“They never told me about you.”
He scoffed. “That’s all?”
“No. That’s not all. They never told me about you. About any part of it.”
I could see the moment he understood. “The prophecy.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After my grandmother came to the City for the first time.”
A cloud of something fell over his face, and he turned to glance at Ruv over his shoulder. “Did you know about this?”
Ruv looked flustered. “I didn’t know to what extent he’d been informed before our arrival. I didn’t want to speculate.”
Myrin turned back to me. “Go on.”
“They lied to me,” I said, putting all the anger I’d felt over it into my voice. “They knew things about me, about my future, and didn’t tell me until they were caught in the lie. If Vadoma hadn’t shown when she did, if you hadn’t escaped the shadow realm, who knows when—or if—they would have told me.”
“And this upsets you.”
“You’re damn right it does. Being told I have to do this—this thing where I don’t have a choice? Where I’m nothing but a tool used by the gods in a game I want no part of? That’s not fair. And for what end? To stop you? To protect the people of Verania? The people who turned their backs on me just because they didn’t like the color of my skin or the magic I wielded or the fact that I came from the slums? How is that fair? Why would I want to protect those who would just as soon stab me in the back as look at me?” And I hated it, hated the words, because there was truth to them. No matter what I told myself, I wasn’t always a good person. I was petty and vindictive. I could be an asshole. And I was angry, still so godsdamn angry, that I’d been made into this pariah, cast out by the very people who now cozied up to those I loved like it was nothing. I left to do the right thing, to do what was expected of me, only to return and find Vadoma with my parents, to find Lady Tina smiling at Ryan and Justin, standing by their sides like she belonged there. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
“I can feel it,” he said with something akin to wonder in his voice. “Your anger. You’re speaking truth.”
“You’re damn fucking right I am,” I snapped at him. “And I know you felt it too. I read what you wrote. I saw it in your Grimoire. You tried to expand on the way people thought of magic. You tried to show others a different way to think of the boundaries of what wizards are capable of. You said that you didn’t think Darks were something to be feared or condemned, that they were just misunderstood. That they had chosen a different path, and it was to be admired.”
“Randall looked at me as if I was crazy,” Myrin said. “He thought those were the words of a heretic. ‘You don’t understand what you’re saying,’ he told me. ‘You don’t know what you’re speaking about.’ Like I was nothing but a child. And maybe I didn’t know as much as he did. I doubt anyone ever has. But just because I didn’t have the breadth he did doesn’t mean I couldn’t think for myself.”
“And then they betrayed you.”
His eyes flashed and I felt the pulse of his magic, thick and viscous. “You don’t know how that felt. I tried to show them a different way. Tried to show them what the truth of it all was. That there were different paths to magic. That nothing was set in stone.”
“Because stone crumbles,” I said quietly.
“It does,” he agreed. “Or it can be shattered. I admit I was… overzealous with the so-called King of Sorrows. I pushed too far, and his mind… warped. More than I expected it to. But I needed Randall and Morgan to see just what could be done, what I was capable of, for them to take me seriously. To consider joining me on my quest to burst through the boundaries of magic.” He shook his head. “But they called me evil, even though I could see their hearts breaking. They said I was a villain, that I was no better than the Darks who hid in the forests and practiced magic the way they chose. Do you know why there are so many of us, Sam? Why there are so many Dark wizards while there are only a few like Randall and Morgan?”
“No.”
“It’s because we’re told how to act. How to be. Those with a more liberal agenda can’t understand what it means to be marginalized, to have the ways of others forced upon us. You have magic? Fine. Here’s how you need to act. Here’s how you need to practice. Here’s what yo
u can and cannot do. And there are so many more of us that reject that false narrative, that don’t believe we’re to be regimented and defined by what we’re capable of. We’ve lurked in the shadows, waiting for our time to rise.” He looked up at Kevin, then back at me. “And there will be a cornerstone, a person who will keep you from reaching your true potential. And you must love them. You must cherish them. You must put them above all others, and gods help you if they should reject you. Betray you. Die. Do you know what happens to the mind of a wizard who loses his cornerstone, Sam?”
I had an idea. I had the evidence right in front of me.
“It breaks. It tears. There is nothing that can prepare you for loss, Sam, not of this magnitude. Whether it be death or the act of betrayal, it hurts. It wasn’t a quick process, no. Even before I revealed myself, I could feel the bond between Randall and myself fraying. I loved him, Sam. I hope you understand that. If you read my Grimoire, then you should have seen just how much I loved him.”
“But you loved magic more.”
He flinched and tried to hide it, but I saw it for what it was. Shame. “It wasn’t about loving something more than him. It was about becoming free from the constraints placed upon me.”
“And what if he’d said yes to you?” I asked, suddenly curious. “What if he’d decided to join you? He’d still have been your cornerstone. You still would have depended on him.”
He smiled grimly. “I guess we’ll never find out, will we?”
No, we wouldn’t. Because Myrin wasn’t even half the wizard that Randall was. And he never would be. “You were cast in shadow then.”