Chapter 11: Decisions Made

 

 

SO THINGS kind of went to shit a little bit after that. Gary and Kevin weren’t speaking to each other. I wasn’t speaking to Randall and Morgan. No one was speaking to Vadoma. Ryan was speaking to Ruv, but it was usually in grunts and groans as he tried to do something he considered manlier than whatever it was that Ruv was doing. (“Who eats soup with a spoon? I drink it directly from the bowl! Like a man.”) Justin would just glare at me in that best-friend way he did, the King would squeeze my shoulder and tell me everything was going to be fine, but even I could see that he was worried. Mom and Dad were walking on eggshells around me, and I didn’t know how to make them stop.

And on top of all of that, all I could really focus on was what the star dragon had told Vadoma, what the dark man in shadows had told me, and the fact that I had never even considered that one day, Ryan would die and I would remain here, trapped in a body that wouldn’t age as normal given the magic that coursed through my veins.

All in all, not the best week I’d ever had.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

I lay beside Ryan in the dark, his hand clutched in mine as he whispered in my ear. He said, “We’ll figure it out, okay? I promise you we’ll figure it out. You’re not going to lose me. Not now. Not ever.”

We both knew that no one could make promises like that, but I let him make them anyway.

“How do we even know she’s telling the truth?” I asked him.

“Could she be making this up?”

I shrugged. “Anything is possible.”

“Do you think she is?”

And I hesitated, which was answer enough.

He sighed and leaned over to kiss my bare shoulder. “You know I’ll follow you in whatever you decide.”

And I knew that. Of course I did. The thought scared the hell out of me. Because I couldn’t get the image out of my head of him as a young man, or him as an old man, in death upon that cold slab of stone, eyes closed, heart stopped, sword atop his chest.

And if I was a little rougher that night when we fucked, he didn’t say a single thing about it.

 

 

“YOU CAN’T ignore us forever,” Morgan said when we were next in the labs. “Honestly, Sam. It’s getting ridiculous.”

I ignored him, focusing instead on my Grimoire. It was my job as a wizard’s apprentice, after all. And there had to be some secret, something I hadn’t yet thought of so that Ryan and I would never have to be apart. Romantic, yes, and ultimately foolish, but I wanted to explore every avenue I could.

“He’s behaving like a child,” Randall said from his chair in front of the fire. “I don’t know why we thought he’d be mature about this. There’s enough evidence to the contrary.”

I had to grind my teeth together to choke back any response while writing.

“Not helping,” Morgan said.

“And you’re coddling again,” Randall said, grunting as he massaged his knee. “I’ve told you time after time that you handle the boy with kid gloves. Maybe it’s time the gloves come off and he be given a proper spanking.”

Which… okay. That was an image I really didn’t need in my head.

“It’s a lot to take in for anyone,” Morgan said. “To find out you have some prophecy hanging over your head.”

Yeah, and that maybe everyone in this room aside from myself knew about it.

Randall snorted. “Back in my day, we didn’t let things like prophecies knock us on our asses. We actually listened to what they were about and faced them head-on rather than mope around like a little bitch.”

I was going to turn so many things of his into penises.

“And I suppose there’s the feeling that he thinks we lied to him,” Morgan said. “Like I lied to him.”

Bingo.

“Of course he would think that,” Randall said. “Because he’s selfish. He doesn’t think of anyone but himself. He can’t possibly see anything as being for the greater good. Can you imagine having to tell an eleven-year-old boy that one day, he’ll be facing a potentially insurmountable obstacle? Even now, I don’t think he has the faculties to grasp the extent of it. And it’s not lying, per se. It was more of an omission of the truth.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Morgan said with a sigh. “I couldn’t have actually told a child that his grandmother he’d never met had told me of his birth beforehand and that he would be responsible for a great many things.”

“Why, that way would just lay madness,” Randall said wryly. “Could you imagine the ego involved in hearing such a thing? Granted, he obviously didn’t need that to have an ego. Maybe that Lady Tina had a point. Sam might just need to be knocked down a few—”

“She did not have a point, oh my gods,” I exclaimed shrilly. “Are you insane? She was created for nothing but the sole purpose of waging war against me, and I will see her vanquished on the battlefield with her blood squelching between my fingers, mark my words.”

Randall and Morgan gaped at me.

“I went to a very dark place,” I said. “I admit that freely. And I don’t feel sorry about it at all.”

“Told you it would work,” Randall said to Morgan. “Just had to get him riled up is all. He’s so predictable.”

“You manipulated me!”

“Gods, maybe I liked it better when he wasn’t talking,” Randall said. “It all has to do with the volume. It’s either nothing or too much. There’s no in between with him.”

“You can’t hide from this, Sam,” Morgan said lightly. “I know you want to, I know that your first instinct is to try and ignore it until it all goes away, but you can’t do that now.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, refusing to look up from my Grimoire. “Maybe I’m just—”

“I know you,” Morgan said. “As well as anyone does. I have watched you grow up from a little boy to the man you are today. I have seen your successes. I have witnessed your failures. So, yes. I know you. And I know how you think, Sam. And I know your first instinct is to push this away.”

He had me there, and all of us in the room knew it. I didn’t know what kind of relationship Morgan and Randall had when it was just the two of them, if it’d been any different when Randall had been Morgan’s mentor, however long ago that’d been. I didn’t know why I hadn’t worked up the courage to ask about them yet, not sure if the bond between a mentor and his charge was meant to be private. I didn’t tell Gary or Tiggy or Ryan everything that Morgan and I talked about, and they didn’t ask. They knew a wizard was meant to have his secrets and so far hadn’t yet put me in a place where I had to lie to them. Lying was different than withholding the truth, or at least that’s what I told myself. I hadn’t told anyone what the Great White had said the first time Vadoma had whammied me. I hadn’t told anyone everything that had happened the second time, either.

I really needed to stop getting whammied by my grandma.

And Dad was right. That phrasing was terrible.

“Okay,” I said begrudgingly. “Maybe there was a small chance I was considering trying to ignore the whole… destiny thing until it went away. But that doesn’t mean that we still can’t do that, right? If we all collectively agreed that it doesn’t exist, then no big deal. We’ll forget it ever happened and go on with our lives like nothing changed. Maybe start a bowling league. I don’t know.”

“Until this dark man comes,” Randall said.

I glared at him, because of course he’d have to bring that part up. “So you believe her now? What happened to her fortune-telling being a scam?”

He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. “You believed it. The moment you came to in the field, you believed. Whatever you saw, whatever she showed you, it scared the hell out of you. That’s enough to make me believe that being cautious is better than being dismissive. You can’t hide your head in the sand without expecting your ass to get burned.”

I didn’t want to admit that he had a point, so I said nothing.

“We need to be prudent about this, Sam,” Morgan said. “If there is any truth to the matter.”

“And you don’t think that it’s just Vadoma having ulterior motives?” I asked. “She obviously made plans for me with Ruv that Ryan disrupted. How do we know this isn’t all just a ploy to bring me back to the homestead? I would make a terrible gypsy. I hate bracelets, and I don’t like the desert.”

“Anything is possible,” Morgan said slowly. “Which is why we have to tread carefully here. If there is any validity to what she’s saying, we need to be prepared.”

“Then who is this dark man?” I asked.

And they hesitated.

They didn’t want me to see it. I almost didn’t see it. It was a split-second thing, a darting glance shared between the two of them that anyone else would have missed. But I knew them. I knew Morgan. I had spent years by his side, studying under him and studying him. I knew when he would withhold the truth, for the most part. I knew that he tried not to lie to me, even if he felt it was for my own good. Secrets between a wizard and his charge were far and few between, and never if it meant one or the other would be in danger.

So I knew when he opened his mouth to respond that whatever came out would be a lie.

“We can’t be sure,” Morgan said. “He could be some nameless Dark rising through the ranks, as we’ve said.”

“Or an outsider who has somehow taken control,” Randall said.

“An outsider,” I repeated. “You think an outsider will gather the Darks and they would willingly follow.”

They looked relieved at the thought that I had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I was almost insulted at how naïve they thought me to be. “We need to explore every possibility,” Randall said. And then he frowned. “Isn’t there still a Dark or two in the dungeon that haven’t been sent out to the prisons yet?”

“Wan,” Morgan said thoughtfully. “Wan the Dark Hunter. He’s still here. Interrogating him didn’t get much information after the attack on Castle Lockes. He was to be transported at the end of the year. I suppose another attempt could be made. To find out what he knows.”

“I suppose I could—”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you will.”

They paused.

“What was that, boy?” Randall asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“You’ve tried already,” I said. “Nothing came from it. Maybe it’s better to go into it with a fresh pair of eyes.”

“Really,” Randall said. “And just who do you suggest we use as a fresh pair of eyes?”

 

 

“WAN, IS it?” Gary asked. “Wan the Dark Hunter?”

“Yes,” Wan said, sitting back in his chair, shackles rustling on his arms and legs.

“Can I just call you Wan?”

“I suppose.”

“Good. Can I get you anything? A cup of water? A hot towel?”

“Really,” Randall said. “This was your plan.”

“Admittedly, it might have sounded better in my head,” I said.

We stood outside the interrogation room, watching through an enchanted window where we could see in but the occupants of the room couldn’t see out. Wan the Dark Hunter, handsome fellow that he was, was chained to a thick wooden chair, a small table separating him and his interrogators.

And what fearsome interrogators they were! Even I was suitably impressed, and everyone knew it took a lot to impress me. Tiggy stood near the back of the room, slightly hunched over so his head didn’t hit the ceiling, massive arms crossed over his considerable chest. He was frowning, and even though I knew it meant he was concentrating on the task at hand, to most everyone else, it looked as if he was contemplating the best way to proceed with a murderous rampage.

Gary, for his part, had decided that the best interrogating ensemble included having his hooves painted a deep purple, with matching streaks through his mane. His eyelashes looked impossibly long, fluttering in a lovely manner every time he blinked. He had a black scarf tied around his neck, black eyeliner under his eyes, and black silk woven through his tail. “I’m a Gothic princess,” he’d whispered to me as we’d made our way down to the dungeon. “He’ll cave in seconds. And it’s also my look of mourning for my relationship with your step-dragon-father. That bastard. I hope he’s suffering.”

I hadn’t even bothered to respond to any of that. I’d learned a long time ago that it’s best never to question a unicorn, given that it usually ended in sparkles or threats of Gore City up in here.

Wan didn’t look intimidated. If anything, he was coolly amused, sitting back in the chair, legs spread out in front of him in a cocky fashion. I wondered if Gary was going to murder him before the day was out. Anything seemed possible.

“Are you comfortable?” Gary asked, voice sticky sweet. “A blanket, perhaps.”

“I’m good,” Wan said, reaching up to stroke the goatee on his face like a smarmy villain. Given that he was a smarmy villain, I wasn’t surprised. I still hadn’t forgiven him for interrupting Ryan’s confession of eternal love to my face and soul on the day the Darks had attempted foolishly to attack Castle Lockes. I had advocated to have him tarred and feathered, but then Ryan had given me this really great fingerblast and I forgot all about it.

Until now.

“His skin should be melted from his bones,” I grumbled to no one in particular.

“Oh boy,” Ryan said, standing at my side, shoulders brushing mine. “Here we go again. Do I need to do that one thing?”

“He’s talking about sexing me up,” I said to Randall and Morgan. “In case you didn’t know.”

A dungeon guard behind us started choking.

“We know,” Morgan said. “Everyone knows.”

“Good,” I said. I leaned over and kissed Ryan on the cheek. “Thanks, but I’ll have to take a rain check. On the sexing. Because we’re trying to be serious right now. Not everything is about butt play, babe.”

He was blushing. I wanted to devour him whole. “You didn’t have to say it like that,” he muttered, glancing back at the guard.

I rolled my eyes. “Like your underlings don’t know that you get laid on the reg. They probably tell stories about how you finally were able to land all of this.”

“It’s good to know his ego’s still intact after the protest,” Randall said.

Yes. That. I was going to have to deal with that. Sooner rather than later. I wondered if it was too gauche to call Tina out for a duel. Did people still duel over things? I’d never been invited to one, so I didn’t know. That made me a little sad. Because maybe people hadn’t invited me to duels because they didn’t like me, just like Tina said. Fine. Whatever. I’d have my own duel and not invite them either! Perfectly mature response.

“What we were talking about again?” I asked. “I was too busy thinking of ways to murder—I mean, feed homeless kittens.”

Morgan and Randall sighed in unison.

“So, Wan,” Gary said. “Do you know why we’re here?”

Wan shrugged. “Not exactly.”

Gary nodded sympathetically. “Of course. How could you? Having been locked up all this time.”

“Ask him if he poops in buckets,” I muttered, even though Gary couldn’t hear me.

“Am I being transferred?” Wan asked.

“Am I being transferred,” Gary said, pacing in front of the table. “That’s what you’re asking me.”

“Yes?”

“Was that a question? Because it sounded like a question.”

“I don’t know?”

“You. Don’t. Know.” Gary stopped pacing. “What do you know?”

“What?” Wan asked, sounding confused. “Listen, I don’t—”

“No,” Gary snarled suddenly, stomping his hoof on the floor. “You listen.”

“Eep,” Wan squeaked.

“I’m a loose cannon,” Gary said, baring his teeth. “Everyone down at the precinct says so. Loose Cannon Goth Princess Gary they call me.”

“Oh no,” I moaned. “He’s role-playing again. Whose idea was this?”

“Yours,” Randall said. Like an asshole.

“Loose Cannon Goth—” Wan started.

“Did I say you could call me that?” Gary roared, spittle flying from his lips. “My husband just left me because he couldn’t handle being the spouse of a cop. Do you think I have any fucks left to give?”

“No!” Wan said shrilly. “No fucks!”

“You’re godsdamned right I don’t,” Gary said. “And if you think I’m bad, you just wait until my partner gets ahold of you.”

Tiggy let out a low rumble.

“You remember him, don’t you?” Gary whispered as he leaned forward, his face inches from Wan’s. “He’s the one that made sure Lartin was spread evenly along the cave wall.”

Wan’s eyes were wide.

“Spread him like butter,” Tiggy agreed. “Bloody, bloody butter.”

“So badass,” I whispered fervently to Ryan. “I know them.”

“I know you do,” Ryan said, patting me on the shoulder.

“Do you want to be Tiggy’s bloody butter?” Gary asked.

“No!” Wan said, looking like he was starting to cower.

“Then you’ll tell me what I want to know?”

“Yes!”

“Good,” Gary said. “I only have one question for you. And you’re gonna be my good boy and answer it, aren’t you.”

“Such a good boy!”

“I know you are. You ready?”

“Yes,” Wan whimpered.

Gary leaned forward and whispered, “Who is the dark man in shadows?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Wan said, and he was visibly trembling. I’d never seen him like that before. Not even at the battle in the throne room. He’d struck me as fearless, or so close that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t.

“I do,” Gary said, lip curling. “Tell me.”

Wan shook his head. “I’ve never met him. I’ve never even seen him. But I heard the stories, okay? There’s nothing you can do to stop it. The fact that you already know of his existence means it’s already begun. You won’t be able to—”

I felt it first. Out of all the magic—the half-giant and the unicorn, the two powerful wizards, the inherent magic in Ryan as he was the cornerstone—I felt it first. It was just a brush along my skin, like a caress, fingers trailing along my arm.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

I frowned. “That’s—”

Wan sat straight up, the fear leaving him as if it’d never been there at all. He looked loose, relaxed. He had a small smile on his face. He drummed his fingers along the tabletop as if he were playing a song on a piano. He shook his head and sighed. “You would think,” he said, voice deeper than I’d ever heard it before, “you wouldn’t send a horse to do a man’s job.”

Gary’s eyes narrowed as he cocked his head. “Excuse me?”

Tiggy took a step forward, growling low in his throat.

Wan’s smile widened. “I heard about how it happened, you know. When they took it from you. Your horn. The way you screamed. It was like cutting through bone, wasn’t it? To feel a part of you taken away in such a violent manner. Well. No one can blame you for screaming, could they?”

Gary took a step back, rear bumping into Tiggy, who put a hand on his flank.

“Of course not,” Wan said. He rocked his neck side to side, like he was stretching out the kinks. “To have such a precious thing torn from you the way that it was. You screamed. For days, didn’t you? And when you stopped screaming, when it was over, you felt severed from everything else. Because unicorns are pure magic. Their whole beings are light. But if you snuff out that light, if you take away the concentration of their magic, what’s left besides a common horse?” He smiled widely before turning to look directly at me, even though he shouldn’t have been able to see through the enchantment. His gaze flickered over to Ryan before it settled on me again. “Isn’t that right, Sam? Take away the concentration of their magic, and what is left?”

“That’s not Wan,” I breathed.

“What?” Ryan said. “What do you mean that’s not Wan? He can’t see us. He can’t do anything. The room is warded against Dark magic—”

Morgan was already moving toward the door when Wan raised his hand toward it, chains rattling around his wrist. There was a bright flash in the room, and I felt it, the hook in the center of my chest, tugging. It was sickly and weak and wrong, but it was there. And for a moment, I almost took a step forward, wanting to follow it, wanting to feel that badwrong bittersweet pain, like pressing my tongue against a loose tooth.

Even as the light began to fade, the imprints still dancing along my vision, I felt the wards shatter as if they were paper-thin and had been created by an amateur. One moment they were healthy and strong, and the next, they were in pieces that stabbed along the green and gold, made up of a sickly yellow that felt like infection. I grunted at the force of it, more shock than pain. Ryan’s hand was on my shoulder, and he was saying my name in my ear.

Randall was next to me, standing tall, and I felt his magic curling around me and mine. It was different than I’d ever felt from him before. Normally Randall’s magic was used on me to prove a point, to teach me a lesson of some sort. The last time I’d felt it had been in the training fields when we’d come back to the castle after rescuing Justin. Then he’d been testing a theory on cornerstones without my knowledge, shocking me full of lightning he brought down from the sky. It was of the offense variety, an attack on me.

This was different. This was warm, and it meshed with my magic more than I thought we ever could. Mine felt young and vibrant, a little out of control. His was strong and ancient, moving with a measured grace. I was a cacophony. He was a symphony, and he pushed his magic over mine, wrapping it wholly, muting it so it felt like it barely thrummed under my skin.

“Gary,” I managed to say as soon as I’d caught my breath. “Tiggy.”

“He’s blocked us from getting into the room,” Morgan said from the door. “I’ve never felt anything like this before. It’s more than it should be.”

“I can’t get in,” Randall said, brow furrowed. “It’s not—”

“Of course you can’t,” Wan said, and I pulled myself upright at the sound of his voice. Because I knew it now, skirting along the edges of hazy memory.

“It’s him,” I said. “It’s him.”

Ryan drew his sword, little though it would do. “Wan’s the dark man in shadows?”

“No,” I said, taking a step toward the glass. “He’s a vessel. He’s been taken over.”

Tiggy was backed into the corner of the room, as far away from Wan as he could get. Gary was shoved behind him. Gary wasn’t playing the damsel in distress, however, and it was taking Tiggy all he could to keep Gary from launching himself at Wan, his glitter rage pouring out around him, eyes blazing.

Wan paid them no mind. He looked down at his wrists, frowning at the manacles. He jiggled his legs, hearing the chains rattle against the floor. “Interesting,” he said with a sigh. “I’d heard much about the Dark Hunter. It seems that my expectations were set far too high. That’s… disappointing.”

In one fluid movement, he jerked the chains up, and I felt them snap, not by force of strength, but by that sweet badwrong pull of his magic that was kept in shades of black and gray and magenta. There was the whisper-roar of his magic, but his mouth stayed shut, not a single word falling from his lips, either in Veranian or the ancient tongue. Morgan could do that. Randall could do that. No one else should have been able to do that, as there were no wizards as old as they.

But for some reason, I could too, though it came in fits and starts.

And now him. This man.

Which meant his power was not a lie.

He stood. The chair scraped loudly along the stone floor.

“Let me at him!” Gary yelled. “I’ll rip his dick off and shove it down his throat so he can tell everyone he fucked his own mouth!”

Tiggy, of course, didn’t let Gary go, but kept a level, cool gaze on Wan.

Wan didn’t pay them any mind.

He turned toward the enchanted glass, that unnerving gaze on me again. I thought about taking a step toward him, but Ryan’s grip on my shoulder tightened, and Randall hadn’t moved from my side. Morgan stood near the door, but he was no longer trying to get inside. And though I only glanced at him for a second, what I saw on his face was something I’d never seen on Morgan of Shadows.

Fear.

Morgan was afraid.

“I can feel you,” Wan said. “Your strength. The power that rolls through you. Tell me, Sam of Wilds, have they made you promises? Has Randall whispered in your ear little secrets about how you’ll be a great wizard one day? Has Morgan put his arm around your shoulders and held you close, telling you that you don’t have to be afraid? Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam.” So quick that I could barely see it happening, he raised his hand and slammed his palm into the glass. It vibrated but did not break. “They’re lying.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

Wan smiled at me, wide and toothy. “I’m the inevitable. The gods don’t deal in partiality, Sam. Did you know that? For every force that fights for good, there is an opposite that pushes against it. And Sam, I am going to push.”

The glass began to crack.

The first was small, minute, the break following along Wan’s middle finger. Then came a second and a third, and then I could hear the glass beginning to break apart.

And before I could think, before I could even come to the decision, I’d already moved forward, standing directly in front of him, the enchanted glass the only thing separating us. Morgan said, “Sam, don’t!” but I couldn’t listen to him. I couldn’t take the chance. I slapped my hand up to the glass, lining it up perfectly with his. There was no other thought in my head but keeping his attention on me and not on my family in the corner behind him, my family shouting out behind me.

Up close now, I could see the differences. I didn’t know if Wan was gone completely or if he was trapped in his own body, screaming to be freed. The skin on his face bulged as if it were trying to make a new shape, shifting and collapsing. His eyes were bright, brighter than Wan’s had ever been. Wan had been a villain, but in the end, he’d been harmless.

This was not a harmless man.

I felt the cracks spreading under my fingertips, and there was green and gold and blue and it was bursting within me, more than I’d ever felt it before. He was pushing, so I did the only thing I could.

I pushed back.

His eyes widened briefly. The smile on his face fell. “I see,” he said. “It’s strong. More than I expected. You are more than I expected. Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“You won’t touch them,” I said through gritted teeth. “I won’t let you.”

“Ah, sentimentality,” he said, and the smile came back in full force. It was disconcerting, being this close to it. “I was like that. Until it was taken from me. And once divested from the chains that bound me, I was freer than I’d ever been before. Sam, I am the contradiction. The gods cannot play favorites. I have seen the star dragon. He has shown me the way to bring Verania to its knees. You have a destiny of dragons, but my destiny is you. For I am your contrary, Sam of Wilds. You will stand against me as all tragic heroes do, with your people at your back and mine tilting their faces toward me in benediction. And I will use that to take everything from you. I can promise you that. Then and only then—after everyone you have loved is lost—will I end you. Your cornerstone will be the first. And you will be the last.”

“Monologuing,” I growled. “You’re fucking monologuing. Just like the rest of them. You’re no different than anyone else that’s come before you. You think you’re the first person to threaten me? To threaten my family? You’re not. And I’ve beaten them. Every single one of them. And I will beat you.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, leaning forward until his forehead pressed against the glass. “Because there has never been anything like me before. Isn’t that right, little brother?”

I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand because I wasn’t his brother. I never had a brother. It would have—

“There has never been anyone like you before,” a voice said behind me, despondent and weary. “That much is true. It was the very reason we had to do what we did to stop you to begin with.”

My control slipped, just the barest amounts.

Because what.

It couldn’t be—

“Morgan?” I whispered.

Wan—or the thing in Wan—chuckled, looking rather gleeful. “Surprised, aren’t you? Of course you are. Because he wouldn’t have told you a single thing about me. His dark secret. His greatest pain after the death of his beloved Anya. Would you like to hear another?”

“Don’t do this,” Randall said. His voice was rough and pained, something I’d never heard from him before. “If there was ever anything good inside of you, please don’t do this.”

But the man on the other side of the glass ignored him. “They have kept much from you, Sam of Wilds. All in the name of the guilt that wracks through them. Do you think they dream of me at night when they close their eyes? Do they see my face, twisted in betrayal, when they look upon you? You see, I loved them. The both of them. My brother, Morgan. My heart, Randall. But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. Even if I was the only family Morgan had left. Even if I was Randall’s cornerstone. I still wasn’t enough.”

I felt like I could barely breathe.

He smiled terribly at me. “You know who I am, Sam.”

And there, in the deepest parts of my memories, a name rose through the storm in my head. A name that had always been hidden in shadows the rare times it had ever been mentioned. “No.” I shook my head, feeling the glass bending under my hand. “It’s not possible.”

“Say it,” he said, teeth bared. “Say my name.”

And gods help me, I did.

“Myrin,” I whispered.

His face softened, just a little. “Good. That’s real good, Sam. You’re more than I had hoped you would be. I believe this will be an honorable death for you in the end. But it needn’t come to that. I will give you this one chance, Sam. Now, here. Surrender yourself to me. Stand by my side. Forsake all others. I will never lie to you like they have. I will teach you the secrets of magic that they wouldn’t dare touch. Learn the truth of the magic that flows within your blood. Why a cornerstone will never be anything more than a hindrance. Together we can bend the world to its breaking point. Stand with me, Sam, or prepare to lose everything you hold dear.”

I didn’t know what to think. Everything was swirling in my head. The anger. The fear. The truth of the man standing in front of me. For it was the truth. Randall and Morgan hadn’t denied a single word of it. And that’s what stuck with me the most. That the man in front of me, this man who, before today, was nothing but myth and legend, had laid more truth at my feet than Morgan and Randall ever had.

Gods, how I was angry. I was so angry. I couldn’t even breathe—

“Sam,” another voice said. An arm wrapped around my waist. A broad chest pressed against my back. His cheek scraped against mine as he hooked his chin over my shoulder. There was green and gold everywhere. And it was for him. It was because of him. “Sam,” Ryan Foxheart said again. “I know you’re scared. I am too. There’s nothing we can do about that now. But I’m with you. Right here. Right now. And I will never leave your side. Do you hear me? I will never leave your side.”

There was my truth. That was what I could believe in. And in Tiggy protecting Gary at all costs. And Gary still struggling to get to me, eyes wide, begging Tiggy to let him go so he could cut a godsdamned motherfucker.

Everything I did was for them.

I screamed as I shoved everything I could against the glass. It rippled around my fingers as if it were liquid, the gold and green sparking off around my hands. There was a resistance, and it was heavy when it tried to push back, but it was nothing. He was nothing, and in the split second before the glass shattered, I saw the look of surprise cross Myrin’s face. Then it was gone when the enchanted glass exploded around us, large chunks trapped up in the roiling magic, swirling around us. For the briefest of moments, my hand touched his, and there was the badwrong pull between us when our magic mingled, intensified beyond anything it’d been before. I could feel it in him, the blood in his veins, how similar it was to Morgan. It was familiar, but off in a way that sent a spike of pain through my head. Morgan’s magic had always felt like home. Myrin’s felt like a fire coming to burn that home to the ground.

And then the glass stopped around us, suspended in air, spinning slowly, glittering in the light from the torches on the walls. Ryan was a long line of heat pressed up against me, his fingers digging into my side where his arm was still wrapped around me. Tiggy had turned to face Gary, shielding him from the glass and magic. I saw reflections of Randall and Morgan in the spinning glass, their images fractured and distorted. Both were pale and shocked, looking older than I’d ever seen them before.

But I didn’t have time for them. Not now.

“This,” Myrin breathed, “will be a good fight.”

He chuckled.

And then took a step back. Another. And then another, hand still raised, his magic still a wall against mine, poking and digging, looking for weakness.

A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead, stinging my eye.

My arm trembled.

Ryan’s breath was hot on my neck.

I knew it was going to happen the moment before it did. Myrin winked at me, an obscene and twisted flirtatious gesture, before he found the weakness he was looking for. The glass floating around us snapped into place as he closed his raised hand into a fist, the wicked sharp edges pointed directly at us. The only thing I thought of was Ryan, and as Myrin’s magic began to vibrate around us, calling upon the glass to skewer us into the wall, I dropped to my knees, pulling Ryan down with me, slamming my hand against the stone floor. The air sizzled around us as lightning began to arc from my fingertips, rolling up my arm to my shoulder and into my chest. It wrapped itself around my heart, and I pushed. Electricity flew up all around us, snapping bright white and blue as it vaporized the glass and cracked the floor underneath my hand. Randall and Morgan were knocked off their feet by the shock wave. Tiggy staggered forward with a grunt, head hitting the wall as he hunched farther over Gary.

Myrin was knocked back against the far wall of the interrogation room, grunting as his head rapped against stone.

Ryan held on, even as he shook against the electricity coursing through the both of us.

I tried to call it back, I tried to pull it back in, but it was so much, it was too much—

“Sam,” Ryan whispered harshly in my ear. “Sam. It’s done.”

I gasped and closed my hand into a fist on the floor, the cracked stone scraping against my knuckles.

I felt the lightning leave my heart as quickly as it’d come, blood rushing in my ears, vision swimming.

It was quiet in the aftermath.

I raised my head slowly.

Myrin, in his Wan suit, smiled at me.

“Soon,” he said. “I’ll see you real soon.”

And then he snapped his head viciously to the right. There was the wet crack of bone.

Wan the Dark Hunter slumped against the wall, legs skittering on the floor.

It only lasted a few seconds. It felt like hours.

And then it stopped.

Wan’s eyes were open and glassy.

His chest did not rise.

“Motherfucker,” Gary yelled. “That godsdamned dirty fighting ass bitch. He called me a horse! He’s dead! He’s so fucking dead, he don’t even know how dead he is!”

“So dead,” Tiggy agreed. “Punch him in his brain.”

Randall groaned as he pulled himself up off the floor.

Morgan sat on his knees looking down at his hands.

I stood, regretting when Ryan’s arm fell away from me.

“You okay?” I asked as I turned toward him. He didn’t seem any worse for wear, no visible signs of injury, though he groaned when he reached down to pick his sword up from the floor.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Though I could have done without the whole up-close-and-personal-with-the-lightning thing.”

“Would you say it was… shockingly close?”

“Oh my gods. Did you just—”

“We don’t have time for your jokes,” I said dismissively. “We have plans to make. Gary! Tiggy! Stop lazing about. Get up and get moving!”

“Fuck you, Sam,” Gary said. “I have been traumatized, okay? You don’t even know what I’ve been through. I am emotional, and I would like a cup of hot chocolate and to have someone rub my hooves and tell me I’m pretty.”

“We don’t have time for that now,” I said, heading toward the door, knowing the others would follow. “We’ve got work to do.”

“You’re pretty,” Tiggy told Gary.

“Thank you, kitten. It’s high time someone recognizes that.”

“Sam,” Randall said, his voice a whipcrack of warning.

I stopped but didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. Not now. Not after everything. I felt Morgan’s gaze on me, and as much as I wanted to go to him, to have him make everything better, to take all of this away, I couldn’t. I didn’t know what I was feeling toward him right then, but it wasn’t anything charitable.

“Sam,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

When I spoke, my voice was strong, more so than I expected it to be. “I’ve got a douchebag monologuing villain whose ass I need to kick, a kingdom to save, and a godsdamned destiny of dragons to face. You can sure as shit bet I’m going to do everything I have to.”

I didn’t look back as I left the interrogation room. Tiggy, Gary, and Ryan followed me without hesitation.

Randall and Morgan did not.