Lady Tina looked down at the table. Vadoma stared straight at me.
“I don’t… like. The word. Destiny. Because it means I don’t have a choice. That my decisions don’t matter. That everything I’ve done in my life has been preordained by higher powers, moving me like a chess piece across a board. That who I am, what I’ve become, was set in stone long before I was even a conscious thought.
“Stone, though. It crumbles. A friend taught me that. And Morgan was doing what he thought was right—and maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn’t, but it doesn’t matter in the end. I was angry with him. For a long time. For what I thought was a betrayal. But it’s different now. Because regardless of his actions, regardless of what he kept from me, I know one thing to be true with all of my heart: Morgan of Shadows loved me. He loved me and wanted nothing more than to keep me safe. Much like he loved all of you. Much like he loved Verania.”
I sniffled as I wiped my eyes. “He’s gone now. And not because of the actions of anyone here. Not because of anything you did, or I did, or—just.”
Lady Tina’s shoulders were shaking.
“But because of his brother.”
The crowd sighed.
“Because of Randall’s cornerstone.”
They bowed their heads. All except for Justin and Ryan, who stood side by side, watching me with fierce pride.
I took a deep breath. “It was Myrin. He took Morgan from me. From us. He took our homes and our towns and our cities. He took our friends and our families. Once, he was good. And kind. He was loved. But he let himself become mired in shadow and chose a path that led to the darkening of his magic. He was stopped, once. For a time. But he returned and took and took and took from all of us. And I ran.”
Everyone was silent.
“He took Morgan from me. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I tried. Please. You have to believe me when I say I tried. I have this… heart, this lighting-struck heart that beats in my chest, and I would have gladly given it up if it meant Morgan could still be… here. With all of you. That day, in that house, Myrin took from all of us, but I could only focus on what he took from me. My cornerstone was terribly wounded, I’d been betrayed by people I didn’t expect, Randall was gone, and Morgan was….
“I ran. Even if it had been expected of me, even if the only way I could have fulfilled my destiny was to enter the Dark Woods with the dragons of Verania, I still had a choice. I could have stayed. And fought by your side. Done what I could to make sure you knew that it would be okay again one day. Maybe if I’d stayed, things would be different. We’d be… and the King would still—”
Movement caught my eye. A man pushing his way through the crowd toward the front, but not to me.
“And for that, I’m sorry.”
The people of Camp HaveHeart breathed as one.
“I’m sorry I left you to deal with this on your own. The King asked me to be his Wizard, and I took his hand, a promise made that I did not keep. I should have done more. I should have been better. I should have—okay, you know what, dude? I can totally see what you’re about to do, so you might as well stop right now. I’m being super emotional up here, pouring out my heart and shit, and I’m not in the mood for whatever shenanigans you’re about to try. And notice how I said try. Because if you take one more step, I’m going to kick your motherfucking ass like you wouldn’t believe.”
The crowd was startled, looking around wildly.
The knights tensed in front of the stage.
Ryan pulled his sword, and Tiggy cracked his knuckles.
Gary started raining glitter, and a curl of smoke twisted up from Kevin’s nostrils.
The green and gold were there, stronger than ever.
The man didn’t hesitate. I saw the glitter of a knife as he started running toward Justin.
I sighed even as people began to shout.
I raised my hand, palm out, and snapped it closed into a fist.
It was done without the use of the ancient tongue.
Effortless, really.
The ground around the man shifted and broke apart, rock rising from the earth and wrapping around his arms and legs even before he could take another step. It was over in a matter of seconds, people shouting out in warning as they moved away from him.
Ryan was snarling as he pointed his sword at the man’s throat, Justin being pulled away by my parents and surrounded by the knights, their weapons drawn.
“Godsdammit,” I said. “You know how hard that was to be all profound? I mean, I was pouring out my soul on this stage. I don’t even like public speaking! And the Prince had just called me his best friend 5eva, and I was going to fucking wreck my boyfriend later, and it was going to be a good night for all of us—”
“Maybe not the time,” Ryan said through gritted teeth, the tip of his sword pressing against the soft skin of the would-be assassin’s throat. Only the man’s head and throat were exposed, the rest of him covered in rock.
“Right,” I said. “Not the time. Still, if I ever have to give a rousing speech again, I’m always going to think about how this guy ruined my first time.”
“He’s so self-aware,” Gary said to Tiggy. “I taught him that.”
“Very proud,” Tiggy growled, punching a fist into his other hand threateningly.
“Myrin knows you’ve returned,” the man gasped defiantly. “There is nothing you can do to stop him. He is expecting you now. You will not win. The time of the Darks has come, and we are—”
Ryan sighed. “Did you really have to say that? Gods, you all have to know by now how he feels about—”
“Monologuing,” I exclaimed. “You just tried to kill the Prince, and you’re monologuing? Oh my gods, I am going to explode your fucking nipples so hard, you don’t even know. You want the Flora Bora Slam, motherfucker? Because you got it. Gary! Tiggy! Hold me back before I kill every part of his body!”
“But you’re all the way up on the stage,” Gary said. “And we’re down here. You know how I feel about stairs, Sam. Beings with four legs shouldn’t have to try and navigate stairs—”
“Godsdammit,” I muttered. “Rage momentum ruined. Thanks, Gary.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Everyone! Everyone. I’m so sorry my speech was ruined. It was going to end awesome and you were all going to feel bad about turning against me and then we were all probably going to group hug and stuff and maybe cry on each other’s shoulders. Then I would have said I was on the road to forgiving all of you or whatever. It would have been totes awesome and would have gone down in the annals—”
“Heh,” Kevin said. “I’d go down in your annals—”
“Kevin. Shut. Up. I’m trying to be serious!”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Dammit, now I forgot what I was say—wait. Hold on. Group hugs, crying, forgiving, me being wonderful, annals—okay! And then I would have announced we have a plan—sort of—to take back what’s ours, and blah, blah, blah, we would have ended the night in semidrunken revelry, and everything would have been just swell.” I glared at the man in stone. “But then this guy had to ruin that. Dude, I am not very happy with you right now.”
“In the name of Myrin!” he shrieked. “We will return for—”
I snapped my fingers, and the stone crawled up, covering his mouth. I thought about raising it to his nose, but I didn’t.
“Okay!” I said, clapping my hands. “Who’s ready to kick some ass and take some names? I know I am. Going to kick some ass… and take. Um. Names. Or. Whatever. You know what? Doesn’t even matter. I’m here, I’m queer, and I am super pissed off. It’s time to take back what’s ours.”
“Yaaaayyy?” someone in the audience said.
“See if I ever try to give a stirring speech again,” I muttered. “You all suck balls.”
III: The City of Lockes
Chapter 9: Always Go to Confession Before a Gangbang
“YEAH, I’M not going in there,” I said. “Nope. I refuse. Ab
solutely not. Do you need me to say it in Elvish? Glaarka-darkk-fuggit. Or however their language sounds. I don’t know, I can’t speak Elvish.”
“We don’t have another choice,” Justin said, sounding annoyed. And in a remarkably deeper voice too, seeing as how I’d magically modified his face and voice so now he resembled a rotund balding man who maybe smoked too many cigars. He wasn’t very happy with me for that. “The sewers are the only way into the City of Lockes. We talked about this. It’s part of the plan.”
“Well maybe we need a new plan,” I retorted. “Do you smell that? That is shit. That smell is actual shit. I don’t want to walk around in someone else’s fecal matter. I already spent a year in the woods having to poop into holes and then cover it up.”
“That was probably too much information,” Ryan said, stroking his chest-length beard as he was wont to do since I’d grown it for him. His skin was almost as dark as mine now, and while I thought I should have changed him a little more, I couldn’t convince myself to get rid of dat ass or dem biceps, so that was as far as it went. “And there are walkways in the sewers. We’re not actually going to be walking in… anything.”
“But the smell—”
“Maybe you should have stayed back at camp with the others since you’re so incapable,” Lady Tina said snidely. Or rather, Dark wizard Tim said, because she was my greatest creation. We’d decided that only four of us would enter the City of Lockes, with the others remaining in Camp HaveHeart. Gary, Tiggy, and Kevin hadn’t been pleased being left behind, but I couldn’t transmogrify them into something that wouldn’t give us away. And it seemed easier to keep the number of people involved low just in case things went sour.
I’d argued against Justin going, saying he needed to stay with our people, to be the face of the Resistance in case something happened to the rest of us. He’d shot that down instantly. It was his father we were rescuing, and if I thought he’d stay behind and let the rest of us muck it up, then I was mistaken. He’d been rather fiery about the whole thing, and I was impressed.
For almost thirty seconds.
Because then he wondered aloud if I should be the one to stay behind, given that Myrin had already been informed of my return. I’d responded that Myrin wouldn’t expect me to come to the City of Lockes so soon. I didn’t really know if that were true, because I didn’t really know how Myrin thought, but I tried to put myself in his position. I wouldn’t expect me either.
Justin just rolled his eyes.
But when it was decided that Lady Tina would be the fourth member of our party, both Ryan and Justin in agreement, I did the only thing I could.
I made her boyish.
Er. Mannish.
She was totally a dude.
She had a scraggly beard and a terrible bowl haircut and looked as if she wouldn’t be out of place at St. Bernadine’s Home for the Criminally Insane and Wayward Adults, a psychiatric facility in one of the lower wards of the City of Lockes. She still sounded like Lady Tina, but through the filter of a rough, cracking voice. Also, she had an egregious overbite, because I was an asshole and she was my mortal enemy.
I looked amazing, of course. My beard was long and luxuriant, my hair settling on my shoulders like the great mane of some fierce and wild creature. I made myself a foot taller and my chest a little bigger, and grinned at myself in the mirror at the sight of the new and improved Sam of Dragons.
The others weren’t very pleased with me.
I’d told them that my magic reacted to how they were on the inside.
Which was total bullshit, but still. The horrified looks on Justin’s and Lady Tina’s faces had been so worth it.
We were all as dressed down as possible, given that we’d be ditching the clothes after coming out of the sewers. The smell would most likely cling to the fabrics and would be a dead giveaway. Each of us carried a pack with our disguises and assorted weapons. Ryan, Tina, and Justin all had their swords at their sides, the brutish amateurs.
But we were virtually unrecognizable.
All thanks to me.
Which is why I felt that I was well within my rights to not want to wallow in poop.
“We could just stroll through the front gate,” I muttered. “It’d be easier, and I wouldn’t have to potentially throw up a lot.”
“I told you,” Justin said. “Entering the City of Lockes now requires identification papers that we don’t have. We don’t even know what they look like since they change biweekly, so we couldn’t have you forge any. This way, we get into the City undetected.”
“And what if we’re stopped inside?” I asked.
“I suppose we’ll see if any of the time in the woods made you capable of running faster.”
“Hey! I can run fast. Like, so fast. Do you know how many times I’ve had to run for my life?”
“This isn’t going to go well,” Lady Tina muttered.
“Then you can stay behind,” I snapped at her.
“Sam,” Ryan warned.
I groaned. “Sorry. I’m still not used to standing near her without making plans to punch her in the tit. It’s hard to shift my worldview in such a short amount of time.”
“Try harder,” Justin said, peering down into the sewer grate. “Because it’s getting closer to dawn. We need to be holed up in the slums by the time the sun rises so we can rest for entering the castle later tonight. Nut up, Haversford, and get your ass into the godsdamn sewer before I stab you in the throat.”
“Am I allowed to be turned-on by that?” I whispered to Ryan.
“No,” he whispered back.
“Crap. Okay.”
“If you two are done whispering sweet nothings to each other, could we please get this grate off now?” Justin asked.
Oh. Right. That was me. “Stand back,” I told them. “My magic is a powerful thing, and I wouldn’t want two-thirds of you caught in the backlash.”
Lady Tina rolled her eyes as she backed away.
I looked up through the trees to see the outline of the City of Lockes in the dark, torches flickering along the wall surrounding the City. In the distance, I could see the flags atop Castle Lockes waving in the cool breeze. This was as close as I’d been to my city since the night I’d headed into the forest to face the Great White. I was surprised at the lump in my throat at the sight of it, that I could miss a place almost as much as I’d missed the people.
But there wasn’t time for that now.
We had a king to save.
I pushed out the barest amounts of green and gold, and the grate crumbled into dust that sloughed to the ground.
“Gods,” Justin said quietly. “That’s… could you have done that before?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. It’s… easier to manage now. I could probably always do these things, but it could have easily grown beyond my control. People could have gotten hurt who didn’t deserve it.”
“Ungh,” Ryan said, watching me with heated eyes.
“Does that happen every time?” Lady Tina asked Justin.
“Yes. And even when we have time for it, it’s still awful.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind going first,” I said cheerfully. “Especially since you’re all gung ho about going into the Shit Tunnels.”
“You capitalized that, didn’t you,” Justin said, peering into the sewer.
“Sure did. That’s how you know it’s gonna suck.”
“Fine,” Justin said, squaring his shoulders. “I am the Grand Prince of Verania. We are going to save my father, our King. I will lead the way.”
“Into the Shit Tunnels. Just say it. Say into the Shit Tunnels.”
“Into the Shit Tunnels,” he snapped at me and then disappeared into the sewer. Lady Tina huffed out an annoyed breath, hitched up her robes, and followed the Prince.
I whirled on Ryan while we had a moment alone, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and kissed him fiercely. He grunted in surprise, but his mouth opened immediately, his tongue in my mouth, hot and slick. I ground my hips
against him as his hands found their way to my ass and pulled. I gasped into his mouth as I tightened my grip in his hair.
“What was that for?” he asked as I pulled away, his eyes hooded and dark.
“That was for saying no to sex and making sure we got a good night’s sleep last night like an asshole. Don’t you know anything about dangerous missions? You’re supposed to have life-affirming sex before you go.”
He rolled his eyes, but if the bulge in his trousers meant anything, he was not unaffected. “We’re going to be okay,” he said. “As long as we stick together. You don’t go doing anything stupid or half-cocked. Understand?”
I scoffed. “When have I ever done anything stupid or—”
“All the time. Like, everything you do. It’s literally who you are.”
“I’m not—”
“Promise me, Sam.” He’d lost the shine of lust in his eyes. Dammit. He was being serious, and I couldn’t blow him or blow him off. “You promise me that you’re gonna stay by my side.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
He jostled me a little. “Sam.”
“I promise.”
He searched my face, trying to decide if I was being truthful. I gave him the ol’ Look-How-Precious-Sam-Is eyes, and he nodded slowly. “We’ll have time. After.” And he kissed me, swift and sweet, and disappeared into the sewer.
Before I followed, I looked up at the night sky above, the stars twinkling brightly. “You better take care of them,” I said quietly. “No matter what. Justin and Ryan. Lady Tina, if you have time. Nothing can happen to them, or you won’t like what I’ll do.”
I thought maybe David’s Dragon flashed a little brighter, but it could have just been what I wanted to see.