“They feel guilty.”
“About?”
“How they treated you before you left.”
I stopped in the middle of the busy street, people scurrying around me. “Come again?”
“I already did once. You need to give me a little more time before we try.”
I gaped at him. “Did you just—”
He was flushing brightly. “I didn’t mean to say that. Ignore it.”
“I don’t know if I can now. You just said a sex pun.”
“Do you—do you understand what a pun actually is? Because I don’t think you—”
“Ryan. Stop focusing on your dirty, sexy thoughts you’re having about me, regardless of how flattering it is. We’re trying to be serious now. The fate of our country is hanging in the balance, and you’re being perverted.”
He sighed as if I was the most ridiculous thing in the world. “There was a lot of anger toward you. Before. The We-Hate-Sam-A-Lots tapped into that. And maybe people would have let it go, but then it was given a name and a focus, and they decided it was easier to be angry than to not.”
“Still didn’t stop you from putting their leader in your back pocket,” I muttered.
“Lady Tina is—”
“If you’re going to say she’s sorry, I don’t want to hear it. You’ve forgiven her. Great. I haven’t, and I doubt I ever will.”
“She’s—”
“And don’t tell me she’s changed either. Because evil will always be evil, especially when it’s a teenage girl.”
“I trust her.”
I stared at him.
He shrugged.
I stared some more.
He fidgeted. It was adorable. I was so angry.
“You do remember she was there in that house with Myrin and Ruv, don’t you?” I asked slowly. “Because if you’ve forgotten, I can remind you.”
“I know. But she says she didn’t know about Ruv’s ties to Myrin.”
“And you believe her? Ryan, she could be lying—”
“Of course I didn’t,” he said. “But she has proven herself time and time again over the past year, and she—”
“She could be a spy. For all we know, she’s reporting back to Myrin as we speak! No, it’s probably best that we banish her for all time. I’ll go take care of that right now—”
“Do you trust me?”
That stopped me. “What?”
“It’s a simple question, Sam. Do you trust me?”
I squinted at him. “This seems like a trick. Like, I’ll say yes, and you’ll be all then you need to trust her. Or if I say no, then you’ll say well, now we need to get a divorce.”
“We’re not married.”
“Well, not yet. Once you get over being mad at me, and after we vanquish all the villains, we’ll talk. Seriously, Ryan, proposing right now is really bad timing—”
“I didn’t propose. And besides, didn’t you already propose to me back in the Dark Woods when we were going after the Great White? I distinctly remember you—”
“Wow,” I breathed. “You want to get married to me so bad. You’re arguing with me about it even though I’m trying to talk to you about your betrayal. This is epic.”
He glared at me. “I’m not arguing with you—”
“Do you trust me?”
And he didn’t hesitate when he said, “Yes.”
“Then I need you to believe me about—”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“And I trust her. I’m not asking you to. But I am telling you to trust me about her.”
“That was… devious. Well played, Knight Delicious Face. But what the hell does this have to do with everyone staring at me weird?”
“They think you’re angry with them,” he said. He waved his hand at the camp. “These are the people who thought you left them because of what they did to you. They turned their backs on you, and they thought you’d done the same to them. They’re scared, Sam. They have been for a long time. And then you come back and it’s….” He shook his head tiredly. “They want to have hope. The whole… destiny thing is well-known now. It’s grown. They speak of it like a legend.”
“Katya and Brant.”
“What about them?”
“When they were trapped on the cliff’s edge by Caleb and the Darks, Katya said… she said that she believed in me, that I would come and save them. That I’d return one day.”
“And then you happened to pop out and do just that.”
“Right? So badass.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it did wonders for your fragile ego.”
“Sarcasm. Nice. I approve. I couldn’t disappoint my fans.”
Ryan rolled his eyes, and I wanted to watch his face for the rest of my days, taking in everything I’d missed. “They’re in awe of you, Sam. They know of the dragons. What the gods have put upon your shoulders. What you’re tasked with. They need you. And they worry you won’t care.”
“How do you know all this?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been living with it for months now. Look, Sam. When we’re children, we hear stories of heroes and villains, of knights and wizards fighting against rogues and scoundrels. Good always triumphs over evil. Then we grow up and we pass them on to the next generation, even if we don’t quite believe in them anymore. But that’s changed now. Because they want to believe. They need you, Sam. They need you to be their hero. And they’re scared you won’t want to be.”
I looked at the people around us, the way they hunched their shoulders as they passed us by, looking at the ground as they shuffled their feet in the grass and dirt. A few of them would look up at me, eyes widening when they saw me looking back, and then move quickly away. Children openly gawked as their parents struggled to pull them down the dirt road. Only the knights standing at their posts throughout the camp seemed to meet my gaze for any length of time, but they’d always had my back.
“I’m not some kind of savior,” I said quietly, beginning to feel the weight of expectation pressing down upon my shoulders.
“Aren’t you?” Ryan asked, arching an eyebrow. “Because that’s what they need you to do. Save them. That’s what they’ve been waiting for.”
“They scoffed at me. They turned their backs on me. They hated me. They did everything in their power to have me removed as Morgan’s apprentice.”
“They did.”
“And now that they don’t have any other choice, they need me.”
“They do.”
“You think it’s that simple.”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“Huh. I’ll be honest. I’m probably going to lord this over them so much that even Kevin will be impressed. I’m going to be so insufferable, you are going to regret this whole guilt trip pep talk whatever. Okay. I’ll do it.”
Ryan blinked. “That’s it?”
I squinted at him. “Should I have said no?”
“You….” He shook his head. “Just when I think you can’t surprise me anymore, you do it anyway.”
I grinned rakishly. “Damn right I do. I’m Sam of Dragons.”
“Ungh.”
“Ryan, please. Not in front of my adoring public.”
He took my hand and squeezed it tightly. “We’re gonna be okay.”
“We as in everyone? Or we as in you and me?”
“Both.”
“You’re gonna be mad, though, huh?”
“You better believe it. You fucked up, Sam. And you’re gonna owe me for the rest of our lives.”
I kissed him. I figured we both deserved it.
THEY WERE waiting for us in a large tent near the entrance to the docks. The smell of salt on the air and the sound of seagulls calling out overhead reminded me of the way the Port used to be before Verania fell, and I promised myself it would be that way again.
Two knights stood outside the tent, snapping to attention and saluting Ryan and me as we approached. One of them winked at me as we passed by and commented how nice the mark on my neck looked. Ryan glared at him, but the knights just laughed.
“He doesn’t know how to control himself around me,” I told them. “He gets one look at this hot bod and can’t help but do things to it.”
“Would you stop undermining my authority,” Ryan muttered, his cheeks red as he pulled me into the tent.
“I’ll let you undermine my authority if you get under my—and those are my parents standing there with their judgmental faces. Mom. Dad. Ignore what I just said. My virtue is intact.”