Who then started dating Prince Justin, because life wasn’t fair.
“Why are you crying in the dark in your room and eating pudding topped with—are those… is that bacon? Sam? Are you crying in the dark in your room and eating a bowl of pudding with bacon on it?”
“Look away from me!” Sam wailed through a mouthful of pig meat and vanilla. “I’m hideous! And also, my heart has been shattered and I shall never love again.”
“Oh boy,” Tiggy said.
“Indeed,” Gary said.
Sam accepted Ryan’s disgusting and frankly bewildering decision to date the Prince like a mature and responsible wizard.
“Apprentice,” Gary coughed. “And also, you spent four hours yesterday trying to come up with a spell that would make Justin break out in boils.”
Sam accepted Ryan’s disgusting and frankly bewildering decision to date the Prince like a mature and responsible wizard. Besides, he didn’t need Ryan Foxheart! He was going to become the world’s best wizard, and he was going to pass the Trials by the time he was thirty, younger than anyone else had ever done it before. He didn’t have time for romance, no, sir! Not when his Grimoire still needed to be bound and completed and when Gary’s horn needed to be located. He had priorities.
But the heart doesn’t listen to the mind. Not always. There are days they move independently of each other, and even though he told himself he needed to move on, his heart still ached at the sight of Ryan and Justin smiling at each other like they were so in love that nothing else mattered.
And on one such day, when his heart ruled over his mind, he found himself in the Dark Woods.
And in these woods, he found a dead bird, a gash to its back.
It’s not fair.
Magic spilled forth.
The bird lived.
The earth beneath his feet did not.
And he never spoke a word of it to anyone.
But fate was a funny thing. Its threads might have seemed flimsy and weak, but there were already so many of them stretching around him, growing stronger and tighter. The boy from the slums didn’t know it then, but he was the center of the tapestry woven by the gods, the threads binding themselves to him, wrapping around his arms and legs and throat, trapping him in a web he could not shake himself from.
It was in the way that, while on a date with a man named Todd who had adorable ears, he stood against a group of Dark wizards, a knight at his side, his magic singing out finally, finally, finally.
It was in the way a great dragon stood above him, lips pulled back, teeth bared, and complained about his whizbangs and pretty sparkles before knocking him through a shed and kidnapping the Prince.
It was in the way the boy and his companions took to the road in the name of adventure to save the Prince of Verania from the clutches of the evil dragon.
It was in the way they slept under the stars, the fire flickering between them, Sam’s gaze lingering on Ryan Foxheart.
It was in the way the lightning coursed through his heart on a dusty road next to a field filled with corn.
It was in the way the dragon announced to the world his name was Kevin, and that he had come from the jungles in the east, looking for a place to call home.
It was in the way a boy and his knight stood atop a dragon’s keep, the words echoing into the dark as voices broke with a bittersweet ache: Because it’s always been you, Sam. I promise. I promise. I promise, because when I look upon these stars, there is nothing I wish for more than you.
These were the moments bound by fate.
And that was just the beginning.
Even then, deep in the Dark Woods, a seal was cracking, shadows leaking out. All it needed was a key.
THE BOY from the slums got his happy ending, didn’t he? Sure, Ryan had waited until he was literally about to marry someone else like a douchebag, but still. Ryan Foxheart loved Sam of Wilds and announced it for all the kingdom to hear.
That should have been it.
That should have been the end.
But the threads were pulling tighter.
The phuro came from the desert with a story of a destiny written in the stars, bringing with her a man named Ruv, who she claimed was Sam’s true cornerstone.
And sure, she bad-touched her grandson to get her point across, but who hasn’t had that happen to them? It wasn’t as if it meant anything. Neither did Ruv, no matter how bendy he could be or how Sam’s magic seemed to pull in his direction.
What did mean something, however, were the secrets that had been kept from him. Stories of visions of star dragons, of Vadoma instructing Morgan of a boy who would be born in the slums. Of a knight who would fall and rest upon a stone slab no matter what Sam did. Of a brother and a cornerstone who chose a path into the Dark against the pleadings of those who loved him most.
Morgan’s brother.
Randall’s cornerstone.
It didn’t help that the will of the people seemed to turn against him. And yes, Lady Tina DeSilva was the worst human being on the planet, and one day Sam was going to curse her so she turned inside out, but it wasn’t all her. She had merely tapped into an undercurrent of rage that had been long simmering against a mixed-blood boy from the slums who had had everything handed to him.
Or so they all thought.
The wizard’s apprentice and his merry band of misfits fled the City of Lockes to the Luri Desert in the west. They went to the forgotten castle in the sands, and Sam unleashed his powers against villains who tried to take what was his.
And then, just because it was the way his life seemed to go, he was chased by a teenage emo snake dragon monster thing named Zero Ravyn Moonfire who thought everything was lame and no one understood the crows in his soul, or some such nonsense Sam did not have time for.
But the snake dragon monster thing eventually agreed to help the boy, only because he wanted a place to grow his forest and to make beautiful things.
Sam didn’t understand, even then. Just how much bigger all of this was. How far the tapestry stretched. He knew of his Destiny of Dragons (capitalized to make it true, even though he hated it), and he understood the implications of what Myrin could bring, but he was still young. Na?ve. He was doing this for those closest to him, and nothing more. Under the stars of the desert, he wished to be mortal so that he would never have to leave his beloved’s side.
But Sam was already caught in the threads, and they were growing stronger.
Tighter.
And he came, then. For Sam.
The man in shadows.
Myrin.
A lightning-struck heart is a funny thing. It beats with strength unexpected. Sam was still just a boy, but his heart was wondrous. Even when it ruled over his mind, it was true and brave and wild, crackling with electricity.
And Myrin wanted to consume it.
He tried.
And failed.
He had underestimated Sam of Wilds. Still, he left the marks upon the young wizard’s skin, wrapping down his chest and stomach like roots from a tree, lightning-scarred and thunderstruck.
Things moved quickly after that.
Meridian City.
Mama.
Letnia.
Feng.
Morgan had contained. Compressed.
Castle Freeze Your Ass Off.
Every secret Sam of Wilds had ever had spilled forth to Randall.
And in return, Randall of Dragons gave his own.
Because Randall loved. He had been loved. And it had nearly destroyed him. He had banished his cornerstone to the realm of shadows, and with it, parts of his heart and soul. He had brought back the King of Sorrows from the depths of madness, an action that almost cost him his sanity. And he had gone to the North then, and for a time, had turned Dark.
But he had come out on the other side, crawling out of the darkness and back into the light.
Then came the mated Northern dragons, covered in feathers and able to cause dreamwalking. They too had expected the young wizard. Had tested him. Had pledged themselves to his cause after deeming him worthy.
The last dragon, however, had not.