The Lightning-Struck Heart (Tales From Verania 1)

“Well, then. So. Look. I’m a wizard. These things are expected.”

“You redirected lightning that was shot at you by a Dark wizard and used it to take out half a pack of fire geckos,” Gary said, sounding slightly hysterical. “What part of that is expected?”

“Magic Sam is powerful Sam,” Tiggy said. “Fizz bang snapple crack.”

“How do you do that?” Ryan asked, voice very, very hoarse.

“Uh,” I said. “Magically?” Good argument.

“Gross,” Gary muttered.

“You poking my ear,” Tiggy said to Ryan. “Knight Delicious Face poking my ear.”

Ryan flushed even further. “It’s just my sword,” he said stiffly.

“So gross,” Gary said.

“Let’s move on before they come back,” I said, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

I was walking away when Gary said, “Sam.”

I stopped, curling my hands into fists at my sides. I didn’t turn around.

“I’ve known wizards,” he said, and I knew the others were listening with the same intent. “Met even more. There are limits. Hard limits as to what they can do. Magic is not the be-all, end-all. It’s not infinite. I know, because my own magic is not infinite. Not even when I had my horn.”

“And?” I said.

“You,” he said, and I could hear the love and reverence in his voice. But it was covering up an awe that sounded almost like fear. “You can do things that I’ve never seen before. That no one has ever seen before. Sam. Look at me.”

And I did. Because he was my friend. I turned and looked at Gary. At Tiggy. And at Ryan. I looked at Ryan and wondered just how afraid for my heart I was. We were so close now. Tarker Mills was visible in the distance. Beyond that on the horizon were the Northern Mountains, great peaks that rose high and disappeared into the clouds. Between those peaks lay a keep with a dragon and a prince. We were so close to what we’d come for, and my heart hurt at the thought of how, while this was just the beginning for Tiggy, Gary, and me, it was going to be the end of Ryan and me. We’d save the Prince and part ways. The next time I’d see him, he would be married to Justin and I would be the same, a wizard’s apprentice without a cornerstone. The time apart would dull the sharp edges of the hurt, and with luck, any feelings would have started to fade. Maybe one day, I’d be able to look back on this adventure and think to myself that my first heartbreak made me stronger. Made me better.

“Sam,” Gary said, “just how powerful are you?”

Because they never knew. Morgan, Randall made sure no one did. There were things that couldn’t be discussed. This had been one of them. But they’d figure it out. Sooner rather than later, especially once we got to Castle Freesias.

So I said the only thing I could. “I don’t think anyone really knows. Come on. We’re almost to the end.”

CHAPTER 19

Things Are About to Get Corny

MY SELF-REFLECTION and obviously extraordinarily valid man pain and angst came to a crashing halt only fifteen minutes later.

“So. Much. Corn,” I breathed.

“Oh no,” Gary said. “Sam—”

Because there was. It was still very early in the season, but fields upon fields stretched with tiny corn stalks, and all I could picture in my head was months down the road when they’d be taller than I was and how everyone was going to need Sam of Wilds’s Amazing Fireworks Corn because how else would they know when the corn was ready? Sure, these people had probably been growing corn for hundreds of years, but they didn’t know what I knew! And there was no person in existence that didn’t like fireworks, which was why my idea was so brilliant to begin with.

Fuck Morgan and his insistence that it would never work.

In fact.

“Morgan!” I bellowed when he answered the summoning crystal. “You magnificent bastard. The corn! The corn.”

“No,” Morgan said. “No. Sam. No.”