by TJ Klune
An awkward silence followed while everyone shuffled their feet.
Then, “You have come to save us?” Todd asked, sounding hopeful.
I shrugged. “I guess.”
Todd blinked. “That’s… not as life-affirming as I expected it to be.”
“Oh. Sorry. Oh yes! I am so here to save you and stuff.”
“He hasn’t talked to humans in long time,” Kevin said. “He’s forgotten how. I haven’t, and I’ve noticed that no one has given me all of their things. Which means you have disappointed Lord Dragon. I might just have to consume your children.”
The crowd took a step back.
“I’m kidding,” Kevin said, rolling his eyes. “I mean, I will be kidding if you give me something shiny right now.”
“You’re not going to eat their children,” I told him.
“Right? Can you just imagine? I mean, it’d be population control, but still.”
“We’ll consider it if there’s not enough food for—”
“Sam? Sam?”
My breath caught in my chest at the sound of her voice. My eyes burned immediately.
She was pushing her way through the crowd. She didn’t look much different than she had before. Maybe her hair had a few more streaks of gray, and maybe the lines around her eyes were a little more pronounced, but none of that mattered. Because she was here, alive and well from what I could see, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Well, until I saw the large man following behind her, growling at everyone to get the hell out of his way, godsdammit, because that was his son.
People moved quite quickly after that.
My knees felt a little weak as they burst out of the crowd. My heart hurt, but it was a good pain.
My mother, Rosemary Haversford, didn’t slow down. She hurtled toward me, face wet, arms outstretched, and I was helpless at the sight of it. I whimpered, “Mom?” before she collided with me, almost knocking us both over. Her grip was strong as she threw her arms around my neck, my chin at the top of her head as she trembled against me. I felt her tears at my throat, but before I could do anything, my father, Joshua Haversford, picked us up in his great big arms and clutched us to his chest.
Once, when I was young, Morgan of Shadows came to our house in the slums to take us away from that life and offer us another.
That was the first time I’d seen my father cry.
He’d been a man about it, his eyes wet but tears refusing to fall. But his voice had been hoarse, and I remember watching him with such awe to know that my father, my hero, could cry just like everyone else.
And here, now, he did it again. Except he didn’t hold anything back this time. His cheek was pressed against the top of my head and he was sobbing, voice breaking as he said, “My boy, my boy, my boy.”
I could only hold on helplessly, part of me feeling like it was being stitched back together.
I was home.
I was home.
I was home.
THEY WOULDN’T let me go for the longest time.
Wait. Let me walk that back.
I wouldn’t let them go for the longest time.
When my father tried to pull away to get a better look at me, I made a wounded noise in the back of my throat and clutched the both of them tighter, refusing to allow any more distance between us than was absolutely necessary.
Along the edges of my vision and through the blur of tears, I could see the crowd dispersing at the request of Lady Tina and the Foxy Lady Brigade. She glanced back at me, a strange, almost soft look on her face, until she saw me watching her. She stiffened, scowled at me, then stalked away into Camp HaveHeart.
I would deal with her later.
Kevin had curled his tail around us protectively, keeping watch, growling at anyone who tried to get too near. I heard Katya and Brant whispering to each other as they walked into the camp, and I reminded myself to seek them out later and give them my thanks.
Eventually we were reduced to sniffling. I thought maybe I could compose myself enough to attempt conversation, and made to pull away.
I gave them a watery smile as I stepped back. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Mom said flatly, wiping her eyes. “Hey, he says. Joshua. Dear. Would you handle this, please? Because I don’t know that I’m able to say anything constructive at the moment.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. He crossed his arms over his considerable chest. “With pleasure. Sam. We love you more than anything else in this world. Also, you’re grounded.”
“Aw, I missed you guys too—I’m what?”
“Grounded, mister,” Mom said, sounding furious. “For the rest of your life. Which, since you’re apparently a wizard now, is probably going to go on for centuries.”
“Hey!”
“You’re lucky we’re in public,” Dad said. “Otherwise I’d be tanning your butt with my belt right now.”
“Ooh, kinky.”
“Sam!”
“You wouldn’t spank me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m a grown man, not some little—okay, the expression on your face is suggesting otherwise. That… is not what I expected in a homecoming.”
“You left a letter,” Dad said. “We woke up one morning, all of us, and you and Kevin were gone. And you think you can waltz back in here and not be in trouble? We didn’t raise you to be an idiot, so don’t start acting like one now.”
“Whoa,” I breathed. “Savage.”
“And we looked for you,” Mom said. “For months. Crawling through the Dark Woods and shouting your name. We only stopped when the Darks attacked Meridian City and it became unsafe. And now you show up here and don’t expect there to be consequences for your actions? Child, please. I brought you into this world. I can certainly take you out of it.”
“These are my parents,” I whispered fervently.
“Grounded,” Dad insisted.
“For life,” Mom added.
“I don’t want to,” I said, scowling at them. “I can do what I want. I am an adult. You don’t know me. You don’t know my life!”
Mom had to stop Dad from taking off his belt right then. It was a close thing, but he turned his gaze toward Kevin, who was watching us with interest. “Are you okay too?”
“I’m pretty much a god now, but other than that, I’m fine.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “Good to know nothing has changed.” She reached out and touched the side of his leg. “We’re happy you’re home too.”
He rumbled happily.
“You look like you’ve been on the road awhile,” Mom said as she stepped back, eyeing me with concern. “Let’s get you cleaned up. There’s much we have to discuss.”
WE HEADED deeper into Camp HaveHeart, people scurrying around us like every single one of them was late for something important. All of them openly stared at me as they passed us by, and it made my skin itch. It’d been a long time since I’d been around this many people, and I’d apparently gotten used to the quiet of the forest.
And if I looked closely enough, I could see their pale skin, the dark circles under their eyes. The way they all seemed skittish and exhausted, averting their gazes as soon as I caught them watching me. Like I was something to be feared. Something unknown. They looked at Kevin the same way as he trudged alongside us, leaving large footprints in the dirt.
In the City of Lockes, it wasn’t uncommon to walk down a main thoroughfare and see people of all economic statuses. Women in frilly dresses, men in cravats and wide-brimmed hats. Children in dirty trousers running and laughing, faces sticky with candy from a shop.
But here, now, the sky above was gray, and the look and mood of Camp HaveHeart matched.
The people were all similarly dressed in drab clothes that looked as if they’d been patched up or cobbled together hastily. They were clean, for the most part, but it was a uniform look I’d never seen before on the people of Verania. For once, everyone looked the same. Even the Foxy Lady Brigade hadn’t looked that much better than anyo
ne else. I hoped it rankled Lady Tina to no end.
The ground beneath our feet was dirt, with the barest patches of grass. There were puddles of standing water, as if the storm we’d traveled through had passed here a few days before.
I saw what looked to be signs of a battle fought here. Scorch marks along the sides of buildings, collapsed structures where workers were still sifting through debris. Against the side of what used to be one of the biggest fisheries there was a shadow mark shaped like a person, as if someone had been flash-fried against it. A bouquet of flowers lay on the ground underneath it, tied together with a white ribbon.
“It used to be worse,” Mom said as she watched me taking in everything. “We’re putting things back together.”
I nodded tightly.
“And now that you’re here, things will start looking up,” Dad said, patting my arm. “We knew you’d come back. It was just a matter of time. You’ll see. Everyone will be so thankful you’re here once word has spread.”
“Really. Then I suppose that’s just a remnant of times past?” I pointed to a poster hanging from an announcement board filled with missing person flyers and requests for services. It was in the upper left-hand corner, slightly weathered, as if it’d been there for a long time. I could only make out the top few sentences, but it was enough.
SAM OF WILDS HAS ABANDONED VERANIA!
HIS SHAME AT THE DEATH OF MORGAN OF SHADOWS WAS TOO GREAT!
THE WE-HATE-SAM-A-LOTS ARE HERE FOR YOU IN THIS TIME OF NEED!
THE NEXT MEETING IS SET FOR
The rest was faded away.
“I thought you’d gotten all of those,” Mom hissed at Dad.
“I thought I did too,” he said thoughtfully, running a hand over his beard. “Things aren’t like that anymore, Sam. They haven’t been for a long time.”
“Well, not completely,” Mom added hastily. “Once Lady Tina left the We-Hate-Sam-A-Lots—”
“Oh, great. Let’s talk about her some more.”
“—they sort of splintered off and tried to keep going on their own. I don’t know how well that went for them in the long run.”
“I ate a woman once,” Kevin said, flicking his tongue out at a group of people who scattered, screaming, arms flailing above their heads. “I have no problem in doing it again if the situation should arise. And no, I’m not being misogynistic. I would eat a man just the same if they tried to mess with Sam.”
“Your threat of murder is touching,” I told him honestly. “I like you.”
He grinned at me.
“It’s different now, Sam,” Dad said, not unkindly. “Obviously. You left, and Verania changed. But it wasn’t always for the worse. In the darkest times, a light will appear in the most unlikely of places. Lady Tina has worked hard to correct past mistakes. We’ve had the benefit of seeing it up close. Your last interaction with her was of betrayal. She knows what she did, and she has sought to redeem herself for that.”
“What she did,” I repeated incredulously. “Are you—you’re serious. Let me tell you what she did. She actively fought against everything I stood for, turned thousands of people against me, planned my demise on countless occasions, and was complicit in a plot that nearly killed Ryan and led to Morgan sacrificing himself for me. And you think she’s redeemed herself?”
“Sam—”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Not from you. You guys aren’t supposed to be like this. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “We have always been on your side. Every single day of your life. Even when you disappeared without a trace. We have the advantage of hindsight. You do not. There are things you don’t know, things that we’ve had to live through while you were gone. I’m not blaming you for anything, Sam. I would never do that. I knew in my heart you would return to us. You can’t expect—”
“Morgan died because of her,” I snapped, and before I could stop it, the ground cracked beneath my feet. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small event; the dirt and grass shifted and split twice the length of my foot. But it was built upon rage and a sense of loss, something the Great White had warned me about time and time again. Magic was supposed to come from a rational place of clear mind and thought. There was control in impassiveness, he’d told me. A wizard who could stay calm, cool, and collected was able to perform feats leaps and bounds above one who could not.
Morgan had been like that.
So had Randall, for the most part.
For the longest time after entering the Dark Woods and facing the Great White, I was a slave to my emotions. I felt nothing but rage and grief at all that I’d seen. At everything I’d lost. There were days when I could do no magic at all; still others when I had no control over the green and gold that leaked out of me and destroyed parts of the forest around me. My head had been pounding with—
I loved you, Sam of Wilds. Even then. Remember that, when the world seems dark.
—all that had been taken from me, what had been sacrificed to keep me alive because the gods had demanded it so. I blamed everyone but myself for the longest time. Trees caught fire; the earth shook beneath my feet as I screamed at the sky. I wanted revenge.
And I felt it then, didn’t I? The shadows curling at my feet.
Because it would have been so easy for me.
To reject the dragons.
To reject the gods.
To reject my cornerstone.
To forsake all of them, to submerge myself in the Dark. Randall had done it once, and he’d come back from it. I could do that too.
It didn’t help when I turned on myself, when I placed the blame squarely on my own shoulders, accepting my part in everything. If I hadn’t turned those boys to stone in the alley that day so long ago, if I hadn’t moved to the castle with Morgan when he’d asked, if I’d asked the questions so glaringly obvious in retrospect about the secrets kept from me, if I’d listened to Randall and Morgan when they tried to bestow their wisdom upon me, if I’d trusted them more, if I’d asked questions of a page as he led us toward a dark house in the City of Lockes, if I’d fought harder when Myrin took Morgan in hand and consumed him.
If. If. If.
“Sam,” a voice said near my ear.
There was a pulse in my head. Followed by another. And another. And another.
One was red, two were blue, another white.
The last was black and shiny and warm, not void of light but taking all the light in.
“Sam,” Kevin said again. “We’re here. We’re all here.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Okay.”
I took a breath and let it out slow, remembering what I’d been taught. Remembering what it meant to be a wizard.
I am not ruled by my emotions. I am a wizard. I have strength and power, and I will not use them against those that don’t deserve it.
The green and gold, sharper than they’d ever been in my life, began to fade.
I looked back up.
The people around us were staring again. Most of them looked fearful.
My parents did not.
They only looked worried. Not about what I could do. But about me.
I smiled weakly at them. “Still a work in progress. My bad.” I raised my voice to the people of Camp HaveHeart. “My bad, everyone! I promise I won’t accidentally light all of you on fire for putting up posters that are completely untrue and hurt my feelings. I can’t promise I won’t light some of you on fire for that—oh my gods, it was a joke. Why are you all running away?”
“You’ve forgotten how to be human,” Kevin said, sounding amused as people screamed and scattered. “Got a little bit of dragon in you.”
“Wow. What a nice thing to say. Thank you.”
“Maybe you’d like a little bit more dragon in you.”
“You are the most terrible thing I’ve ever known.”
“I know, isn’t it wonderful?”
“Okay?” Mom asked.
“Okay,�
� I said, though I wondered how much of that was true.
Dad had moved to the bulletin board to rip down the poster and shred it to pieces. “See?” he said. “It’s that simple.”
I told myself I believed him.
MOM AND Dad had a small house at the end of a row of hastily built ramshackle buildings. They’d been constructed when the Port had been taken back from the Darks, shortly after the fall of the City of Lockes. It was one of the first things done after Ryan and Justin had taken control, my parents told me.
And somehow Lady Tina had fit into those plans, and I was giving very serious consideration to investigating whether she had somehow cast a spell over them to do her bidding, much like she’d once accused me of. After all, Caleb had a level of magic that he shouldn’t have been capable of. Who was to say that Lady Tina hadn’t been given the same? I was somewhat lost in a fantasy of revealing her betrayal to the people of Camp HaveHeart and having them chant my name and throw me a party that Ryan and Justin and Tiggy and Gary would come back in the middle of. They would throw themselves at me and sob that I was never allowed to leave them again, and then I would braid Justin’s hair, squish Tiggy’s face, allow Gary to yell at me and then wail into my chest, and then fuck Ryan in the butt.
It was a good fantasy. Even if I doubted it would work out that way.
Mom pointed to a structure that looked almost like a barn to the right of her house. “That’s Gary and Tiggy’s. There are… a lot of bright colors. It looks like a going-out-of-business sale of a store that caters to drag queens. And about forty brooms.”
And my heart ached sweetly at the thought.
She pointed to a house to the left. “And that’s where Ryan and Justin stay.”
My heart didn’t ache so sweetly at that. “Excuse me?”
Dad blinked at the tone of my voice. “Ryan and the Prince live there.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks for clearing that up for me. Really. I appreciate it.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “In separate rooms, Sam. It helps to save space.”
“I’m sure. I bet they’re just the best roommates. Having late nights where they stay up talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. And maybe their gazes start to collide a little more, and the conversation peters out, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence, no. It’s tense and crackling, fraught with an unnamed desire, and they’ll cough awkwardly, both of them blushing because they’re virgins, and then Justin will stretch his lion face toward Ryan—”