The front of the throne room came into sharper focus.
The thrones had been removed. By whom, I didn’t know. It was a rarity when it happened. Usually only for funerals. And there were only funerals in the throne room when someone important had died.
I saw my parents first. They stood side by side, heads bowed. My mother’s shoulders shook. My father reached up and wiped his eyes.
“Mom? Dad?”
They didn’t look up.
A hornless unicorn stood next to them and a half-giant next to him. The half-giant held the unicorn’s head to his chest, running his hand through the mane.
“Gary,” I said. “Tiggy.”
Two wizards. Morgan and Randall.
A King. A Prince.
Anthony and Justin.
A fierce black dragon, his head through an open doorway that led to a garden.
“Kevin,” I said. “Guys, what’s going—”
“Stone crumbles,” another voice said, and I turned to see a snake dragon monster thing curled in the corner, tongue flicking out as it watched me. “You have to remember that, Sam. Stone crumbles.”
“Do not listen to him,” a voice whispered in my ear. “He is but a child. He knows not of what he speaks. I have seen it, Sam of Wilds, for I have the sight. You must come home. I will show you what you’re supposed to do. You have been chosen. It calls for you.”
“Vadoma,” I said as she walked past me. She was followed by a large wolf. My magic curled at the sight of him, pulling me toward him, but I resisted as they stood off to the side, like they were waiting to see what I would do.
I looked away from them. I didn’t trust them. Her more than the wolf.
And then—
He lay atop a stone dais, his armor shining brightly in the flickering candlelight. His skin was waxy and pale, his lips almost colorless. I could see the hint of teeth underneath them. His hair fell in waves across his head, dull and lifeless. A sword lay on his chest, his hands clasped around the hilt.
He was beautiful.
He was dead.
I said, “Ryan? You gotta get up. You gotta get up, okay? Please. Please get up.”
The candles went out all at once. Little wisps of smoke rose from each of them.
The weak light through the stained-glass windows began to fade, as if the sun was covered by an approaching storm.
And then I felt it. A sickness. Disease. A sense of wrongness.
I turned to look back the way I’d come.
A man stood at the Great Doors. He was obscured by shadows.
“I won’t let you do this,” I told him, though I didn’t know why. “I won’t let you have him. Or anyone.”
He laughed.
“The dragons will never be yours.”
“Here’s a hint, Sam,” he said, voice garbled like the shadows were spilling from his throat. “It’s never been about the dragons. I don’t want the dragons. Those are all yours, kiddo. Gather them. Don’t. I don’t give a fuck what you do with them. In the end, it won’t matter. For them. For you.”
“I will end you,” I said.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“I relish the thought. I told you once that I would rip the lighting-struck heart from your chest. Trust me when I say I’ll do just that.”
“You want to see just how lightning-struck my heart is?” I snarled at him. “You’ve got it.”
And I gathered my magic around me, the strength of it unfocused and wild because my cornerstone was dead, he was lying on a stone slab behind me, dead, and I would tear this world apart to make sure those responsible suffered as much as I had.
The dark man in shadows laughed, and I—
“HOLY SHIT,” I gasped, jerking awake.
“Oh, well fuck me up and call me a bitch, look who finally decided to wake up. Did you have a good nap up there, Sam? All comfortable and warm? Because let me tell you who is not comfortable and warm. That would be me.”
I groaned and rubbed my hand over my eyes, trying to chase away the last remnants of a dream that I struggled to remember.
I opened my eyes again, realized where I was, and promptly almost died.
“What the balls!” I shrieked as clouds flew lazily by me, the sky brightening around us as a new day dawned.
It was then I remembered I was on the back of a dragon, a knight’s arms around my waist, a half-giant’s arms around both of us, and an apparently grumpy unicorn clutched in the dragon’s claws, held tightly against his chest.
“Sam,” Gary said, “I am talking to you. The least you can do is acknowledge me when I’m bitching about something. You know I don’t like being ignored, and when I don’t like something, I tend to make sure everyone knows about it.”
“You don’t say,” Kevin growled. “Because you haven’t been going on and on like this since you woke up an hour ago.”
“Excuse you?” Gary said, outraged. “I’ll have you know that there are many people who would just die to be able to hear me speak about anything. Everyone knows that words from a unicorn are like being touched by the gods.”
“Bad-touched, maybe.”
“Do you want me to throw up all over you again? Because I can. I’ll make you look like a motherfucking rainbow by the time we land, you overgrown sex lizard.”
“This has been going on for quite a while,” Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart—the dreamiest dream that had ever been dreamed—whispered in my ear. “I never thought I’d say this, but I really wish they get over this and go back to having disgustingly inappropriate sex.”
“We’re doomed either way,” I muttered as Ryan kissed my cheek.
“So doomed,” Tiggy agreed from behind us. “Good sleep?”
I laid my head back on Ryan’s shoulder so I could look up at my friend. He grinned down at me. He had bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept a wink since we’d left the gypsy city of Mashallaha the day before. Knowing Tiggy, he probably stayed awake all night just to make sure Ryan and I didn’t fall off Kevin’s back in our sleep. We seemed secure, but I knew Tiggy probably wouldn’t have trusted even that, given that we’d never done something like this before. “It was okay,” I said, and Tiggy leaned down to press a wet and messy kiss against my forehead.
Leathery black wings rose up and then fell back down before they stretched wide, coasting on air. The wind whipped around us, but I’d grown used to the sound of it, so much so that I’d been able to at least get a few hours of sleep. I was stiff and sore, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that a dickbag named Myrin had kicked my ass until I’d essentially exploded the both of us by filling an entire lake with lightning. I could feel the scars from the lightning across my chest. The scars themselves didn’t hurt—not like most of the rest of me—but I was aware of them, the way they pulled against my skin every time I shifted my weight. The scars felt warm, almost like they were heated just underneath my chest. But even I could admit they made me look super badass, so I wasn’t too worried about them.
“How much longer?” I asked no one in particular.