A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(78)

I felt like I could barely breathe.

He smiled terribly at me. “You know who I am, Sam.”

And there, in the deepest parts of my memories, a name rose through the storm in my head. A name that had always been hidden in shadows the rare times it had ever been mentioned. “No.” I shook my head, feeling the glass bending under my hand. “It’s not possible.”

“Say it,” he said, teeth bared. “Say my name.”

And gods help me, I did.

“Myrin,” I whispered.

His face softened, just a little. “Good. That’s real good, Sam. You’re more than I had hoped you would be. I believe this will be an honorable death for you in the end. But it needn’t come to that. I will give you this one chance, Sam. Now, here. Surrender yourself to me. Stand by my side. Forsake all others. I will never lie to you like they have. I will teach you the secrets of magic that they wouldn’t dare touch. Learn the truth of the magic that flows within your blood. Why a cornerstone will never be anything more than a hindrance. Together we can bend the world to its breaking point. Stand with me, Sam, or prepare to lose everything you hold dear.”

I didn’t know what to think. Everything was swirling in my head. The anger. The fear. The truth of the man standing in front of me. For it was the truth. Randall and Morgan hadn’t denied a single word of it. And that’s what stuck with me the most. That the man in front of me, this man who, before today, was nothing but myth and legend, had laid more truth at my feet than Morgan and Randall ever had.

Gods, how I was angry. I was so angry. I couldn’t even breathe—

“Sam,” another voice said. An arm wrapped around my waist. A broad chest pressed against my back. His cheek scraped against mine as he hooked his chin over my shoulder. There was green and gold everywhere. And it was for him. It was because of him. “Sam,” Ryan Foxheart said again. “I know you’re scared. I am too. There’s nothing we can do about that now. But I’m with you. Right here. Right now. And I will never leave your side. Do you hear me? I will never leave your side.”

There was my truth. That was what I could believe in. And in Tiggy protecting Gary at all costs. And Gary still struggling to get to me, eyes wide, begging Tiggy to let him go so he could cut a godsdamned motherfucker.

Everything I did was for them.

I screamed as I shoved everything I could against the glass. It rippled around my fingers as if it were liquid, the gold and green sparking off around my hands. There was a resistance, and it was heavy when it tried to push back, but it was nothing. He was nothing, and in the split second before the glass shattered, I saw the look of surprise cross Myrin’s face. Then it was gone when the enchanted glass exploded around us, large chunks trapped up in the roiling magic, swirling around us. For the briefest of moments, my hand touched his, and there was the badwrong pull between us when our magic mingled, intensified beyond anything it’d been before. I could feel it in him, the blood in his veins, how similar it was to Morgan. It was familiar, but off in a way that sent a spike of pain through my head. Morgan’s magic had always felt like home. Myrin’s felt like a fire coming to burn that home to the ground.

And then the glass stopped around us, suspended in air, spinning slowly, glittering in the light from the torches on the walls. Ryan was a long line of heat pressed up against me, his fingers digging into my side where his arm was still wrapped around me. Tiggy had turned to face Gary, shielding him from the glass and magic. I saw reflections of Randall and Morgan in the spinning glass, their images fractured and distorted. Both were pale and shocked, looking older than I’d ever seen them before.

But I didn’t have time for them. Not now.

“This,” Myrin breathed, “will be a good fight.”

He chuckled.

And then took a step back. Another. And then another, hand still raised, his magic still a wall against mine, poking and digging, looking for weakness.

A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead, stinging my eye.

My arm trembled.

Ryan’s breath was hot on my neck.

I knew it was going to happen the moment before it did. Myrin winked at me, an obscene and twisted flirtatious gesture, before he found the weakness he was looking for. The glass floating around us snapped into place as he closed his raised hand into a fist, the wicked sharp edges pointed directly at us. The only thing I thought of was Ryan, and as Myrin’s magic began to vibrate around us, calling upon the glass to skewer us into the wall, I dropped to my knees, pulling Ryan down with me, slamming my hand against the stone floor. The air sizzled around us as lightning began to arc from my fingertips, rolling up my arm to my shoulder and into my chest. It wrapped itself around my heart, and I pushed. Electricity flew up all around us, snapping bright white and blue as it vaporized the glass and cracked the floor underneath my hand. Randall and Morgan were knocked off their feet by the shock wave. Tiggy staggered forward with a grunt, head hitting the wall as he hunched farther over Gary.

Myrin was knocked back against the far wall of the interrogation room, grunting as his head rapped against stone.

Ryan held on, even as he shook against the electricity coursing through the both of us.

I tried to call it back, I tried to pull it back in, but it was so much, it was too much—

“Sam,” Ryan whispered harshly in my ear. “Sam. It’s done.”