A Wish Upon the Stars

by TJ Klune

  I snorted. “We both know that’s not true. The whole point of this was to be defined. To become this person I am now.”

  He shifted a little behind me, lowering his head until he pressed his snout against my forehead, a semblance of a kiss. “A name is a name is a name,” he said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Or does it make all the sense. I’m quite philosophical, as you know.”

  “I do?”

  “Above all else, pretty, you are Sam. Whatever title you have doesn’t change that. Maybe you’ve grown since last they’ve seen you, but in the end, you’re still the Sam they know. That will never change.”

  “I’m scared,” I admitted.

  “I know.”

  I then gave voice to words that were thick and sticky, clinging to my throat and tongue. “What if there’s no place for us anymore? What if they’ve moved on without us?”

  “Then we remind them why we belong with them. To them. For they’re ours, just as much as we’re theirs. They’ll see. In time.”

  “Do you truly believe that?”

  “I do,” he said quietly. “With all of my hearts.”

  I looked back down at my pack and the Grimoires I knew were inside.

  “You ever going to open them?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. One day, maybe. But not today.”

  “He’d want you to.”

  I tensed at that. “Don’t.”

  “Sam—”

  “Please.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  I laughed hollowly. “Then whose fault was it?”

  “Myrin’s. Always him. Never you. You are not responsible for his actions.”

  “If I hadn’t been tricked by that bastard Caleb, then we—”

  “And that was Caleb. Not you. It was him and Ruv and Myrin. Morgan did what he did because he knew you would do the same for him. He loved you, Sam. More than anything else in the world. Of course he would step between you and the Dark. You would have done the same for him, as you would for any of us. And you showed just how strong you were when you let Caleb go. I know that must have been difficult.”

  “I’m not like them. I can’t just… kill. No matter how much I want to. But it was close.”

  “I know. I felt it.”

  “Stupid dragons.”

  He chuckled softly. Then, “You’ll have to. Kill. It’ll come down to it, I think. Either you or Myrin. If I could do it for you, I would. Your heart is expansive, Sam, but it’s also soft. I would carry that burden for you if I could. I have no qualms about eating men.”

  “Even though you’re a vegetarian?”

  “Even though. I can shit out some bones and flesh if it means keeping you safe.”

  “That’s… disgusting. Sweet, but mostly disgusting.”

  I felt his breath on the back of my neck. “We’re almost home. And then we’ll see what we see. It’ll be okay, Sam. I promise. They’ll understand in the end. We did what we did for them. We’ll set things right. I promise.”

  And I wanted to believe him. With everything I had.

  Long after he’d fallen asleep and the sounds of the forest at night echoed around us, I looked up and saw a break in the clouds, the inky black sky beyond. I let myself have something that I hadn’t in a very long time.

  A moment to wish upon the stars.

  I have done everything you’ve asked of me. And I haven’t asked for much in return. I’m not the same person I once was. I know that. But please, let them see me for who I am. Let them love me just the same. I wish for that more than anything. They don’t have to forgive me for everything, not right away, but please. Just let them see me for who I am. I’m Sam. I’m Sam. I’m Sam.

  THE MAIN roads between Castle Lockes and the Port were empty, and startlingly so. Before I’d left, at this time of day there would have been dozens of people walking, hauling carts either by hand or horse. The air should have been filled with voices talking and laughing and singing about anything and everything.

  We kept to the trees, Brant and Katya saying it was safer. While the Darks tended to stay away from the Port after suffering a humiliating defeat there, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be on the road at some point. “We have to keep you a secret for as long as we can,” Brant told me when I tried to object because I could handle a handful of Darks. “It was part of the contingency plan.”

  “The contingency what, now?”

  “For when you came back.”

  I glanced at Kevin, who just shrugged.

  “You do know we’ve been waiting for you, right?” Katya asked slowly. “It’s why the Resistance exists at all. Because of you. General Gary and Major Tiggy always believed—”

  “General and Major who?”

  “Yeah. They picked out their own names.”

  “Oh my gods. They’re the worst. I love them so much, you don’t even know.”

  She smiled briefly at her brother when he held a tree branch out of the way so she could pass by. “They always knew you’d come back at some point. They’re the ones who pushed for the Resistance.”

  “Those idiots,” I said, preening just a little. Then, “Wait. What about Ryan? And Justin?”

  Brant coughed.

  Katya hesitated. “Um. Justin followed along with Gary and Tiggy. Ryan was… a harder sell.”

  I stopped. They looked back at me nervously. “He didn’t think I was coming back, did he.”

  “It’s not that he didn’t—”

  “Katya,” Brant said. “Maybe this should come from the Knight Commander. It has nothing to do with us.”

  She looked like she wanted to argue, but she kept quiet.

  I had told myself time and time again that I made the choices I had for the greater good. That I was thinking of my destiny and what the gods had asked of me when I left the City of Lockes behind and entered the Dark Woods in search of a great dragon. That even though my heart was breaking at the thought of leaving those I loved behind, I was doing the right thing. That I wasn’t running away.

  I didn’t know if I believed that. Not completely. I’d tried to convince myself of the same things back when we’d set off for Mashallaha. Ryan had even asked me then, somewhere in the desert, if I was running away rather than facing my problems head-on.

  That was how he must have seen it. He must have read the letter I left for him when he’d woken up from a grievous wound that I might as well have caused myself. I’d told him I was going to come back for him, but I wasn’t even there when he woke up. Of course he didn’t believe me.

  “Um,” Katya said. “Why are your eyes so wide, and why do I feel like my heart is breaking?”

  “Oh no,” Kevin muttered from somewhere above me. “You’ve gone and done it now, girly. See that look on his face? Like it was Sam’s birthday and then there was a party and a lot of people came and everyone brought Sam a present and all the presents turned out to be puppies and Sam lay on the ground and the puppies crawled all over him and he was so happy and then everyone yelled, ‘Ha ha, we’re just kidding, none of these are for you,’ and then they took all the puppies away? That look?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Brant said.

  “That’s Sam’s angst face,” Kevin explained. “It means he’s lamenting everything about his life and questioning all his decisions and will probably end up sounding like a fourteen-year-old emo dragon in three… two… one—”

  “My soul has become a withered husk, and I feel the need to sit in a darkened room and read poetry by a snake dragon monster thing about the darkness within us all,” I told no one in particular.

  “And there it is,” Kevin said. “If we’re lucky, maybe he’ll recite his own poetry, even though he’ll deny he’s written any. Trust me when I say it’s amazing.”

  “My soul is black just like a cat. And here I am, and that is that. My feelings consume my mind, but outwardly, I tell everyone I’m fine.”

  Kevin frowned. “Did I say amazing?
I meant dreadful. My bad.”

  “This is your hero?” Brant whispered to his sister.

  She squinted at me. “I… think so?”

  “You should just leave me here,” I moaned. “I’ll lay down here and die and then become one with the forest. Decades from now, my bones will have fused with the roots of a weeping willow, and legend will say that if the wind is blowing through my branches just right, you can hear me crying out for my beloved. Babe! Baaaaaaaaaaaabe!”

  “Oh boy,” Kevin said. “Don’t you worry, people I just met who should be more in awe of me than you actually are. I know just how to handle this.” He cleared his throat before peering down at me. “Hey, champ. Hey. Hey, there. What’s going on in that noggin of yours? Huh?” He tapped a single claw against my forehead. “What’s up in the noodle, my little doodle? Do you need to toss the sports ball around with your old man? Huh? Is that what you need? Or do you just need to be fucked? Yeah, you just need to be fucked, don’t you. Okay. Well, if you insist, Baladush and Kaliope can just wait here—”

  “Brant and Katya,” Katya said.

  “—and you and I can find a nice clearing next to a brook where you can punch my junk for a little while.”

  “We’re not normally like this,” I told Katya. “But honestly? You’ve just basically told me the love of my life hates me. If anything, this is your fault. Well, actually, I take that back. Not the part about this being your fault, because it is. But the part about how we’re not normally. This is how Kevin is all the time, and no, Kevin, I do not want to find a clearing next to a brook to punch your junk.”

  “Your body is saying no, and your heart is also saying no,” Kevin purred. “You know how I like a fight—you know what? That crossed a line. I apologize. I would never do anything to take away your autonomy. Forgive me, pretty?”

  “You’re forgiven,” I said, patting him on the nose. “Just don’t say anything like that again.”

  “You know I can’t promise you that.”

  “I know.”

  “We good?”

  “We’re good.”

  We looked back at Katya and Brant expectantly.

  They gaped at us.

  “Why are we just standing around?” I asked them. “We have places to go, people to yell at us and hate us and break our hearts, in case you forgot.”

  “It’s so hard to find good help in the middle of a forest,” Kevin said, frowning at our new companions. “So far I’m not impressed. And to think I was going to offer to fly them the rest of the way. I think not.”

  “Oooh,” I said. “You guys are on the Suck List now. That was capitalized, so you know it’s true.”

  “I also have a Suck List.”

  “Kevin, not the time.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, he looks like Sam, right?” Katya asked her brother.

  “I think so?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You guys are hysterical. Really. Chop-chop!”

  WE BROKE the tree line near the Port, after making sure there was no one else on the road. I looked east, and at the horizon, I could make out a faint outline of the City of Lockes and Castle Lockes itself. Seen from a great distance, it was hazy and seemed as far away as it’d been when I’d been with GW and the others in the woods. It was just a glimpse, but it caused my heart to climb into my throat.

  There, behind those walls, was my home.

  My King, trapped in the dungeons.

  My mentor, and all the memories that came with him.

  My enemy, sitting upon a throne that did not belong to him.

  Did Myrin already know of my return?

  If not, it’d be soon. Caleb would see to that.

  Part of me wanted to demand Kevin fly me to Castle Lockes now just so I could face Myrin and get this over with. I had the dragons. I had my magic. GW thought I wasn’t yet ready, telling me there was still much I needed to learn, especially in the face of Myrin having Morgan’s magic combined with his own.

  But that didn’t matter in the end. Because while the Great White had been able to slow Zero’s cycle, we had perhaps a month left before he would feel the call of his kind and return to his home in the desert to sleep away the next hundred years. And if the gods were right, I needed him just as much as I needed the others.

  The clock was ticking.

  Within the next month, this would be over, one way or another.

  “All right?” Kevin asked me quietly as Brant and Katya crossed the road.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He followed my gaze to the City of Lockes. “We’ll get it back, pretty. All of it. I know it.”

  I nodded and crossed the road toward the Port.

  THE PORT had been a center of commerce for Verania, a bustling extension of the City of Lockes. It was always a little grimier, and stank of fish and salt, but it was an important part of the economy. Trade routes led through the Port by land and sea. Ships of all sizes sailed from faraway lands, bringing wares to trade: spices that made smoke leak out your ears, fabrics that felt like the caress of a lover, alcohol that caused one to believe that one was a fantastic singer and led one to regale anyone within earshot with the joys of “Cheesy Dicks and Candlesticks,” no matter how many times the audience had heard it before. (“Why does Ryan get that disgusting dreamy look on his face every time he hears that song?” Justin had demanded. “It’s like he’s been enchanted by a godsdamn siren. And Sam, do you really have to sing it again? I am going to harm you irreparably!”)

  The people of the sea town were of the hardworking sort, rising even before the sun to head to the docks, fishing vessels sailing out while the stars above started to fade and a light appeared in the east, passing the ships of the night fishers coming back after hours at sea. They’d be met by others on the docks, ready to pack the haul on ice for transport to the markets in the Port and the City of Lockes.

  The people here weren’t like those in the King’s Court. They worked from sunup to sundown, while still others worked the entire night away. It was a never-ending cycle, and it kept the wheels of Verania spinning smoothly.

  They were of the rough sort, the dockworkers and the fishermen and women. Maybe not so much as those that skulked in the shadows of Meridian City, but they’d probably feel more at home there than they ever would in the City of Lockes. But they loved their King as much as the rest of us, and rarely had issues with the Crown. Aside from the time where there was the threat of a strike that the King had stepped in and mediated, I’d never known there to be any strife.

  It probably helped that out of all the cities and villages in Verania, the Port had had the lowest number of people signing the petition to have me removed from my position as the apprentice to the King’s Wizard and banished from Verania. I tended to like people who didn’t give a shit about things like that.

  Speaking of.

  “So, hypothetically,” I said to Brant and Katya as we approached a set of large gates at the entrance to the Port—something that hadn’t been there before I’d left. “Let’s say we arrive at the Port—I mean, Camp HaveHeart—and I come face-to-face with a teenage girl I deem not fit for living. Would there be consequences if I were to, hypothetically, explode her in front of everyone with nothing but the power of my mind?”

  “You can do that?” Brant asked, eyes wide.

  I smiled reassuringly at him. “Hypothetically.”

  He didn’t look very reassured. If anything, I thought maybe he walked farther away from me, pulling his sister along with him. Which, rude.

  “Hypothetically, you’d probably get arrested,” Katya said.

  “Interesting. Follow-up hypothetical. What if said teenage girl was the incarnation of evil, and by eradicating her, the world would be a much better place?”

  “He’s talking about Lady Tina,” Kevin whispered to Brant. “In case you couldn’t figure it out on your own. And he’s not being hypothetical. He’s being for real.”

  Katya bristled a little. “Lady Tina has been
instrumental in helping the Resistance get as far as we have. The Foxy Lady Brigade has taken out more high-ranking Darks than any other group, including the knights. She’s second-in-command for a reason.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “About that. Is there any possibility that all of you have lost your godsdamned minds? Do you know what she did? Aside from starting the whole movement against me, she always accused me of having dry muffins! My muffins were not dry, no matter what she said or how they tasted like sandpaper.”

  “She also played a part in leading you to Ruv and Myrin,” Kevin added.

  “Oh. Right. That too.” I glared at Brant and Katya. “She betrayed us. To Myrin. You expect me to believe that Ryan and Justin, both of whom she is obsessed with, forgave her for everything she’s done? I refuse to believe it, and to you I say good day.”

  “Maybe you should just—”

  “I said good day, Brant. What part of that do you not understand?”

  He frowned. “All of it?”

  “She’s changed,” Katya said.

  “Snakes shed their skin but are still snakes,” I retorted.

  “Oooh, burn,” Kevin said. “You all just got third-degree burns. How does it feel to have burns that destroyed your epidermis and go farther to affect deeper tissue?”

  “This guy gets it,” I said.

  Katya shook her head. “She regrets many things. She knows the mistakes she made and is doing everything she can to fix them. If the Knight Commander and the Prince can trust her, don’t you think you should give her a chance?”

  “They don’t make the best decisions. They were probably lost without me, and she whispered her sweet poison in their ears about how Rystin is so much better than HaveHeart, and that—wait a minute. Were you part of the We-Hate-Sam-A-Lots?”

  “I wasn’t,” Katya assured me.

  “Um,” Brant said.

  “Traitor!” Kevin gasped.

  “Kevin! Make me billow!”

  “Now? Are you sure this is the right time for billowing—”

  “Kevin!”

  He sucked in a great breath and blew it in my direction. My cloak billowed around me, my hair flopping dramatically. I squared my shoulders and held my head high. I thought about pulling my hood up, but I didn’t want to overdo it. “I am Sam of Dragons, returned to my people to save them from the darkness and defeat the evil wizard Myr—dude. Kevin. What did you eat? Your breath is terrible. God, it’s like the inside of one of those rest stop outhouses on the way to Meridian City where it’s basically a hole in the ground in which to do your business. My gods.”