Page 106 of Catastrophe

“It went into him.” I paced as my mind whirled with the discovery. “Sigurd suggested he was collecting magic for his hoard and wearing it like a cape. I should have realized when we learned what Karin was doing with the wards. If the defected witches gave her that instruction, it was probably from Fafnir, correct? He’s been doing it through dark magic.”

“Yes.”

“He hasn’t been getting stronger, though. Has he? So what has he been doing with it?” My mind flashed back to the warehouse when I confronted him and he drained me.

“If magic isn’t his hoard, and he’s not consuming it for food, then what is?” And could that also be a danger to us? If he hoards weapons that the hunters could use against us, we would be in serious trouble.

“I haven’t seen that.”

“He said he was hungry. He made it seem like he needed the magic for food.”

“A lie.”

“Why lie to someone he’s about to kill?” I asked, exasperatedly.

“Because lies protect the truth. The truth makes him vulnerable. He’s been building a story for centuries and he can’t afford to allow anyone to know his true motives.”

“What-”

“Watch.”

The scene changed again, and we were in a secluded wooded area, but smoke rose in the distance from Fafnir’s home village. The picturesque landscape of trees, hills, and a beautiful stone well shook from the screams and jeers from the witch children who descended on Fafnir like locusts.

They shoved him until he fell, then kicked him until he cried. With the swellings, cuts, and bruises already forming on his skin, I saw a flash of yellow eyes and automatically stepped back. He muttered something and one child fell and then another one and magic crawled through the grass to find its new home in Fafnir.

“Are they dead?” I asked behind a shaking hand.

“No. He’s learned to control it.”

We followed a broken and bruised boy with empty eyes back to the center of the village. A Fafnir stared past the adult man that screamed at him. It was so subtle, almost unnoticeable, when he muttered something and the man abruptly stopped talking and frowned, knowing something was wrong but not exactly what.

A little boy stumbled onto the scene, and he looked down at the ground. Everyone’s gaze followed his, myself included, and saw the shimmering of a tiny trail of magic as it crawled toward Fafnir. The little boy’s brow furrowed, and he bent down and reached out a hand to touch it, but the man pulled him away before he could grasp it in his small hand.

The man’s expression was not one of confusion. It was horror. He looked at Fafnir, to the magic, and then Fafnir again and suddenly he wasn’t horrified. He was furious. He moved the little boy out of the way and charged toward Fafnir. Fafnir jumped back, shaking, and I watched as the man grabbed him by the throat and threw him against the wall. Spittle hit his face as the man screamed at him and Fafnir clawed at the man’s hands and squirmed against him, but couldn’t escape his grasp.

Then his eyes flashed yellow, and his body seemed to explode. The man blasted away and fell right on top of the little boy he’d moved to safety, while Fafnir changed, transformed into his dragon form.

It wasn’t as big as I remembered, probably because he was a child, but he was still bigger than the biggest hut and formidable looking. Fafnir glared and steam blew from his nostrils as the man began screaming and scrambled away, leaving the little boy he’d crushed, lying on the ground, with a sizable dent in his chest.

Children screamed at the sight of him and more men rushed to the scene with pitchforks while the woman stood back with their hands ready to cast spells. But he didn’t fight them. He batted his wings to fly off, and they threw all they had at him while he tried to leave.

Once he was in the sky, I turned to Nisha and said, “So he didn’t kill the boy or drain him of his magic.”

“It seems not.”

“Sigurd lied.”

“Perhaps the man didn’t want to admit he was the reason the child died. Maybe he didn’t want to seem weak by admitting that a child had stolen magic from him without realizing until the little boy had spotted it on the ground.”

“That sounds plausible.” I nodded and turned away from the scene to face Nisha as nausea stirred in my stomach. “Why are you showing me this?”

“This doesn’t help you understand his power?” She frowned.

“It shows me he was a traumatized, alone, little boy that needed someone to hold him. But he didn’t have anyone. And turned to gather power any way that he could.”

Her gaze softened as she looked up in the direction the small dragon had flown off. “Despite what might be inflicted upon us, we are responsible for the darkness in our own hearts. And we must live to heal, to fill the darkness with light, and allow it to leave us, in managed, controlled ways, so it does not slip into anyone else.”

I blinked, and the scene changed again, and I gasped, gripping Nisha’s forearm in fright as we flew through the sky following the same small dragon. He drifted through the sky until his wings shook and he descended, fast and hard, into a meadow.

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