“Do you hear him?” Ryan asked. “You know, in your head?”
I frowned at him. “That makes me sound like I’m crazy.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “You’re the one who hears dragon voices when none of the rest of us can.”
“Fair point. No voices in my head. Kevin?”
The dragon shook his head. “I got nothing. Maybe he’s not here.”
“Great!” Gary said, stomping his hooves in the grass. “We should probably just go home, then. Everyone? Everyone! It looks as if today’s event has been canceled. If you could please direct us to the nearest tavern so that I may have a wine or six and sit in front of a fire while someone rubs my thighs—”
“Not it,” Ryan said immediately. “Ha! I got one! I don’t have to rub Gary’s—”
A loud boom echoed throughout the forest.
“Huh,” Gary said, looking down at his hooves as if the answers could be found in the ground under his feet. “That’s not a good sign.”
I took a stumbling step toward the fairies. They immediately scattered and began to spin like a tornado, their wings glistening from the rain. Dimitri was at their center, and he looked back toward me.
“What is it?” I asked him as Ryan gripped my elbow.
“In the end,” Dimitri said, voice soft and hard to hear, “it is about the choices you make. Never forget that.”
“I don’t understand.”
Another boom burst from the trees. Birds took flight, crying out as they flew away.
“He’s coming,” Dimitri said. “He’s calling for you, Sam of Wilds. This is what your choices have led to. This moment.”
“Sam?” Ryan asked. “What’s going—”
But before he could finish, I was hit by the strongest wave of magic I’d ever felt in my life. I’d felt something similar with Kevin. With Zero. With the feathered dragons. It was wild and strong and threatened to crack me right down the middle, but those times had been nothing compared to this. It was pure magic. There were no voices in my head. No threats, no promises. There was only magic, and I couldn’t breathe.
My back arched as my head tilted back. My skin was cr
awling with it, gold and green and white. There was so much white that I thought it was going to consume everything. My heart thundered in my chest, and my blood was singing, feeling like it was going to burst out from underneath my skin and fall to the earth, getting soaked up into the ground like an offering.
“His eyes,” I heard Justin say. “Do you see his eyes? They’re—”
“Sam,” a voice whispered fiercely in my ear. Arms came around my chest and clutched me tightly. “Sam, I need you to listen to me. Whatever it is, you need to fight it. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. I’m here, okay? I’m here with you, and I need you to fight this.”
I could. I could push against it, force it back. I could fight it so easily.
But I could also let it consume me, and wouldn’t that be the easiest thing of all? To let whatever coursed through me take over completely? I wanted to give in because of the way it made me feel. It promised me things without words. I could have it, if I let it have me. I could make it my own if I just gave it myself. If I just took that last and final step into nothingness, it would give me everything I could ever wish for.
It was a choice.
And for a moment, I considered giving in.
Ryan Foxheart said, “Sam.”
I began to push it away.
Curious, a voice whispered in my head. How curious you are.
The magic slipped from me.
I gasped as I collapsed against Ryan.