“The dragons—”
“Here’s a hint, Sam,” Myrin said, smile dropping from his face. “It’s never been about the dragons. I don’t want the dragons. Those are all yours, kiddo. Gather them. Don’t. I don’t give a fuck what you do with them. In the end, it won’t matter. For them. For you.”
“What? Then what hell is your plan?”
“I thought you said you hated it when villains monologue?”
“Wow, way to throw my words right back in my face—”
He took another step, and it was like I was getting assaulted by his magic. It wasn’t the morganhomesafe melding that happened with my mentor. This felt like it was forcing itself on me, like it was trying to take me over. The hook in my head pulled sharply, causing me to groan as I was enveloped by him. By everything about him. I’d never had this before. Never felt strength like this before. Not even when Randall had given me his all that day in the field when he’d brought the lightning down upon me.
This was more.
“You have no idea what it’s been like,” he said, eyes blazing. “What I’ve learned in the shadow realm. It was hell, it was pain and torture, but it was an experience, Sam. It changed me in ways I never expected. It made me more than I ever thought I could be. And when the star dragon came to me? When he told me my destiny? That was the day I knew, the day I transformed. The seal was cracked, and I began to slip through. They didn’t even notice. Randall and Morgan didn’t notice. It took a long time, but I did it, Sam. I slipped through.”
“Monologuing,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re… still… monologuing.”
“They can’t feel you,” he said. “If that’s what you’re wondering. The others. Your little cabal. Your cornerstone. None of them can feel you. I’ve cut you off from them so that we could have this little… chat.”
“Gods, shut up,” I snarled at him as I was forced to my knees. The weight of his everything bore down upon me, and it was rust and shadow, harsh and biting. I pushed through it, searching for the gold and the green. Searching for my way back home.
The smile on his face was a nasty thing. “Don’t you want to know why? Don’t you want to know what this is all about?”
“Fuck… you.”
“Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam. Don’t you see? No. I am your father.”
“What?”
The smile widened. “Just kidding. I’ve always wanted to say that.”
I’d had enough. Of him. Of this. Of a history that I didn’t want but that I was mired in. He was no different than the others that had come before him. And I had bested them.
I would do the same to him.
I pulled my hands back at my sides, then thrust them forward, crying out at the pain it caused to burst through the layers of shadows wrapped around me. Lake water snapped frozen in a split second as it rose into a wave of razor-sharp spikes of ice. They hurtled toward him, and I felt no regret at the thought of him being pierced from head to toe. Death would mean an end to all of this. I could go home.
He didn’t die.
Instead, before he was run through, he held up a hand and the ice shattered into thousands of pieces, glittering in the starlight. He snapped his fist closed, and the ice swirled around him, gathering into a single large piece, sharpened to a point.
“Well fuck me sideways,” I muttered as I turned to run.
And then the fucking dickbag threw it at me.
My feet pounded against the wooden dock. I felt the burst of magic behind me, that infection and shadow, and I swung my arm up in an arc over my head without thinking complete thoughts about what I was doing. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the end of the dock snap upward, bursting into flames so hot that the skin of my back felt flash burned. The large bolt of ice smashed into the burning dock, crashing through it, breaking apart as the fire melted it away. The dock swayed sharply under my feet at the impact, and I almost lost my footing and fell into the lake.
I jumped the remaining distance and landed on solid ground just as the dock broke apart completely. I hit the ground roughly, smashing my knee. A bright flare of pain shot through me, but I pushed it away as best I could as I picked myself up and turned around, chest heaving.
The dock burned on the water, smoke and steam rising into the air.
And Myrin still stood atop the water, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“You’re good,” he called out. “I’ll give you that. But, Sam. You must know how much better I am than you. You may have power, but it’s untamed. And I have years of experience.”
“Oh, would you just stop already? I’m getting sick of your—what the fucking balls of shit!”
The last came out as a squeak because he began running toward me, each step making a large splash on the surface of the lake. He moved faster than any man should have been able to, but since he’d been walking on water, I figured he could be the exception. He ran at me, and so I did the natural thing that anyone would do when being charged at by a formerly good wizard who had been banished to a shadow realm and then escaped: I took the fuck off in the opposite direction.
I could hear him laughing behind me as I ran along the water’s edge, trying to get away from the center of Mashallaha where it was more populated. I couldn’t take the chance of there being any collateral damage from this asshole’s vendetta against me.
Of course, any thoughts of outrunning him faded when I felt the ground beneath my feet begin to bend and crack. I glanced over my shoulder to see him running just behind me in the water, and I put on a burst of speed, lungs screaming as I jumped over pieces of the wooden walkways that began to snap up around me.
I thought I was going to make it.
I really did.
I was the good guy.
The good guys always won.
That’s what I’d been taught.
That’s always how these stories ended.
The good guys won.
And I knew I was the good guy.
But even before I could reach the end of the walkway, even before I could have any hope of escape or, at the least, getting as far away from Mashallaha as possible, I was knocked off my feet when the ground exploded underneath me. I went end over end into the lake. As my feet hit the water, my head rapped against something solid, and stars shot across my vision as I went under, the breath knocked from my chest.
I was dazed. Confused. Unsure of what had happened or where I was. I choked before I stopped trying to breathe, a small amount of awareness flooding back. I didn’t know which way was up. My head was throbbing. Everything felt sluggish. Slow. I tried to gather as much strength as I could, and there was green and gold, and it— A hand closed around my throat, and I was pulled up and out of the water.