Chapter 12: The Will of the Gods

 

 

THE SUN blazed above as the shadows of five travelers stretched along the worn path between mountainous red sand dunes that rose around them. The wind was fierce and unforgiving, blowing particles of sand that would scrape against any exposed skin. The land was desolate, no plant life able to withstand the extreme conditions. It was—

“Holy fuck,” Gary groaned loudly. “It’s hot as motherfucking balls.”

That was more succinct than my internal narration. Because it was as hot as motherfucking balls. And when one is as hot as motherfucking balls, one tends to be uncomfortable and grouchy. “You didn’t need to come along,” I reminded him. “In fact, I told you that you didn’t. You insisted. I believe the wording you used was Sam, don’t be a dippy cunt. Of course I’m coming with you. You need me.”

“Why was your voice all high and whiny?” Gary asked. “I don’t sound anything like that.”

“Some,” Tiggy said, trudging forward, leaving large footprints in the sand behind him. He was barefoot, and I’d thought the sand would be too hot for his feet, but it hadn’t bothered him at all, the lucky bastard. I wished I could be a half-giant.

“Some?” Gary asked. “Tiggy, say it isn’t so.”

“Okay,” Tiggy said. “But I don’t lie.”

“Insolence,” Gary said. “You should carry me.”

“Your tummy sweats,” Tiggy said with a grimace. “That’s gross.”

“You’re gross,” Gary muttered.

“Sam,” Kevin rumbled above us, wings spread to try and block the worst of the sand and wind. “Would you please tell Gary that his stomach does sweat, and while I don’t find it disgusting, some other people might, and therefore he shouldn’t try forcing others to do what he wants?”

“I’m not going to do—”

“And Sam,” Gary said. “Would you please tell Kevin that not everyone wants to hear him talk with his mouth and his words, and therefore he should shut up?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I—”

“Or,” Kevin said, “you could tell Gary that maybe he should just calm the fuck down because some of us are sick of his shit?”

“I don’t know why you put me—”

“You tell Kevin that he wasn’t even invited on this adventure,” Gary hissed.

“Invited?” Kevin snapped. “Uh, excuse me, sweetheart. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but this whole adventure is about me. I’m someone’s destiny, after all. You know what your destiny is? Never getting to have a piece of this fine ass ever again. So suck it.”

“Oh nooo,” Gary mocked. “Whatever shall I do? How will I possibly survive not getting something that I’ve already had a million times over like everyone else in Verania.”

“Hey! I have a sexually adventurous spirit! You know I am a lover of many, many things. You liked it before you decided to put your head up your ass!”

“People grow up,” Gary said loftily. “Things they wanted when they were far, far younger don’t satisfy them like they used to. I am today’s mature and modern unicorn. I don’t take your shit for anything. My body, my rights. You don’t own any of this.”

And this had been going on since we’d left the castle.

Three weeks ago.

To say I was ready to choke a bitch would be an understatement.

“They still in love?” Tiggy muttered as Gary and Kevin continued to snipe back and forth.

I rolled my eyes. “Disgustingly so.”

“Bet you broom they get back together by time we get to Freeze Your Ass Off?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’ll take them until at least the Dark Woods.”

“Four brooms.”

“Tiggy, that’s still not how you barter when you—”

“Seven brooms!”

I sighed.

We shook on it.

“Sucker,” Tiggy said.

“Hey!”

He went back to listening as Gary and Kevin volleyed insults back and forth.

“You know,” Ryan said, voice slightly muffled from the cloth he had wrapped around his head and mouth, “you could probably just use magic to keep their mouths shut, right?”

“Probably,” I said. “But you would just pop a boner, and I think it’d be uncomfortable to walk with that. And, as a side note, penises are so weird. They broadcast far too much and in such awkward ways. Oh look, an attractive something. Let’s have all my blood rush to this one appendage and make it stick out during church.”

“During… church?”

“I was thirteen,” I mumbled. “The priest was hot. Whatever.”

“I don’t always pop boners when you do magic,” he said. “And gods, I am never saying pop boners ever again. It’s all your fault I talk like that to begin with now.”

“Really?” I said, bringing my hand up, palm toward the sky. “My magic does nothing for you?” I barely had to concentrate before a smidge of sand was floating above my hand, forming a sphere that circled slowly. It caused the barest of tugs around my head and heart, and I knew that Ryan was probably feeling it too, given his propensity these days to be almost an extension of my magic.

“Ungh,” he said, eyes glazing over slightly. He licked his lips, eyes darting from my hand down to my crotch.

“You’re so easy,” I said, letting my hand drop and the sand fall away. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

“The first minute we get to ourselves,” he muttered, “I’m going to suck your brain out through your dick and make you come on my face.”

I tripped, falling face-first into the sand and rolling down a little dune.

Gods, I hated the desert.

 

 

“ARE YOU sure about this?” Mom asked, watching as I rolled an extra pair of trousers before shoving them into my pack. “She’s getting what she wants now. Sam, she’s my mother and I love her, but you shouldn’t trust her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t. And I won’t. This isn’t about her. Not anymore.”

She reached over and touched my arm, causing me to pause. “Then what is this about?”

I couldn’t look her in the eye, because if I did, I knew I’d spill everything to her, every single fear that I had: that I couldn’t trust Morgan, that I couldn’t trust Randall, that I was so angry at them for keeping this from me, that I was worried that I was going to fail. That I wasn’t going to be enough. That I was making all the wrong decisions. That I should be listening with my head instead of my heart.

“It’s about doing what’s right,” I said instead. “It’s about doing what I have to.”

She sighed. “I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen to me. All right?”

“Yeah.”

“Gypsy magic is mostly farce. It’s guesswork and fraud. Manipulation. For the most part, that’s all it will ever be. There are times when something else pokes through, something beyond the veil. Vadoma can do those things. I can’t explain it, but I can’t explain your magic either. You can do things that I can never even dream of. But the only thing that matters to me is that you’re making the choice you are, not because of what others want, but because it’s what you believe in. Prophecies, no matter who they come from, no matter what they say, are never written in stone. You can change the future, Sam. No matter what anyone else says, nothing is set in stone. You are your own destiny.”

I looked up at her then. Her eyes were wet, but she had that fierce set to her jaw she sometimes did when she was readying herself for an argument. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look more beautiful.

“I love you,” I told her, because I couldn’t not.

She laughed. “Oh, I know. And I you, more than all the stars in the sky.”

 

 

TWO DAYS later:

“Are we there yet?”

“No, Gary.”

“Oh.” Then, “How about now?”

“No, Gary.”

“Hey, Sam.”

“Yes, Gary.”

“Did you know that unicorns aren’t meant to survive in harsh conditions?”

“One can only hope, Gary,” I said.

“Rude. Hey, Sam.”

“Yes, Gary.”

“Do you think I’ll ever find love again?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, here we go again. You know what, Gary? I was trying to have some bonding with my son, seeing as you already claimed him for the holidays. Again. And now you’re trying to make it all about you.”

“Maybe we should just—”

“About me? About me? I’ll show you making it about me, you overgrown sex reptile whose muscles I don’t give the smallest of shits about! Just because you’re going to have to move into that postdivorce depressing singles apartment when we get back, doesn’t mean you get to act like an asshat!”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Hey! I like that apartment! It’s a bachelor pad, and I am going to live my life now that I’m not held back by the ball and chain of spousal tyranny! You know how many bitches I’m going to have? So many bitches.”

“Good! I hope your dick rots off!”

And then they were off again.

 

 

DAD AND I walked in Mom’s garden, making our way to the secret part toward the back that only a few seemed to know about. We hadn’t said much between the two of us, but it helped just having him at my side.

Finally, he said, “This is some fucked-up shit.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “Yeah. It is.”

“Star dragons and prophecies and shadow men. Never thought I’d see the day.”

I felt a little pang at that. “I’m sorry,” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

He looked startled at that. “What on earth could you be sorry for?”

I shrugged, unable to look my father in the eye. “For… all of this. If… I don’t know. If I hadn’t been magic, if I’d just been normal like everyone else, we wouldn’t be here right now. You and Mom wouldn’t have to worry, and I could just… be. It’s heavy. Dad. This weight. This responsibility. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have this. That I didn’t—”

He slapped me upside the back of the head.

“Ow.” I glared at him.

“Yes, well,” he said. “You deserved that, talking nonsense like you are. You’re gonna listen to me. You got that, boy?”

“Yessir.”

“There is much in my life I wish I could change. That I wish I could do over again. But if there is one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I wouldn’t change a godsdamned second, not a second, of the time I’ve had with you since you were born. You are the greatest thing that has ever been mine, and I know your mother agrees. We are as proud of you as we have ever been. The only thing you need to do is come home in one piece. You do that and we won’t have a problem. You get me?”

I hugged the fuck out of him. He laughed wetly in my ear. We didn’t move away from each other for a long time.

 

 

THREE DAYS after that:

“What is it?” Ryan asked as we stood on top of a sand dune. In the distance, shimmering in the sun as if it were a mirage, was a large stone complex, rising out of the middle of the desert. There were towers spread out around the outside of it, rising above the large wall that surrounded the buildings.

“It’s Mantok,” I said, voice low, even though it didn’t matter. Gary and Tiggy knew where we were.

“The prison in the desert,” Ryan said. “I’ve never seen it before. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s meant to be. It houses the worst of the worst. The murderers. The rapists. Those that deal in dark magic.” I took a breath and let it out slowly to try and rein in the rage that ran through me. “Those that would keep magical creatures in cages and parade them around Verania in a carnival.”

Ryan tensed beside me. “Fuck,” he said. “The one that had Gary and Tiggy before you met them? What was his name?”

“Koklanaris.”

“He’s in there?”

“Yes. We should go before I do something I’ll regret.”

So we went, Kevin and Gary and Tiggy waiting for us at the bottom of the sand dune. Tiggy was trembling. Gary wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, kicking at the sand with his right front hoof, nostrils flaring.

And if that night, Tiggy gathered Gary and me in his arms to keep us close, no one said anything to the contrary. Gary woke me up in the middle of the night, whimpering in some dream I couldn’t chase away. I was going to reach over and run my hand over his snout to try and calm him, but the tip of a scaly tail was already there doing just that. Kevin was pretending to be asleep, but he didn’t fool me.

I lay awake for a long time that night, watching the stars.

 

 

“WHY DO you do this?” the King asked as I stood before him and the Prince in the throne room. They were seated, and I was at the bottom of the dais, more formal than we normally were. Justin was sitting as if uninterested, but I could see the stiffness in his shoulders. “Why do you think I would ask this of you?”

I watched him closely, trying to find the right words to say. “Am I yours?” I finally asked.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “You are mine.”

“An extension of the Crown.”

“And my family.”

Justin didn’t scowl at that.

I felt a little flustered at the King’s pronouncement, even if it warmed me to the core. “Then you know why I have to do this. I am an extension of the Crown. I act in your stead. You trust me to make the decisions I have to in order to keep you safe.” I glanced at Justin. “You and the Prince.”

“Morgan told me,” the King said. “About what happened.”

I said nothing.

“Are you running away?” he asked lightly.

I was. A little. “No,” I said. “Or at least that’s not the main reason.”

“But it is a reason. That, and I believe it to be coupled with the protests that took place in the streets.”

I shrugged, because he wasn’t wrong. “Even if it hadn’t happened the way it did, even if he wasn’t who he is, I would still believe now. That he can do what he says he will. And I can’t let that happen.”

“Because you love Verania. Regardless of what it thinks about you.”

“No,” I said. “Because I love you.”

The King took in a great shuddering breath as he shook his head. “Do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you? I thought, here is this boy, loud and bright, and I believe he will change the world. I just didn’t expect you to change mine too. I am proud to know you and call you my own. Please, stop this formality. Come here and hug me.”

I did. Because I loved my King very much.

Later, after the King was gone with a kiss to my forehead, Justin and I remained. We didn’t say anything for a long time.

Surprisingly, he spoke first. “I didn’t feel the same way when you first came.”

I snorted. “I know.”

“I didn’t like you. In fact, I hated you. I still do sometimes.”

“I know that too.”

“You have to come back.”

I looked up, startled, only to find Justin looking more vulnerable, more determined than I’d ever seen him before. “What?”

“You have to come back. You have to be safe and come back and be my Wizard. I could do this without you. I know I could. I am smart. And I can be kind. Sometimes. My father has taught me well. I’ve learned a lot in the past year. I can do this without you. But I don’t want to. The King of Verania needs his Wizard. It’s how it’s always been. So come back, and in one piece, or I swear to the gods, I am going to put you in the dungeon where you’ll poop in buckets for the rest of your days. Do you hear me?”

 

 

KEVIN AND Ryan were scouting ahead while Gary, Tiggy, and I hung back. I held my summoning stone in my hand, running my thumb over it. It’d remained dark since we’d left the castle four weeks before. No one had called me. I hadn’t called anyone either. I didn’t want to, afraid of what I would say that I couldn’t ever take back. And I thought if I had to hear Morgan’s voice right now, I would have.

“So,” Gary said.

“So,” Tiggy said.

I sighed. “Say whatever it is you have planned.”

“Planned?” Tiggy asked, feigning surprise. “No plan. Tiggy no got time for plans.”

“Damn right,” Gary said. “We don’t need no plans. Everything we do is executed perfectly and without complaint and/or death.”

They were idiots. “I heard you practicing whatever you were going to say to me last night.”

“Told you,” Tiggy said to Gary.

Gary glared at me. “Spying, are we? How uncouth.”

“You do it to me all the time.”

“I do not.”

“Gary, one time you had your face pressed flat against a window watching Ryan and I have sex.”

“I wasn’t spying. I heard you making this awful banshee wailing noise and had somehow convinced myself that you were either passing a gallstone the size of a lemur, or you were getting murdered by an actual lemur. I was coming to save you.”

“And instead of saving me, you were being a creeper instead.”

“It’s not my fault Knight Delicious Face was choking on your dick. Honestly, Sam. I could see it bulging in his throat.”

“Good job,” Tiggy said, patting my shoulder.

I glared at both of them.

“Fine.” Gary rolled his eyes. “Maybe we talked about this behind your back and then practiced what we were going to say. But it’s only because we love you, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“A lot,” Tiggy added. “This much.” He held his arms out as wide as they could go.

“Damn you,” I said with a sniff. “You make me have feelings when I’m trying to be annoyed. It’s your face. It does things to me.”

“I got good face,” Tiggy said. And he was certainly right about that.

“I’ll start,” Gary said. “Randall and Morgan are both idiots. Vadoma can’t be trusted. Ruv is hot, and if you were single, I’d tell you to stick your dick in his butt, but you have Ryan, and he’s your cornerstone, and you love him and his asshole.”

“Preach,” Tiggy said. “Also, people be cray-cray.”

“Exactly,” Gary said. “People be cray-cray. This whole prophecy thing, which, do we even need to discuss why Tiggy and I weren’t mentioned? We’re not sidekicks.”

“Nope,” Tiggy said. “Tiggy no sidekick.”

“You’re my sidekick,” Gary said.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“Anyway,” Gary said. “This whole prophecy thing. Maybe it’s made up. Maybe it’s not. Maybe a star dragon did come out of the sky and tell your crazy grandma that you were going to be born and do some shit, or whatever it said.”

“Save the world from falling into darkness?” I said, trying not to be amused but failing miserably.

“Right,” Gary said dismissively. “Saving the world and stuff. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. But you know what is true?”

“What?”

He looked right at me, eyes impossibly wide and glistening. “You’ll always have us by your side,” he whispered.

And no, no I would not break—

He fluttered his eyelashes.

“Damn you!” I cried at him, breath hitching in my chest. “Why must you do that to me?”

“I’m sorry!” he wailed. “We just need you to know you mean something to us!”

“Yeah,” Tiggy said, great globular tears on his cheeks. “Mean something and stuff.”

“You’re so manipulative! The both of you.”

“Yes, well,” Gary said, suddenly dry-eyed. “It’s necessary for the next part.”

I groaned as I put my face in my hands. “I don’t even want to know, do I?”

“Knight Delicious Face,” Tiggy said.

I groaned even louder.

“We thought…,” Gary started before trailing off. And there was something in his voice that made me think he was being serious now. “We thought you already knew.”

I dropped my hands. “About what?” But I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Mortality,” Tiggy said. “Everyone’s mortal. Some more than others.”

“Can we not do this now?” I asked gruffly. “We don’t have time to—”

“Sam,” Gary said. “You need to talk about this.”

“I don’t,” I retorted. “I don’t need to think about it at all. Because nothing is going to happen to him. Not now. Not ever.”

“Sam,” Gary said. “That’s not how this works. You know that. Maybe nothing happens to him from the man in shadows. We’ll all be there together, and we’ll do our best to protect him, even if that’s going to piss him off. But what happens later?”

“Don’t.”

“He’s going to age, Sam. And you won’t. Your magic won’t let you. Not like a normal human.”

“I said don’t.”

“It part of you,” Tiggy said. “Inside. It big. Felt it first day.”

“We both did,” Gary said. “It’s connected to you. It’s what you’re made of. Sam, I’m magic because of what I am, even if I don’t have my horn anymore. Tiggy’s magic because his blood is literally made of the stuff. You? You’re more than both of us combined.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be magic, then!”

The sound of my voice rolled down the dunes in front of us.

In the distance, Kevin and Ryan turned around.

Gary and Tiggy were staring at me in shock.

“Did you ever think that?” I said to them, voice lowered. “Everything I am, every part of me, this magic, has been manipulated, guided. Vadoma knew about me. Randall knew about me. Morgan knew about me. What part of me is actually me if they all had a hand in it? Why would I want any part of something that will take me away from him, or him from me?”

“Without it,” Gary said quietly, “you wouldn’t have been with him—”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “You can’t know that. Life is supposed to be about random chances. About choices. I randomly found the both of you. I got to choose the both of you.”

“And you got to choose him,” Gary said slowly. “Even if Vadoma had other plans for you.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to him,” I said. “I will stop this, whatever it is. And then I’ll figure out the rest. I’d rather be with him without my magic than be with him and have it. Some things are important. Other things are more important.”

“And what of the kingdom?” Gary asked. “Isn’t that the most important of all?”

I didn’t respond, which was an answer in and of itself.

I didn’t miss the look exchanged between them.

But I was good at ignoring things until I had to.

It was easier that way.

 

 

“YOU’LL TRAVEL to the desert, then?” Vadoma asked, a glint in her eyes that I didn’t like one bit. We stood alone in the throne room per my request, though I was sure everyone was trying to eavesdrop through the Great Doors. They were nosy fuckers like that.

“I will,” I said.

“Hmm,” she said. “It seems as if we could have come to this agreement days ago.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Here we are,” she agreed. “We shall leave immediately. Time, I fear, is of the essence.”

I barely restrained the eye roll. “It’s waited a couple of decades. I’m sure it can wait a little bit longer.”

“For?”

I shook my head. “I don’t trust you.”

“So you’ve said. But no matter how you feel on the matter, you are still my blood.”

“Well, we all can’t be perfect.”

“Your tone,” she said. “I have no use for it.”

“Of that I don’t give two shits. I’m going to tell you how this is going to go.”

“Oh? Please. Enlighten me.”

I ignored that. “You will take Ruv and leave tomorrow to travel back to the desert. We will follow by the end of the week.”

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t just travel together when—”

“You’ll be on horseback, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Gary will kill you, because that’s racist.”

“How is that racist—”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be on foot.”

“That’ll take weeks,” she said.

“Probably,” I said. “But that’s the way it’s going to be. Think of it this way. It’ll give you time to get to the desert before us, and you can plan further ways to try and use me.”

“This is not about being used,” she said.

“Isn’t it?” I asked, daring her to be contrary. “Because that’s exactly what it sounds like to me. You’re here to use me.”

She watched me for a moment, her dark eyes assessing. “I knew not of the dark man in shadows, aside from what was shown to me. His identity has always been a mystery. The secret kept from you about him was not my doing. Do not direct your anger at me for something I did not do. And if you let it fester, if you let it boil, it will spill over until it consumes you, chava. Anger in your heart will lead only to misfortune and misery.”

I snorted. “Fortune-telling again?”

“Personal experience,” she said, and that shut me up right quick. “I agree to your terms, as long as you do not dally. It may have taken this long for us to arrive at the point we have, but there are many parts in motion right now, Sam of Wilds. You are a cog in a machine that will shred you to pieces if you do not keep up.”

She left me alone in the throne room.

 

 

I SAT on the top of a large sand dune, the sky above bright with stars. The others lay asleep near the fire below, the thin line of smoke rising up into the air. The stars seemed to be bigger out here, away from all the light and noise of the cities. And I thought maybe there were more of them, more than I’d ever seen before.

I hadn’t wished upon them in a very long time.

I hadn’t needed to.

But now?

Now I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if the path I was taking was the right one. I didn’t know if I’d made the right choices. I didn’t know if I could trust the people that I had thought could always be trusted.

“Shit,” I said to the stars.

They blinked back at me, ever watchful and silent.

“I’m a little lost,” I told them. “Maybe more than I think I am. I don’t…. I knew my place. I knew what was expected of me. Do this, Sam. Learn this, Sam. I’m going to monologue at your face after I’ve captured you for some stupid reason, Sam. There was good. And there was evil. And nothing in between. I am a good guy. I know I am. And I try to do what’s right. Always. Even if it hurts.” I sighed. “Why does this all feel so wrong, then?”

The stars didn’t respond, of course. They never really did, at least not that I could hear.

I found David’s Dragon, the cluster of stars to the north. I watched it for a long time. It didn’t move as it had for Vadoma, if it ever did at all. I didn’t know if what I’d seen was even real.

But still.

I said, “I’ll do this. For you. But you have to do something in return for me.”

A breeze blew across my face, warm even in the cool night.

It was probably nothing.

I said, “Make me mortal. When all is said and done. I will protect my King, this one and the next. I will protect my kingdom. I will do all that you ask, but I want a mortal life for my happy ending. This is my wish.”

“Sam.”

I squawked quite loudly and fell over, sure the star dragon was right behind me and was going to eat my brains and—

“Godsdammit,” I growled as I looked up at Ryan standing above me. “Don’t do that! You can’t sneak up on me because I make weird noises!”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “As opposed to any of the other times you make weird noises?”

“You think you’re funny, but you’re not funny.”

“Kind of funny.”

“Kind of stupid. With your face.”

He held a hand out toward me, and I allowed myself to be pulled back up to a sitting position. I glared at him until he moved behind me, sinking down and pulling me between his legs until I lay against his chest, his chin near my shoulder.

“Is that better?” he asked quietly.

“No. You jerk.” It was a billion times better.

“Good,” he said, because he could see right through me. “What were you saying?”

“Huh?”

“You were talking when I was coming up here. What were you saying?”

I stiffened, and I knew he could feel it. “Wizarding… things?”

He chuckled near my ear. “Really. You don’t sound too sure about it.”

“I’m sure,” I insisted. “You don’t even know how sure I am.”

“Sam.”

“I hate it when you use that tone of voice.”

“Nah. You love it. Like you love everything else about me.”

“Wow. You really are sure of yourself.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

And if I laid my head back on his shoulder and relaxed into him, well. That was just between the two of us.

He waited for me, like I knew he would, giving me time to parse through everything. We hadn’t yet talked about this, and I didn’t know how much I wanted to. He, like the others both with us and back at the castle, knew the extent of what I’d seen. I couldn’t justify keeping it from them, like Morgan and Randall had kept things from me. I was a lot of things. But I wasn’t a hypocrite. Mostly.

Finally, I said, “I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“I could.”

“Everyone dies, Sam.”

“Some sooner than others.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said lightly. He kissed the skin behind my ear. “You know that. We’re together, okay? All of us. We can do this. You can do this. I know you can. I believe in you.”

“Sap,” I muttered, even though I thought I was blushing.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Probably. Just don’t tell anyone, huh?”

“I think pretty much everyone knows.”

“There goes my street cred.”

“You never had any street cred,” I said and then shrieked with laughter as he knocked me over while tickling my sides. He came to rest atop me, hands on either side of my head, face hidden in shadow as he was backlit by a sea of stars. I don’t think I’d ever seen him look more handsome than he did at that moment, sand-swept and smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world.

I kissed him as hard as I could.

For as long as I could.

I didn’t think he realized I’d never answered his question about what I’d been saying as he approached. If anything, I was good at distracting.

And besides. Everyone knows you can’t tell others what you wish upon the stars for.

It won’t come true if you do.

 

 

“SO YOU’RE leaving,” Gary said, cocking his head at me. “To the desert. To the mountains. To the Dark Woods. To find these dragons.”

“Yes,” I said slowly.

“And you think we’re going to stay here,” Kevin said.

“Ye-es?” I said.

“Sweet Sam,” Tiggy said.

“Lovely Tiggy.”

“You an idiot.”

“Hey!”

“Well you are,” Gary said. “Did you really think we’re just going to sit here and let you go off on an adventure without us? Sam. Are you fucking high?”

“No,” I said. “Not since that one time.”

“Do I even want to know?” Ryan asked.

“Sam eat forest mushrooms,” Tiggy said. “That he found in forest.”

“Of course he did,” Ryan said.

“Way to generalize, Tiggy,” I said. “You know it was part of the ritual I needed to perform in order to escape the clutches of my captors who were convinced they could sacrifice me to an evil sprite in the Dark Woods.”

“Of course they did,” Ryan said.

“Riiiiight,” Gary said. “Which is why when Tiggy and I rescued you, you were sitting on the back of one of the bandits, singing about how you could taste colors and that the grass was alive and whispering grassy secrets.”

“Of course you—”

“Ryan! Not helping!”

“I took drugs once,” Kevin said. “At this orgy I went to. Crazy, crazy night. Long story short, it wasn’t actually drugs, and I’d somehow crushed and snorted sixteen sugar cubes and then eaten a lot of centaur ass—”

“Excuse me,” Gary trilled. “I could have sworn we were trying to stay on topic.”

“We never stay on topic,” Tiggy said, sounding confused.

“Well, yes,” Gary said. “But we don’t need to hear anything Kevin might say.”

“Oh, here we go.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “One moment we’re happy and jolly, and the next, oh look! Gary has an issue with something. Shocker.”

“I have issues? Oh, do we even need to go over the veritable laundry list that is the psychotic psychosis of the dragon named—”

“You’re not coming with me,” I said.

“Yes, we are,” they all said at the same time.

And that was that.

 

 

“HOLY BALLS,” Gary said as we crested the sand dune.

“That’s… not what I expected,” Kevin said.

“No more sand,” Tiggy said, sounding giddy.

“Is that…?” Ryan started, eyes wide as he took in what lay before us.

Rising out of an oasis in the middle of the desert, surrounded by a forest of palm trees, was a city built upon a desert lake that shimmered in the heat of the sun. It looked cool and inviting, but I couldn’t help but feel unease at the sight of it. I knew what waited for us there. I knew what waited just beyond the city in a cave that led underneath the desert.

“Mashallaha,” I said. “The gypsy city.”

“What does it mean?” Ryan asked. “The name.”

“As the gods will,” I said, trying not to focus on that part at all. “Come on. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can go home.”

 

 

“DON’T FORGET your Grimoire,” a voice said behind me. I cursed under my breath, sure I’d come into the labs undetected. Which, in all honesty, was probably my first mistake. Undoubtedly, he had the entire castle warded so he knew who was where at any given time. He’d told me once that of course that was ridiculous, being such an invasion of privacy, but I wasn’t feeling very charitable toward Morgan of Shadows right then.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said airily, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. Mean and petty, sure, but I was more than a little annoyed.

I took my Grimoire down from its place next to his on the shelf. My fingers brushed against the binding on his book, and I felt his magic jolt through me, sweet and familiar. I realized he’d never told me what his Grimoire was bound with, telling me I’d know when the time was right. I wondered what else he’d kept from me. What other secrets he had. Where was Myrin’s Grimoire? Had he even had one?

I pushed the thoughts away. There was still much I had to do and a short time with which to do it. I shoved my Grimoire into my pack and hoisted it on my shoulder. I turned and gave him a nod, trying to keep the surprise off my face to see him by himself, no Randall in sight.

Morgan himself had a carefully blank expression, betraying nothing. I’d seen him with the same look when dealing with unruly heads of state, knowing his countenance didn’t give away just how much of a dumbass he thought they were. Whether or not he was thinking the same thing about me, I didn’t care. I needed to leave. I was angry at him. Very angry. It was deeply unsettling, because I’d never been that way with him before.

I forced myself to meet his gaze before heading for the door. Part of me screamed to turn around, to get everything off my chest, to never say goodbye without actually saying goodbye, but I didn’t. I reached the door. It felt like I was vibrating. I put my hand on the knob. I turned it. The lock clicked and—

“He wasn’t always bad,” Morgan said quietly. “My brother.”

I stopped. Tried to breathe through it.

“He was… smart. Strong willed. Vibrant. A sense of humor like you wouldn’t believe. Everyone was charmed by him. He wasn’t afraid to step on people if it meant getting what he wanted, but he would always make sure to apologize for doing so. And the difference between him and others is that he would be sincere about it. If he did you wrong, he was genuinely sorry about it.”

I let go of the door but didn’t turn around.

“He was older than me,” Morgan continued. “By centuries. Our parents were… difficult, to say the least. More obsessed with furthering their magic than caring about their sons. They regretted us, I think. Or, rather, they were indifferent toward us. I don’t believe they meant for Myrin to happen. They certainly didn’t mean for me to happen, but sometimes, fate and magic have minds of their own, and when they intertwine, the results can be… unexpected.”

“How is he Randall’s cornerstone?” I asked begrudgingly. I didn’t want to acknowledge any of it, but that question had been bugging me almost as much as why Morgan had kept what he did from me and what had happened to Myrin in the first place.

“Randall’s… different.”

“No shit.”

“Like you’re different.”

I whirled around at that. “Are you comparing me to him?” I suppose it could have been a compliment to anyone else, but it was Randall. This was not a compliment to me.

He shrugged, face still blank. “It’s not an off comparison. A wizard builds, Sam. That’s what magic is. That’s what the cornerstone is for. But even before you can build, you must design. You can’t just start putting the blocks together without a coherent plan to do so. The results could be…. Well. That’s what the Darks are. People who will not invest the time needed to follow the true path of magic. They are impatient. Cut corners. They burn out parts of their hearts and soul just to have a taste of magic on their tongue.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with Randall. Or me.”

He drummed his fingers along the countertop. “Of course you don’t. Because you don’t see the big picture. You think of here. Of now. Not decades down the road.”

“Maybe because parts of it have been hidden from me,” I snapped.

And there it was, the barest of flinches, the smallest of cracks in the mask. I knew he wasn’t indifferent to all this. I knew that. Morgan loved me, maybe more than anyone else in the world. That wasn’t in question.

But he had lied. He had withheld the truth from me. I’d trusted him, and maybe part of me still did. I trusted him to protect the King and Justin. I trusted him to protect my parents. And Tiggy and Gary and Ryan. I trusted him to protect me. But everything else?

I didn’t know anymore.

“There are reasons, Sam,” he said. “For everything. Even if you’re angry at me now, and even if you don’t understand, there are reasons for everything I do.”

“You didn’t choose me,” I said. “I always thought you had. But you didn’t. I was forced upon you by some crazy lady from the desert. That’s all this ever was. And to make it worse, you left us to wallow in the slums. You could have come for us earlier. You didn’t. Do you know how many times my parents went hungry just so I could be fed? How many times I heard my mother crying at night because she thought she had failed me?”

The mask cracked further. He took a step toward me, made an aborted motion to reach out for me. Instead, his hand fell to his side and curled into a fist. “I was wrong,” he said. “And for that, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. Randall was… adamant. That we let your life unfold as naturally as possible before needing to intervene. He thought it would build your character, that it would make you a better person. And while I don’t disagree, I believe you should have been given more. And it is my fault that didn’t happen. I should have fought harder. I am imperfect, Sam. No matter what you may have thought about me before. I am to blame as much as Randall is. If not more.”

“Why? Why did he think that? Why would Randall put me through that?”

“Myrin,” Morgan said. “Randall thought mistakes made in the past could be avoided in the future. He designed his magic, Sam. For centuries. More than anyone else has ever done before. And when it was time to find his cornerstone, he didn’t have to look very far.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You’re like him in that you’re different. But where he created design after design after design, your magic was already within you. What you did that day in the alley so very long ago should have been impossible. The design of your magic was at levels far beyond what I or Myrin or even Randall ever had. Which is why finding your cornerstone when you did, at an age so young, was the right path meant for you. It was the only path meant for you. It wasn’t just fate, Sam. It was necessary.”

“And if I hadn’t found him?” I asked, jaw tense. “If I hadn’t found Ryan? Would you have pawned me off on Ruv when Vadoma came for me?”

He hesitated. “I would have laid out your options.”

I snorted. “It’s a good thing that I made my own choices, then.”

“Yes, Sam. It is.”

“I’m so angry, Morgan.”

“I know.”

“At Randall. At you. At Vadoma. This is my life that you all meddled in.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” I spat at him.

He looked older than I’d ever seen him before. “Every choice I’ve made, whether good or bad, has always been with your best interest in mind. Yes, I knew of you before. Yes, I could have done more. Yes, this impossible situation feels like our hand was forced. But Sam, I chose to love you as I do because of who you are, not who you were supposed to be. I love you because you mean the world to me. You have always been the joy that is in my heart.”

“Godsdammit,” I said, wiping my eyes. “That is so unfair. You manipulative bastard. Hitting me right in the feels.”

There was a small smile on his face. “Is it working?”

“Maybe. I’m still mad.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to hug you, though.”

I thought maybe his shoulders sagged a little in relief at that, but he put on a good front. “Must we?”

“We must,” I said, shuffling forward. And I didn’t even have it in me to chide him when his arms came up around me and held me tightly, his beard tickling my cheek. It was a good hug, but I didn’t let it last very long. I had a point to prove, after all.

I pulled away, and he let me go. I took a step back, shouldering the pack again. I wanted to leave, to put some distance between us so I could clear my head, but I needed more.

“Myrin,” I said.

Morgan looked away. “We couldn’t save him. Not when he started walking a path we could not follow. Not I, his brother, nor Randall, his love, could drag him away from the dark. There was a king, long before the Good King, that was driven mad by Myrin’s counsel. Randall brought the king back by the sheer force of his will, and together, we banished Myrin to a realm of shadows because we could not bear to end his life. We begged him. We pleaded with him. But he was already lost to the dark. And nothing we could do would have brought him back. We failed him, Sam. And I will have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

“Did you know it was him?” I asked. “When Vadoma came to you about the dark man in shadows?”

“No,” Morgan said. “Or at least I’d hoped. I’ve spent the decades making sure the seals remained in place between this world and the shadow world. I didn’t even feel them crack.”

“Then how did he come back?”

“That is the mystery, Sam.”

I set the pack on the countertop and sighed. This was already more complicated than I had hoped it would be. “You have to tell me,” I said. “Everything. Because if this is true, if the star dragon was right, then Myrin will come for me. And I will do everything I can to stop your brother.”

And so he did. He spoke in a monotone, flat and expressionless. By the time he’d finished, his voice was hoarse and my heart hurt. For him. For Randall. And for what it was I was being called on to do. And I was trembling, because the story he’d told, the things that had been done, shook me to my very core. Before I left, I took his face in my hands and kissed his forehead as he gripped my arms.

He said, “Be safe, Sam of Wilds. The world depends upon it. As do I, because I need you so.”

I nodded and left him standing in the labs with nothing but the memories of loss and betrayal.

And I didn’t look back.