Page 5 of The Witch & the Dragon

“No. He’s… well, we never really got along, but he’s okay, and he’s worried. He’s not sure if my parents left an updated will. The one being executed right now is one that was made some years ago when they were still running a business. And he says it doesn’t look good. The home, the finances, the business – all this will go to my…” Tiran’s clenched his fists. “I have nothing. My uncle and all his disgusting brood are crawling all over my home right now, selling everything they can. And I can’t – I can’t stop them.”

“Damn,” Chloe said again. “That really sucks.”

Tiran choked with a laugh. “Doesn’t it?” He managed to lift his eyes and look at Chloe’s. He held a certain admiration for people who could see the future – no matter how convoluted or unpredictable their powers might be.

Chloe had to be one of the first-year students. Tiran was now in his fourth year, utilizing his predictable, slightly boring fire magic, something a lot of dragons of his type were acquainted with, usable in human and draconic forms, though slightly more impressive in draconic form, of course.

She is not bad-looking either, he thought.

She had dark eyes, an intense stare, plump lips, and… but he was focusing too much on physical characteristics. His mind was all over the place today.

“My uncle Max, rather Professor Umber, says that it’s likely going to be a long, protracted legal mess. He wanted to warn me that if I decided to contest the will, it would be difficult without an updated will but not impossible. He just thinks that it will generate a lot of stress because my shit uncle, Uncle Randall, has been preparing for this moment for a long time while I’ve been away at school.”

Chloe nodded sagely, though he doubted she actually understood the true issues, not that he could blame her.

Then she said, “And it was definitely an accident, right? No one would think of… harming your mom and dad purposely?”

The coldness in him crept back at her words. “Oh,” he said. “Do you think it could be something sinister? Can you see that sort of thing in the future?”

She snorted at that. “No, it was just… I don’t know, an assumption. This takeover you’re describing sounds really cutthroat.”

He slumped in his seat. “Well, I won’t know more until more… details are provided.” He winced. “But…”

“You didn’t want to fight.” Chloe tapped her fingers on the table. “You wanted to throw yourself off a balcony.”

“I…” He took another bite of food. “I can’t compete with them. And I have no resources and very little to fall back on. The Umbers aren’t a big family to begin with. I just… they’re gone. I loved them, and they’re gone, and those parasites will take everything. What’s the point?”

Chloe tried to get herself into a more comfortable position in her chair and, failing, said, “Won’t the professor help you?”

He shrugged. “There would be a price to pay.”

“Can you make it alone?”

His hand shivered as he sipped his drink and ended up coughing it up. “I don’t know.”

“We all have to make it alone eventually,” she whispered then, and he had no rancor left to contradict her. Even though their conversation hadn’t gone anywhere aside from those types of questions – each bit of engagement from her forced him to think a little more. It was hard to think, really, with that dull ache within, that empty absence that once was his parents.

Her little snippets of conversation, her presence, however, kept him from doing the unthinkable. And when he retired to his rooms, with promises that he wouldn’t be so hasty or rash, all he did was lay there, staring at the ceiling, swimming in the mire of his thoughts, in the pain, and a strange oracle girl’s intervention.

He remained in that place of pain for two weeks. His uncle granted him sick leave from the academy, and for the first week, he barely got out of bed, emotions both numb and raw, painful, and yet absent.

During the second week, he regained some basic functions, but he was still a zombie going through the day, and the lawyer that his uncle had hired reported no good news. His uncle said he would try and that he didn’t expect Tiran to fight when he had his studies to focus on. While Tiran appreciated the sympathy, none of it replaced the void he felt in his heart.

However, at the end of the second week, when he got out of bed, he no longer felt quite that impulsive, desperate despair and grief.

Perhaps, in time, everything would be okay, though he’d have to do it without conventional support. Without… without another family dinner or hearing his father’s voice on the phone. All he had were pictures and videos, videos he’d watched dozens of times in his isolation, and voice messages left from when he didn’t answer calls.

Those memories hurt. They’d always hurt. But now, he felt a little less like a zombie. Returning to classes gave him more form and focus, more opportunities to throw himself into his studies without getting lost in his own thoughts.

Three weeks passed, then a month. Still, the ache existed, freshly opened when he attended the funeral, but he had permission there to show how he felt.

The funeral was small – he and his uncle Max did not allow the backstabbers to attend despite their protests. They didn’t deserve that honor.

“You’ll be okay, boy?” his uncle asked.

“I don’t know,” he’d said.

But at least he wasn’t… as bad.

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