It wasn’t who I was.
It wasn’t what I wanted.
My magic wouldn’t allow that. Not now. Not when it was settled.
(Because it said ryanryanryanryanryan and I thought nothing of it.)
And in the blink of an eye, I raised my other hand toward the sky and my heart expelled Randall’s lightning and it roared above me, his magic mixed with my own, like we were in the middle of an electric storm unlike anything we’d ever seen. The sky flashed, and I thought maybe my eyes were glowing because it was here and it was everywhere and it was—
It was over.
The sun was shining.
The wind was warm.
I took a breath. Held it. Lowered my hand. Let it out slowly.
Found my center. How easy it seemed.
Opened my eyes.
The two wizards stood stock-still, Morgan’s jaw dropped and Randall’s gaze calculating.
“Well,” I said with a cocky grin. “That was enlightening. Get it. Get it. En-lightning. It’s funny. It’s funny! Come on. Bah.”
Gary groaned. “You don’t deserve to have your clothes billow if that’s what you come up with.”
“Why?” I asked. “Would you say it was… shocking?”
“The fact that you can do what you just did is diluted when you open your mouth.”
“Puns,” Tiggy said solemnly. “Poor Sam and his puns.”
I laughed because I felt light. I had done this on my own. I had done this without—
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” an angry voice demanded from behind me.
I whirled around.
Behind me stood almost an entire contingent of knights. Dozens of them.
The Eighth Battalion, from the crest on their armor and shields. Even Pete stood with them.
They all watched me with wide eyes.
They weren’t afraid, but it was close.
There isn’t much distance between curiosity and fear.
Except for Pete. Pete just looked fondly exasperated, like he usually did.
But Ryan, though.
He stood in front of his knights. He still looked tired, and I wondered what was stopping him from sleep. I wondered what dreams he was having. I wondered why I should even care.
He also looked scared and angry and filled with such resentment, like he’d seen something that was an affront to him, that he’d been personally attacked.
Except it wasn’t directed toward me.
No. Ryan Foxheart was glaring directly at Randall.
“Knight Commander,” Randall said. “How lovely to see you.”
“Did you just attack him?” Ryan asked, voice low. His hand was on the hilt of his sword still in the scabbard at his side. He took a step toward me, moving slightly to the left, keeping Randall in his sights. His knights behind him looked tense.
What a fucking moron.
Which is what I called myself when I felt my heart flutter slightly in my chest.
Because what.
“Of course not,” Randall said. “Sam will tell you the same thing when he’s done being speechless. Which, I’ll admit, is a good look on him. What you witnessed was a test. And I think he passed admirably. Don’t you, Morgan?”
“You meddle too much.” Morgan sighed.
Randall cackled loudly. “I regret nothing.”
I finally found my voice. “What are you doing here?” I said to Ryan. It hit me then that this was the first time I’d actually addressed him face-to-face in weeks, and I couldn’t even begin to grasp if it calmed me or pissed me off more.
Maybe both.
“I’m training my knights,” he said, still scowling at Randall.
“Figured you’d be busy,” I said, and that caused him to look at me.
“I have priorities,” he said. “Responsibilities.”
I grinned at him because I felt like being a bit of an asshole. “Oh. I’m aware of that. Don’t worry about explaining yourself to me.”
He frowned. “Why are you letting him hurt you?”
“Does it look like I’m hurt?”
“Your clothes are burned,” he said flatly.
I looked down and he was right. There were scorch marks on my chest, and the cloth burned away, revealing reddened skin underneath. “Huh,” I said. “Look at that.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Calm down. We’re training. Just like you. You don’t see me freaking out when someone comes at you with a sword.”
“You’d freak,” he said.
“Nope.”
“You’d freak,” he insisted.
“Hardly. You’re dashing and immaculate, after all.”
“That should not be a thing anymore,” he said as the knights behind him began to snicker. “I get enough grief for it already.”
“From your boys?” I asked. “Good. They should constantly give you shit. Wouldn’t want that head of yours to swell.” And, of course, since I hadn’t meant to make that dirty, it came out way dirty.
Ryan flushed slightly and said, “No. We certainly wouldn’t want that.”
“Oh my gods,” Randall muttered. “Are they always like this?”
“Constantly,” Gary said. “You don’t even know. It gets so much worse. They’ve always been like this.”
“How is it that no one told them before now?” Kevin asked. “I would have said something just to make them stop.”
“We’re standing right here,” I growled as Ryan flushed even further, causing me to feel things I didn’t want to feel toward him. Charitable things. Sexual things. I was supposed to be pissed off at him and hate him forever (okay, maybe not forever, but for at least four years until I woke up one morning between two attractive men who’d I’d had a threesome with the night before and realized that I had moved on in a spectacular fashion).
“We can see that,” Randall said. “Trust me, we can all see that. It makes you wonder where you went wrong.” He glanced over at Morgan.
“Don’t look at me,” Morgan said, raising his hands defensively. “It’s hard to train the obliviousness out of someone when apparently all they do is wallow in it.”
“I despise all of you,” I said.
“Hi, Sam!”
“Except for you, Tiggy. You’re still my favorite.”
Tiggy looked very smug at this.
“Maybe we should handle this,” Kevin told Gary.
“Please don’t,” I groaned.
Gary glared at Ryan. “Maybe we should.”
“Um,” Ryan said.
Kevin reared himself up to his full height. For someone who thought he was my pseudofather and yet still threatened to suck me off on a regular basis, he was an imposing figure. The knights took a step back as one as he bared his teeth.
“You hurt my boy,” Kevin rumbled. “Tell me why I shouldn’t eat you right now.”
“Not my real dad,” I reminded him.
“Make sure you don’t hurt your teeth on his armor,” Gary said. “It’ll be sort of like eating shellfish, I suppose. Crack the hard exterior to get to the meat.”
“So bloodthirsty,” I whispered in wonder.
“You wouldn’t eat me,” Ryan said.
“Wouldn’t I?” Kevin asked. “Do you really want to test that?”
Ryan looked back at the knights behind him, like he thought they’d back him up.
Pete shot that shit straight down. “I don’t expect you’ll find much help back here, boy,” he said. “Oh, excuse me. Knight Commander.”
Ryan looked utterly betrayed as the knights smirked at him. I knew I liked them for a reason.
“I raised him to be a strong man,” Kevin said, eyes narrowing. “To not take shit from anyone.”
“You didn’t raise me at all,” I said, though no one was really listening to me anymore.
“And then you came along,” Gary said. “And gave him a heart boner.”
“That’s embarrassing to
hear someone say out loud,” I said. “Though probably factually accurate.”
“You don’t touch his flower,” Tiggy growled, taking a menacing step toward Ryan. “Tiggy smash your delicious face and make it hamburger face.”
“Ye gods,” I said. “This is turning brutal.”
“You’re a cornerstone,” Morgan said. “Something revered and treasured. Except apparently you don’t know how to act like one.”
And that was all I could take. He wasn’t theirs to berate. He was mine. They were my family but this was Ryan. “Stop,” I said as Ryan took a step back.
Randall looked between the two of us. “All morning,” he said. “I’ve been electrocuting him. Giving him just a mere taste of what he is capable of. And then the moment you turn the corner and come onto the sparring fields, I could see the difference. I gave him everything I could. He shouldn’t have survived that.”
“Um,” I said. “Excuse me? I shouldn’t have what now?”
“That might have been a little much,” Morgan said. “You know. In case it hadn’t worked.”
“So little faith,” Randall said. “I believed in him. Mostly.”
No one seemed concerned that I was plotting their deaths out loud.
“Sam,” Ryan said quietly at my side. “Are you all right?”
I opened my mouth to respond (and say what, I didn’t know), but Randall beat me to it. “Away with you,” he said. “We can handle it from here. See to your training with your knights and leave us be.”
“But—”
“You have your priorities,” Morgan said, not unkindly. “Your responsibilities.”
“Your oath,” I said without meaning to, and Ryan looked away.
“I know what I am,” Ryan said. “I’m a cornerstone.”
“Yes,” Randall said. “You are. But you are not the only one. There will be others not bound as you are, and Sam will find them. Away, Knight Commander Foxheart. I won’t ask again.”
Ryan’s jaw tensed, but that was all. His gaze flickered to mine, and I held it because I wasn’t going to be hurt by him. I wasn’t going to show on my face that my insides were screaming for him to fight back. To rally against Morgan and Randall. Against Tiggy and Gary and Kevin. Against all of them. For me.
He didn’t, of course.
He called to his knights, even as some of them shook their heads. Pete looked annoyed, but he listened to his commander. They began to shuffle toward the far end of the sparring fields.
“You knew,” I said as I watched him go. “You saw him coming and knew how my magic would react.”
“Yes,” Randall said simply.
“It won’t be the same,” I admitted. “With anyone else.”
He looked sad at that. “I know. But it will be enough.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
Randall could have played the fool. He could have lied. Instead, he said, “Once.”
Morgan looked to speak, but Randall shook his head, once, cutting him off.
“And?” I asked.
“The man went Dark. He killed many people.”
“What happened to him?”
Randall sighed. “I destroyed him. I destroyed him because I could not save him. He made a choice, and like with any choice, there were consequences. I was one such consequence.”
“You’re worried about me. Aren’t you?” I didn’t know if that made me feel good or even worse.
“Not yet,” Randall said, and wonder of all wonders, he smiled at me. “You’ll know when I start to get worried.”
CHAPTER 27
Avoidance Is Key
to Maintaining a Happy Sam
“I’M WORRIED,” Randall said a few days later while I worked on my Grimoire in the labs.
And because I hadn’t stopped thinking about a single word he’d said, I freaked.
“I’m going Dark side, aren’t I?” I said, sounding rather breathless at the horror of it. “I’ll have to go live in the Dark Woods and be broody and start to monologue about everything. I’ll try and trap people and then tell them all about my plans, thus giving them the means to stop me with, but I won’t be able to do a thing about it because I won’t have a fuck left to give! I knew this was going to happen! Why, just last night, I thought about taking the last strawberry scone on the plate even though I knew Gary wanted it. I thought to myself just how delicious that scone would be and how I wanted it in my mouth, and even though Gary asked if he could have it, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that my best friend wanted the last strawberry scone because I wanted it myself. I had to forcibly stop myself from taking it and lording it over him. I wanted to rub it in his face that it was my godsdamn scone. And don’t get me started on my other devious plots that I have bouncing around in my head.”
I waited.
Randall didn’t say anything.
I sighed. “You’re supposed to ask me about my other devious plots.”
“I really don’t want to,” he said.
“Randall.”
“Sam. You’re monologuing.”
“Oh. My. Gods. It’s happening! It’s happening. Randall. Randall. You have to kill me. You have to kill me before I lose control and come up with a ridiculous plan for world domination that relies on way too many moving parts and a completely ludicrous deus ex machina twist that makes no sense to the overall arc.”
“So. Like. Your whole life. Basically.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you seriously getting sassy with me right now?”
“I would never call myself sassy, Sam,” he said.
“This is serious!”
“Sam. You’re not turning into a Dark wizard.”
“You just said you were worried!”
“I did. About what you’re going to wear to the wedding.”
“I… you… what?”
“And are you bringing a date? I think you should consider bringing a date.”
“What the fuck—?”
“You are representing the King and Morgan after all. And by extension, me as well. Can’t have you looking alone and slovenly. Why, the rumors alone in the Court would be egregious.”
“Randall!”
“Yes, Sam. You may not be aware, but I am standing right next to you. There is no need to shout.”
“I will turn your nose back into a dick, so help me gods.”
He frowned. “Would that make you feel better? About the whole wedding thing? If it would, I wouldn’t be adverse.”
I gaped at him.
“Just don’t make it so big this time,” he said. “It was hard to officiate the ceremony last time when it kept falling in my mouth.”
“I can honestly say that I wish I’d never heard those words coming from you,” I told him.
“Can you do this?” he asked me seriously.
“Of course I can,” I said. I even almost believed my own words. “I’m Sam of Wilds.”
AND I thought I could do it. I really did. I told myself that the key to a happy Sam would be to handle my problems the way they should be handled. Maturely and responsibly.
So the solution was obvious.
Avoidance. Lots and lots of avoidance.
Now, let it not be said that I never faced certain… complications… head on. Many parties can probably attest that I often found myself in the thick of things, with no real idea as to how I got there (see gay fairy marriages and how every Dark wizard in existence seemed to want me dead). If someone I cared about was in danger, I’d fight my hardest. If I saw injustice, I tried to correct it. I spoke for those who could not, I helped those who could not help themselves, and I tried to be an all-around good person on top of it, regardless of the minor slipups I had where I ventured into morally gray territory.
However, when things got personal?
Well. That changed everything.
I offer the following evidence:
Five-year-old Sam said, “Hi, Mary. Why are you looking at me weird?”
Seven-year-o
ld Mary said, “We should get married when we get older because I love you and you can stay at home and bake pie while I go to work at the mill, and I will have babies and you can raise them because my mom says that we don’t have to follow normal gender constructs.”
Five-year-old Sam said, “My mom is calling. I have to go. Bye. Oh, and I am moving to another country and if you see someone who looks like me after today, it’s not me, just someone who looks like me and is not really me and is probably my evil twin so just ignore him forever.”
And:
Nine-year-old Sam said, “We could be friends. I’ve always wanted to have friends.”
Ten-year-old Monique said, “We can start as friends, I guess. And then you can be my boyfriend. You must tell me I am pretty every day and kiss me on the lips and say things about how you like my eyes.”
Nine-year-old Sam said, “I don’t want friends that bad. My mom is calling. I am moving. Boy who looks like me is evil. Avoid at all costs.”
And:
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Who is that? Is that a new knight? What’s his name? Why does he look like my dreams?”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Oh, girl, you’ve got a good eye. That’s Ryan Foxheart. Pulled up from the King’s Army.”
Fifteen-year-old Sam breathed, “I want to put my face on his face.”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Um. What did you say?”
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Nothing! Nothing. Um. I have to go. Upstairs. To… touch. The walls.”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Why don’t you just go introduce yourself?”
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Good-bye.”
So. There’s a history there.
Granted, I’d never been in as deep as I was now.
Which made the avoidance that much more necessary.
And that much more ridiculously difficult.
Because it had been a very long time since there’d been a royal wedding. The King and the Queen had been twenty and seventeen, respectively, so the decades that had passed since then were a long drought for those that lived for such things.