by T. J. Klune
“Oh,” Lartin said. “Well, shit.”
“Wow,” Gary said. “If that’s how well you think things through, I can’t wait to hear your plans for world domination. I’m sure they’ll be positively riveting. And well thought-out.”
“Burn,” I said. “You just got so burned. You’ll have scars from all the burn.”
“I’ll buy a cart!” Lartin exclaimed. “And a horse.” Then he went back to being a complete douche. “Or I’ll just keep the unicorn here and he can pull it for me.”
“Oh, bitch, say that to my face, bitch,” Gary snarled. “Come on. I dare you.”
“I wouldn’t say that to his face,” I said. “Even if he dared you.”
But Lartin the Dark Leaf was an idiot. The wizarding clan of the Darks usually were. So it was no surprise when Lartin stepped forward and said, “You’ll pull my cart. Horse.”
That’s when the nine foot half-giant named Tiggy roared and burst into the cave.
“Sam,” he rumbled. “Gary.”
“You’re so dead,” Gary said to Lartin. “You don’t even know. Tiggy! Smash him!”
And since Tiggy loved Gary so, he moved forward to do just that.
“Wait, Tiggy,” I said.
And since Tiggy loved me so, he waited.
Gary looked murderous. “Sam,” he growled. And if you’ve never heard a unicorn growl, let me tell you: it’s delightfully frightening.
“Your angry face is awesome,” I said to him.
He preened. “I’ve been practicing. Watch.” He glared at me, eyes narrowing, teeth bared. “See?”
“I got chills,” I assured him.
“I smash now?” Tiggy asked.
Of course, Lartin tried to mutter off some defensive spell. Little green lights arced around Tiggy before they dissipated.
“You’re not a very good wizard, are you?” I said. “Giant, dude. Their blood is like the antimagic. Come on. You learn that on your first day of wizard training!”
“I smash now.” Tiggy looked very pissed off. He usually was when his two favorite people in the entire world were captured. Come to think of it, maybe it did happen a lot.
“Just hold on, Tiggy,” I said.
“No, don’t hold on,” Gary said. “I want to see his insides on the outside.”
“So bloodthirsty,” I said in awe.
“I would prefer there to not be any smashing,” Lartin said. “If I’m being totally honest.”
But Tiggy was done with the situation, so he smashed Lartin the Dark Leaf. Multiple times. Into a variety of objects. Like rocks. And cave walls. It wasn’t a very pretty sight. What with the blood and stuff. And the brains.
When the smashing was complete, Tiggy came over and snapped the vermilion roots that bound me and my magic. As soon as the roots fell, I felt a surge of green and gold and yellow flow through me. “So much better,” I muttered.
“Always get caught,” Tiggy grumbled as he tended to the roots at Gary’s feet.
“Now that’s not specifically true. I’ll be honest, though. I’ve grown as a person this time around and will pledge to avoid capture in the future.” That was not the complete truth. I would most likely get captured again. It was sort of my thing.
“Who’s my big strong man,” Gary cooed at Tiggy.
Tiggy blushed. “Me.”
“Yes, you are. I knew you’d come and rescue me. I was like a princess waiting for her hero!”
“So pretty,” Tiggy said, running his big hand gently through Gary’s mane. “My pretty princess.”
“Can we leave the cave now?” I asked. “You guys can flirt later.”
“It’s okay, Tiggy,” Gary said. “Sam’s just dealing with some issues. He recently came to the realization that he’s a twenty-year-old virgin prude.”
“I am not!”
“I told him about Octavio,” Gary said. “Sam couldn’t even say the word sex without stuttering.”
“Sam never gonna find a boyfriend,” Tiggy said. “No one gonna take his flower.”
“Don’t talk about my flower!” I snapped at them as I checked the satchel on Gary’s back. The wormwood was still wrapped safely where I’d left it. So at least this wasn’t a complete loss. “And I don’t need a boyfriend. I am an independent man with priorities. I’m going to be the youngest wizard to pass his apprenticeship, and then I’m going to do great things. Big things!”
“Oh?” Gary said. And he grinned evilly. Evil unicorn smiles are the sign of wicked things about to be said. I hated them. “So I suppose a certain knight doesn’t factor into those priorities whatsoever? Like maybe you want to be the youngest full wizard just to impress him?”
“You shut your whore mouth,” I growled, trying to not sigh dreamily at the thought of bright green eyes and a beautiful smile. And wavy blond hair. Like, the waviest. I wanted to touch it with my face. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh,” Gary said.
“You want mouth full of knight,” Tiggy said. “Knight take your flower and eat it.”
“Tiggy!” I shouted, scandalized.
“Such a prude,” Gary muttered.
“I hate you both. So much.”
And to prove my point, I stormed out of the cave.
But they obviously didn’t believe me, because they followed me.
Like I knew they would. I’m lucky that way, I guess.
CHAPTER 2
Please Don’t Make My Nipples Explode
ONCE UPON a time in the Kingdom of Verania, there was a kickass boy born in the slums of the City of Lockes. His parents were hardworking, and at times, life could be difficult, but they were alive and had all their teeth. Which was very important.
The mother had been a gypsy, olive-skinned and beautiful. She could smile sweetly to hide the steel in her eyes. Once, a man had tried to rob her in an alley. The man no longer has testicles.
“What happened to his testicles?” the boy asked when he was four.
The mother grinned. “I threw them in the sewer.”
The father groaned. “I’m glad our child knows that story now.”
The father hailed from the north, deep in the mountains where snow fell year-round and people wore unfashionable things made from yak skin. He had auburn hair and a deep laugh that sounded like thunder in the fall.
“I’m not wearing that,” the boy said when he was seven.
The father sighed. “It’s what my people wear. It’ll keep you warm.” He tried to push the weird furry coat thing at the boy again.
The boy said, “It’s August. And I don’t want to look like I’m the poster child for what happens when a human has relations with a yak. Come one, come all! See the incredible yak-child!”
“Sam,” the father growled. It was a low sound that always made the boy smile.
“Sam,” the mother laughed. It was a husky sound that always made the boy happy.
The mother was Rosemary. The father was Joshua.
They lived in the slums, yes. They didn’t have much, yes. But they were happy.
We were. I swear it on all I have.
My mother worked at a little flower shop at the end of a broken brick road, singing as she tended to the wildflowers in a language that sounded almost like birds trilling. She told me once that the songs were old, older than Verania. Her mamia, the grandmother of her clan, had taught her the songs under the stars in a field far from the City of Lockes.
My father worked at the lumber mill. He was a big man, able to carry a three-hundred pound Veranian oak log over his shoulder without breaking a sweat. He told me once that in the north, there were beautiful trees made of ice and that could be shaped into the most wondrous things. Like dragons and horses and swords with the sharpest blades. At night when he couldn’t sleep, he would carve little trinkets. A heart for my mother. A raccoon for me. Little toys for the children in the slums who never had such things.
Like most other people around us, my parents couldn’t afford
to send me to the schools, so they taught me themselves at night, bringing home old and outdated books on math and art and history. After I started learning at the age of four, it only took three months to point out mistakes in what was supposed to be factual.
I didn’t miss the smile my parents exchanged over my head.
We were happy.
I had friends. Well, sort of. I had acquaintances. Boys and girls that ran with me through the streets. The castle guards knew my name, and sometimes they’d give me bread and meat and I’d share it with the others. Sometimes I’d accidentally do something illegal like setting a cart on fire that belonged to a rich man who’d hit a boy named Eric because he hadn’t gotten out of his way quick enough. The guards would look the other way because surely little Sam would never do anything like that, no matter how loudly the man protested. As a matter of fact, the guards said, Sam was spotted on the other side of town when the cart was supposedly set aflame, so it couldn’t have been him.
Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that it’d been one of the guards that’d given me the accelerant I’d used to start the fire. They didn’t like assholes, either.
Everything was good.
Sure, I had dreams of something bigger. I’d lie in my bed at night, listening to the slow, deep breaths of sleep my parents took in their bed across the room. I’d stare out my window, and if I’d crick my head just right, I’d be able to see stars above the stone buildings across the way.
And didn’t I wish upon them?
Of course I did.
That’s how these stories go.
I wished for many things, like children do.
I wished for money.
I wished for the biggest turkey leg.
I wished for a bow and arrow.
I wished for my parents to be happy, always.
I wished to find that one person who would understand me forever.
I wished to become something great.
I wished to become someone special.
I wished that people would remember my name because I would be good and kind.
I wished for Derek Michen to kiss my face off (that one was when I was nine years old and was absolutely positive he was the love of my life. He did kiss me two weeks later, but then he also kissed Jessica, David, Megan, Rhonda, and Robert. Derek turned out to be a bit of a whore).
At no point did I wish to be magic.
Sure, I had gypsy blood in me.
Sure, I had northern blood in me.
But fuck all if I knew anything about magic.
So imagine my surprise when I was running from a group of older kids after having recovered a bag of cloth they’d stolen from Mrs. Kirkpatrick (a kindly old woman who lived next door and had even less than we did), when I turned down a blind alley that dead-ended into a brick wall and promptly whirled around and caused said group of teenage miscreants to turn to stone.
Awkward. To say the least.
“Oh crap,” I said as I saw there was nowhere else to run. I was eleven years old, still scrawny as all fuck. I had great big expressive dark eyes that I’d inherited from my mother that I’d used to get myself out of more than a few situations, but I didn’t think the bigger kids would appreciate my full-on patented Look-How-Precious-Sam-Is look. Adults were charmed by it. Girls swooned over it. Some boys did too.
Stupid motherfucking teenagers who stole from old ladies weren’t affected by it at all.
“He’s down here!” one of them shouted.
I heard the beat of many feet pounding the ground behind me, and I thought to myself, Well, I really wish this wasn’t happening. So I turned around, ready to accept my fate (most likely either a severe ass-kicking or murder; either way it would hurt like a bitch). As I turned, something flickered across my vision, a bright green something that reminded me of spring grass and trees swaying in a summer breeze. There was this sharp pull deep in my brain and I took a stuttering step backward, and that’s when the group of eleven teenage assholes turned to stone with a loud crack that shook the alley and caused pigeons to screech and take flight.
I said, “Hey.”
Like, full-on stone. Their leader, a delightfully repugnant fifteen-year-old named Nox, stood in the front, his face frozen into an angry snarl, paused midstep, left arm stretched out front, right arm swung back.
I said, “Huh.”
Of course, people had heard the commotion and poured into the alley.
I said quite loudly, “I didn’t do it!”
One of the castle guards that I knew quite well said, “Of course you’re here, Sam,” followed by what sounded like a long-suffering sigh that dragged out for at least thirty seconds because he was a big fat drama queen.
“I don’t even know what happened!”
“Uh-huh. You don’t know what caused these dickholes to be turned to stone after they were chasing you.”
“Honest!” And then I gave him the Look-How-Precious-Sam-Is at one-hundred-percent wattage and he melted right in front of me.
“That’s not going to work this time,” he said.
Well, almost melted.
“Shit,” I muttered, dropping the look. “Pete, I swear, I don’t even know what happened here. They stole stuff from Mrs. Kirkpatrick and she’s old and it’s not fair because she’s so nice and I just wanted to help her.” I sniffled as I tried to stop the tears from falling. I was very scared because I thought I was going to get arrested and thrown into the dungeon where I’d have to eat rats and poop in a bucket.
“Ah hell, Sam. Don’t cry.”
When someone tells you not to cry, it’s pretty much impossible not to cry.
So I cried and Pete wrapped an arm around me as we waited for my parents to get there.
They looked scared as they came down the alley, but they hugged me close as I cried all over them, telling them I was sorry and to please not let me poop in buckets because I somehow turned teenage dickbags to stone.
“I’m not even going to pretend to know what you’re talking about,” my dad said as he kissed my forehead, because he was so awesome.
“I won’t make you poop in a bucket,” my mother said as she ran her fingers through my hair, because she was so cool.
That’s when Morgan came.
I didn’t know who he was at first. Sure I’d heard of him. He was the King’s Wizard and he could do stuff like create fire tornadoes and make your face melt off. Rather, that’s what the kids in the slums told each other because we were epic like that. I think I’d even started the rumor that he could make your nipples explode with a single thought. Judging by the looks of sheer horror on the others’ faces, it was one of those things that sounded better in my head rather than out loud. Most things often did.
So I didn’t know who he was, not by looks alone.
All I saw was a man with a black beard that came down to his chest and an epic pile of hair that stuck out all over the place. He was tall, almost as tall as my dad, but whip thin, with long, elegant fingers that traced over the boys of stone in the alley. He was wearing a long black robe and pointy pink shoes that were just killer. I couldn’t even begin to guess how old he was. Maybe thirty. Or three hundred. When you’re eleven, anyone older is just old.
When he spoke, his voice was light and melodious, almost like he was singing his words rather than speaking them. It was glorious. “This certainly is a surprise.”
“Is that—” my mom whispered to my dad.
“I think—” my dad breathed back.
“I like your shoes,” I said. Because I did. They were pink and pointed, and I wanted a pair like that so bad.
My mom and dad groaned.
Morgan looked at me and cocked his head. “Thank you, little one. I made them out of the tears of a succubus and a lightning-struck tree stump I found under the Winter Moon. I like your face.”
I grinned. “Thank you, big one. My parents made it when they got married. I was a honeymoon baby, whatever that means.”
My parents ch
oked on either side of me.
Morgan chuckled and said, “Very well put. Are these your parents?”
“Yes,” I said proudly. “This is my mother, Rosemary. You can call her Rose. And this is my dad Josh.”
“Surname?”
“Haversford, sir,” my father said.
Morgan looked at my mother. “And you, dearie? Surely you haven’t always been Rosemary Haversford.”
My mother shook her head. “It is a name I adopted when I chose to leave the clan and marry my love. I was born Dika Tshilaba.”
“Ah,” Morgan said. “I see. Your mamia was Vadoma, then.”
My mother looked surprised. “Yes, my lord. You’ve heard of her?”
He gave a mysterious smile. “Perhaps.”
And because the conversation was boring and I had questions, I said, “So. Anyway. How many tears did it take from the succubus to make the shoes? Like six? Or fifty? How did you make the succubus cry? What’s a succubus? When is the Winter Moon? Is that tomorrow? Can I make those shoes tomorrow? I do like the pink. I would look so awesome if I had those. Everyone would be like, hey, Sam! Where’d you get those shoes? And I’d be all like, don’t you wish you knew?”
My dad said, “Sam,” in that tone of voice that said I was in so much trouble when we got home.
I glared at him and rolled my eyes.
Morgan laughed, and my parents were shocked. “Feisty one, isn’t he?”
“My apologies, Lord Morgan,” my father said in a rush.
“Lord?” I said loudly. “You’re a lord?”
He put a finger in Nox’s stone mouth to touch his tongue. “I suppose I am.”
I gaped at him. “You’re Morgan of Shadows!”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Oh, sweet mercy!” I cried at him. “Please don’t make my nipples explode!”
His bushy eyebrows went almost up to his hairline. “I wish I could say I’ve never heard that one before, but strangely enough, that’s likely the sixth time someone has said that to me in the last week.”
“Wow,” I said excitedly. “I started that rumor like three weeks ago! And you’ve heard it six times already? I am awesome.”