“It’ll come,” Leslie repeated, and there was something in the tone of her voice that suggested she knew more than I did, but before I could ask, Pat spoke again.
“Dreams can be terrible things,” she said. “Nightmares from which there can seem to be no escape. It is where your darkest thoughts come into hazy focus, your greatest fears. We pulled you into a dream, wizard, to see what you were made of. But with you came something we did not expect.”
“Your knight,” Leslie said. “He was not meant to be there. We did not call for him.”
I frowned. “Then how…?”
“Kevin spoke of your broken heart,” Pat said. “That he had never seen anything like it before. And you have said it was mended, piece by piece. Do you trust it? Do you trust the man who holds it in his hands?”
“Always,” I said without hesitation.
“It is why he was there,” Leslie said. “Because in the end, you wished for him so desperately that your magic superseded ours. A wizard and his cornerstone is one of the most powerful bonds in the world. He came because you wished it so, whether you knew it or not.”
“And then I shoved him off a cliff,” I said with a wince. “That might not have been the best first impression.”
Pat snorted. “That was… unexpected. But you did what you did to keep him safe. You are a curious creature, Sam of Wilds. I did not expect you to be as you are.”
“I get that a lot,” I admitted. “Both good and bad.”
“You’ve seen much in your short life.”
“That might be an understatement.”
“And you have a long road ahead.”
“Again, understatement.”
“What do you hope to achieve?” Pat asked. “When all is said and done, what is it that you wish for most?”
And wasn’t that the biggest question of all. Because in the end, no one, not Randall, not Morgan, not Vadoma, not the star dragon, no one had asked me that. I’d been told this is how things were. This is how things were going to be. This is what I had to do to ensure everyone I loved was safe. This is your destiny, Sam. This is your path, Sam. This is the reason you were born, Sam.
What did I want? Out of everything, what did I wish for most?
“To do everything I can,” I said, “that in the end, no matter what happens, I’ll be able to look back on my life and say I did my best. That my family can be proud to call me their own because what I did mattered.” I shook my head. “The gods can say what they wish. They can set me on a path. Carve the course of my life into stone. But stone crumbles. It can fall into dust and swirl like snow in a storm. I make the choices. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not. But even when I make mistakes, it’s because I thought I was doing the right thing.”
And I knew Morgan and Randall had thought the same thing. They’d hidden the truth from me because they’d thought it was for the best. They had the hopes of foolish men with foolish hearts. Theirs had been broken. They had tried to keep mine whole. I was done with my anger. It left me as if it hadn’t ever been there at all. Of course it wasn’t that easy. There was much to make up for.
But first, there were other matters to attend to.
The dragons’ eyes began to glow blue.
Magic started to build around me.
There was green and gold.
And blue.
I felt the moment my eyes began to shine in response. It was warm and sweet, and it felt right in the way Zero had in his dome in the middle of the desert. In the way that Kevin had when he’d curled around me atop his keep, the heavens shining down upon us, the dragon whispering to me that he’d never seen one look at another the way Ryan looked at me.
One day I’ll believe you.
And one day, maybe I could be there to tell you I told you so.
I was caught then, in a swirl of magic and snow, the feathered dragons looming above me, and the moment they slid into place, the moment I felt their power align with my own, I knew I could take it from them. I could take it for myself and lay waste to my enemies. I could rip their dragon minds from their dragon bodies and take their strength and become more powerful than the world could possibly imagine.
What will you choose, wizard?
It was intoxicating— My feet left the ground as I rose into the air.
It would be so easy.
It would be so easy.
And it would be mine.
All I had to do was take it.
I could—
I let it go.
I OPENED my eyes.
I stood in the middle of a grassy field.
The stars were like ice in the night sky.
Two feathered dragons slept peacefully around me. Their breaths were slow and even.
David’s Dragon shone above.
He said, “You continue to impress me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because that brings me so much joy.”
“I should hope it does.”
“Apparently stars don’t understand sarcasm.”
“Oh, I believe we do. We get enough of it from you.”
Which, okay. Fair point. “He said I wasn’t ready.”
“Are you?”
“That’s not annoying or anything.”
“What?”
“Answering a question with a question.”
“I wasn’t aware you asked a question.”
I scowled up at the stars. “Am I ready?”
“Are you? Oh, I see what you mean now.” The constellation shifted. “My bad.”
“You’re the worst god ever.”
“I wasn’t aware you knew that many to make the comparison.”
“Bag of assholes,” I muttered. “I’m ready.”
“Are you?”
“You dick. I got four of them. What’s one more?”
“Careful, Sam of Wilds. You cannot gauge future success by past triumphs.”
“Of course you can,” I said. “That’s kind of how it works.”
“Mistakes can still be made.”
“I won’t,” I said, suddenly confident. “I’ve gotten this far. It’s only one more. I can do this.” I grinned rakishly up at the star dragon. “I’m Sam of Wilds.”
“That’s what concerns me. Wizard, you would do well to remember that the higher you are, the farther you have to fall.”
“I won’t,” I said. “You’ll see. I’ve got this. And then I’ll be ready. For him. For the end.”
“I told you before, Sam of Wilds. There will be sacrifice—”
“Don’t,” I said, standing and glaring up at the sky. “Unless you tell me how to stop it, then don’t. You say you’re impartial. You speak in nothing but vague bullshit. Nothing is going to happen to any of them. Not while I still draw breath. You will not take them from me.”
“Sometimes,” the star dragon said sadly, “I do not have a choice.”
Then the sky exploded and I—
III: The Dark Woods
Chapter 17: The King of the Dark Woods Fairies (Gonna Go for a Mustache Ride)
SAM.
Sam.
Sam!
SAM!
I opened my eyes.
“Oooh, I am so Sam right now!”
“Yes, yes you are! I am just railing into you. Giving it to you like a boss.”
“Oh, yes! Boss me around. I’m your slutty secretary that will get you coffee and then bend over your desk!”
“Wait. Wait. Wait. Are we role-playing right now? Because I need to know if we’re role-playing right now. If we are, you have to give me time to get into character. I can’t just—”