by TJ Klune
Ruv glanced between Ryan and me, brow furrowing, but the look was gone before I could even place it.
“Your phuro is here, is she not?” asked the King.
“She is,” Ruv said. “But it is customary for the Wolf to enter first to avoid any… complications.”
“And what complications might that be?”
The answering smile was razor sharp. “We are not always welcome when we leave the desert. Precautions must be taken. You understand.”
“There is nothing to fear here,” the King said lightly. “Your phuro is safe.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ruv said, glancing at me again. “The power in this room is satarma. Like a star to be wished upon.”
“But your phuro has already entered,” Morgan said, speaking for the first time to Ruv. “Has she not?”
“Old one,” Ruv said with another bow. “You are a legend amongst my people.”
“A legend would imply I don’t exist.”
“And yet here you are,” Ruv said.
“I notice you didn’t answer my question.”
Ruv grinned. It really was a nice smile, if one cared about such things. “I did not.”
“He’s sassy,” Gary hissed at me. “We need to keep him.”
“He’s not that sassy,” Ryan muttered.
“Sam, can you tell the Knight Commander to calm the fuck down? He’s harshing my new boy-crush buzz and I won’t tolerate it a moment more.”
Because Gary was a unicorn and my best friend, I said, “Ryan, stop harshing Gary’s buzz.”
“My boy-crush buzz, Sam, get it right. It is so hard to find good help these days.”
“I good help,” Tiggy said.
“The best, really,” Gary agreed.
“Stop harshing his boy-crush buzz,” I said to Ryan.
Ryan scowled.
Ruv looked amused. “I see we are well met. She will be pleased by all of you, as I am. The phuro will enter.”
He turned on his heel and walked back through the Great Doors.
Chapter 5: Vadoma Tshilaba
“OKAY,” GARY said as soon as he disappeared. “I feel like we should have real talk right now. Because seriously? Dat. Ass. Do you know how many coins you could bounce off of that thing?”
“I have many coins in my horde,” Kevin said. “Perhaps we should invite him to see.”
“I don’t like him,” Ryan said. “He’s suspicious. Coming in here all… suspiciously.”
Justin snorted. “Yeah, because that’s the reason.”
“What?” Ryan asked, eyes narrowed. “There’s no other reason. I don’t need another reason. There was suspiciousness. That should be enough reason for everyone!”
“Uh-huh,” Justin said, sounding bored. “And it had absolutely nothing to do with how he was like a starving man and Sam was a four-course meal. Which, honestly. What is with people and their incredibly bad taste in this kingdom? I know attraction is subjective, but come on.”
“Hey!”
“You have a strange eyebrow-to-face ratio,” Justin said with a shrug.
“Feeling self-conscious now,” I said, covering my eyebrows with my hand and glaring at Gary. “You should have told me I had weirdness going on!”
Gary blinked. “I thought it was just something we didn’t talk about. You know, like how we don’t talk about your nose.”
“What’s wrong with my nose?”
“Eep,” Gary said.
“There’s nothing wrong with your nose,” Ryan said, pulling my hand away from my face. “And I like your bushy eyebrows.”
I gaped at him. “They’re not bushy.”
“Like my taint before I get waxed,” Gary said, which I ignored because oh my fucking gods, I could never go out in public again.
“He doesn’t want to sex me up,” I said to Ryan. “And even if he did, you know you’re my one and only. You remember when we shattered my virginity? Well, I latched on to you like a barnacle after that. I’m slowly sucking the life out of you, because I’m never going to let you go.”
“Do you ever get the feeling like we failed as parents?” Dad asked Mom.
“Either that or we did something really right,” Mom said. “I don’t know which is worse.”
“I don’t trust this,” the King said to Morgan. “He did seem to have eyes for Sam.”
Morgan hesitated. Then, “Sam’s… notoriety is well-known throughout Verania. We don’t rightly know what has fallen upon gypsy ears.”
“I’m taking that as a good thing,” I told Gary. “They call me Notorious S.A.M.”
“Nobody calls you that.”
“Well maybe they should start.”
“Look at you with your head in the sand,” Gary said. “Nice.”
“We should hear what she has to say,” Mom said. “She never does anything without reason. The fact that she left the desert is enough to raise concern.”
The King nodded but said nothing.
“It always seems to center around you, doesn’t it?” Justin said to me, though he didn’t sound particularly spiteful. “Funny how that works.”
I blanched. “I didn’t ask for it.” Though, I couldn’t disagree with him. Somehow, it always did seem to concern me somehow. And that wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed.
“No, I suppose you don’t. Yet here we are. Again.”
“We’ll still be best friends even if it is about me, right?”
“We’re not best friends now.”
“He’s in denial,” I said to Gary.
“Eh, keep chipping away,” Gary said. “Pretty soon we’ll be inviting him to our hair-braiding parties where we have pillow fights in our underwear and gossip about boys.”
“I don’t do that,” I said.
“Yes, you do,” Gary said. “We did it just last week, remember? And you talked about how curved Ryan’s—”
“—knee is when he bends it,” I said quickly (and smartly, if I do say so myself; it was genius). “That’s all. Nothing else.”
“Says the guy who went to fan clubs about Ryan in disguise,” Justin said.
“Oooh,” everyone else said.
Including Ryan.
That bitch.
But whatever witty rejoinder I might have had was cut off when my grandmother, Vadoma Tshilaba, entered the throne room.
It was like the air around me stuttered, and I saw offshoots of green and gold skirting along the edges of my vision. There was a buzzing sensation racing along my arms and curling around my fingertips that almost itched for me to take action, though what type of action, I didn’t know. Morgan dropped a hand on my shoulder and Ryan crowded against me, and it was enough to stop me from taking a step forward.
The woman that entered was the same as the apparition that had disappeared after accosting me in the hallway. She held her head high as she walked, standing tall and proud. Her hair fell upon her shoulders, streaked with the lightest of gray. She wore a blue dress that left her thin shoulders exposed. Around her waist was tied a tan shawl, the fringes of which hung down her sides. She wore a crown of sorts, more a headband than anything else. It was thin and gold, with little trinkets hanging down onto her forehead. She was old, as evidenced by the lines and wrinkles around her face, but she moved with an economic grace, almost like a waltz, counted and measured, nary a step out of place.
And she was magic, that much I could tell.
It absolutely poured off her in waves, as if her aura was shedding magenta and fuchsia and crimson. It was intrusive but not invasive. If anything, I felt the need to allow it to push against mine, even as Morgan’s hand tightened on my shoulder, as Ryan gripped my forearm. And again it was familiar, like I’d known it before, and the only thing I could think of that made any sense was that it was familial, that my magic recognized hers because of the blood that ran through both of us. I was not a gypsy, but I’d come from them. Northern blood had diluted the pureness, but only by a generation. I knew her because I’d de
scended from her. It didn’t feel like Morgan’s. Or Randall’s. It felt earthy somehow.
She stopped in the same place Ruv had, a respectable distance and to make herself seem like a nonthreat. I had the idea, though, that it didn’t matter how close or far away she was. If she wanted something to happen, it would.
Ruv stood at her right, standing on one foot, stretching the other out behind him, curving it up toward his back. He reached his arms behind his head and grabbed on to his foot. The muscles in his stomach clenched. His eyes never left me.
“I don’t know if that’s creepy or erotic,” Gary whispered to Kevin.
“Can’t things be both?” Kevin rumbled. “I mean, I’m scared, but I could easily get an erection if called upon to do so.”
Vadoma didn’t even acknowledge me. No. Her eyes were on her daughter.
Mom clutched Dad’s hand but didn’t speak.
After what felt like an age, this great and powerful woman named Vadoma said, “Dika. You have aged poorly. All that processed meat you’re eating, I’m sure.”
That… was not what I expected. I stared at my grandmother with wide eyes.
Mom, however, said, “Daj, Mother. It’s a wonder you’re still alive. Tell me. How does the cold dead thing you call a heart still beat in your chest?”
My jaw dropped.
“Oh my gods,” Gary whispered. “This shit is gonna get cray-cray. Tonight, on Castle Lockes, watch as families reunite as a crazy old lady with awesome taste in jewelry sees her daughter again for the first time. Will eyes be scratched out? Find out… on Castle Lockes.”
“Bah,” Vadoma said, seemingly dropping all pretense. She slouched a little, her forehead wrinkling even more. “My heart will stop when it needs to stop, little kanny.”
“I am not your little chicken,” Mom snapped, dropping my father’s hand and pushing her shoulders back.
“I made you,” Vadoma said. “You took forty-seven hours to come out of me because I wasn’t ready to let you go yet. You are little kanny until I say so.”
“I want to be her when I grow up,” Gary said to Tiggy. “Forty-seven hours? My gods, the thigh control alone.”
“Gary gonna have babies?” Tiggy asked.
“Probably,” Gary said. “But most likely not.”
“I be Uncle Tiggy,” the half-giant decided.
Vadoma turned her disdainful gaze to my father. “Still here, I see. Dilo. You got fat. You like processed meats, fat man? Probably put them in your fat mouth.”
Dad sighed. “Hi, Vadoma. Lovely to see you again, Vadoma. Thanks for coming, Vadoma.”
“Your parents ate sass for breakfast,” Gary said.
I was still gaping. Because out of all the things that I thought could happen, this was certainly not it.
“You come to posta, fat man,” Vadoma said with a nod. “I feed you good food.”
My dad snorted. “It hasn’t been long enough for me to forget the first time you invited me to a posta. You forgot to tell me that it was a sacrificial ritual and that I was to be the sacrifice.”
“Spoils surprise,” Vadoma said. “Very bad. Vadoma doesn’t like spoiling surprises.”
“Crazy lady sacrifice Josh-pop?” Tiggy asked Gary.
“It seems like,” Gary said, sounding impressed. “And she can pull off a shoulderless dress at her age? Sign me up for that shit right the fuck now. Gypsy queen who can sacrifice people when she wants to? That’s what I was born for.”
“I smash crazy lady?” Tiggy asked.
“If you do, make sure you don’t get blood on the clothes. You know how hard it is for me to find good vintage these days. Also, we’ll want to ensure that I’m installed somehow as the new figurehead. Queen Gary the Magnificent. No. Queen Gary the Supreme Magnificent.”
“I smash crazy lady,” Tiggy said, taking a step forward.
“I don’t know if that’s the best course of action,” Morgan said mildly.
Tiggy pouted. I could see Morgan struggling against that look to give the go-ahead to smash my grandmother. Greater men than anyone in this room had fallen to the power of Tiggy’s pout. But somehow, Morgan was able to withstand it.
The King stood from his throne and bowed toward Vadoma. “It is an honor.”
Vadoma said, “Of course it is. I am here, am I not?”
He didn’t even blink at that. “So you are. Though I must admit to being a bit mystified as to the reason for this visit.”
“You would be,” Vadoma said.
“How many of your people am I to be expecting in the City of Lockes?”
She snorted. “Just me and the boy.”
The King frowned. “I didn’t expect the phuro to travel without an entourage.”
She ignored his unspoken question. “Is that your son?”
“Yes,” the King said. “Prince—”
“Stand up,” Vadoma said to Justin.
Justin did.
“Hmm,” Vadoma said. “You’ll do.”
“For what?” Justin asked, sounding annoyed.
“You may sit back down,” Vadoma said. “I am done with you now.”
Justin scowled at her but did as he was told. Which honestly shocked the hell out of me, so much so that I still hadn’t been able to find my voice to say a single thing. I thought maybe that was a good thing and hoped that if I didn’t speak, she wouldn’t know that I was here and then would go back to the desert and not say anything about my eyebrows.
She moved on. “You there. Gigantic man. What is your name?”
Tiggy pointed at himself before looking around to see if there were any other gigantic men around him. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Speak now.”
“I Tiggy.”
“Tiggy.”
“Yes?”
“I like you,” Vadoma said. “You may live.”
Tiggy looked pleased and confused.
Vadoma turned to Gary.
“My Gypsy Queen,” Gary said, bowing low. “I am Gary the Supreme Magnificent. But you can just call me Gary. It is truly a blessing to be in—”
“I don’t like you at all,” Vadoma said.
Gary stood up from his bow slowly, eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re a unicorn, yes?”
“Yes?”
“Is that a question? You either are or aren’t. Make up your mind.”
“Yes. I am a unicorn.”
“Then I don’t like you,” Vadoma said.
“But—”
“No talking! Vadoma has no time for magical talking unicorns.”
The air started to sparkle around Gary.
“That’s never a good sign,” Kevin said. “Dear, maybe you should just calm down a little bit? You know how things turn out when you feel stabby.”
“Calm down?” Gary said dangerously. “Calm down? Oh, it is on now. Does Gary have to bring the motherfucking pain up in here?”
“Bah,” Vadoma said. “Useless creatures with your prancing and your fluffy tails. Dragon. You there. Dragon!”
“Me?” Kevin said. “Please don’t say anything that could damage my self-esteem. I am very softhearted, and I would hate to cry in front of you.”
“How long you been able to talk?” Vadoma asked.
Kevin looked confused, or as much as a dragon with his head shoved through a window could look confused. “I’ve always been able to talk. I do have a tongue, you know. Granted, I don’t use my tongue for just talking. Sometimes I use it for—”
“How long have you been able to talk so that others understand you?”
Kevin said, “Oh. Since Sam showed up at my keep and forced me to come along with him and leave my horde behind. He was really rather militant about it. All like, Dragon, you must leave your invaluable treasure behind because me and my tight little ass and whiny voice are telling you to do. I’m Sam of Wilds. I tell people to do things and expect them to do it because I’m a bossy fucking twink.”
“That’s not what happened!”
> “Close enough,” Gary said.
“I’m actually going to agree with Gary on that one,” Justin said.
“Betrayer!” I gasped. “After everything I’ve done for you!”
“And what is it exactly you’ve done for me?”
“Well, there was that… um. Hold on. I’ll think of something. Aha! There was that time that I—wait. No. That was a tree.”
Everyone turned to stare at me.
And if there is one thing that can be counted on, it’s that when I become the center of attention, I tend to make things awkward.
“I didn’t do it,” I blurted out.
Morgan face-palmed. I didn’t blame him.
“What didn’t you do?” Vadoma asked.
I swallowed thickly. “Whatever it is you think I did?”
“Good job in landing that one,” Gary said to Ryan. “All your choices have led you to this moment. Really makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“I make good choices,” Ryan said. He glanced at me. “Mostly.”
“Hmm,” Vadoma said.
Which, obviously, I didn’t know what to do with. Because when one hmms, one could be saying a multitude of things. For example:
Hmm: You are so cool, Sam.
Hmm: I had high hopes for meeting you. All of which have been exceeded.
Hmm: Your dimples are adorable and I don’t think your eyebrows are bushy.
Hmm: I am going to murder your face and then bathe in your blood as part of a gypsy ritual where I ask a goddess to damn you for all eternity while I curse everyone you love. Oh, and by the way, your eyebrows are terrible, and you are neither as adorable nor as quick-witted as you think you are. Most people hate you. Like I do. I hate you so much.
“What does that even mean?” I demanded of Vadoma.
“A little high-strung, isn’t he?” Vadoma asked.
“Yes,” everyone else in the room said.
Which, you know. Fuck them all.
“See if I get you guys any presents for your birthdays ever again,” I muttered.
“Sam, last year you painted me a picture of, and I quote, an accurate representation of what our friendship means to me,” Gary said.
“Which was fantastic,” I retorted. “Because everyone knows that homemade gifts are better than anything you can buy at the store.”