/> And still he slept.
Sam.
I jerked up and whirled around, because that voice sounded like it’d come from right behind me.
There was nothing there.
The hook pulled.
I told myself to crawl back into bed.
Instead, I moved toward the door and—
“—HE TREATED me as if I was the greatest thing in the world,” Morgan said, a far-off look in his eyes. “He was older than me, far older, but he didn’t treat me as if I was a burden. Didn’t think I was a nuisance. He cared for me, maybe more than our parents did. For all intents and purposes, he raised me. Our parents were… distant, for lack of a better term. Oh, they loved us, and they made sure we had anything we could ever want, but they had other things to focus on. Stretching the boundaries of magic. Defining what it meant to be a wizard. Speaking out against the rejecting of a cornerstone. I never begrudged them for what they did. And I thought Myrin didn’t either. I would be wrong about that.”
He laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Randall was everything to him. I was told that even before they were actually… them, you could tell Myrin thought Randall had hung the sun and the moon. Had placed all of the stars in the sky. I told you that Randall was a builder. An architect. That it took him decades to construct his magic, to create the outline for who he would become. He had long since passed the Trials, but it was… different. For him. His magic was theory before it was anything else. By the time he was ready for a cornerstone, by the time he opened his eyes, he was able to see what had been right in front of him the entire time. What Myrin had known all along. That they belonged to each other. That they loved each other. That they were each other’s cornerstones. My brother had been a patient man. He knew that one day Randall would see him for what he was. And he did.” Morgan wiped his eyes. “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
“Morgan, you don’t have to—”
“But I do, Sam. Because you have to know what lies ahead. You have to know what may come down upon us. This is your history as much as it is mine. This is the legacy I will leave to you, and I would have you know it. Will you listen?”
I was helpless, so all I could say was “Yes.”
He took a breath, held it for a count, and then let it out slowly, something I knew he did when he was attempting to calm himself. I didn’t want to hear how this story ended, even though I thought I knew.
“They… completed each other,” he continued. “Unlike anything I’d ever seen before. A wizard’s cornerstone isn’t usually another wizard. We’re taught that there’s too much instability, too much of a chance for whatever has been built to come crumbling down. That it’s not safe. But it happens. It’s rare, but it happens. And even though there were people trying to convince them that they should find another, that they shouldn’t depend on each other as they did, they laughed and scoffed and went on as they were. And it was wonderful. I didn’t see them as others did. I saw them as something to aspire to be. Something that I would one day want for myself. Randall was old, far older than a wizard should have been before finding their cornerstone. But the power that they had negated any argument against them.
“Randall became the King’s Wizard. They worked here, in the labs, together, every day. They taught me. They taught each other. They laughed and loved and made promises that we all thought would always be kept.
“And then things began to change. I noticed it first, when I—”
—STEPPED OUT into the warm night air. The stars were bright above. I immediately sought out David’s Dragon, but it said nothing to me, just blinking in the sky as it always had. I wondered if maybe I was dreaming, but it didn’t feel like a dream. I did feel awake, but I also felt… more. Like my eyes were open for the very first time in my life. Everything around me felt like it’d come into sharper focus. The crystal clarity of the water around Mashallaha in the starlight. The grain of the wood beneath my feet. The colors of the flags that hung above me.
It was quiet, this late. I heard not a single soul.
Sam.
I took a stumbling step forward as a burst of magic crawled through me. Green and gold and an infected yellow swirled just along the edges of my vision.
I took a breath.
“What is this?” I said. “Who are you?”
There was no one there. Not in front of me. Not behind me.
“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered. “That’s it. That’s all.”
The hook pulled and—
“—I THOUGHT I could handle it,” Morgan said. “I thought I could talk to him, and that he would hear me. I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish with the magic he was performing. The boundaries he was pushing. He said that if our parents had done it, then he could too. But that he would stretch it further than they ever had. He didn’t want to just push, he told me. No. He wanted to break.” He ran a hand over his face, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him before. “I told him that was the path of the Darks. That they had no regard for the rules that bound us to our magic. That anyone who attempted what he was attempting could find their souls cracked, their hearts shattered. Their minds diseased with temptations that should never be considered.”
“What did he want to do?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.
Morgan looked up at me. “He thought it was possible to bend the will of the people. Verania was… turbulent then. Not everyone agreed with the King in power. There were talks of uprisings. Of coups against the throne. The threat of civil war had hung over the country for years. Myrin wanted to take away their free will. To make the people docile. He said it would prevent death. That it would prevent conflict. That everyone would fall in line, and Verania would not descend into madness.
“I couldn’t fault him for thinking that way. I doubt anyone could. Who wouldn’t want to avoid war? Who wouldn’t want to stop bloodshed? It’s seductive, that line of thinking. I truly believe he came to it from the right place, but that before long, it soured within him and began to rot. And that’s where he was wrong. That’s where the idea as a whole became fetid. Because even if it would have prevented Verania from descending into chaos, even if it would have stopped the deaths of our people, it would still have been wrong. You cannot tamper with free will. You cannot take the choices away from people. They have the right to choose for themselves. Many of them disagreed with their King. They were not wrong. He was a weak man. A coward. Randall had done his very best in trying to counsel him, but he could only do so much. I could see his frustrations, the helplessness that he sometimes showed. And Myrin saw it too. And I think that only fueled him. By the time Randall figured out what was happening, it was too late. For all of us. I—”
—FOUND THEM sleeping, all curled around each other. It was an old barn of sorts that had lofts that held wheat and oats, rice, sorghum, corn, and barley. It was the only place big enough for Kevin to curl up and sleep at night. Gary had objected (quite loudly and fiercely) at being offered a barn to stay in, of all things. Didn’t they know how racist that was? When Vadoma had told him that it was just for Kevin, Gary had, of course, become even more irate, saying that he wouldn’t allow Kevin to stay by himself in an unfamiliar bed. Didn’t they know he had troubles sleeping in places that weren’t his home? The audacity behind it, the sheer audacity, and yes, they were separated (not that anyone had asked), but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for Kevin’s well-being. Why, anything else would just be rude.