For a moment, my heart feels lighter.
Perhaps more can come of this visit than I hoped.
I spend the hours before nightfall wandering the beach, making sure to keep myself far from the children, who soon disappear back into the jungle—no doubt back to their parents.
Ryuji tells me that I can’t go wrong if I stay near the hut where I used to train, so that’s what I do.
When the dragon masters bring us dinner, they sit down to eat with us, and I find myself relaxing again.
Miku and Riot haven’t returned, but that’s okay with me.
When the other dragons leave, only Ryuji stays, stopping to speak with Rumble and Strife while Anarchy and I head out onto the beach.
“I forgot how salty the air is here,” I say, inhaling deeply.
She gives me a smile in the moonlight. “I didn’t dream we’d come back here.”
I pause, my feet kicking up sand. “You once said to the keeper…” I take a deep breath. “You said that the creatures of the dark had waited a long time for someone with the power to unite them.”
“Yes,” she says, contemplating me.
“Have I done it?” It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for months now, the only question that gives me purpose. “Have I united them?”
“You have,” she says. Then, more quietly, she says, “But you paid a price I didn’t want you to pay.”
She reaches across the gap between us.
It’s rare for anyone to hug me now.
It’s simply too dangerous.
She dares to press her palm to my heart. “He took a part of you with him.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I miss that part.”
She hurries away before I can speak.
What can I say?
I know there are parts of me that are missing. Parts of me that I’ve tried to find but can’t.
I find myself wondering, and not for the first time, ifThe Book of Dark Magichadn’t shown me such a terrible vision of my future, would I have fought so hard for peace?
Would I have sacrificed so much?
I have brought myself to a place where a red-winged child will no longer face a future where she has to kill me. I have stopped what the book foreshadowed, and I no longer fear that I will become heartless.
How ironic thatthatbook… the book that lied and served only itself… could set in motion the events that were needed to give dark creatures a place in the world.
Or, perhaps, that was its purpose all along.
The different paths I could have walked—or my mother or father could have walked—are too many for me to fathom. All the pain that led to the impossible: a truce between the light and the dark.
As Anarchy heads back to the hut, Ryuji passes her on his way to me, reaching me only moments later.
“I’ve come to say goodnight,” he says. “I trust you have everything you need for now?”
“Thank you, yes.”
He pauses. “You don’t need my affirmation, but you spoke well today. They heard what you said.”
