by T. J. Klune
There was a small lever on the side, and I prayed to the gods that it was all I needed to know about how to open it up. I should have paid more attention to it, or at least tried to fiddle with it while we were in Meridian City or in Castle Freesias, but I hadn’t even thought about it, sure it was just a way that Ruv was trying to get in my good graces.
“I hope you know what you’re doing!” Randall shouted at me, his beard trailing over his shoulder behind us.
“Me too! Er, I mean, I totally do!”
“What? I don’t know who you think you are—”
Somehow, even as dragons chased after us on a snowy mountaintop far from home, even as we were most certainly running toward our inevitable doom, I managed to grin rakishly at Randall. “I’m Sam of Wilds.”
And then I curled my arm across my chest before swinging it out in a flat arc, thumb pushing down the lever before I hurled the device as hard as I could.
The sand sailboard snapped open, the wooden slats locking together, the board hitting the ground as the sail itself climbed the thin pole that rose up. It slid forward right up to the edge of the cliff and began to tip, and no, no, no, we weren’t close enough, it was going to go over without us and we would be trapped. I thought green and gold (not specifically but abstractly, like the idea of what they could be), and even though the ancient words weren’t there, the intent of them was, and a rock broke through the surface of the snow on the edge of the cliff, hit the bottom of the board, and knocked it back away from the cliff.
“Oh hell,” I heard Randall pant next to me. “You can’t be serious about this!”
I winked at him, even though my skin was clammy and I felt like vomiting. Undoubtedly, this was probably going to be the stupidest thing I’d ever done, and if we survived, Randall was most likely going to kill me.
But then I felt the heat of the dragons behind me, and I knew we had no other choice.
Besides. If the gods were certain I would be the one to face Myrin in some ridiculous final showdown with monologuing, sass, and probably a lot of my clothes billowing awesomely, then they would make sure I survived.
Right before we reached the sand sailboard, I shot a glance back over my shoulder and—
They were right there, maws open, fangs glistening, an orange glow bursting from the backs of their throats—
It happened like this:
I grabbed Randall’s hand.
I jumped the remaining distance.
My feet hit the board, a jarring impact that caused me to overcorrect.
I felt it slipping out from under me and—
Randall landed behind me, knocking me forward with the momentum of the sand sailboard.
A sharp wind hit the sail, causing it to bow outward as it filled, the ends flapping.
The front end of the board slid over the edge of the cliff.
There was a moment, a singular, breathtaking moment, when the board tilted forward, then backward, then forward, and I couldn’t even see the bottom of the mountain, given that it was hidden in the clouds. All I saw was the steep decline, dotted with trees and rocks and snow, snow, snow.
Randall breathed in my ear, “Just so you know, I hate you so much for what’s about to happen.”
My throat was dry, my eyes were bulging from my head, and I said, “Yeah, I pretty much hate myself right about now. No worries.”
The dragons reached for us and—
We tipped over the edge of the cliff.
Randall slammed into my back, pressing me against the mast as we began to descend, the board sliding over the top of the snow. The wind roared around us as we picked up a preposterous amount of speed. I might have screamed.
No. Check that.
I screamed.
The board bounced roughly underneath our feet, vibrating up through our legs. It jarred my injured shoulder, but I ignored the pain.
“They’re coming!” Randall shouted in my ear.
I looked up behind us in time to see both dragons crest the edge of the cliff, suspended briefly in air before they folded their wings at their sides and began to plummet toward us, smoke trailing from their nostrils.
WIZARD
WE SEE YOU
YOU CANNOT ESCAPE
I STILL THINK YOU’RE DEAR BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS
“Motherfuckers!” I screamed back at them, seriously sick of their shit.
“Shoulder!” Randall cried.
Wow, Randall sure was thoughtful in the face of so much crazy. “Thank you for being concerned! But we can worry about my shoulder later, honestly, Randall, now is not the time—”
He grabbed my face and turned me forward. “Boulder,” he hissed in my ear.
Right before the line of clouds, there was, in fact, a rather large boulder that we were heading straight toward.
“Oh shit,” I said succinctly.
I tightened my grip on the mast and made sure my feet were flat against the board. I leaned to the right, pushing down with my feet while pivoting my hips. The board slid to the right, starting to turn sideways until Randall leaned with me. The back end corrected, and we shot past the boulder, missing it by what felt like a breath.
We hit the line of clouds, the air around us wet and cold. The snow sprayed onto my face, stinging my eyes. I squinted against it, trying to make sure the path ahead was clear.
We came upon a section of the path that curved up the side of the mountain. The impact was jarring, the board briefly sailing through empty air before it slammed back onto the ground.
The pole shook violently, and the vibrations rose through my arm, jerking my body back and forth. I almost bit my tongue clean through, trying to push back the waves of pain that rolled through my injured shoulder. I felt Randall behind me, reaching around my waist to hold on to the pole right under my hands, securing me in place.
“I never knew you cared so much!” I shouted, grinning back at him as he pressed close against me.
“Trust me, that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he growled back, eyes glinting.
And that’s when it all went to shit.
I had time to think that maybe, just maybe, the gods weren’t exactly on my side. I’d been through some shit, that was a given, but here we were, sliding down the side of a mountain on a flimsy wooden board, two gigantic feathered lesbian dragons chasing after us, the greatest wizard in the known world technically spooning me and snarling in my ear.
And before I could decide if maybe I needed to make some changes in order to avoid situations like this in the future, we burst through the other side of the clouds just in time to see that the section of the mountain we were headed toward sloped up into a ramp.
Because fuck. My. Life.
“This is going to suck so hard,” I whispered fervently. Then, “Hang on to something!”
“I am hanging on to something!” Randall screamed back at me.
“Oh! Right! Well! For what it’s worth, this has been pretty cool!”
“You and I most certainly have differing definitions of cool!”
I wasn’t going to argue with that, and not because I didn’t want to.
I just didn’t have time.
There was no way to avoid it. We wouldn’t be able to move in time.
I felt Randall’s magic building behind me, and we were going to motherfucking fly—
We hit the rocky slope.
The board creaked and groaned.
There was a moment when we hit the bottom of the slope, when we stopped moving down and started moving up, that my stomach dropped right to my feet, and my bowels gave very serious consideration at just letting go right then and there.
And then we sailed off the ramp into nothing.
I was not proud of the noise that came from me.
It was loud.
And high-pitched.
And sounded like a rather large animal was dying.
The dragons snarled in triumph behind us.
But then there was another dragon right
in front of us, and I had time to say, “Oh fucking shit—” before great black wings opened, claws reaching and grabbing us out of midair, snapping the sail on the board, pole breaking in two.
And then Kevin roared.
Chapter 13: Reunited and It Feels So Good
I GAPED up at him, the snow swirling around us. I didn’t think I’d ever been so glad to see anyone in my life. “Kevin! How the hell did you—”
But then the two feathered dragons were above us, and Kevin said, “Ladies, ladies, ladies, maybe we could just talk about this—” but their claws were extended, reaching, ready to tear, and Kevin said, “See? This is why I suck cock, because fuck this noise,” and he tilted backward, folding his wings at his sides. I was hit with a dizzying sense of vertigo as he fell, and we were pointed directly at the feather dragons, but then he completed his backflip and twisted upright, clutching us close to his chest.
“I am so badass,” Kevin crowed as we tore down the side of the mountain. “Look at me doing flips and shit.”
“What is even happening right now!” I screamed up at him.
“What does it look like? I’m saving your ass!”
“Oh! That’s… good. You know what? Keep doing that!”
“Why, thank you for your permission, pretty. I will expect you to put your gratitude all over my body once this is done and over with.”
“We get out of this, I just might!” Then I turned to Randall, who was squished up against me, his face near mine. I lowered my voice and said, “I’m not going to do that because I’m not into interspecies relationships. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Then I kissed Randall on the tip of his bulbous nose because I was so happy to be alive.
“You and I are going to have so many words after this,” he warned me, sounding extraordinarily grumpy.
I was giddy for many, many reasons. “All the words,” I agreed.
“What did you do to piss these two off?” Kevin asked, swerving to the right to avoid a gout of flame.
“I existed,” I said.
“Ah, that’ll do it. You certainly seem to garner that type of reaction.”
“It’s my face.”
“It’s a nice face.”
“Why thank you—wait a godsdamn minute. How are you even here right now? Your wing is”—I glanced over at said appendage—“apparently just fine, what the hell. It healed?”
“Good as new,” Kevin said cheerfully, as if we weren’t being chased. He folded his wings again and flew through a large stone arch that rose from the side of the mountain. “I was hoping it would leave a scar, because everyone knows scars are sexy, but alas, it was for naught! My body is apparently too amazing and healed right over.”
“Your body is amazing! I can’t believe—wait. You cannot take that as me hitting on you—”
“Too late,” Kevin said with a leer. “I am going to do you so gross later, you don’t even know.”
Randall wasn’t amused. “Can we not talk about how you’re going to take Sam carnally?”
“What the fuck? He is not going to take me anything, much less carnally—”
“Sam!” Randall barked. “There are other things that are a little more important than your sexual deviancy at this very moment!”
“I take it back!” I shouted up at Kevin. “I am so not even happy to see you right now!”
“You’re such a liar—oh look! There’s the castle. We can talk about this later.”
He was right. No, not about us talking about it later, because we would never talk about this again, but the fact that Castle Freesias was now in sight.
I craned my neck so I could look behind us. The feathered dragons were still there, hurtling toward us.
“Do you have plan?” I shouted up at Kevin.
“Do I have a plan?” Kevin scoffed. “Do I have a plan!”
“What! It was a fair question!”
“You’re right. My apologies. But you should know that no, I have no plan whatsoever.”
“We’re all gonna die,” I moaned. “I am in pain and we’re all going to die. Worst adventure ever.”
Kevin’s wings billowed open, catching an updraft, slowing our descent. The drop in speed was rough, Kevin’s grip on us tightening briefly. I cried out as he squeezed my shoulder, and he looked down in fear as he lowered us toward the ground. “What happened?” he asked, sounding horrified.
“Not you,” I ground out. “Happened before. Shoulder hurts.”
“I think it’s dislocated,” Randall said. “We’ll have to deal with it later.”
And that’s when I heard it. Voices shouting below us. It took a moment for me to recognize them. No, it hadn’t been that long, but I’d been through a ton of shit over the past few weeks, so I thought I could be forgiven for not understanding what I was hearing at first.
But when I did?
Oh, when I did, it was possible I’d never felt relief more palpable than I did at that moment.
I heard Tiggy first, of course. My dear, sweet, lovely giant. His voice was the loudest of all, and he was saying, “Look! Sam! Hi, Sam! Hi! Hi!”
And Gary was screeching right along with him, “—and if you ever leave me behind like that again, Kevin, I swear to the gods we will find out exactly what roasted dragon balls taste like! Nobody puts Gary in the corner!”
“So you’ve been shouting,” Prince Justin said irritably. “For the last ten minutes.”
But it was the last person standing there that I focused on immediately.
And how my magic sang at the sight of him.
My breath caught in my throat at the worried look on his face.
“Hey,” I managed to say as Kevin set us gently on the ground. The pieces of the ruined sand sailboard collapsed around us, falling onto the snow. I was on my knees, Randall behind me, hand on my shoulder, but I barely felt him there.
Because a knight was rushing toward me, sliding onto his knees and crashing into me. His sword fell to the ground as his arms went around me, his face into my neck. He held me tightly, and I ignored the flash of pain in my shoulder, not caring how bad I probably smelled, how tired I was, or even how I could hear two pissed-off dragons snarling somewhere above us. All that mattered in that moment was the fact that I was with my cornerstone again.
“Sam,” Ryan Foxheart breathed, his lips against my neck.
“Hey,” I said, blinking away the burn in my eyes. “You’re here. How are—”
He pulled away, cupping my face in his big hands. “Later,” he said, leaning forward and kissing me sweetly, his beard scraping against my—
Hold up. I pulled away, staring at him. “You have a beard.” And he really did, a dirty-blond thing that was full on his face. I went from zero to let’s fuck in the space of a heartbeat.
He rolled his eyes, but he still smiled. “That’s what you’re focusing on right now. Really.”
“How is it you got even hotter because of a beard?” I demanded. “You grew facial hair, and now I want to give you a facial!”
Everyone groaned. Except Kevin. Kevin said, “Dibs on sitting in the front row splash zone for that performance.”
“I’m so glad the gang is back together with Kevin picking up right where he left off,” Justin said dryly. “And as much as I want to continue to listen to the drivel that I’m sure is coming—”
“Ha!” Gary said. “Coming. You just made that dirty. I’m rubbing off on you.”
“We could make that a thing,” Kevin said, eyeing Justin up and down. “Justin and I used to be almost lovers.”
“Thank you for that profound contribution,” Justin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And we were not almost anything. As I was saying, we might have other matters to deal with right now. Namely two gigantic pissed-off dragons that are circling above us like vultures.”
As if they could hear the Prince, the feathered dragons shrieked in the distance, flying high above us, looking ready to attack at any moment.
“I tried
flirting with them,” Kevin said to Gary. “It didn’t work. They must have been able to see I’m a fan of penises somehow.”
“You know, when I agreed to a trial reconciliation, I thought part of the agreement was that you wouldn’t flirt with everything that moved,” Gary snapped at him. “Even though you couldn’t talk, I assumed that’s what you agreed to since I decided to pay attention to you again.”
“It wasn’t real,” Kevin said, dropping his head on the ground. “No, baby. Look at me. Look at me with those bright, beautiful eyes. There they are. Yes. So pretty you are. Baby, listen. Listen to your boy. I was just trying to distract them so they wouldn’t go after Sam and Randall! I don’t even like other dragons. You know that. Besides, why would I look anywhere else when you’re all I need? Baby, baby, baby, have I told you that your mane looks pretty today? Because it does. Just like it does every day. You are the fire that burns deep within me.”
“You owe me, Haversford,” Ryan muttered in my ear. “So bad.”
“Baby,” I teased. “Look at me. Look at me with those bright, beautiful—” I started to laugh as he shoved me away, but his hand hit my bad shoulder and I shouted in pain instead. My eyes watered as I hunched over, shying away from any further touch.
“Sam?” Ryan asked, sounding uncertain, making an aborted gesture as he reached for me.
“He’s been hurt,” Randall said, standing above me. “His shoulder has been dislocated. It’ll need to be set.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “The dragons did this?”
“No,” I said, wincing. “Not technically. Hit a wall after they started chasing us.”
“I’m going to kill them,” Ryan growled, reaching for his sword.
“Dude,” I said. “You being all protective like that with a beard is my new sexuality. Just so you know.”
“And you,” Gary said, glaring at me over Ryan. “You can bet that you and I are going to have a good, long discussion about almost dying without even inviting me.”
“Me too,” Tiggy said. “Not cool, Sam.”