Free The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) by Robert Don Hughes

designed to keep that one secret from me! Please! Change the subject!”
    The boy’s dark eyes implored him. Seagryn didn’t know what to say.
    “Something else! Anything else! Get my mind off of this before I —”
    “So you remember the future?” Seagryn said quickly, unsure if that would help.
    “Yes!” Dark smiled thankfully. “Yes, that’s it! I remember the near future best, just as you recall events of the past two or three days better than you do what happened last month. Critical days, important days, they stand out in your memory regardless of how long ago — oh, the details get fuzzy, but you understand. And I know of critical days in the weeks and months ahead, many of them days we share ...” Dark trailed off, and his young eyes grew distant as he looked inside himself at what was to be. “I know of events that will shake you to your core — and the world as well ...” He said this so dramatically that Seagryn could not help but be drawn into the vision.
    “Do — do I play a critical role in these — events?”
    Dark came back into the present and stared Seagryn in the face. “Everyone wants to be important,” he said, quietly. “Everyone is.”
    Seagryn flushed, embarrassed by his own ambition. “Of course,” he muttered.
    “However,” Dark added with a hint of mystery, “by virtue of luck or providence or fate, some get close enough to the wheels of destiny to turn them by their own weight ...” He paused, and it seemed he was holding this morsel out as a temptation for Seagryn to ask more.
    The former cleric frowned. “And ... I am ... one of those?”
    Dark nodded curtly. Seagryn felt a bit light-headed at the news. The thing he had always wanted most was to be important. Here was confirmation that his dreams would be realized. “And ... you could tell me exactly how?”
    “How much do you want to know, Seagryn?” Dark asked again, but now his voice could have been that of an ancient oracle. No wonder Dark’s name had already moved into legend, Seagryn thought with a shiver. “Do you want to be made to feel powerless by knowing the outcome of your decisions in advance?”
    Seagryn stared at the boy for a minute, then shook his head. “No. Occasional help maybe, but no.”
    “Good choice,” Dark muttered. “I only wish I could make it.”
    The lad seemed older now — much older, almost a peer. And Seagryn began to understand the weight of the boy’s burden. He thought carefully before asking his next question, but decided to risk it. “Is there any other area you prefer not to think about?”
    Dark met his eyes worriedly — then a slight smile turned up the corners of his lips. “One.”
    “And what’s that?”
    Dark blushed. “Ah ... love.” Seagryn raised an eyebrow, and the boy shrugged and continued. “I think whom you love and ... and how you love ... that kind of thing ... ought to be a surprise. Don’t you?”
    Seagryn chuckled, but glumly. “I suppose.” He thought of Elaryl, remembering how the sun glistened in her hair in that moment before the Marwandians broke in upon them. Where was she at this moment? Did she think of him? “Although,” he murmured, “there are some things about my love I’d like to know.” Seagryn wasn’t really asking — or at least he told himself he wasn’t. Nevertheless, Dark answered:
    “You’ll get her back.”
    Seagryn frowned slightly, fighting the impulse to grab the boy and shake him. “You’re certain?”
    “I’m certain,” Dark replied firmly, and Seagryn nodded, not daring to ask more. “Of course,” the boy continued offhandedly, “you’d better not treat her the way you did that girl back in Bourne —”
    “How did you — !” Seagryn’s reaction was swift and violent. Cursing in a most nonclerical manner, he grabbed Dark by the tunic and flung the lad mightily toward the river. The moment he let go he realized what he was doing; as the boy plunged into the water, Seagryn had to double over