifted a long forearm from deep in its coils, running its massive claws over the piled chains like an astronomer searching a star chart for one particular dot in the night sky. After several minutes, the dragon plunged its claws into the wall to pull out—not a snaking rope like Estella’s—but a black nubbin of chain no longer than the top joint of Julius’s pinky.
“Um,” he said when Dragon Sees the Beginning held it up for them to admire. “Will that be enough?”
“Quite,” the dragon assured him. “The links are a measure of time, not power, and unlike Estella, you’re buying minutes, not days. That said, this is averyunlikely future, and there is still the matter of your payment.”
“If you’re sure it’ll work, I’m happy to pay,” Julius said. And then, because he could already see Marci opening her mouth, he added. “Alone.”
Marci shot him a glare, which Julius ignored. The dragon, however, seemed to be deep in thought. “The payment for this one will be steep,” it said. “As I said, it’s quite unlikely, and—as was also aforementioned—the exchange rate of the potential for the definite is quite steep. Further complicating the matter is the fact that neither of us is actually a seer. Put all this together, and I’m afraid I can’t actually choose what will be taken.”
“So what does that mean?” Julius asked.
The dragon’s face grew dour. “It means that neither of us has the control necessary to pick which future you will pay. The trade will be decided arbitrarily at the point of transfer.”
“You mean it’s just going to randomly take part of his future?” Marci asked, horrified. When the dragon nodded, she whirled to face Julius. “Don’t do it.”
“I have to,” he said. “If I don’t do this, and Estella wins, we’re probably all dead anyway. And it’s not like I’ll miss stuff that hasn’t even happened.”
“But what if it takes something you really want?” she asked. “What if it takes the one future where things are actually good?”
“Then I’ll make another,” Julius said, smiling at her. “Like Bob is forever saying, the future is made of our decisions, and it’s never set.”
That’s why Bob was always bending over backwards to make sure they understood how seers actually worked. All those seemingly random lectures on seer magic weren’t just him bragging, or even making conversation. He’d beenteachingJulius how the system worked so that, when the time came, he would understand that Estella and Bob didn’t actually control his future at all. He did.Hewas the one whose decisions created the path of his future, and the more Julius thought about that, the more confident he became.
“It doesn’t matter if I lose some vague potential,” he said firmly, reaching out to take Marci’s hand. “So long as I’ve got even one timeline to work with, I can make the choices I need to make it good, because it’s my future. Not Bob’s and not Estella’s. Mine. I can do this. For once, I really believe that. Trust me.”
“I do trust you,” she grumbled, glaring up at the giant dragon. “I just don’t trusthim. Or the random decisions ofthese.”
