A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4) - Page 252

You’ve got this, Leslie said. I know you do, Sam.

Just don’t mess it up, Pat grumbled. I will kill you myself if you do.

I can’t wait to go to sleep so I can ignore you all for a hundred years, Zero said with a sniff.

Hey, little bro, don’t you worry about that, Kevin said. I’ll be right there when you wake up again.

The lights flitted up around me, spinning in a circle that sped up until they blended together. It was almost like a halo swirling above me, until it shot toward the sky, rising toward the stars. It reached its apex and then fell back toward me. I closed my eyes as they slammed into me and I—

so much energy so much power I could I could I could this could all be mine

—breathed in and breathed out and in again as my scars burned, as my heart raced, as I—

easy it’d be easy keep them here trap them here make them obey

—struggled to find control again. It was more than I expected. We’d never done this in the Dark Woods. Never once had they given me their dragon magic, though we’d talked about it. GW had thought it’d be too much too soon, and I’d agreed.

It was almost too much now.

Because these thoughts I had, these dark thoughts, were spinning through me. How I could take the dragons and keep them here. In me. That their magic would always be mine. That nothing could stand in my way. No villain could ever hurt my family again. The people who had turned against me would bow at my feet.

Myrin had gone about it all wrong. Like all the villains who had come before him, he’d thought too small. He didn’t have the scope that I did. The vision. No one would ever think of crossing me again, because I was Sam of Dragons, and I had five different dragon souls within me. I could trap them here, and they wouldn’t—

A groan from the other side of the clearing.

I looked up.

Myrin sat up, clutching his head as if he was in pain. The rage I’d felt at the sight of my cornerstone crumpled on the dirty ground of an alleyway in the slums returned full force. I stalked toward him.

He looked up at me as I approached, a dazed expression on his face. “What is this?” he demanded. “Where are we?”

I didn’t answer. I lashed out, kicking him upside the head. He shouted as he fell back, rolling in the grass toward the edge of the clearing. I grasped on to Zero’s magic as Myrin came to a stop, and imagined a tree taking root just underneath the Dark wizard. I wanted it, so it came to be. The ground shook and split apart and an actual tree burst through the dirt and grass underneath Myrin. He cried out as the tree sprouted, throwing him sideways. He landed with a crash back on the ground, hugging his sides, curling up into a ball.

I ignored him for the moment and looked around the clearing. Trees sprouted along the edges, growing far higher than what should have been possible. It only took seconds before we were completely surrounded and caged in. Myrin wouldn’t be able to escape.

I turned back toward him even as the dragons called out in my head. I ignored them. I had what I needed. This was what the gods had made me into. This was what my destiny had called upon me for. Nothing could stop me now.

Myrin pushed himself off the ground. He stood on shaky legs, one arm wrapped around his side. He was panting lightly, hair hanging down around his face. “The dragons,” he said, spitting out a thick wad of blood. “This is the power of the dragons.”

I shrugged. “Sure looks that way.”

He chuckled. It sounded pained. “I should have known. You—you surprise me, Sam. I don’t know why. You just… do.”

“Because you weren’t expecting someone like me.”

“No. I don’t suppose I was. But then, you weren’t expecting me.” And he quickly clapped his hands together out in front of him. Large columns of rock shot out of the ground at steep angles, racing toward me. I jumped to the right, rolled on the ground, and ended up crouched on my feet. “Because, Sam, if this is a dream, it means I’m dreaming too. So I have control and—”

“Oh my gods, dude, shut up, for fuck’s sake!” I ran toward him, zigzagging back and forth, avoiding the columns of stone that shot up, dirt and grass raining around me. There came a quick warning, bright as a meteor in my head—underneath, underneath, SAM UNDERNEATH—but I wasn’t quick enough and rock hit my left leg, knocking me off course. I skidded along the ground as the dragons roared. Myrin was laughing again, a savage mockery that sounded so much like Morgan.

I picked myself up as I latched on to Kevin, focusing my magic with pinpoint accuracy. My heart burst and lightning arced from my hands, striking Myrin in the chest. He seized, the cords in his neck standing out as his head rocked back, jaw dropped, lightning shooting from his mouth and cracking in the air above him. I rode the electrical current that came from me, one moment halfway across the clearing from him and the next right in front of him. My fist was electrified as I brought it back before slamming it into his chest. There was an explosion of bright blue energy as he flew back and landed with a devastating crash. The lightning skittered away from him through the grass, leaving burn marks that scarred the earth like the marks on my chest.

“Clever,” he managed to say, body still trembling. “Very… clever.”

I was already exhausted but determined not to let it show. I moved slowly until I stood above him. His eyes were bright as he looked up at me. “You’ve lost,” I told him. “After everything, after all you’ve done, you’ve lost.”

He smiled weakly. “So it appears. And will you kill me now? Like you killed your cornerstone?”

I stared down at him.

Tags: T.J. Klune Tales From Verania Fantasy
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