“We need to have a name like that,” Kevin said to Gary. “So everyone will know our love is real. Something wicked. Like… Kery. Or Gavin. Oooh. Or Dragoncorn.”
I can’t say that I was really listening to them. No, I was getting kissed within an inch of my life and thinking, Nothing can get better than this. This is my happy ending.
But it wasn’t, though.
Because things were just getting started.
Chapter 2: A Vision and a Warning
ONCE UPON a time in the Kingdom of Verania, there was a kickass boy born in the slums of the City of Lockes. His parents were hardworking, and at times life could be difficult, but they were alive and had all their teeth. Which was very important.
Now for the remix.
The kickass boy was apparently magic, turned his future boyfriend (who, at the time, was the world’s biggest asshole) into stone, and was taken away from the life of poverty by a magical man in pink shoes to a castle where he met a wonderful King and a not-so-wonderful Prince. His parents came along for the ride and cheered and fretted like most parents do. The boy was sent into the Dark Woods one day and came back, unexpectedly having made friends with a hornless unicorn and a half-giant. He was given his first wizarding name of Sam of Wilds.
From there, the boy had many adventures as a wizard’s apprentice, knowing one day all of Verania would depend upon him as the King’s Wizard. Sure, he thought that was the coolest thing he’d ever heard, but it was years and years away. He had plenty of time to worry about things such as responsibility to King and Crown. So, during those first years, he did magic (somewhat successfully—though, as was pointed out on a regular basis, the magic he did do was never what he started out trying to do; the boy was of the belief that it was the thought that counted). He was captured a lot for some unknown reason, and villains tended to monologue whenever they were around him, as if they couldn’t help but broadcast their plans in addition to spilling their life’s stories while he usually was bound to a chair or a wall (or, on one notable occasion, the front of a pirate ship as a group of lesbian pirates called the Tuna Fishes were trying to use his magic to force mermaids into revealing their treasures—but never mind that now. It’s a long story that involves a sea chanty about scissoring that the pirates insisted the boy learn and he has never forgotten).
But through it all, with his friends and parents and a great wizard named Morgan of Shadows by his side, he was happy. He looked upon the stars and found he could wish for nothing more, given all that he had.
Sure, maybe he was lonely every now and then, but it was a small thing, a negligible thing that he could ignore if he tried hard enough. He didn’t allow himself to dwell upon it. There were too many things to see. New magic to explore. Obstacles to overcome. One day he would face the Trials to become a true wizard. He had his Grimoire he needed to complete. His friend, the unicorn, needed to find his horn. All of these things came first. Because that’s just who the boy was.
But.
The boy was still human, regardless of his elevated station and lot in life. He was still prone to that humanity just like everyone else.
For you see, one day there came a knight to the castle. A knight unlike anyone the boy had ever seen before. He was beautiful and kind and smiled like sunshine, and the boy said to his friends, “I might be super gay right now.”
His friends were not surprised.
Yes, he was a wizard and had many things to do. But he was human, and with it came the longing for something more. He was embarrassed by this feeling, after all he’d been given, but he couldn’t help but dream about green eyes and locks of blond hair and wish that he could have what he felt in his heart.
Of course, things like that rarely work out, and the knight began to date the Prince, for which the King was happy, so the boy suffered in silence, resolutely not attempting to put together a spell to give said Prince the disposition of a flatulent selkie, even if he already had the personality to match.
But fate is a funny thing. It weaves its threads through the loom with steady hands. At first, the result is seemingly a distorted m
ess, but if one can wait long enough, the full picture comes into focus, the threads tightly intertwined, strong and true.
Maybe it’s too grand a thought to think the boy had a fate beyond what he’d already been given, but he was still a boy and prone to boyish thoughts and wishes.
He was sure the knight never even knew his name.
The boy was wrong. So very, very wrong.
The boy was loved as much as he loved in return.
But it’s a known fact that boys are stupid, stupid creatures without nary a lick of common sense between them, and so it took ages for anything to come of it. It also required the presence of a ridiculous amount of Dark wizards, a date with a man who had wonderful ears (though the knight didn’t quite understand what the big deal was, if the scowl on his face meant anything), a dragon kidnapping the Prince, a forest full of secrets, an extraordinarily perverted disgruntled ex who was six inches tall with wings, a fairy drag mother with eyes and tongue as sharp as a knife, an elf who wanted to relieve the boy of all vestiges of his virginity, and a crazy corn cult who felt the need to build a religion around the dragon in fifty-seven days. (The boy still marvels at the tenacity of insanity.)
And then the boy stood atop the dragon’s keep and a secret was revealed, something he’d kept locked away in his heart in hopes that it would never be discovered. The pain he felt then matched the look on the knight’s face.
For the boy was powerful, maybe more powerful than anyone who had ever come before. The caveat to all the extent of his magic was this: he must find the person in the world who could stabilize his magic. A person who could hold the foundation for his magic together. A person who, without them, the boy could descend into darkness.
The cornerstone.
To a wizard, the cornerstone is the most precious thing in the world. Something revered, something treasured. Those that have forsaken the idea of a cornerstone have done so knowing they will be consumed by the darkness inherent in all magic.
The boy didn’t know the extent of his magic. Neither did his mentor, though the boy thought Morgan of Shadows knew more than he was saying. As did the man even higher up, the grand wizard known as Randall, a terrifying man whose nose the boy had once turned into a dick. The boy could see the concern when he returned to the castle after making the knight choose between himself and the Prince. The knight had chosen to follow his oath rather than his heart.
He threw himself back into living. He told himself he would never forget, and if there was one person for him, then there could be another. He was stronger than he’d given himself credit for, and while it cracked his heart, he was not broken.