A Wish Upon the Stars

by TJ Klune

  Where in these woods, you’ll face your fear,

  as time doth stretch toward a year.

  The boy from the slums said no.

  Later, after everything that followed, he wondered what would have changed had he agreed. If he’d gone with the Great White then. With a heart that had been shattered like glass, he would think it was his fault. That it all could have been avoided had he left with the Great White, had he done what had been asked of him.

  Fate can be a terrible thing.

  Caleb, the son of the truth-corn leader.

  Lady Tina, the wicked bitch of Lockes.

  Ruv. Yes, Sam should have seen that one coming.

  And when Ruv had taken Ryan’s own sword and thrust it into the knight’s chest?

  Sam knew pain unlike anything else he’d ever experienced.

  And it only got worse from there.

  Myrin.

  And Morgan.

  Do you remember the day I came to your house for the first time? You stood in your room with such wide eyes. I loved you, Sam of Wilds. Even then. Remember that when the world seems dark. Remember that you have always been loved. You need to run.

  Sam had known sacrifice then, hadn’t he?

  He’d known when he stood above the love of his life, the healers flitting around him like little birds, telling him in hushed voices that they’d done all they could and that it was up to the Knight Commander now.

  He’d known when he stood above a slab of stone, another love of his life looking pale and peaceful, even though death had taken him across the veil.

  He’d known then.

  What was required of him.

  What was expected.

  And so the boy from the slums, the wizard’s apprentice known as Sam of Wilds, made the only choice he could.

  He accepted his destiny.

  RYAN—

  You will wake up. I know you will. There’s no other choice. And when you do, I’m not going to be there. I’m sorry for that. You’re going to be mad. I don’t blame you. I’d be pissed at you if you were doing this to me.

  But I think, maybe, after the anger has faded just a little, I’d understand.

  I’m hoping you can do that for me.

  I don’t want to leave you.

  But I think this is bigger than just you or me.

  It’s my destiny.

  And I still hate that word so, so much.

  Because it’s not fair.

  I never wanted this.

  I never asked for this.

  But it was given to me, regardless.

  Morgan’s gone.

  Randall is missing.

  And if I’m going to have the strength I need to stop Myrin, then I need the Great White.

  And in order to get him on our side, I need to do what he’s asking of me.

  A year, Ryan. At the most.

  Hold on, okay?

  Just hold on.

  Because one day, and one day soon, I am going to come back for you.

  And I will never let you go.

  I love you.

  The world’s biggest Foxy Lady—

  Sam

  THE BOY from the slums, who had one day wished upon the stars to do something that mattered, went to the Dark Woods.

  Eventually he was joined by the Dark Woods fairies, their lights bright and warm in such an unforgiving forest.

  Are you sure about this, Sam?

  Yes.

  Then we shall guide you and stay with you until the end.

  And that was a promise kept.

  Sam of Wilds was a great many things. He was careless. Reckless. Inexperienced. Clever and smart, though probably too much by half.

  But he loved those he cared about, and fiercely so. He would do anything for them. Regardless of whatever else could be said about him, he loved deeply.

  Which is why he stood in front of the Great White for the third time, this creature who had mentored Randall, who was said to have built the entire world off his back.

  And agreed to the year.

  Because he loved with his whole heart.

  The others were there.

  Kevin.

  Pat.

  Leslie.

  Zero.

  The dragons of Verania, together at last.

  And as the Great White’s eyes began to glow with a powerful light, the dragons roared around Sam of Wilds, and he felt his magic explode.

  Eventually the light faded.

  The dragons and Sam were gone.

  The fairies disappeared into the trees, their lights flickering out.

  ONCE UPON a time, there lived a boy from the slums who had a destiny.

  One day he disappeared.

  And in a billowing white room, a Knight Commander named Ryan Foxheart opened his eyes and said, “Sam.”

  Verania held her breath.

  And then—

  The Darks descended, pouring out from the trees.

  Meridian City fell first.

  Then the villages.

  Then the Port.

  The City of Lockes was the last stronghold.

  But eventually it fell too.

  Six months after the disappearance of Sam of Wilds, the King was locked away in the dungeons and the Prince had gone underground with a knight, a hornless unicorn, and a half-giant at his side. They kept to the shadows, looking for ways to rise up. To fight back.

  And Myrin?

  Well.

  Myrin sat on the King’s throne in Castle Lockes.

  And as Verania fell before him, he smiled.

  I: The Dark Woods

  Chapter 1: Badass Mothercracker

  BUT.

  There was hope, wasn’t there?

  Because even when the world seems at its darkest, there is always a light in the distance, a beacon in the night, a quiet strength that would be called upon to—

  “Okay, Sam. You know I love you, right?”

  I blinked up at Kevin, who towered above me as we made our way through the Dark Woods. “Yeah. Sure. I know that. It’s very nice, and I appreciate it quite a bit.”

  “So don’t take this the wrong way.”

  “Wow. Nothing good ever follows someone saying something like that. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but here are reasons you suck and nobody likes you and you should die a horrible death.’”

  “If you want to talk about something to suck, might I suggest my penis?”

  “No. No, you may not. In fact, that might be the worst suggestion I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, then. I don’t feel bad about what I’m going to say next.”

  “Remember, I’m fragile, even though I don’t look like it.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

  “Shoring myself up emotionally.”

  “But you’ve been narrating yourself in the third person for the last hour, and you have yet to come up with an excuse to not get our asses handed to us when we get back home after ditching everyone for a year. I thought that was the entire point of this. That’s what you told me. So don’t take this the wrong way—”

  “Here it comes,” I whispered fervently.

  “—but you are not a beacon in the dark. And you are going to get so much shit once we get back to the others, given that Verania probably wouldn’t have fallen had we stayed. And I’m going to blame you. For everything.”

  I winced. “Yep, there it is. The pain. It hurts.”

  “Do you know what Gary’s going to do to us?” Kevin asked with a huff.

  “He’s never going to stop murdering us, that’s for damn sure. Did you know that unicorns can hold grudges for their entire lives? It’s a species trait. If you slight a unicorn, it can sit on it for decades before one day, fifty-seven years into the future, you suddenly find yourself trampled to death in what will officially be described as a workplace accident but will be outright murder. It would be marvelous if it wasn’t so terrifying. If I die under mysterious circumstances, you should look at him first.”
>
  “Yeah,” Kevin sighed. “Isn’t he wonderful? It’s a good thing I’m planning on telling them that you forced me to come with you.”

  “Hey! I did not! You came after me!”

  His eyes went wide as his bottom lip trembled. “I don’t even know what happened, Gary. One moment I was asleep by your side where I belong, and then the next I’d been bewitched by the terrible wizard who made me do things to him that were not entirely consented to but I rather enjoyed anyway.”

  I snorted. “Oh please. If I ever chose to do anything to you, you’d give so much consent. Like, all the consent.”

  “Enthusiastically so,” Kevin agreed. “But you’ve seen what happens when Gary gets mad. He’s going to Unicorn Rage all over your face. You’re going to look like the aftermath of a gangbang at an arts and crafts store. So much rainbow and glitter.”

  “If you had finished letting me tell my awesome story, you would have heard the way I was going to get us out of being in trouble.”

  “You may continue.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to now.”

  “Yeah. You had no plan, did you.”

  “Not even remotely. But I’m sure something would have come to me. But since you interrupted my narrative, we’re screwed, and neither of us will get laid.” I paused, considering. “Or rescue our loved ones and save the kingdom from the clutches of villains. Because I should have said that one first.”

  “Priorities. You have them. Do you think it’s as bad as Dimitri said?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll see soon enough. He tends to be all doom and gloom. That’s what happens when you’re six inches tall.”

  “But….”

  “But we’ve been gone for eleven months. That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin sighed. “It probably doesn’t help that we’re—”

  A shout in the woods ahead.

  We both froze.

  “Is it—”

  “Let me,” I said.

  I closed my eyes.

  And pushed.

  There was green. And gold. And it poured from me, much stronger than it’d ever been before. A pulse rolled through the forest as the Dark Woods responded to it, pulling it outward, rippling through the trees. It was pure and simple and came without even the barest of thoughts.

  And there they were.

  Seven blips that echoed back from me. Five were dark and fetid, boiling with corrupted magic. The other two were… muted, somehow. I could tell they were there, but it was like an absence of any light. A dark space in the swirling colors of the forest.

  But whoever they were, there was trouble.

  I opened my eyes.

  Kevin’s eyes glittered darkly. He’d felt what I had. He was a conduit, after all, able to help me channel my magic, to expand it. It was a gift that had awoken in him in our time away. He magnified everything about me.

  “To the sky,” I told him quietly. “Tell the others. Wait until I give the command.”

  “On it.” He spread his wings and, with a muscular thrust, lifted off above the trees and into the dark clouds above.

  I reached up and pulled the hood of my cloak over my head. “I bet I look so badass right now,” I muttered. “All billowing and shit. Fuck yeah. Let’s show these mothercrackers how to get their asses kicked.”

  THEY WERE moving quickly through the trees, five in pursuit of the other two. Kevin’s words echoed in my head. If we saved those being pursued, chances were they’d tell others about their rescuers, and word would get out of my return before I wanted it to. I didn’t know what we were going to say when we were finally face-to-face with those we’d left behind.

  I didn’t want to be covered in rage glitter and rainbows. That was going to suck balls.

  I moved through the Dark Woods, surefooted and quick. The two in the lead were beginning to lag, and I didn’t have much time before the others caught up with them. I needed to make one hell of an entrance.

  I found them near a cliff’s edge. The two being chased were in makeshift armor. They didn’t have helmets but instead wore fabric over their heads and faces, leaving only their eyes visible. One was larger than the other, and he had forced the smaller figure behind him in a protective gesture. He held a sword in one hand, flourishing it defiantly. It was familiar, that practiced flip, and I thought of my knight, but this couldn’t be him. There was a slight clumsiness to him that Ryan never had.

  Soon, though. I’d find him soon enough. And hope that he wouldn’t be too angry with me.

  But there was one I recognized.

  He stood in front of the other Dark wizards, looking as calm as if he were taking an afternoon stroll. He’d been slight when I’d first seen him, hunched over and stuttering about his sickly sister who loved HaveHeart and wanted nothing more than to meet us. But as soon as we’d reached the house, the stutter had fallen away, and he began to monologue about his mother and truth corn and blah, blah, blah, only putting himself on my shit list with everything that had come after.

  This was who he was now: a slithering snake. He wore a long coat, the collar flipped up around his neck like a douchebag. His dark hair was longer, pulled back into a tight ponytail, and he had a smile on his face, teeth flashing.

  And what made things stranger was the Dark magic that coursed around him. He hadn’t been a wizard when I’d seen him last. Not that I’d known. It hadn’t even seemed like he’d had a propensity for magic. It looked as if Myrin had been busy.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Caleb asked, cocking his head at the two at the edge of the cliff. He sounded like an asshole, and I wanted to punch his nose off his face. “And with nowhere else to run.”

  I rolled my eyes at the clichéd grossness that Caleb had devolved into. I was so going to murder his entire body for being complicit in the death of Morgan of Shadows and the injuries to Ryan Foxheart.

  “Revenge,” I hissed.

  Caleb jerked his head in my direction.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, lying low to the ground.

  He couldn’t see me, but he watched the tree line for a long minute before turning back toward the people at the cliff’s edge. “Tell me. What did you hope to achieve? I’m told you infiltrated my ranks a week ago. What exactly were you looking for?”

  “Kiss my ass!” the one to the rear cried. A woman. Younger, from the sound of it. “We’re not telling you anything.”

  “Katya,” the other one growled. A man. “Shut your mouth and let me handle this.”

  “Yes, Katya,” Caleb said, slightly mocking. “Let him handle this.”

  “Let me at him!” Katya snapped, trying to get around the man. “Let’s see how smug he can be when I get my fingernails in his eyes.”

  “Ooh,” I whispered. “I like her.”

  Caleb laughed. “Amusing, little girl. To think you could ever touch me. You know who I am. Which means you know what I’m capable of.” He shook his head. “It’s a pity, really. You have such balls. I could have used someone like you.”

  “I would never join you,” she snarled.

  “No? You seem rather… firm in that decision.”

  The man was struggling to hold her back and keep his sword up at the same time. “Let us go.”

  “Or what?” Caleb asked, sounding curious.

  “Or you’ll regret it,” the girl growled.

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “Katya,” the man said again. “Don’t—”

  “He’ll come for us,” Katya said, defiant and angry. “I know it. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but he will. And you’ll be sorry.”

  Caleb blinked. “Him? Who are you—surely you don’t mean—” He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. The Darks at his side looked bemused, shifting on their feet like they didn’t understand what was going on.

  Katya wasn’t having any of it. “Let me go, Brant! I’m going to stab him in the asshole.”

  It was weird to have a straight crush o
n a lady. But I powered through it.

  “So you’re the Resistance,” Caleb chuckled, wiping his eyes. “Oh my. Today… today is a good day.”

  Resistance, I mouthed to myself. What were they resisting? The Darks? Dimitri hadn’t said anything about—

  “Let me tell you something about him,” Caleb said, taking a step forward. Brant forced Katya to take an answering step back, her feet almost to the cliff’s edge. “You have placed him upon a pedestal that he does not deserve. I would know. He murdered my mother for doing nothing but wanting the truth to be shown to the world. He has abandoned you. He has left you to this life. The man you all think of as your savior is a ghost. Verania called out for help, and he turned his back on you. Not that I blame him.” Caleb shrugged. “You people shunned him. And then he left you all behind to suffer. Trust me. He’s not coming for you. No one is.”

  “Sam of Wilds will come back,” Katya said defiantly. “And when he does, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered into the grass. “She’s talking about me. I need to hug her so bad right now for at least fourteen minutes. Sweet molasses.”

  When one stumbles upon people in peril accosted by repugnant villains and then hears one’s name said in reverence, one tends to get a pretty hard-core power boner. I knew that when I made my entrance, it was going to need to be epic, and I would have to have the best catchphrase the world had ever known. I wanted to make my superfans swoon.

  “Sam of Wilds is no more,” Caleb said. “I tire of you both now. Whatever you’ve taken, we’ll just pick off your corpses. I’m thinking your sword will do just nicely. Jerome, would you please?”

  One of the Dark wizards next to Caleb took a step forward. He raised his hands, fingers twitching, mouth moving with words I couldn’t hear. His brow furrowed a little as he muttered under his breath. I could feel the sharp ping of his magic gathering, and it was weak and sickly, but Brant’s sword still jerked from his hand, causing him to grunt in surprise. The sword flipped toward the Darks until Caleb caught it by the hilt.

  “That was a gift,” Brant growled.

  “Crudely made,” Caleb said, hefting its weight a little. “But strong. You have materials. Interesting. And unexpected. Your armor shows ingenuity. It certainly fooled the Darks for a little while.” He glared at Jerome.