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.