He shook his head. “We needed everyone we could get. I took a chance, Sam. I had no other choice.”
“It’s like you want me to forget about everything that came before,” I told him and, in turn, the others. “No, I wasn’t here. Yes, I was gone. No, I haven’t seen the things you have. But you saw what she did to me before. What she—”
“War changes people, Sam,” Ryan said. “It can bring out both the best and the worst in people. She tried hate. She turned people against you, letting it infect their hearts. But she saw firsthand what happens when you hate—”
“You mean when Ruv stabbed you in the chest and then Morgan died?” I bit out.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “That’s what she saw. And she had a part to play in it, sure. But she didn’t know who Ruv was working for. She didn’t know what he was capable of.”
“She’s still guilty by association.”
“Aren’t we all a little bit?”
“That’s not fair.”
He sighed. “I’m not asking for fairness here, Sam. We’re in a makeshift camp trying to survive. Nothing about this is fair. What I’m asking for is a chance to make things right again. For all of us here to live. To take back what’s ours. To give the people who were once against you a moment to prove to you that they’re on your side.”
“Convenient, though, don’t you think?” I asked, trying to keep my anger in check. “Being on my side. Let me guess. They suddenly found favor in me the moment they all heard the real story behind the Destiny of Dragons. That it was either going to be me or Myrin. And Myrin had just come in and taken their homes away. So of course they were going to put their hope in me, because they didn’t have any other choice.”
Ryan said nothing.
Green and gold began to gather in the air around me.
There were pulses in my head, blue and red and white and black. They whispered at me to calm and to breathe and to think, Sam, just think. You’re stronger than your anger. Better than your hate. You are not wrapped in shadow. You are home, and it’s warm and safe and—
It isn’t fair, I thought.
It just isn’t fair.
“What’s going on?” I heard Gary say from somewhere behind me.
“Sam?” Tiggy asked.
“Move,” Kevin snarled, and I knew his eyes would be completely black. “He needs to—”
Ryan kissed me.
I breathed.
He said, “Sam.”
I opened my eyes.
Ryan Foxheart stood before me, my face cupped in his hands. His eyes were bright and his touch soft, and all those pulses in my head faded as I was consumed only by him. This was something the Great White could never understand. Yes, it was dangerous that someone as powerful as me could put my faith in someone so breakable, someone so human. If something were to happen to him, if he was taken from me, I didn’t know what would happen. What I’d become.
But what the Great White didn’t get about my cornerstone—or cornerstones in general—was that they were good and kind and strong themselves. Ryan was chosen for a reason. He was brave and selfless, dashing and immaculate, and I’d loved him for almost as long as I’d known him. He was the foundation upon which I had built all I had.
My wonderful, foolish knight.
And so I just… let go.
The green and gold faded.
The gathering magic dissipated.
“You with me?” he asked quietly, his breath warm on my face.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m with you.”