Because these thoughts I had, these dark thoughts, were spinning through me. How I could take the dragons and keep them here. In me. That their magic would always be mine. That nothing could stand in my way. No villain could ever hurt my family again. The people who had turned against me would bow at my feet.
Myrin had gone about it all wrong. Like all the villains who had come before him, he’d thought too small. He didn’t have the scope that I did. The vision. No one would ever think of crossing me again, because I was Sam of Dragons, and I had five different dragon souls within me. I could trap them here, and they wouldn’t— A groan from the other side of the clearing.
I looked up.
Myrin sat up, clutching his head as if he was in pain. The rage I’d felt at the sight of my cornerstone crumpled on the dirty ground of an alleyway in the slums returned full force. I stalked toward him.
He looked up at me as I approached, a dazed expression on his face. “What is this?” he demanded. “Where are we?”
I didn’t answer. I lashed out, kicking him upside the head. He shouted as he fell back, rolling in the grass toward the edge of the clearing. I grasped on to Zero’s magic as Myrin came to a stop, and imagined a tree taking root just underneath the Dark wizard. I wanted it, so it came to be. The ground shook and split apart and an actual tree burst through the dirt and grass underneath Myrin. He cried out as the tree sprouted, throwing him sideways. He landed with a crash back on the ground, hugging his sides, curling up into a ball.
I ignored him for the moment and looked around the clearing. Trees sprouted along the edges, growing far higher than what should have been possible. It only took seconds before we were completely surrounded and caged in. Myrin wouldn’t be able to escape.
I turned back toward him even as the dragons called out in my head. I ignored them. I had what I needed. This was what the gods had made me into. This was what my destiny had called upon me for. Nothing could stop me now.
Myrin pushed himself off the ground. He stood on shaky legs, one arm wrapped around his side. He was panting lightly, hair hanging down around his face. “The dragons,” he said, spitting out a thick wad of blood. “This is the power of the dragons.”
I shrugged. “Sure looks that way.”
He chuckled. It sounded pained. “I should have known. You—you surprise me, Sam. I don’t know why. You just… do.”
“Because you weren’t expecting someone like me.”
“No. I don’t suppose I was. But then, you weren’t expecting me.” And he quickly clapped his hands together out in front of him. Large columns of rock shot out of the ground at steep angles, racing toward me. I jumped to the right, rolled on the ground, and ended up crouched on my feet. “Because, Sam, if this is a dream, it means I’m dreaming too. So I have control and—”
“Oh my gods, dude, shut up, for fuck’s sake!” I ran toward him, zigzagging back and forth, avoiding the columns of stone that shot up, dirt and grass raining around me. There came a quick warning, bright as a meteor in my head—underneath, underneath, SAM UNDERNEATH—but I wasn’t quick enough and rock hit my left leg, knocking me off course. I skidded along the ground as the dragons roared. Myrin was laughing again, a savage mockery that sounded so much like Morgan.
I picked myself up as I latched on to Kevin, focusing my magic with pinpoint accuracy. My heart burst and lightning arced from my hands, striking Myrin in the chest. He seized, the cords in his neck standing out as his head rocked back, jaw dropped, lightning shooting from his mouth and cracking in the air above him. I rode the electrical current that came from me, one moment halfway across the clearing from him and the next right in front of him. My fist was electrified as I brought it back before slamming it into his chest. There was an explosion of bright blue energy as he flew back and landed with a devastating crash. The lightning skittered away from him through the grass, leaving burn marks that scarred the earth like the marks on my chest.
“Clever,” he managed to say, body still trembling. “Very… clever.”
I was already exhausted but determined not to let it show. I moved slowly until I stood above him. His eyes were bright as he looked up at me. “You’ve lost,” I told him. “After everything, after all you’ve done, you’ve lost.”
He smiled weakly. “So it appears. And will you kill me now? Like you killed your cornerstone?”
I stared down at him.
“The look on his face, Sam. Oh, it was planned. I can see that now. But did you see the look on the knight’s face? He tried to hide it. He really did. But there was such betrayal there. Like he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. You killed your beloved. The bond with your cornerstone broke. Even if it was for a small amount of time, it broke. And you caused that. We’re not so different after all, Sam. Because you did what you had to in order to gain the upper hand. Just as I did.”
“I am nothing like you,” I growled.
“Aren’t you? Or are you more? Sam, the loss of life since I took over has been minimal. I imprisoned the people of Verania. I didn’t slaughter them. Not like you wanted to do to the Darks. I felt it. How close it was. How you wanted to snuff the life out of all of them. You almost killed more people than I ever have. What does that make you? And don’t even get me started on Ruv and Caleb.”
“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re—”
He coughed as he rose slowly. “You didn’t see what I did. You didn’t hear them die like I did, Sam. In those last seconds, they knew what was coming. They felt it. Sam, they screamed when your lightning rolled over them. When their bodies began to burn to nothing but ash. I watched as they died. And you did it. No one else. You did this, Sam. They took a different path than you, and you made them suffer for it. You killed Caleb’s mother, and then you killed him. And Ruv. Oh, poor, sweet little Ruv, a lost boy until I found him and gave him what he wished for more than anything in the world. To matter. Doesn’t that sound familiar? After all, you wished for the same. And my brother came for you, much like I did for Ruv.”
“No, no, no, you don’t get to say that, you don’t get to—”
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” he said. “To know that you’re capable of as much darkness as I am, that you—”
Sam.
No, Sam.
Don’t listen to him!
It’s not true.
You are better than this. Than him.
You are more.
The dragons. Sounding so far away.
“—and I know, Sam, I really do, that you could be so much worse than I ever was. All that magic in you. All that power. Don’t you see? It’s just easier to… let go. The darkness won’t judge you. It won’t restrict you. It won’t—”
“Shut up,” I screamed at him. “You don’t get to—”
His eyes flashed. “The gods got it wrong. You were never meant to be the hero of this story. Sam, can’t you see?” He reached for me, fingers shaking. “You were always going to be the villain.”
He looked surprised when I closed my hand around his throat, like he hadn’t expected me to move so quickly. The dragons were roaring in my head—please sam please sam stop this don’t do this you are better you are more you are good and and and—but I ignored them. Wind started to whip around us, and the stars above dimmed.
His hands came to my forearms, wrapping around them tightly. “Do you… know my… wizarding name?”
“Myrin the Bright Star,” I snapped at him, feeling the green and gold mounting furiously within me.
“Yes,” he gasped. “Do you know why?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve—”
“Because I flash brightly… like the stars.”
I brought his face close to mine. “Even stars burn out.”
He grimaced as his infected yellow magic pushed against mine, but it wasn’t enough. I was mired in the green and gold. It was everything. I was everything.
The dragons were barely there, buried underneath the storm.
“I told you I read your Grimoire.”
“Yes.”
“That I saw who you were. Who you became.”
“Yes.”
“I even read the end pages.”
His eyes widened.
“I saw how you did it. How you figured out how to consume magic.”