One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “Not gone after all,” said Tedros, watching the Wish Fish crowd towards his princess as if they knew her well. “Your secret little school.”

  “If I put my finger in the water, they’ll paint my soul’s greatest wish,” said Agatha breathlessly. “And my wish is to find a way to rescue Sophie before she marries the Snake. If there’s a way, the fish will show it to us!”

  Agatha slipped her finger in the water.

  Instantly, the Wish Fish dispersed, flickering different colors as they joined fins like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. At first, Tedros had no clue what he was seeing, with the fish switching hues and rearranging feverishly, as if they were still debating Agatha’s wish. But little by little, the fish committed to colors and then to their places, and a painting came into focus across their smooth, silky scales. . . .

  A royal garden gleamed beneath a sunset, Camelot’s castle silhouetted against the pink and purple sky. Masses of well-dressed spectators gathered, the people and creatures of the Woods watching something attentively, something neither Tedros nor Agatha could make out, since the crowd was obscuring it. But there was something else in the painting, foregrounded and sharply clear, floating over the mob: a pair of watery bubbles, each the size of a crystal ball, two tiny figures enclosed within.

  “Those are us,” Agatha said, peering at the bubbled clones.

  “Those are not us,” Tedros rejected. “You and I are full-grown, we live on the ground, and we breathe air.”

  Agatha turned to him. Her distraction snapped the spell, and the fish splintered, colors draining from their scales.

  “Not all that surprised, though. First time I tried Wish Fish after Dad died, it showed me crying in Lancelot’s arms. Lancelot, who destroyed my Dad,” said Tedros. “Wish Fish are batty.”

  “Or your soul craved a new father and Lancelot was the closest you had to one at the time,” Agatha disputed. “Wish Fish aren’t batty. That painting meant something. And this painting is how we get to Sophie.”

  “By levitating in body-shrinking bubbles?” the prince repelled. “And I would never wish to cuddle with Lancelot—”

  But Agatha wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking at the fish, which had rearranged into a stark-white arrow, pointing directly, unmistakably at . . . Tedros.

  “Your turn,” said Agatha.

  Tedros grimaced. “Next thing you know, they’ll show me baking cookies with the Snake.” He thrust his finger in the water.

  Nothing happened.

  Instead, the fish clung tighter to their arrow, pointing insistently at Tedros’ hand.

  “Told you. They’re addled, these fish,” Tedros carped.

  “Wrong finger,” his princess said. “Look.”

  The Wish Fish were pointing at another finger of Tedros’ hand.

  The one with King Arthur’s ring.

  Tedros’ heart beat faster.

  Without a word, he dipped the finger in, warm water filling the cold, steel grooves of the ring—

  A shockwave of light detonated across the pond.

  Prince and princess stared at each other.

  “What was that?” said Tedros.

  But now the fish were gluing into a silver mob, fastening hard around the steel circle, trying to kiss the ring with their bobbing little mouths. With each kiss, the fish flashed with light, as if a secret power had been transferred. Soon they were strobing like stars in the dark, faster and faster, this power magnifying, charging their bodies with mysterious force. Tedros waited for them to disperse, to paint his wish, like they’d done with his princess, but instead, the fish gobbed tighter, a ragged mass, sucking wet and tight to his ring. Then slowly they slid up his palm . . . his wrist . . .

  “Wait!” he rasped, yanking at his hand, but Agatha held him in place, the fish surging out of the pond, gripping his elbow, his bicep, his armpit—

  “Let go!” he cried, fighting Agatha.

  “Trust me,” she soothed.

  The swarming school was at his shoulder, his throat . . . his chin . . . their interlocked bodies turning clear as glass, revealing small throbbing hearts. Then, all at once, the fish began to swell. Inflating like balloons, they amassed into a clear, gelatinous globe, expanding in every direction, pressing into Tedros’ face.

  “Help!” he yelled, but the warm, slobbery bubble laminated his mouth, his nose, his eyes, suffocating him with a salty smell. He could feel Agatha’s arms on him, but he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see anything. He closed his eyes, his lashes lacquered in itchy scales, his chest pumping shallow breaths, leaking last bits of air—

  Then it stopped. The pressure. The smell. As if his head had separated from his body. The prince opened his eyes to find himself inside the fish bubble, floating above the pond.

  Agatha was in the bubble with him.

  “Like I said,” she smiled. “Trust me.”

  Then his princess began to shrink. And now, so did the prince, his whole body pinching down, inch by inch, to the size of a tea mug. The bubble closed in, too, its watery edges leaving just enough room around them.

  Tedros glanced at his pants. “This better not be permanent.”

  Instantly the bubble split in two, each sealing up whole, separating prince and princess in their own orbs.

  “Agatha?” Tedros called, his voice bouncing against liquid walls.

  He saw his tiny princess call back, her lips moving but only a squeak coming through.

  Rays of light refracted against the bubbles and Tedros watched the pond opening up like a portal, revealing a familiar castle and a pink-purple sky . . . the scene of a Wish Fish painting he’d mocked, now come to life. . . .

  “Trust me.”

  Tedros looked up at Agatha, eyes wide—

  He never had time to scream. The two balls plunged into the portal like they’d been shot from a cannon, vanishing into the glare of a faraway sun.

  4

  THE STORIAN

  Altar and Grail

  The Pen that tells the tale is just that: the teller, with no place in the story. It should not be a character or a weapon or a prize. It should not be lionized or persecuted or thought of at all. The Pen must be invisible, doing its work in humble silence, with no bias or opinion, like an all-seeing eye committed only to unspooling a story until its end.

  Yet here we are: things once held sacred are sacred no longer.

  The Pen is under siege.

  My spirit is weakened, my powers fading.

  I must tell my own story or risk Man erasing it forever.

  Man, who despite thousands of years of trusting in my powers . . . has now come to take them from me.

  NO ONE KNEW where in the gardens the wedding would take place, for there was no stage or altar or priest and no sign of a bride or groom. But as the sun dipped into the horizon, guards continued to let guests in—men, women, children, dwarves, trolls, elves, ogres, fairies, goblins, nymphs, and more citizens of the Woods—all dressed in their finest as they crammed through the gates of Camelot’s castle.

  After King Arthur’s death, the gardens had fallen to blight, but under a new king, they’d been revived to glory, a sprawling wonderland of color and scent. Packed hip to hip, the people flooded the groves of the Orangerie, the paths of the Sunken Garden, and the lawns of the Rosefield, all of which orbited the long Reflecting Pool crowned with a marble statue of King Rhian hammering Excalibur into the masked Snake’s neck. Muddy shoes stained the grass and flattened the willows; restless children tore branches and ate the lilacs; a family of giants broke an orange tree. But still guards continued to let guests in, even as the setting sun halved and quartered and the smell of sweaty bodies clogged the air.

  “Is there no end to this?” the Empress of Putsi growled, holding her nose as people jostled against her, nearly knocking her and her goose-feather coat into the Reflecting Pool. “Putsi butchers and millers and maids given the same treatment as their Empress! Ever and Never royalty thrown to the masses and left to fend for
ourselves! After all we’ve done for King Rhian? After we burned our rings in his name? Who ever heard of commoners at a royal wedding!”

  “It is the commoners who have made him king,” said the Maharani of Mahadeva, watching a mountain troll pee in the tulips. “And now that we’ve burned our rings, our voice has no more weight than theirs.”

  “We burned our rings to save our kingdoms. To earn the king’s protection,” the Empress of Putsi argued. “Your castle was attacked like mine. Your sons might be dead if not for you giving up your ring. Your realm is safe now.”

  “Is it? How are we protected if the Kingdom Council no longer has a vote against the king?” the Maharani pressed. “A king who my advisors believe seeks the power of the Storian.”

  “The ‘One True King’ is an old wives’ tale spread by that Sader family. But even if any of their flimflam was true, you of all people should welcome it. The Storian did nothing for Evil kingdoms like yours or for the Nevers of the Woods. If Rhian had the Storian’s power, he might do Evil a world of Good.” The Empress stood straighter. “King Rhian is a worthy king to both sides. He’ll listen to us, whether or not we have our rings. King Rhian will always put us above the people—”

  Something smacked her face, and she looked up at a chubby boy high on a staircase, pelting people with gooseberries.

  “Like he’s done today?” the Maharani asked, stonefaced.

  The Empress went mum.

  As for the berry-pelting boy, he found himself swatted by his Dean and yanked into place with the rest of her students, who’d traveled with the Dean from Foxwood.

  “Behave, Arjun! Or I’ll tell King Rhian to throw you in the dungeon with his brother,” Dean Brunhilde scolded, swiping her student’s ammunition. “And I assure you, you won’t last a half second in a cell with RJ. Not an ounce of Good in that boy’s body.”

  “Thought Rhian’s brother was called ‘Japeth,’” Arjun peeped.

  “Even that name sounds Evil,” the Dean murmured. “I shortened his birth name to ‘RJ.’ Came to Arbed House because he, like you, couldn’t get along with his mother. I tried to make him Good. Did everything I could. Even his brother thought he could be fixed. But in the end, it seems Rhian learned what I did: some Evil can’t be fixed.”

  “Still don’t believe we’re here. A royal wedding!” piped an older boy with sunken eyes. “A kid like us now the king!”

  “And marrying a girl as pretty as Sophie,” said a bald boy, his collar littered with dandruff. “Don’t forget that, Emilio. That’s why I’d want to be a king.”

  “Think I’ll get to be a king someday, Dean Brunhilde?” Arjun asked. “Or at least a prince?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Dean Brunhilde said. “Things are different now. Most royal weddings don’t allow ordinary citizens. But King Rhian knows to respect every soul, Good or Evil, boy or girl, young or old. All of you have a chance at glory while he’s king. Taught him myself, just like I’m teaching you.”

  “Can we meet King Rhian? Can I get his autograph?” Emilio asked.

  “I want to meet him!” another boy prompted.

  “Me too! Me too!” clamored the rest of the group.

  The Dean blushed. “I’m sure Rhian remembers me fondly. . . . Jorgen! Stop pinching fairies!”

  Meanwhile, Arjun pulled a few last gooseberries from his pocket and aimed them over the rail.

  “Quit it!” Emilio hissed.

  “But if I hit that spellcast bubble roving around, everyone watching in the other kingdoms will see me!” said Arjun. “I’ll be famous! Like the king!”

  “What bubble are you talking about?” Emilio asked, confused. “The spellcast comes from the shield over the garden. The pink fog up there. That’s what beams the scene to everywhere in the Woods.”

  “Then what’s that?” Arjun said, pointing down.

  Emilio squinted at a watery orb flitting between bodies in the crowd, nearing the edge of the reflecting pool—

  But the last light of the sun vanished, and the bubble could be seen no longer, lost in the white mist rising over the lake.

  AS NIGHT SETTLED, the mist spooled thicker, rolling over the waters in snow-colored waves. Behind the pool, Kei marched the Camelot guard into formation, the armored bodies silhouetted in fog. Standing on a staircase behind were Alpa and Omeida, the two Mistral Sisters, hooded amongst the crowd, eyes locked on Rhian’s statue, each muttering the same incantation under their breaths. On cue, the statue began to glitter a radiant gold, casting rippling light on the king’s carved face and the Snake crushed in his arms. The mist over the Reflecting Pool dissipated, revealing the surface had magically frozen, the ice strewn with blue and gold rose petals, the pool now a stage.

  Soft music began to play in a strange key, the melody of a wedding march that sounded more like a funeral’s.

  Then a blur of movement reflected in the ice.

  Wedding guests raised their heads.

  The sky had bloomed with constellations, Lions repeating endlessly as far as the eye could see, changing pose with every blink of stars. Against these celestial patterns, two more stars appeared: the bride and the king, floating down on the wings of a thousand white butterflies beating across the bride’s gown. Her shoes were made of glass, her throat collared with rubies, her face shrouded in a delicate veil. Her groom wore a white fur soaring behind him like a cape, belted with a chain of gold lions. Excalibur’s hilt gleamed at his waist. The crown of Camelot fit securely on his head. He made a fine King Rhian, this boy, with his tight copper hair, amber tan, and aqua-green gaze. . . .

  But we know better.

  “Rhian” was only playing the part of his brother, his wild hair hacked short, his skin painted tan, his eyes dyed by magic. His bride, too, seemed to be playing a role, her smile vacant, her hands clasping him the way she once clasped another boy she’d intended to marry: a young, frost-haired School Master who she thought she loved with all her heart. But now, in her wide green eyes, there was no love. There was nothing but the reflection of her groom, pleased with the emptiness of her gaze.

  The young couple floated down towards the statue, “Rhian” gripping Sophie as tightly as the stone Rhian gripped the Snake. They neared the ground, bathed in the statue’s light, the Woods’ eyes upon them. The king loomed over his bride, placing a hand on her throat, and pulled her mouth to his. The crowd suspended in silence as he kissed her, time standing still. Look closer, the way I can, and one could see the chill in Sophie’s cheeks . . . the shudder in her legs . . . the hardness in the groom’s lips, repelled by the taste of his bride. . . .

  Their feet touched down to the frozen pool.

  The mob stayed hushed.

  Then King Rhian’s statue began to rattle and quake. The edges of the ice pool splintered, shards of ice spraying into the sky, the glassy stage vibrating beneath the bride’s and groom’s feet. All at once, Rhian’s statue lifted out of the ground, taking the Reflecting Pool with it, the thick, frozen lake floating into the air, up, up, up, the bride and groom now high above the gardens, like toy figures on a cake.

  Cheers burst out across the land, the crowd unleashing all they’d held back.

  The wedding of the king had begun.

  Orbiting the grounds, the spellcast shield strobed, recording every moment and beaming it to the Woods. Listen well and you might hear the cheers from kingdoms beyond, echoing on the wind . . .

  “Rhian” turned from his bride and a flash of gold glowed beneath his cape, pulsing where his heart should be. He reached under the silk and drew out a cocoon of light. Only I know what is hidden within: a black scim disguised as Lionsmane—the king’s Pen, my so-called rival—which now rose out of the light, sharp at both ends and gold as the sun, into the night sky over the king’s palm.

  From its tip came a shimmering dust, the color of pure ore, shapeshifting into the outlines of cuddling puppies, kissing lovebirds, arrows shot through hearts. Children hopped up in the crowd, reaching hands skyward, trying
to touch these valentines before they broke apart and golden ash rained down, dusting their hair with sparkles. Sophie, too, clasped her hands to her chest, as if charmed by the sight of happy young souls. (Perhaps the clearest sign yet that this Sophie was as fraudulent as her groom.)

  Meanwhile, “Rhian” spoke from the floating stage. “The Storian was the balance of our Woods. The Pen trusted with telling the stories that moved our world forward. That is, until it gave you the last Ever After. Tedros the ‘king.’ Or as you knew him: Tedros the coward, the fraud, the snake. He is no king, regardless of what that Pen says. You learned that the hard way. But this is what happens when we give the Storian free rein. Fate leaves us vulnerable and out of control. Fate leads us to false idols. But the Storian is no longer our future. And neither are the winds of fate. Man’s will is the future. Man’s will can bring glory to all. And tonight, Man becomes Pen. My pen. I will write the stories of the future. I will reward those who deserve to be rewarded and punish those who deserve to be punished. The power is with me now. The power is with the people.”

  The crowd roared as Lionsmane rose higher in the sky, throbbing brighter like a north star. Sophie clapped along, not a wick of understanding in her gaze.

  The king held her closer. “But as long as the Storian exists, it is a threat. Empower it and it will lead us astray. To more Tedroses, and more like him. So we must not only reject it . . . but destroy it. All but one kingdom in the Endless Woods has renounced faith in the old Pen. All but one of a hundred founding realms has broken their bond with it. Tonight, as a preface to our wedding, the last kingdom breaks its bond too. The 100th realm burns its ring, stripping the Pen’s powers and giving the power over Man’s fate to me. Tonight, you not only gain a queen.” His eyes pierced through the dark. “Tonight, the One True King lives.”

  Lionsmane spawned flames from its tip: a ball of blue fire that lobbed high in the dark . . . then shot down, blasting past exuberant guests before catching to a halt in front of the Camelot guard. An armored soldier next to Kei stepped forward, the fire lighting up the wrinkles around his greedy eyes and the filthy hair spinning out from his helmet. A discerning Reader would recognize him quickly: this guard who wasn’t a guard at all. It was Bertie, the Sheriff of Nottingham’s once-steward, now the keeper of his ring. And in Bertie’s hands was this very ring, glinting atop a black pillow, the carved steel reflecting the contours of the flames.