Page 210 of The Discount Damsel

The apprentice slowed his descent until he was hovering just above his delirious friend. The rest of the world faded away, everything else forgotten except this pivotal moment.

“Lung Shang.” Bradley’s voice had a strange, multi-octave quality about it that sounded like the ringing of deep-toned bells.

The few ceruleans scales that remained flashed weakly as the almost-wyrm stirred. A brown eye opened into a thin crescent. “Dirk,” he murmured. “I’m testing . . . the name out.”

“Dirk.” There was steel in Bradley’s voice. And love. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

The dragon obeyed. He startled at the blue fire burning in the apprentice’s eyes, the silver magic writhing around his hands. It flashed like the sun peeking through the gaps in a cloudy sky.

“I’m so sorry, Dirk.” Bradley ached to touch him, but he couldn’t, not yet. “You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. But I’m here now, and I can promise you I’ll never make that mistake again.”

His voice cracked as tears sprang to his eyes, but he forced himself to continue. To be strong for the little dragon. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Dirk slumped against his raft, glowing water sloshing against his dark, swollen skin. In a small voice, he said, “I just wanted to matter. To belong.”

“You do belong, Dirk. To me. To Millie. To Pocket and Sir Roger and probably even to Duncan, though he might always prefer his books.”

That earned him a weak chuckle.

The princess’s words in the desert echoed softly in the apprentice’s mind. “I know we’re not dragons, but I hope you see we love you just as fiercely as they ever could. You are enough, Dirk, just the way you are. Blue scales and that uncommonly sassy attitude of yours.”

Another weak chuckle. The almost-wyrm struggled to look at him again. “I’m in so much pain, Bradley.”

“You don’t have to be.” He held up his silvery hands. “This is the renovatio spell, Dirk. It will renew you. But you have to want it, Dirk, with every fiber of your being.”

“It’ll change me back? To what? I’m not Lung Shang anymore.”

That was the real root of the spell, the real root of his problem.

“And you can’t be Dirk the Dangerous,” Bradley said. “Can you just . . . be yourself?”

The almost-wyrm looked away. “I’m not sure I know who that is anymore.”

“I do.”

A brown eye rolled up at him.

“You’re the little dragon who finds delight in the rain. Who loves grouper pan-fried with butter and almonds. You’re a little dragon who never let his lack of barbels or the color of his scales keep him from dreaming big and following his heart.”

“And look where it got me.”

“This was never the result of your dreams, Dirk. This was a result of an obsession, of that treacherous thought that you had to change who you are at your core in order to be accepted. You don’t need to conform to someone else’s ideas on what a perfect luck dragon should look and act like. How dare you let someone else define who you are. You are a dragon. You do what you want.”

The faint smile that had curved on Dirk’s muzzle faded. “I’ll have to give it all up, won’t I? My extortion racket, the rice paper spells, my treasure.”

“Did they ever really make you happy?”

The almost-wyrm gave that some thought.

Dirk the Dangerous had just been a means to an end. A way to matter. By force and intimidation, though, not through love or genuine connection. His treasure had never given him the same joy as he’d experienced riding the thermals or rousing a tornado or bending a storm to his will. The reputation he’d earned had never fulfilled him the way Millie or Bradley’s friendship and support had.

Dirk forced himself to roll over onto his paws. His body ached, his joints throbbed, and he was so very miserable. He lifted a blue scale from the raft and truly looked at it. Liquid sapphire. For the first time, Dirk could look at that color and see for himself that it was beautiful, that it was his, even if it was different.

“I’m not sure who I am,” he said in a small voice, “but I love these scales. I love me. And know what I’m not. I’m not cruel, and I’m not this ugly, hateful creature either. And that’s a start.”

“Yes, it is.” Bradley reached forward and cupped the sad dragon’s head in his hands.

Silver magic exploded from his fingers, and the world went white.