Still, that didn’t mean it was going to be easy. Even if there was more than one, how was I supposed to find them?
I should have known. Not right away, not that day in the alley all those years ago when I turned Nox to stone. I didn’t even know what I was doing back then. I didn’t know anything. But later, maybe. As I grew older. I should have remembered what had happened to me, but I was too enamored at the thought of there being one person in the world just for me. It was the romantic in me. I wanted someone who could love me just like my mother and father loved each other.
That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? That’s the reason I spent so much time focused on Ryan (read: going to fan club meetings). I’d like to think that unconsciously, I knew all along what he was going to be, but in reality, I was probably just a creepy motherfucker who was perving on the Knight Commander, wondering if he tasted like my dreams.
I had no idea, not until that date with Todd (his ears!) in the restaurant when those Darks came in and tried to do whatever stupid things Darks did. It was like the last little piece of whatever puzzle made up my being slid into place, and it was both the best and the scariest thing that ever happened to me.
Ruv never made me feel like that. Not once.
Yes, he was handsome.
Yes, he had a propensity to not wear clothes, and he was REALLY flexible.
Yes, he was charming and funny and absolutely not to be trusted, even though he seemed to go out of his way to help us on our quest for the desert dragon.
And yes, my magic felt something with him.
But it was… strange. Muted. Soft. Like it was just a dream. Like it wasn’t real at all. I think that was because I already had Ryan, I already had a cornerstone in place. Ruv was a pinprick of light in the dark. Ryan is the sun.
And I will always—
“—FIND A way to get my revenge against you,” I panted, dodging a column of ice that rose in front of me. “You dick. That could have killed me.”
Randall flexed his fingers, and another sheet of ice came flying toward me. I fell to my knees and leaned back, sliding along the slick floor, the ice flying over me, missing me by inches. It crashed into the wall behind me, shattering and falling to the ground.
“I’m not trying to kill you, you little drama queen,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Really,” I said, sucking in another breath. Sweat dripped down my forehead. “So absolutely none of this has anything to do with turning your nose into a dick?”
“Why, Sam! What kind of person do you take me for?”
“A vindictive person. A vindictive person is what I take you for.”
He had a strange glint in his eyes, looking younger than I’d ever seen him, and it hit me then that Randall, maybe for the first time since I’d known him, was having fun.
“I am never vindictive,” he said.
I had to move quickly before I was crushed by a small section of ice that fell from the ceiling. “Then what the shit was that!”
“Ready to talk yet?”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” I growled at him.
“Well, then. Let’s see what else I can do. I must admit, it’s been a long time since I’ve stretched my muscles this much. It reminds me of the time with the Ridley cousins. Now, they knew how to have a good time. They had absolutely no morals whatsoever, and it didn’t matter that they were cousins, they still liked to suck my—”
—HEAD, MY stomach, everything. Everything hurt after hearing Vadoma speak about the prophecy, after she bad-touched me and blew that fucking dust in my face at the knights’ training fields. I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want to believe anything she was saying.
But even when she’d first appeared in the hallway and sent me to stand before the Great White, to the gym where everything was frozen, and back out to the field where she showed me the death of Ryan, the destruction of Meridian City and the City of Lockes, I thought…. Well. Part of me still thought it was fake. I mean, it had to be, right? If it was, if she was full of shit, then I could go back to the way things were. Ryan and I were living our happily ever after. Gary and Kevin were living their grossly ever after. Tiggy was just… happy. My parents were healthy. The King was just and kind. The Prince was my best friend 5eva. Morgan was my mentor. Randall was… Randall.
But if it were real….
That meant everything I’d known before had been a lie.
That my life as it was now, everything that led to me being who I’d become, was built upon the untruth.
And I couldn’t have that. Because that would mean I could no longer trust a word that came from Morgan’s mouth. That I couldn’t believe anything Randall would tell me. And that was… unacceptable. I needed Morgan. I needed Randall. I needed them both to be real.
They were. They were real. They are.
But I couldn’t see it then. And there is part of me that still can’t see it now.
Because they did lie to me.
They let my parents suffer in the slums for years.
They pretended not to know who I was.
Maybe Morgan didn’t exactly follow what Vadoma wanted, maybe he did try and let me live the life I chose, but he still didn’t tell me about any of this. Granted, he shouldn’t have led with this from the very first day, but what about when he first gave me the Grimoire? What about when he named me Sam of Wilds? Why not when he knew about Ryan? Or when he first suspected how powerful he thinks I could be?
But then it was made all the worse that day in the dungeons, with Wan the Dark Hunter. How is it, after everything the Darks have done to me, that I can still find empathy with them? Maybe Wan wanted nothing more than to kill me. Maybe he was acting on behalf of Myrin, but he was my age. He chose a path for himself that led to his death. And I can’t help but feel that was partially my fault. Could I have done more to save him? I don’t know. But hearing Myrin speak through him, Wan’s skin stretching like the shadow man was in him, it changed… well. It changed everything.
What was it he’d said?
“Because there has never been anything like me before. Isn’t that right, little brother?”
Yes. That.
That changed everything. And I—
—LOOKED UP at Randall in surprise, having successfully dodged his latest attack. I was about to gloat, but then came the secondary attack, a column of ice shooting out from the wall, smashing into my shoulder, and knocking me to the side. I crashed onto the floor, skidding wetly until I came to rest on my back yet again.
“Should have seen that coming,” I groaned, blinking up at the ceiling. “Everything hurts. Pretty sure I’m dying a little bit.”
“You’re not dying,” Randall said drily. “Not yet.”
“So you admit to the possibility of me dying.”
“Everything dies, Sam.”
“Of course you can be philosophical. You’re not the one who just got ice-punched. Which, by the way, hurts like a motherfucker. Maybe we should take a break from Beat Up Sam Time and have some Let Sam Heal For a Little Bit Time.”
“That was all capitalized, wasn’t it?”
“Most of it.”