Page 143 of The Dragon Warlord

“Yeah, but a date gives me the opportunity to make you feel extra special.”

“You do that every moment of every day.”

Huh, do I? If so, it’s reciprocal. He makes me feel like a God.

I groan, realizing something that talking about dating reminds me of.

“What?”

“My father. I haven’t told him about us yet. He put me through a Warlord’s inquisition about Baya as it was.”

“Are you worried he’ll say no?”

“Say, no? I’m a grown adult. Extra grown now with all the added dragon years. I don’t need his permission anymore.”

He laughs. “You are so scared right now and as if you’d carry on callously with anything he disapproved of.”

Yeah. He’s right.

“He’s terrifying. Maybe I can get Denny to break the news?” I ponder out loud. “Once we tell him our story, how could he say no?”

EPILOGUE

Corrik

As I watch Tristan and River animatedly tell us the story, the only thing that I’m appalled with is that there wasn’t more mention of me. Wasn’t I missed at all? Did they wonder what we were doing here without him, looking after the children? Guess I’m just a stay-at-home dad now.

“I know what you’re thinking, Cor, and you can stop it. We told the parts about us because of course we fucking missed you but lamenting about that every five minutes would have gotten cumbersome and boring, I promise you.”

“Disagree. Start from the beginning and I want to hear a lot more ‘I miss Corriks’ out of your mouth.”

Alrik stands up when Luken fusses so that he can walk around the room with him. We’re having a family night at home, which finally gave us the opportunity to hear the full thing. Each of us has heard bits and pieces of the River and Tristan story, and sure, we haven’t been given a play-by-play of each day so there are probably more stories to hear, but this was an overall montage of the highlights.

“I still don’t get the thing about all the honey,” I say. Everything is honey. Honeycake, honey mead, honeycomb pie. “But it seems to me that the dragon lord is preparing you for something.”

Tristan raises his brows. “Are you seeing?”

“Seeing?”

“Yeah, like, having a vision.”

I scowl, taking a bit of exception to being compared to a seer. I’m a prophet. Totally different. “No, it’s just obvious. There are so many clues. Every situation was like an obstacle course meant to train you.”

“There’s no way those situations weren’t real. I almost you-know-what a few times.” Tristan toys with River’s hair and eyes the children who are playing on the floor and only half paying attention to our conversation.

You-know-what is code for died. He almost died a few times. “Don’t remind me and I have no doubt each scenario was real, but it’s the way he tossed you in like he already knew those things were going to happen and he wanted you to have practice with those situations. Three specific ones come to mind. A murder. An ice dragon. An attempted resurrection.”

Tristan sighs. “It has crossed my mind, but thinking about it for too long brings out my dragon rage.”

“He said something else disturbing, just before you solved the whole veil issue.”

“He said a lot of disturbing things. Which thing?” Tristan asks.

“He asked you how you knew you were at the end of the story? How were you sure you weren’t at the beginning or the middle?” And the more I think about it … “He’s not sure he’ll be there to help you when you reach the endgame. Either that or he doesn’t have an answer and he hopes that if you’re given all the tools, including the ability to think for yourself, that you’ll come up with what he cannot.”

The Gods shine upon me. I’m brilliant and smart and have figured it all out.

Tristan rolls his eyes at me. “When you’re done congratulating yourself, can you please explain to me how I could figure out something that he couldn’t? The dragon lord has lived for millennia.”