“—I THOUGHT I could handle it,” Morgan said. “I thought I could talk to him, and that he would hear me. I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish with the magic he was performing. The boundaries he was pushing. He said that if our parents had done it, then he could too. But that he would stretch it further than they ever had. He didn’t want to just push, he told me. No. He wanted to break.” He ran a hand over his face, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him before. “I told him that was the path of the Darks. That they had no regard for the rules that bound us to our magic. That anyone who attempted what he was attempting could find their souls cracked, their hearts shattered. Their minds diseased with temptations that should never be considered.”
“What did he want to do?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.
Morgan looked up at me. “He thought it was possible to bend the will of the people. Verania was… turbulent then. Not everyone agreed with the King in power. There were talks of uprisings. Of coups against the throne. The threat of civil war had hung over the country for years. Myrin wanted to take away their free will. To make the people docile. He said it would prevent death. That it would prevent conflict. That everyone would fall in line, and Verania would not descend into madness.
“I couldn’t fault him for thinking that way. I doubt anyone could. Who wouldn’t want to avoid war? Who wouldn’t want to stop bloodshed? It’s seductive, that line of thinking. I truly believe he came to it from the right place, but that before long, it soured within him and began to rot. And that’s where he was wrong. That’s where the idea as a whole became fetid. Because even if it would have prevented Verania from descending into chaos, even if it would have stopped the deaths of our people, it would still have been wrong. You cannot tamper with free will. You cannot take the choices away from people. They have the right to choose for themselves. Many of them disagreed with their King. They were not wrong. He was a weak man. A coward. Randall had done his very best in trying to counsel him, but he could only do so much. I could see his frustrations, the helplessness that he sometimes showed. And Myrin saw it too. And I think that only fueled him. By the time Randall figured out what was happening, it was too late. For all of us. I—”
—FOUND THEM sleeping, all curled around each other. It was an old barn of sorts that had lofts that held wheat and oats, rice, sorghum, corn, and barley. It was the only place big enough for Kevin to curl up and sleep at night. Gary had objected (quite loudly and fiercely) at being offered a barn to stay in, of all things. Didn’t they know how racist that was? When Vadoma had told him that it was just for Kevin, Gary had, of course, become even more irate, saying that he wouldn’t allow Kevin to stay by himself in an unfamiliar bed. Didn’t they know he had troubles sleeping in places that weren’t his home? The audacity behind it, the sheer audacity, and yes, they were separated (not that anyone had asked), but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for Kevin’s well-being. Why, anything else would just be rude.
Vadoma had looked like she didn’t know what hit her. Which, to be fair, most people looked like after having dealt with Gary.
But I remembered the look on Kevin’s face as he stared down at Gary, that expression of wonder, like he couldn’t believe someone would speak up for him like that. If Gary hadn’t, I would have, but I knew he’d do the right thing. Gary always did. He just had to be loud about it. I knew those two crazy kids would make it, once they stopped being idiots.
Kevin lay on his stomach, wings at his sides, head on his hands, taking in low, rumbling breaths and huffing them out in little snores. Gary was sprawled out obnoxiously, tongue lolling out of his mouth, legs and hooves pointed out in all different directions, head on Tiggy’s lap. The half-giant was propped up against Kevin’s side, rising and falling with the dragon’s breathing.
Tiggy opened his eyes as I stood in the doorway. He smiled when he saw me, nodding when I brought a finger to my lips.
“All right?” he whispered.
“All right. Just… checking on you.”
“Good. We good.”
“I can see that.”
“You good?” he said, brow furrowing.
I pulled a smile out of nowhere and said, “Sure, dude. I’m good. I’m gonna head back, okay?”
“I walk with you?”
“Nah. Get back to sleep. We gotta long trip ahead of us.”
He blinked sleepily at me. “Castle Freeze Your Ass Off?”
“Castle Freeze Your Ass Off,” I agreed.
He yawned, jaw cracking. “Okay. G’night, Sam. Love you.”
“I love you too, buddy. Night.”
And I closed the door behind me as he fell back asleep. I thought about going back in, letting Ryan hold me close, of being surrounded by those I loved, but the hook was pulling me harder now. It was pulling me away from them.
I left them behind and moved deeper into Mashallaha.
It felt like a ghost town. Like everyone had disappeared and I was all that was left.
I thought about using the summoning crystal to call Morgan, but I’d left it in the room with Ryan.
Besides, I told myself. Morgan would be asleep right now. Like a normal person.
Sam.
My hands shook at my sides. I balled them into fists.
“Who are you?” I said through gritted teeth.
Oh, Sam. I’ll show you.
Come to me, and I will show you everything.
And I did the only thing I could.
I went.
I didn’t have—
“—A CHANCE against it,” Morgan said. “The King was weak, and Myrin had begun whispering poison in his ear, although we hadn’t known it. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. Because if I allow myself to ruminate upon it, if I allow myself to give it any more thought than I already have, I’ll look back and see that I, like Randall, turned a blind eye to what was happening. I would see that I refused to believe in what was happening right in front of me. That the Myrin we’d known, the Myrin we’d loved, had become lost to us. He had chosen to turn in a direction that we could not follow, no matter how much we wanted to be with him.”
He looked up at me. “Do you know what that’s like, Sam? To feel the sting and burn of such duplicity? I know you think you might, that you think that I, and Randall, have betrayed your trust in us. I understand that. I don’t repudiate your right to feel that way. I don’t. But I ask that you see it from our perspective. To feel what we did. You may not understand why we did what we did, but the choices we made came from a place born of betrayal.”