“Probably.”
“And you’re going to get us all killed.”
“That’s a definite possibility.”
He pointed a finger at my face. “If you get killed, I will kill you.”
“That doesn’t even make sense—”
“And if you kill me and can’t bring me back, I will haunt you forever.”
“Oooh, ghost sex. Get your ectoplasm all over my—”
“And if you turn Dark, I will kick your ass so hard, you won’t have a choice but to turn good again.”
“I don’t quite understand how—”
“I don’t like this idea.”
I sniffed delicately. “So I noticed.”
“I think it’s ridiculous.”
“Pretty much the story of our lives, dude. Just roll with it.”
He suddenly looked stricken. “You need to be okay,” he said roughly. “Do you understand me? I need you to be okay. I can’t do this without you, Sam. I can’t. This life… it doesn’t make sense unless I’m by your side.”
I hugged him tightly. “Never,” I whispered in his ear. “I will never let you go.”
SAM
sam
sam
Sam
SAM
My head rocked to the side, a bright flare of pain in my cheek.
I groaned as I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry and my head was pounding.
“Whuzzat?” I asked coherently.
“Gods, don’t scare me like that. You weren’t breathing, you mothercracking idiot!”
“M’lerg,” I said with extraordinary alacrity.
“Don’t you dare go and pass out again. I will hit the other side of your face, so help me gods.”
I blinked at the dark figure leaning over me, blocking out the sun. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi. Hi, he says. Hi. Gods, I really hate you sometimes.”
“Not nice.”
“I’m allowed to not be nice to you. You just killed me, then resurrected me by shocking my heart, and then passed out like you always do just to freak me out. I’m going to give you so much shit for the rest of our lives, you have no idea—”
And then it all came into startling focus.
Ryan Foxheart, alive, bitching me out.
“Gods,” I whispered. “I….”
“Yeah?” he said, squinting at me.
“I’m….”
“Yeah?” he said, leaning down for what was probably going to be the most romantic moment of my life.
“I am so awesome!” I crowed, sitting up quickly. Which was a bad idea, seeing as how I smashed my face against his.
“What the fuck,” he groaned, falling back on his ass, armor clanking. “Did you just headbutt me?”
“Why was your face so close?” I moaned, holding my nose, sure it’d been shattered into a billion pieces and that I’d be disfigured for the rest of my days. Ryan would leave me because he was secretly shallow and couldn’t have someone with a squashed nose riding his dick, and then I’d have to go back to living in a hut in the woods and parents would tell their children about the Squashed Nose Man (capitalized, so you know it’s true) who would come out at night and steal their toes if they didn’t eat their vegetables and— And then I remembered there were things far more important than Squashed Nose Man.
I opened my eyes.
Ryan Foxheart was sitting on the ground in front of me, looking ornery and irritated, scowling prettily as he rubbed his forehead. He glared at me and opened his mouth to say— Well, I didn’t know what he opened his mouth to say, because I got up and tackled him, immediately regretting the decision as he was wearing a full suit of armor, but gladly accepting the pain of crushing my ribs into powder given that he was kissing me back just as frantically.
“You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive,” I babbled against his mouth.
“You’re such an idiot,” he growled, his hands going to my ass. “I hate you so much. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“Scare you? You died, you dick!”
“You killed me!”
“That was like five minutes ago! When are you going to get over it? Gods, Ryan, your fixation on that one thing is going to tear us apart. Why don’t you ever bring up that I also brought you back to life?”
“I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“I don’t know why either.”
“Stop talking. I’m trying to kiss you.”
I grinned against his mouth. He was so warm and alive and vital that I never wanted to let him go. It was— A breeze blew across my face, and with it came the stench of something terribly burnt.
I pushed away from Ryan.
And looked around.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
The road underneath our feet was covered in scorch marks, spreading out like roots of a tree around from where Ryan and I stood. The sides of the castle looked as if they’d been scarred, deep, black lines stretching up almost to the top where Zero had been perched.
He was gone, but safe. I could feel the pulse of him in my head.
The vermilion root holding the Darks had survived my lightning, though it looked worse for wear. Little arcs of electricity still crawled over the surface. The Darks encased inside had been spared from my onslaught.
But—
Where Ruv had stood was nothing but a pile of ash.
Where Caleb had stood was nothing but a pile of ash.
Where Myrin had stood was—
I blinked. “What the hell?”
It looked as if part of Castle Lockes had broken off in the explosion, the stone having crashed into the ground. A pile of rubble lay before us, dust still rising into the air.
My magic felt like it was going haywire, something Randall had warned me about. My cornerstone had died and then come back. It would take a little while before I could calm down.
“It worked,” Ryan whispered.
I looked at him. He was staring out around us at the scorch marks upon the stone, eyes wide, hands shaking. “Yeah,” I said. “It worked.”
He reached out and took my hand in his. “It’s over?”
“I—”
Sam
I shouted as a pulse of infected magic burst in my head. Ryan cried out my name, but I couldn’t focus on him, my head bowed, teeth clenched as I tried to withstand the assault in my head. I was already weakened from resurrecting Ryan, and I couldn’t push the yellowed magic away as it bowled over me.
The ground beneath us rumbled.
I lifted my head.
The pile of stone that had fallen from the castle began to shift.
And as the stones moved, I saw a flash of yellow underneath.
“No,” I breathed.
I stood slowly.
Ryan pushed himself up to stand at my side, sword in hand. “What is this?” he asked me.
Sam
My eyes watered as I bent over, hands over my ears, trying to block out the roar that began to whirl around us. It caused my skin to buzz, my bones to ache. My teeth felt loose in their sockets, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath as I— The stones fell away.
Underneath, in a swirling sphere of magic, stood Myrin.
He wasn’t unscathed. He had lightning scars that looked like the ones on my chest on his outstretched hands and on his face. His beard had been partially seared off, the ends curled up and blackened. A cut on his cheek dripped blood onto his chin. He was breathing heavily, but he was alive.
Ryan tried to force me behind him. “What the hell—”
“Containment,” I whispered.
Myrin smiled a bloody smile. “That’s right. Containment. A gift from my dearly departed brother. You thought you could beat me? Oh, Sam. Finally, you have underestimated me. And it will be the last thing you ever do.”
“Sweet molasses,” I managed to say. “Hey, Ryan?”
“Yeah?” he said, eyes only on Myrin.
“Now might be a good time to run.”
“What?”
“Run.”
And I grabbed his arm as Myrin’s hands moved in a complicated motion, and I pulled Ryan away, away, away. He squawked angrily, both of us sliding on the ash beneath our feet. We managed to stay upright, and as I ran, my grip on Ryan’s arm tightening, I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Myrin detonate, that pulse of infected magic overflowing, cracking the road beneath his feet.
The chase was on.
Chapter 19: Home Again
IT WAS about that time—when we were running for our lives, a crazy douchebag supervillain essentially flying after us, his magic warped and so fucking angry—that I realized we were screwed.