A moment to wish upon the stars.
I have done everything you’ve asked of me. And I haven’t asked for much in return. I’m not the same person I once was. I know that. But please, let them see me for who I am. Let them love me just the same. I wish for that more than anything. They don’t have to forgive me for everything, not right away, but please. Just let them see me for who I am. I’m Sam. I’m Sam. I’m Sam.
THE MAIN roads between Castle Lockes and the Port were empty, and startlingly so. Before I’d left, at this time of day there would have been dozens of people walking, hauling carts either by hand or horse. The air should have been filled with voices talking and laughing and singing about anything and everything.
We kept to the trees, Brant and Katya saying it was safer. While the Darks tended to stay away from the Port after suffering a humiliating defeat there, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be on the road at some point. “We have to keep you a secret for as long as we can,” Brant told me when I tried to object because I could handle a handful of Darks. “It was part of the contingency plan.”
“The contingency what, now?”
“For when you came back.”
I glanced at Kevin, who just shrugged.
“You do know we’ve been waiting for you, right?” Katya asked slowly. “It’s why the Resistance exists at all. Because of you. General Gary and Major Tiggy always believed—”
“General and Major who?”
“Yeah. They picked out their own names.”
“Oh my gods. They’re the worst. I love them so much, you don’t even know.”
She smiled briefly at her brother when he held a tree branch out of the way so she could pass by. “They always knew you’d come back at some point. They’re the ones who pushed for the Resistance.”
“Those idiots,” I said, preening just a little. Then, “Wait. What about Ryan? And Justin?”
Brant coughed.
Katya hesitated. “Um. Justin followed along with Gary and Tiggy. Ryan was… a harder sell.”
I stopped. They looked back at me nervously. “He didn’t think I was coming back, did he.”
“It’s not that he didn’t—”
“Katya,” Brant said. “Maybe this should come from the Knight Commander. It has nothing to do with us.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she kept quiet.
I had told myself time and time again that I made the choices I had for the greater good. That I was thinking of my destiny and what the gods had asked of me when I left the City of Lockes behind and entered the Dark Woods in search of a great dragon. That even though my heart was breaking at the thought of leaving those I loved behind, I was doing the right thing. That I wasn’t running away.
I didn’t know if I believed that. Not completely. I’d tried to convince myself of the same things back when we’d set off for Mashallaha. Ryan had even asked me then, somewhere in the desert, if I was running away rather than facing my problems head-on.
That was how he must have seen it. He must have read the letter I left for him when he’d woken up from a grievous wound that I might as well have caused myself. I’d told him I was going to come back for him, but I wasn’t even there when he woke up. Of course he didn’t believe me.
“Um,” Katya said. “Why are your eyes so wide, and why do I feel like my heart is breaking?”
“Oh no,” Kevin muttered from somewhere above me. “You’ve gone and done it now, girly. See that look on his face? Like it was Sam’s birthday and then there was a party and a lot of people came and everyone brought Sam a present and all the presents turned out to be puppies and Sam lay on the ground and the puppies crawled all over him and he was so happy and then everyone yelled, ‘Ha ha, we’re just kidding, none of these are for you,’ and then they took all the puppies away? That look?”
“That’s exactly it,” Brant said.
“That’s Sam’s angst face,” Kevin explained. “It means he’s lamenting everything about his life and questioning all his decisions and will probably end up sounding like a fourteen-year-old emo dragon in three… two… one—”
“My soul has become a withered husk, and I feel the need to sit in a darkened room and read poetry by a snake dragon monster thing about the darkness within us all,” I told no one in particular.
“And there it is,” Kevin said. “If we’re lucky, maybe he’ll recite his own poetry, even though he’ll deny he’s written any. Trust me when I say it’s amazing.”
“My soul is black just like a cat. And here I am, and that is that. My feelings consume my mind, but outwardly, I tell everyone I’m fine.”
Kevin frowned. “Did I say amazing? I meant dreadful. My bad.”
“This is your hero?” Brant whispered to his sister.
She squinted at me. “I… think so?”
“You should just leave me here,” I moaned. “I’ll lay down here and die and then become one with the forest. Decades from now, my bones will have fused with the roots of a weeping willow, and legend will say that if the wind is blowing through my branches just right, you can hear me crying out for my beloved. Babe! Baaaaaaaaaaaabe!”
“Oh boy,” Kevin said. “Don’t you worry, people I just met who should be more in awe of me than you actually are. I know just how to handle this.” He cleared his throat before peering down at me. “Hey, champ. Hey. Hey, there. What’s going on in that noggin of yours? Huh?” He tapped a single claw against my forehead. “What’s up in the noodle, my little doodle? Do you need to toss the sports ball around with your old man? Huh? Is that what you need? Or do you just need to be fucked? Yeah, you just need to be fucked, don’t you. Okay. Well, if you insist, Baladush and Kaliope can just wait here—”
“Brant and Katya,” Katya said.
“—and you and I can find a nice clearing next to a brook where you can punch my junk for a little while.”
“We’re not normally like this,” I told Katya. “But honestly? You’ve just basically told me the love of my life hates me. If anything, this is your fault. Well, actually, I take that back. Not the part about this being your fault, because it is. But the part about how we’re not normally. This is how Kevin is all the time, and no, Kevin, I do not want to find a clearing next to a brook to punch your junk.”
“Your body is saying no, and your heart is also saying no,” Kevin purred. “You know how I like a fight—you know what? That crossed a line. I apologize. I would never do anything to take away your autonomy. Forgive me, pretty?”
“You’re forgiven,” I said, patting him on the nose. “Just don’t say anything like that again.”
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
“I know.”
“We good?”
“We’re good.”
We looked back at Katya and Brant expectantly.
They gaped at us.
“Why are we just standing around?” I asked them. “We have places to go, people to yell at us and hate us and break our hearts, in case you forgot.”
“It’s so hard to find good help in the middle of a forest,” Kevin said, frowning at our new companions. “So far I’m not impressed. And to think I was going to offer to fly them the rest of the way. I think not.”
“Oooh,” I said. “You guys are on the Suck List now. That was capitalized, so you know it’s true.”
“I also have a Suck List.”
“Kevin, not the time.”
“Right.”
“I mean, he looks like Sam, right?” Katya asked her brother.
“I think so?”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys are hysterical. Really. Chop-chop!”
WE BROKE the tree line near the Port, after making sure there was no one else on the road. I looked east, and at the horizon, I could make out a faint outline of the City of Lockes and Castle Lockes itself. Seen from a great distance, it was hazy and seemed as far away as it’d been when I’d been with GW and the others in the woods. It was just a glimpse, but it caused my heart to climb into my throat.
There, behind those walls, was my home.
My King, trapped in the dungeons.
My mentor, and all the memories that came with him.
My enemy, sitting upon a throne that did not belong to him.