“Wow,” Tiggy breathed, still holding us close. “So high.”
“Sam,” Ryan murmured. “You okay?”
But before I could speak, I was pulled again.
Wizard, the dragon spoke. Wizard. Wizard.
For now it was truly awake.
I opened my eyes.
I blinked against the sunlight.
It took a moment for my vision to clear as Ryan pulled away enough to be able to look at me. His face was the first thing I saw, slightly out of focus, edges blurred. I blinked it away and everything cleared.
“You with me?” he asked, hands on my arms.
“What happened?” I croaked out.
“Sam go boom,” Tiggy said. “Bright and shiny boom.”
I looked up at him. “I did what?”
“Boom,” Tiggy said softly, nodding his head toward the sea of sand that—
No longer existed.
Where there’d once been an ocean of sand filled with creatures that hid underneath the surface was now just empty air.
“What the fuck?” I said.
We stood on the stone path that had, for the most part, remained intact. But on either side of us now was a cavern whose bottom was so far below where we stood, I couldn’t see it. The sand was gone. The mermaids were gone as if they’d never existed at all. The path behind us was broken where Tiggy had fallen from Kevin’s grasp. The path ahead twisted just like Ruv said it would before it ended against the island, the ruins of the castle sitting atop a large rock pillar that stretched into the cavern below. Kevin and Gary stood at the edge of the island, watching us, waiting. They both looked tense, like they were get
ting ready to rush over to us at any moment.
“Where’s Ruv?” I asked, slightly panicked. He’d been surfing along on that—
“There,” Ryan said, pointing off to the other side of the cavern. Ruv stood on a sand dune, looking down into the empty space before him, scratching the back of his head. He must have felt us watching him because he looked up and waved.
“Sam go boom,” Tiggy said softly, waving back at him.
“Sam go boom,” I echoed faintly.
Chapter 17: Snake Dragon Monster Thing
IT WAS slow going to reach the island, given that my legs felt weak and I was exhausted. I scowled at Ryan as he tried to hold me up, but Tiggy wouldn’t hear any of it, and picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, grunting, “Sack of Potatoes Sam. Capitalized, motherfucker.”
It didn’t stop me from grumbling about it. When one is being held against his will by a half-giant, one must grumble. I was sure that was Veranian law.
Ryan trailed after us, and since I was cranky, I thought it best to give him a piece of my mind.
“You,” I said. “You are in so much trouble, you don’t even know.”
“Am I now.” It wasn’t even said as a question, the bastard.
“Yes, you are.” I scowled at him to show just how serious I was. He didn’t seem to be affected in the slightest. I lowered my voice in a mocking approximation. “Go after the dragon, Sam. Leave me here to die, Sam. Look at me, I’m a godsdamned martyr!”
“I don’t think that’s quite how it went.”