“What does that mean?”Darian interrupted.
“Just that,” Uncle Bram said, with a shrug.“We don’t know what ‘different’ meant.”
Darian ran his hand through his hair in frustration.He was finally getting more answers, but they only gave him more questions.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.“I feel things I don’t know how to feel, and I can hear things no one else can, and I don’t know what to do with any of it.”
“Does she help?”Uncle Bram asked quietly.
“More than anything,” Darian admitted.“When I’m with her, it’s the only time it all makes sense.”
His uncle smiled.“That’s what I thought,” he said.“Stick with her, kid.If she helps now, it will only help more in the future.And I know that it might not make sense now, but soon it will.”
“How soon?”Darian asked.“Because right now it’s not making any sense.”
“I don’t know,” Uncle Bram said.Darian let his head fall onto the shop counter in frustration.
“I wish I could help more,” his uncle said, reaching out to ruffle his hair like he had when Darian was a boy.“But we’re normal and don’t have what you have, so we can only tell you how proud your mother would be of the man you become.She told us that you were meant for more, and we are so proud of you and hope that someday we get to see the man you become.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”Darian asked in alarm.
Uncle Amos stepped in.“We don’t know where your journey will lead you, but I do know that you have only shown that your mother was right, and you are meant for something greater than running a general store.”
“Hence all the extra lessons,” Darian teased.
Uncle Bram shook his head.“We thought for sure you would figure that out at some point.”
“Figure what out?”he asked, shaking his head.“The fact that you were making me do a million extra things?Yes, I figured that out quite some time ago, I just couldn’t figure out why.”
“Do you wish we’d told you sooner?”Uncle Amos asked quietly.
Did he?
Or was he grateful that he hadn’t known until now that he had something different in his future?
“I’m glad you waited,” he said quietly.
A customer walked in and his uncles turned to her with their customer smiles on.“Help her, please,” Uncle Bram said, clapping him on the shoulder, before his uncles hurried away, probably to talk about him.
Things were finally starting to make sense.Even if he still didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, he had enough for now.
Celia was an important part of his future, and so were the dragons.
Whether his future was the meadow with her, or something else, he wasn’t sure, but as long as she was with him, he was ready for it.
Even now, as he helped the customer standing in front of him, something was calling him north, toward her, toward his destiny.He knew it was there, and the fact that his uncles knew it too was reassuring.Because if they knew it, then it had to be true.
Celia and the dragons were his future, and he would just have to drag his uncles along with him if necessary.
Chapter eleven
Celia
SomethinginCelia’schestwas aching.She rubbed her chest with the heel of one hand as she rubbed more salve on the tear in the air dragon’s wing with the fingertips of the other.
Even though it was mending itself nicely, aided by the bitterball flower salve, the baby dragon complained at her, and she wished Darian were here—not just because he would be able to talk to the air dragon and know what Breeze was saying, but because she missed him.
She laughed out loud at the idea, scolding herself.“You don’t need to miss him,” she said, continuing to rub, the ache in her chest pressing at her.“You’ve barely known him for a fortnight.There’s no need to miss him.”
