Chapter 5: Vadoma Tshilaba

 

 

“OKAY,” GARY said as soon as he disappeared. “I feel like we should have real talk right now. Because seriously? Dat. Ass. Do you know how many coins you could bounce off of that thing?”

“I have many coins in my horde,” Kevin said. “Perhaps we should invite him to see.”

“I don’t like him,” Ryan said. “He’s suspicious. Coming in here all… suspiciously.”

Justin snorted. “Yeah, because that’s the reason.”

“What?” Ryan asked, eyes narrowed. “There’s no other reason. I don’t need another reason. There was suspiciousness. That should be enough reason for everyone!”

“Uh-huh,” Justin said, sounding bored. “And it had absolutely nothing to do with how he was like a starving man and Sam was a four-course meal. Which, honestly. What is with people and their incredibly bad taste in this kingdom? I know attraction is subjective, but come on.”

“Hey!”

“You have a strange eyebrow-to-face ratio,” Justin said with a shrug.

“Feeling self-conscious now,” I said, covering my eyebrows with my hand and glaring at Gary. “You should have told me I had weirdness going on!”

Gary blinked. “I thought it was just something we didn’t talk about. You know, like how we don’t talk about your nose.”

“What’s wrong with my nose?”

“Eep,” Gary said.

“There’s nothing wrong with your nose,” Ryan said, pulling my hand away from my face. “And I like your bushy eyebrows.”

I gaped at him. “They’re not bushy.”

“Like my taint before I get waxed,” Gary said, which I ignored because oh my fucking gods, I could never go out in public again.

“He doesn’t want to sex me up,” I said to Ryan. “And even if he did, you know you’re my one and only. You remember when we shattered my virginity? Well, I latched on to you like a barnacle after that. I’m slowly sucking the life out of you, because I’m never going to let you go.”

“Do you ever get the feeling like we failed as parents?” Dad asked Mom.

“Either that or we did something really right,” Mom said. “I don’t know which is worse.”

“I don’t trust this,” the King said to Morgan. “He did seem to have eyes for Sam.”

Morgan hesitated. Then, “Sam’s… notoriety is well-known throughout Verania. We don’t rightly know what has fallen upon gypsy ears.”

“I’m taking that as a good thing,” I told Gary. “They call me Notorious S.A.M.”

“Nobody calls you that.”

“Well maybe they should start.”

“Look at you with your head in the sand,” Gary said. “Nice.”

“We should hear what she has to say,” Mom said. “She never does anything without reason. The fact that she left the desert is enough to raise concern.”

The King nodded but said nothing.

“It always seems to center around you, doesn’t it?” Justin said to me, though he didn’t sound particularly spiteful. “Funny how that works.”

I blanched. “I didn’t ask for it.” Though, I couldn’t disagree with him. Somehow, it always did seem to concern me somehow. And that wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed.

“No, I suppose you don’t. Yet here we are. Again.”

“We’ll still be best friends even if it is about me, right?”

“We’re not best friends now.”

“He’s in denial,” I said to Gary.

“Eh, keep chipping away,” Gary said. “Pretty soon we’ll be inviting him to our hair-braiding parties where we have pillow fights in our underwear and gossip about boys.”

“I don’t do that,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” Gary said. “We did it just last week, remember? And you talked about how curved Ryan’s—”

“—knee is when he bends it,” I said quickly (and smartly, if I do say so myself; it was genius). “That’s all. Nothing else.”

“Says the guy who went to fan clubs about Ryan in disguise,” Justin said.

“Oooh,” everyone else said.

Including Ryan.

That bitch.

But whatever witty rejoinder I might have had was cut off when my grandmother, Vadoma Tshilaba, entered the throne room.

It was like the air around me stuttered, and I saw offshoots of green and gold skirting along the edges of my vision. There was a buzzing sensation racing along my arms and curling around my fingertips that almost itched for me to take action, though what type of action, I didn’t know. Morgan dropped a hand on my shoulder and Ryan crowded against me, and it was enough to stop me from taking a step forward.

The woman that entered was the same as the apparition that had disappeared after accosting me in the hallway. She held her head high as she walked, standing tall and proud. Her hair fell upon her shoulders, streaked with the lightest of gray. She wore a blue dress that left her thin shoulders exposed. Around her waist was tied a tan shawl, the fringes of which hung down her sides. She wore a crown of sorts, more a headband than anything else. It was thin and gold, with little trinkets hanging down onto her forehead. She was old, as evidenced by the lines and wrinkles around her face, but she moved with an economic grace, almost like a waltz, counted and measured, nary a step out of place.

And she was magic, that much I could tell.

It absolutely poured off her in waves, as if her aura was shedding magenta and fuchsia and crimson. It was intrusive but not invasive. If anything, I felt the need to allow it to push against mine, even as Morgan’s hand tightened on my shoulder, as Ryan gripped my forearm. And again it was familiar, like I’d known it before, and the only thing I could think of that made any sense was that it was familial, that my magic recognized hers because of the blood that ran through both of us. I was not a gypsy, but I’d come from them. Northern blood had diluted the pureness, but only by a generation. I knew her because I’d descended from her. It didn’t feel like Morgan’s. Or Randall’s. It felt earthy somehow.

She stopped in the same place Ruv had, a respectable distance and to make herself seem like a nonthreat. I had the idea, though, that it didn’t matter how close or far away she was. If she wanted something to happen, it would.

Ruv stood at her right, standing on one foot, stretching the other out behind him, curving it up toward his back. He reached his arms behind his head and grabbed on to his foot. The muscles in his stomach clenched. His eyes never left me.

“I don’t know if that’s creepy or erotic,” Gary whispered to Kevin.

“Can’t things be both?” Kevin rumbled. “I mean, I’m scared, but I could easily get an erection if called upon to do so.”

Vadoma didn’t even acknowledge me. No. Her eyes were on her daughter.

Mom clutched Dad’s hand but didn’t speak.

After what felt like an age, this great and powerful woman named Vadoma said, “Dika. You have aged poorly. All that processed meat you’re eating, I’m sure.”

That… was not what I expected. I stared at my grandmother with wide eyes.

Mom, however, said, “Daj, Mother. It’s a wonder you’re still alive. Tell me. How does the cold dead thing you call a heart still beat in your chest?”

My jaw dropped.

“Oh my gods,” Gary whispered. “This shit is gonna get cray-cray. Tonight, on Castle Lockes, watch as families reunite as a crazy old lady with awesome taste in jewelry sees her daughter again for the first time. Will eyes be scratched out? Find out… on Castle Lockes.”

“Bah,” Vadoma said, seemingly dropping all pretense. She slouched a little, her forehead wrinkling even more. “My heart will stop when it needs to stop, little kanny.”

“I am not your little chicken,” Mom snapped, dropping my father’s hand and pushing her shoulders back.

“I made you,” Vadoma said. “You took forty-seven hours to come out of me because I wasn’t ready to let you go yet. You are little kanny until I say so.”

“I want to be her when I grow up,” Gary said to Tiggy. “Forty-seven hours? My gods, the thigh control alone.”

“Gary gonna have babies?” Tiggy asked.

“Probably,” Gary said. “But most likely not.”

“I be Uncle Tiggy,” the half-giant decided.

Vadoma turned her disdainful gaze to my father. “Still here, I see. Dilo. You got fat. You like processed meats, fat man? Probably put them in your fat mouth.”

Dad sighed. “Hi, Vadoma. Lovely to see you again, Vadoma. Thanks for coming, Vadoma.”

“Your parents ate sass for breakfast,” Gary said.

I was still gaping. Because out of all the things that I thought could happen, this was certainly not it.

“You come to posta, fat man,” Vadoma said with a nod. “I feed you good food.”

My dad snorted. “It hasn’t been long enough for me to forget the first time you invited me to a posta. You forgot to tell me that it was a sacrificial ritual and that I was to be the sacrifice.”

“Spoils surprise,” Vadoma said. “Very bad. Vadoma doesn’t like spoiling surprises.”

“Crazy lady sacrifice Josh-pop?” Tiggy asked Gary.

“It seems like,” Gary said, sounding impressed. “And she can pull off a shoulderless dress at her age? Sign me up for that shit right the fuck now. Gypsy queen who can sacrifice people when she wants to? That’s what I was born for.”

“I smash crazy lady?” Tiggy asked.

“If you do, make sure you don’t get blood on the clothes. You know how hard it is for me to find good vintage these days. Also, we’ll want to ensure that I’m installed somehow as the new figurehead. Queen Gary the Magnificent. No. Queen Gary the Supreme Magnificent.”

“I smash crazy lady,” Tiggy said, taking a step forward.

“I don’t know if that’s the best course of action,” Morgan said mildly.

Tiggy pouted. I could see Morgan struggling against that look to give the go-ahead to smash my grandmother. Greater men than anyone in this room had fallen to the power of Tiggy’s pout. But somehow, Morgan was able to withstand it.

The King stood from his throne and bowed toward Vadoma. “It is an honor.”

Vadoma said, “Of course it is. I am here, am I not?”

He didn’t even blink at that. “So you are. Though I must admit to being a bit mystified as to the reason for this visit.”

“You would be,” Vadoma said.

“How many of your people am I to be expecting in the City of Lockes?”

She snorted. “Just me and the boy.”

The King frowned. “I didn’t expect the phuro to travel without an entourage.”

She ignored his unspoken question. “Is that your son?”

“Yes,” the King said. “Prince—”

“Stand up,” Vadoma said to Justin.

Justin did.

“Hmm,” Vadoma said. “You’ll do.”

“For what?” Justin asked, sounding annoyed.

“You may sit back down,” Vadoma said. “I am done with you now.”

Justin scowled at her but did as he was told. Which honestly shocked the hell out of me, so much so that I still hadn’t been able to find my voice to say a single thing. I thought maybe that was a good thing and hoped that if I didn’t speak, she wouldn’t know that I was here and then would go back to the desert and not say anything about my eyebrows.

She moved on. “You there. Gigantic man. What is your name?”

Tiggy pointed at himself before looking around to see if there were any other gigantic men around him. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Speak now.”

“I Tiggy.”

“Tiggy.”

“Yes?”

“I like you,” Vadoma said. “You may live.”

Tiggy looked pleased and confused.

Vadoma turned to Gary.

“My Gypsy Queen,” Gary said, bowing low. “I am Gary the Supreme Magnificent. But you can just call me Gary. It is truly a blessing to be in—”

“I don’t like you at all,” Vadoma said.

Gary stood up from his bow slowly, eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re a unicorn, yes?”

“Yes?”

“Is that a question? You either are or aren’t. Make up your mind.”

“Yes. I am a unicorn.”

“Then I don’t like you,” Vadoma said.

“But—”

“No talking! Vadoma has no time for magical talking unicorns.”

The air started to sparkle around Gary.

“That’s never a good sign,” Kevin said. “Dear, maybe you should just calm down a little bit? You know how things turn out when you feel stabby.”

“Calm down?” Gary said dangerously. “Calm down? Oh, it is on now. Does Gary have to bring the motherfucking pain up in here?”

“Bah,” Vadoma said. “Useless creatures with your prancing and your fluffy tails. Dragon. You there. Dragon!”

“Me?” Kevin said. “Please don’t say anything that could damage my self-esteem. I am very softhearted, and I would hate to cry in front of you.”

“How long you been able to talk?” Vadoma asked.

Kevin looked confused, or as much as a dragon with his head shoved through a window could look confused. “I’ve always been able to talk. I do have a tongue, you know. Granted, I don’t use my tongue for just talking. Sometimes I use it for—”

“How long have you been able to talk so that others understand you?”

Kevin said, “Oh. Since Sam showed up at my keep and forced me to come along with him and leave my horde behind. He was really rather militant about it. All like, Dragon, you must leave your invaluable treasure behind because me and my tight little ass and whiny voice are telling you to do. I’m Sam of Wilds. I tell people to do things and expect them to do it because I’m a bossy fucking twink.”

“That’s not what happened!”

“Close enough,” Gary said.

“I’m actually going to agree with Gary on that one,” Justin said.

“Betrayer!” I gasped. “After everything I’ve done for you!”

“And what is it exactly you’ve done for me?”

“Well, there was that… um. Hold on. I’ll think of something. Aha! There was that time that I—wait. No. That was a tree.”

Everyone turned to stare at me.

And if there is one thing that can be counted on, it’s that when I become the center of attention, I tend to make things awkward.

“I didn’t do it,” I blurted out.

Morgan face-palmed. I didn’t blame him.

“What didn’t you do?” Vadoma asked.

I swallowed thickly. “Whatever it is you think I did?”

“Good job in landing that one,” Gary said to Ryan. “All your choices have led you to this moment. Really makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“I make good choices,” Ryan said. He glanced at me. “Mostly.”

“Hmm,” Vadoma said.

Which, obviously, I didn’t know what to do with. Because when one hmms, one could be saying a multitude of things. For example:

Hmm: You are so cool, Sam.

Hmm: I had high hopes for meeting you. All of which have been exceeded.

Hmm: Your dimples are adorable and I don’t think your eyebrows are bushy.

Hmm: I am going to murder your face and then bathe in your blood as part of a gypsy ritual where I ask a goddess to damn you for all eternity while I curse everyone you love. Oh, and by the way, your eyebrows are terrible, and you are neither as adorable nor as quick-witted as you think you are. Most people hate you. Like I do. I hate you so much.

“What does that even mean?” I demanded of Vadoma.

“A little high-strung, isn’t he?” Vadoma asked.

“Yes,” everyone else in the room said.

Which, you know. Fuck them all.

“See if I get you guys any presents for your birthdays ever again,” I muttered.

“Sam, last year you painted me a picture of, and I quote, an accurate representation of what our friendship means to me,” Gary said.

“Which was fantastic,” I retorted. “Because everyone knows that homemade gifts are better than anything you can buy at the store.”

“It looked like you had murdered defenseless animals on a blank canvas.”

“Because I feel violent towards you sometimes. Like now, for instance.”

“Oh,” Gary said. “That makes more sense. I get it now. I wish I hadn’t thrown it—I mean, I’m glad I hung it up in my room for everyone to see whenever they like. Except for Sam. Because he’s not allowed in my room. For reasons. That have nothing to do with the painting.”

I frowned at him.

“And you must be Knight Commander,” Vadoma said to Ryan.

“I am,” Ryan said, posing slightly because he still couldn’t help himself. “I have pledged an oath to the King of Verania to protect the Crown at all—”

“Why you stand so close to my grandson?”

Ryan opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. He wasn’t used to anyone interrupting his ridiculously dashing and immaculate speech about his oath and fealty, even if most people in the room had heard it a hundred times. And I was fine with hearing it again, if I was being honest. First, because I was proud of him and how far he’d come. Second, because I had this weird kink where I found it to be ridiculously hot when he talked about loyalty to the Crown and would usually try to find the nearest available surface to pound him into.

“Why… what?” he eventually said.

“You stand on top of my grandson,” Vadoma said slowly, like she was speaking to an idiot. “Because….”

“Oh!” I said. “I can answer that one. Because he’s my boo.”

Ryan groaned.

“Don’t act like you don’t like it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Everyone knows you do.”

“Literally everyone,” Justin said. “Because that’s all we had to hear about for months. Sam said this and Sam did that and isn’t Sam just the best thing to happen in the history of anything?” Justin made a face. “I honestly gave thought to having myself executed to escape hearing anything else.”

“You talk about me?” I asked Ryan.

Ryan flushed. “No,” he said, sounding petulant.

“Yes,” everyone else said. Including the knights along the walls.

“Wow,” I said in awe. “You think I’m incredible. Having validation is pretty much the best feeling ever.”

“I just like your face,” Ryan mumbled, shuffling his feet on the floor. “And stuff.”

“I am going to do so many things to you later,” I said. “Things I can’t talk about right now because my parents and my long-lost grandma are standing right near us and I want them to think I’m still a virgin.”

“We don’t think that,” Dad said. “Especially since you came to us the day after you lost it and announced it at breakfast.”

“He was so proud,” Mom said fondly. “Like that time he was nine and brought home a bug he’d found under a log.”

“Not quite the same thing,” Dad said, squeezing Mom tighter. “But we’ll count it as close enough.”

Ruv finally dropped his pose and leaned toward Vadoma, mouth near her ear. He spoke to her in a clipped foreign tongue that reminded me of my mother. Vadoma nodded along with whatever he was saying until she held up a hand, cutting him off.

“You are together?” she asked me, nodding over at Ryan.

“Yes,” Ryan said, taking my hand in his.

“In sin, even,” I said, waggling my eyebrows, because if there is one thing I apparently could not do, it was to not brag that I’d somehow snagged Ryan Foxheart.

“Sam,” Ryan chided gently, but I’m sure everyone in the room could see the smile quirking along his lips. I might have exasperated him and been more than frustrating, but for some reason, he loved me. And I would have done anything for him. We were kind of disgusting that way. “Maybe not tell that to your grandmother who you’re meeting for the first time.”

I sighed the sigh of the weary. “Whatever you say, babe.”

“And don’t call me that when I’m working.”

“Whatever you say, Knight Commander.”

He squeaked a little at that and started coughing, because he liked it as much as I did.

“Ugh,” Gary said, his nose wrinkling. “It’s like watching your mentally incapacitated great-aunt eating nothing but a jar of mayonnaise.”

“That’s…,” I said. “Huh. I don’t know quite how to take that.”

“Badly,” Gary said. “Preferably. Stop being so disgustingly precious in front of me. I’m going to vomit in the throne room, and no one wants to see that again.”

“It look like rainbows,” Tiggy said.

“Most things that come out of me look like rainbows,” Gary said.

“Seriously,” Kevin said. “By the time we finish our rigorous bouts of athletically tantric lovemaking, I look like the end result of a paint-by-numbers avant-garde tragedy done by a toddler.”

“And he says we’re gross,” I said, trying not to gag.

It was then that Vadoma addressed Morgan for the first time. But her tone had changed into something fiery, something angry. “And you allowed this, wizard?”

That irked me because I was standing right there. “Hey,” I snapped. “He doesn’t have to allow me to do—”

“Sam,” Morgan said, cutting me off. “That was not a question for you.”

“But she—”

“Sam.”

I knew that voice. That voice said I’d better shut my mouth before I was in trouble. I’d heard it more than I probably should have.

He waited just a beat more to make sure I’d heard him. Then he turned back to Vadoma. “He’s more than capable of making his own choices, Vadoma. If they lead to mistakes, I can only hope that he learns from them. The Knight Commander was his own choice in the end. And I believe there was never a mistake in that.”

She scoffed. “Foolish man. You know nothing. We had a deal.”

Wait. What. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I misheard you. You had a what now?”

“A deal,” Vadoma said. “Tell him, Wizard. Tell him how you know of him from the moment of birth. Tell him what the satarma called out the night he came to this world. You knew him as I did. And you agreed to be his mentor until the day I came for him.”

The room was ominously silent after that.

And it couldn’t be— “Morgan?”

He looked stricken. “It’s not as you’re thinking, Sam. Anything I have done, anything I agreed to was only to protect you. You are not bound by the promises of a foolish old man.”

That memory. That godsdamned memory.

Ah. I see. Your mamia was Vadoma, then.

Yes, my lord. You’ve heard of her?

Perhaps.

“You knew me,” I breathed. “That day in the alley. The first time. You knew who I was.”

“Yes,” Morgan of Shadows said. “I knew you.”

I couldn’t form my thoughts in a proper order. All I could think about were the times I’d felt Morgan was holding something back from me, was keeping his secrets held close to his heart. Wizarding is always about secrets, but hadn’t some part of me known that Morgan knew more than he had always said? I’d written it off as just him being Morgan. I’d trusted him when he said he’d tell me the things I needed to know when I needed to know them.

“What about him?” I snapped, jerking my head toward Ryan. “Did you know it was him too, then?”

Everyone looked confused. “Sam,” Morgan said slowly. “Ryan wasn’t in the alley that day. How could I have known him?”

I laughed bitterly. “Of course he was there. He was—” And I stopped myself because holy fuck was I an asshole. I closed my eyes. “Shit.”

Because Ryan Foxheart wasn’t always Ryan Foxheart.

Once upon a time, Ryan Foxheart had been a teenage douchebag named Nox with a penchant for kicking my ass whenever he could. There were only a handful of people in this world who knew Ryan had come from the slums, and I had effectively just outed him. It wasn’t as if he was ashamed of it, it was just that in the history of the Veranian Knights, no one had ever risen to the position of Knight Commander after having come from the slums.

So imagine my surprise when, instead of being rightly furious with me, he squeezed my hand gently and said, “Sam.”

I opened my eyes, shame burning on my face. He didn’t look angry, just concerned. “I didn’t mean—” I managed to choke out.

But he was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and he meant it. “We’re in this together, yeah?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Then that’s how we’ll do it,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed my cheek, a lingering thing, warm and dry. When he pulled back, I could see the resolve in his eyes and knew immediately where this was going to go. “Together.”

“You don’t have to—” I tried.

“I was there,” he told Morgan. “The day in the alley. I was one of those turned to stone. I’m from the slums. Like Sam. Ryan Foxheart is a name I adopted for myself. My real name is Nox.”

“Well fuck me silly,” Gary said. “Did anybody else’s nipples just get hard?”

“Mine did,” Kevin said. “Wait. Do I even have nipples?”

“Nox?” Tiggy said. “Mean guy who hurt Sam?”

“Easy there, big guy,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”

Tiggy didn’t look very appeased at that. And so maybe Ryan took a step closer to me, like I would protect him if Tiggy decided he needed to be smashed.

“Nox?” Dad said. “That little shithead whose ass I was going to kick but Rose said I couldn’t because a grown man beating a child is never all right, even if said child is an asshole?”

“I think I did say most of that,” Mom said, sounding equally shocked. “But for the life of me, I can’t say why I would have stopped him now. Good thing he’s not a child anymore.”

Morgan sighed. “The two of you….” He shook his head. “The gods must really have a sense of humor.”

“It’s like a godsdamned romance novel,” Justin said. “Because of course that’s how Sam’s life works out.”

“I’ll lay down my sword,” Ryan said to the King. “I haven’t acted as a Knight of Verania should. I lied to get to where I am. And for that, I am not worthy of the title Knight Commander. Or even a knight at all. I will accept any punishment you see fit to bestow upon me.”

The King rolled his eyes. “You’ve got that martyr thing down, haven’t you? Do you really think I would’ve promoted you to the Castle Guard if I hadn’t known everything I could about you?”

Ryan looked shocked. “You knew?”

“I didn’t tell him a damn thing,” Justin said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Of course I did,” the King said. “I am pretty good at what I do, in case you haven’t noticed. Request to resign denied. You will stay in the position you’re in and you will like it until I say otherwise.”

Ryan bowed again. “Yes, my King.”

“Just don’t be a douchebag to Sam anymore.”

“Yes, my King.”

“And this isn’t something you felt you should have made known to me?” Morgan asked. “I could have vetted him further had you but asked.”

“Really?” I asked. “You’re gonna lecture him on secrets? You, of all people. Right now.”

“Oh snap,” Tiggy said.

Morgan flinched. Barely, but it was still there. “I didn’t know it was him, Sam. Not with you then. Though I suppose it does make a bit of sense. And whatever machinations you think me capable of, I assure you you’re wrong. Every decision I have made regarding you has been in your best interest.”

“Would you have told me?” I asked bitterly. “If your hand hadn’t been forced?”

“I had hoped I wouldn’t have to. It was my wish that you live your life free of the chains of destiny. If I had any say in it, you would be safely tucked away where nothing could ever touch you.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “All I ever wanted for you was for your happiness. It’s what a mentor does. We teach you all that we can in hopes that it will be enough.”

I understood what he was saying. But it wasn’t enough. “Did you know?” I asked the King.

“No, Sam,” he said softly. “I didn’t. But even if I had, I would have trusted Morgan to know what he was doing. He has been around far longer than you or I. And he has always loved you as if you were his own. If he kept things away from you, it was because he thought he was doing the right thing.”

“I don’t know about that,” Vadoma said. “Because it seems as if he has gone against what we discussed. Dilo. Never trust a wizard to do a woman’s job. For all you know, he was trying to keep you to himself.”

Morgan’s eyes flashed. “Now see here, lady of the desert. You think yourself immune as a visiting dignitary. I assure you that’s not the case.”

She chuckled dryly. “Bakla. Liar. You have withheld long-hidden truths from the chava. You think he’ll trust you now?”

“Regardless of what he did or didn’t do,” I said, “the fact remains I know him. I don’t know you. Why should I trust anything you say?”

“Blood,” she said.

I snorted. “Lady, look around you. The majority of the people here aren’t related to me, but this is still my family. And I don’t care just how thick the blood may be. If I think you’re going to touch one hair on their heads, I will do everything I can to stop you. And as it turns out, I can do quite a lot.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The knight. Do you care for him?”

“Yes.” More than she could ever know.

“Do you treasure him?”

“Yes.”

“Would you lay down your life for him?”

“Yes.”

“Would you let him go if it was for the greater good?”

“Yes” was out before I could stop it. And even though it burned, I meant it. There was nothing that I wouldn’t do for Ryan Foxheart.

“Good,” she said, and a chill arced down my spine, because the look on her face was akin to victory. “Because you are being called upon for something greater than yourself. I have seen what you carry inside of you, Sam of Wilds. The lightning-struck heart that beats within your chest. I have known about you long before you were even a thought. I knew the day you were born, though my daughter was far from me by her own choice. I’ve seen what it is you’ll become without the guidance I offer. There is a darkness rising in the corners of Verania, and it calls for you. You must not answer, no matter what it says.” She clapped her hands once. It was a sharp crack that echoed in the throne room. “Ruv.”

The Wolf of Bari Lavuta stepped forward and bowed again, eyes on me.

“I bring to you my Wolf,” Vadoma Tshilaba said. “For he is the one thing the Knight Commander cannot be for you. Which is why, though difficult it may be, you must let Ryan Foxheart go. And you must do it now while we still have time.”

“Really?” Ryan said, taking a step forward, shoulders tensed, angrier than I’d seen him in a long time. “And why should he do anything you say?”

“Because, chava,” my grandmother said, not unkindly. “The Wolf is Sam’s cornerstone.”

“Ohhhhh dayyyum,” Gary hissed. “To find out what happens after this stunning revelation, tune in next week on… Castle Lockes. Annnnnd… we’re clear. Okay, what the fuck did that bitch just say?”

I didn’t really remember much after that.