“Like, the villainest. Just accepted it, you know? It’s easier that way.”
He took a step away from the crowd of Darks. If I couldn’t see them all, I would have thought Myrin and me alone, given how quiet it was. It was as if all of them held their breath, waiting to see what would happen next. I hoped they wouldn’t be disappointed.
“What changed?” he asked.
“A desire for power.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted it.”
“You were supposed to be the force for good.”
“Boring, right? I mean, come on. The whole chosen-one trope is overplayed, don’t you think?” I winked at him. “Who would expect the good guy to go bad instead? I think it makes for a more interesting story.”
He cocked his head at me. “And just how do you see this story playing out?”
“I’ve been inside Camp HaveHeart. I know everything about it. The people. The knights. The guards. The location of the Prince and the King.”
“The King you helped to escape.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But just think: now he’s with all the others. All in one place.”
Myrin chuckled. “Makes for an easier target.”
“Exactly.”
“See, there’s just one problem with that, Sam,” he said, coming to stand in front of Ruv. Myrin reached up and traced a finger along Ruv’s cheek. Ruv barely flinched.
“Oh? And what would that be?”
He turned to face me. “I don’t believe you.”
Well shit. “That sucks.”
He sighed. “It really does. I mean, for all your bravado, for the way you weaponized your words, I still see the scared little boy underneath it all, extraordinarily out of his depth. You are a child playing in a chess game of the gods, Sam.”
“Dude, no need to be so condescending. You could just say you don’t believe me and leave it at that. Really. My feelings are hurt.”
He was in front of me before I could even blink, a hand gripping my face, fingers digging into my skin. It took all I had to stare blandly at him, showing him just how unaffected I was. “You speak,” he whispered, breath warm on my face, “without saying anything. Your words are a jumbled mess of adolescent mockery derived from an undeserved sense of accomplishment. I truly expected more from someone who was ordained by the gods to be my equal. You are nothing to me. You are insignificant. You have dragons, yes. And an unwieldy magic. But tell me, Sam. What would stop me, right here, right now, from just… taking it from you.”
“Consuming me. My magic.”
His grip tightened. “Yes, Sam. From consuming your magic.”
“Because then you’d be missing out on the fact that I am your equal.”
His eyes narrowed. “Come again?”
“I read it.”
“What?”
“Your Grimoire.”
The grip on my face loosened as he blinked in surprise. “You what?”
“Your Grimoire. I have it. I read it. Not the whole thing, of course, because, dude, you could really use an editor. I mean, you had stuff in there that made no sense and didn’t advance the narrative at all, but you still chose to devote pages to it. Why do you do that? Don’t you know that people don’t like superfluous stuff that makes it sound like the only thing you like is the sound of your own voice? Because legit, you should really tone back that shit. And now I totally forgot what we were talking about, because you are still breathing on my mouth, and I am really uncomfortable with that.”
“The Grimoire,” he growled.
“Oh. Right. Your Grimoire. Yeah, dude, totes read the highlights. I don’t know if you’ve ever met the snake dragon monster thing, but you guys have a lot in common. Everything is Dark this and Dark that and no one understands me at all.”
“Make your point before I decide it’s not worth hearing.”
“Wow. That was… an effective threat. My point, since you’re so insistent, is that we’re not so different, you and I.”
“And how is that.”
“We’ve been betrayed by those we love.”
He let go of my face, but not before patting my cheek just this side of too hard. “You?”
I nodded. “Me.”
“Go on.”
“Morgan. Randall.”
“What about them?”
“They never told me about you.”
He scoffed. “That’s all?”
“No. That’s not all. They never told me about you. About any part of it.”
I could see the moment he understood. “The prophecy.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After my grandmother came to the City for the first time.”
A cloud of something fell over his face, and he turned to glance at Ruv over his shoulder. “Did you know about this?”
Ruv looked flustered. “I didn’t know to what extent he’d been informed before our arrival. I didn’t want to speculate.”
Myrin turned back to me. “Go on.”
“They lied to me,” I said, putting all the anger I’d felt over it into my voice. “They knew things about me, about my future, and didn’t tell me until they were caught in the lie. If Vadoma hadn’t shown when she did, if you hadn’t escaped the shadow realm, who knows when—or if—they would have told me.”
“And this upsets you.”
“You’re damn right it does. Being told I have to do this—this thing where I don’t have a choice? Where I’m nothing but a tool used by the gods in a game I want no part of? That’s not fair. And for what end? To stop you? To protect the people of Verania? The people who turned their backs on me just because they didn’t like the color of my skin or the magic I wielded or the fact that I came from the slums? How is that fair? Why would I want to protect those who would just as soon stab me in the back as look at me?” And I hated it, hated the words, because there was truth to them. No matter what I told myself, I wasn’t always a good person. I was petty and vindictive. I could be an asshole. And I was angry, still so godsdamn angry, that I’d been made into this pariah, cast out by the very people who now cozied up to those I loved like it was nothing. I left to do the right thing, to do what was expected of me, only to return and find Vadoma with my parents, to find Lady Tina smiling at Ryan and Justin, standing by their sides like she belonged there. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
“I can feel it,” he said with something akin to wonder in his voice. “Your anger. You’re speaking truth.”
“You’re damn fucking right I am,” I snapped at him. “And I know you felt it too. I read what you wrote. I saw it in your Grimoire. You tried to expand on the way people thought of magic. You tried to show others a different way to think of the boundaries of what wizards are capable of. You said that you didn’t think Darks were something to be feared or condemned, that they were just misunderstood. That they had chosen a different path, and it was to be admired.”
“Randall looked at me as if I was crazy,” Myrin said. “He thought those were the words of a heretic. ‘You don’t understand what you’re saying,’ he told me. ‘You don’t know what you’re speaking about.’ Like I was nothing but a child. And maybe I didn’t know as much as he did. I doubt anyone ever has. But just because I didn’t have the breadth he did doesn’t mean I couldn’t think for myself.”
“And then they betrayed you.”
His eyes flashed and I felt the pulse of his magic, thick and viscous. “You don’t know how that felt. I tried to show them a different way. Tried to show them what the truth of it all was. That there were different paths to magic. That nothing was set in stone.”
“Because stone crumbles,” I said quietly.
“It does,” he agreed. “Or it can be shattered. I admit I was… overzealous with the so-called King of Sorrows. I pushed too far, and his mind… warped. More than I expected it to. But I needed Randall and Morgan to see just what could be done, what I was capable of, for them to take me seriously. To consider joining me on my quest to burst through the boundaries of magic.” He shook his head. “But they called me evil, even though I could see their hearts breaking. They said I was a villain, that I was no better than the Darks who hid in the forests and practiced magic the way they chose. Do you know why there are so many of us, Sam? Why there are so many Dark wizards while there are only a few like Randall and Morgan?”