One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “How could they control Sophie, then?” Agatha pushed.

  “How could Arthur gift Tedros his ring so long after his death? How did he know Tedros would need it? How could Excalibur return to the stone after it was pulled?” the prince’s mother replied, bending down and touching the carved steel around her son’s finger. “From the outside, these things seem impossible. But magic has its own rules. Its own secrets. So if the three sisters are controlling Sophie, then we have to find what that secret is.”

  “I only saw two sisters,” said Hort.

  “Me too,” Nicola confirmed.

  “Third must be up to something,” Guinevere suspected. “The Mistral Sisters stick together unless there’s good reason.”

  Tinkerbell nuzzled Tedros lovingly, but he was focused on Agatha. “Sophie would have killed you,” he breathed, still haunted. “Nothing would have stopped her.”

  “Lucky the portal opened,” Agatha admitted, glancing at her friends. “Knew we could get back once we saw you.”

  Guinevere blanched. “You could see us? From Camelot?”

  “Why does it matter?” Agatha asked.

  Tedros’ mother stood up. “The Snake was inches from you. If you could see this place through the portal, then so could he. You heard him: tournament or no tournament, he wants you dead. We need to leave. Quickly.”

  “Won’t Camelot’s ring protect Tedros?” Hort asked. “Like it did back there? Snake would have killed him otherwise.”

  “You don’t think I can take that scum?” Tedros scorned. “That I need a ring’s protection?”

  “Um, that’s not what I was saying, but now that you’re asking . . . yes,” Hort replied.

  “Whatever powers the ring has, the Wish Fish knew how to access it. We don’t,” said Guinevere, moving towards the staircase. “But I wouldn’t put our faith in the ring. It’s surely bonded by the Storian, like all the other rings—and though we are the Pen’s last defenders, it cannot tilt the tale in our favor. That’s not how the Storian works. It’s why Japeth seeks to replace it with a Pen he can control. Besides, even if the ring could protect Tedros, it can’t protect Agatha or the rest of us.”

  “She’s right,” Tedros said tensely, pulling Agatha towards the stairs, Hort and Nicola scrambling behind them.

  As Tedros helped his princess up the steps, his father’s ring warm against her palm, Agatha glanced down one last time at the lake, the shores quiet and deserted, the waters dead calm.

  Then she saw her.

  The bald-headed silhouette beneath the glass of the water, watching as the intruders left her kingdom. The Lady of the Lake met Agatha’s gaze for a long moment, her black eyes wide and frozen . . . before she towed back under and disappeared.

  Agatha’s hand went cold in her prince’s.

  She’d never seen that emotion in the Lady’s face before.

  An emotion Agatha knew well.

  She was feeling it right now.

  Fear.

  “CAN’T THEY FLY faster?” Agatha whispered to Tedros, the two of them shrouded inside a fairy cocoon with Hort, Nicola, and Guinevere.

  Tinkerbell retorted with angry squeaks, the light of her wings dimmed like her fellow fairies’ to camouflage the cocoon against the night.

  “Tink says she let the fairies go feasting while she waited for us,” Tedros explained. “Only food in Avalon are those green apples. Must all be drunk on sugar.”

  The fairy hive stuttered away from Avalon’s gates, jostling their concealed passengers like cats in a barrel.

  All five members of the team had agreed that they should get far away from Avalon, though each person had competing ideas of where they should go next.

  “Living Library,” Tedros proposed.

  “In Pifflepaff Hills?” said Hort. “Cotton candy land?”

  “We can get answers there,” Tedros insisted, turning to Agatha. “The scroll that announced the tournament . . . We watched my father write it, remember? When we jumped into the crystal ball and went back in time. Dad was at his desk. He wrote two cards. One with my original coronation test. The second must have been the secret one! My second test! Which means—”

  “Wait. How did he know he’d need a second test?” Nicola interrupted. “How did he know you’d fail the first one?”

  “I had the same question,” Agatha mulled, eyeing Nicola. “Except . . . that line when he announced the tournament . . .”

  “The one that didn’t make sense?” Nic caught on. “‘The future I have seen has many possibilities . . .’”

  “Maybe he knew somehow,” Agatha guessed. “Maybe he knew all of this would happen.”

  “Arthur wasn’t a seer,” Guinevere dismissed.

  “Doesn’t take a seer to know you have a secret son snaking about,” Hort surmised. “Someone who might challenge your other son for your throne.”

  “But the Snake just said he isn’t Arthur’s son,” Nicola reminded.

  “Look, all that matters is Dad had that second card ready,” Tedros plowed on, trying to make his point. “The one with the tournament. We don’t know what the trials are yet, but the Living Library in Pifflepaff Hills has a whole archive about Dad’s history—his years at school, his training with Merlin, even his time with Sir Ector and Sir Kay, before he pulled the sword from the stone and became king. Dad kept the archive up to date, so I’d have a place to go if something happened to him. A place where I could still feel close to him . . . The library could give me clues to what the tests might be. So I can be ready for them. It’s as good a place as any to start.”

  “Too risky,” his mother countered. “The King of Pifflepaff Hills and his guards will be on Japeth’s side. And they keep the ancestry files in the Living Library well protected. Besides, if you have questions about your father, I’m as good a resource as any archive. Arthur confided in me.”

  “Was that before or after he put a death warrant on your head?” Tedros mumbled.

  “Enough, Tedros. I’m trying to keep you alive,” said Guinevere sternly. “If you don’t want me here, tell me and I’ll go.”

  “Your mother’s right,” said Agatha, touching her prince. “Library will be a death trap.”

  “So I’m still a fugitive, then,” Tedros blistered, pulling away. “Even after Excalibur went back into the stone. Even with Japeth’s crown disappearing. Even with Dad’s voice rising from the grave and telling people I have a claim to his throne.” Pink spots colored his cheeks. “Surely some kingdoms will question who the king is now? Surely some leaders will figure out he’s the Snake? Surely some will come to my side—”

  A blast of light scorched over the Savage Sea like a comet.

  Lionsmane’s new message lit up the sky.

  “Surely not,” Hort said.

  Agatha, too, had the same sinking feeling as she read the pen’s screed.

  Tedros thinks he can steal the crown. But the people know better. There is only one king. Your Rhian. The People’s King. Together, we will win the Tournament. For the Lion. For the Woods!

  “‘We’?” said Tedros.

  “He’s keeping the people on his side,” Agatha realized. “Before the tournament starts.”

  “People don’t decide the winner. It’s a race. Someone finishes first,” her prince dismissed. “That’s who Excalibur will crown.”

  “We don’t know the tests, Tedros,” said Agatha. “If the people are on his side, they might be able to help him with them. Then it’s not just you against Japeth. It’s you against the entire Woods.”

  “But that’s cheating!” Tedros said. “Excalibur won’t crown a cheater!”

  “It did once before,” his princess pointed out.

  Tedros glared up at the Snake’s screed. “So I could play these tests honest and fair and act the king . . . and still lose my head.”

  “Japeth might have the Woods, but you have us. Your family. Your friends. People with real loyalty to you,” Agatha encouraged. “We’ll find a way to win.”
>
  “We just have to keep you safe until you do,” Nicola said to Tedros. “Tournament or no tournament, the Snake’s coming for your head.”

  “So many ways to lose a head,” Hort quipped.

  Tinkerbell bit him.

  “Good girl, Tink,” said Tedros.

  With the prince’s safety in mind, the weasel proposed returning to Gnomeland’s underground hideout—

  “—where we will have to stay forever, because the Snake’s scims will track us like last time and surround the stump over Gnomeland until we come out,” said Nicola.

  “Must you poo on every one of my ideas?” Hort harrumphed. “What’s your idea?”

  “To go back to the School for Good and Evil, where we can join the students and teachers and at least have the semblance of a defense,” his girlfriend replied.

  “No,” Agatha rejected. “First place Japeth’s men will look. And this time, there’s no Sheriff or enchanted sack to save us.”

  A sharp rumble thundered behind them—

  Between the lattice of fairies, she watched a cavalry of twenty horses, mounted with armed guards, streak across the snow towards Avalon’s gates.

  The sugar-drunk fairies sprung alert, flying higher and smoother, their wings going dark to conceal their passengers.

  “Few more minutes and we’d have been dead,” Tedros breathed.

  Agatha felt no relief. Japeth’s men were already on the hunt. Which meant Tedros didn’t just have to win three tests against an insidious Snake. He had to survive long enough to finish them. Her heart seized tighter. If only she could do the tests instead of him . . . if only she could protect him—

  She squashed the thought.

  Hadn’t she learned her lesson about hijacking his battles?

  These were his tests. Not hers.

  Tedros needs a princess, she told herself. A sentinel at his side. Not a nag or a worrywart or a second-guesser. Besides, there were signs it could all end well. They were alive, for one thing. They were still together. And Sophie’s wedding to the Snake hadn’t been sealed, their rings disappearing before she was his queen. And somewhere out there, the rest of their friends—the witches, Beatrix, Kiko, Willam, Bogden, and others—were hopefully alive too. Tedros still had a chance. Agatha had to let his fate unfold the way it was supposed to. She had to let her prince become a king.

  Giving Tedros full command, though, would have to wait. They wouldn’t be going to the Living Library like he wanted. Far too dangerous, she insisted. Instead, it was her plan that won out: to fly to Sherwood Forest, the densest part of the Endless Woods, enchanted by magic and impervious to the Snake, his men, or his scims. They could camp there until the first test was revealed, though Agatha hadn’t the slightest clue how that would happen. (Would Arthur’s voice boom from the sky again? How do you win a race if you don’t know when it starts?) All they could do for now was wait, and Robin Hood’s lair was the best place to do it. Plus, they’d be able to reunite with Robin, their last possible protector, since Lancelot and the Sheriff were dead, along with Agatha’s mother and Professor Sader, Dovey and Lesso too, while Merlin had yet to resurface. Adults didn’t fare well in her fairy tale, Agatha thought grimly, glancing at Guinevere, one of the few left, nestled against her son as the fairies flew them over Foxwood. And yet Guinevere didn’t quite seem like an adult. To Agatha, she was less sturdy somehow, more precarious, as if all those years with Lance in paradise had left the once-queen unprepared for real life.

  “Sorry about pooing on your ideas,” Agatha heard Nicola whisper to Hort. “It’s just . . . once you saw Sophie in the mirrorspell, you got all lit up. And you never look that way with me.”

  “Sophie doesn’t want me,” Hort chortled, then saw his girlfriend’s face. “No, I don’t mean it like that. I’m abysmal with words. It’s why I made a crap History professor at school. How ’bout this: when the Snake has you in a wedding dress and under some terrible spell, I’ll get lit up too.” He winked at Nic.

  “You really are abysmal with words,” she laughed.

  “With everything, really,” said Hort, kissing her.

  Agatha couldn’t help but smile . . . then noticed Guinevere gazing at her.

  “What is it?” Agatha asked.

  “I’m just thinking . . . Arthur gave Tedros his ring. Arthur had his second will ready. Arthur wants Tedros to win. So why have this tournament at all?” said the old queen. “Why not just tell the people Tedros is the heir?”

  “Because the people wouldn’t believe him,” spoke Tedros quietly. “They know I failed as king the first time. They know Excalibur rejected me for a reason.”

  “They only know what they’ve seen,” said Agatha.

  Her prince looked up at her.

  “I know who you are,” Agatha expressed. “All of us do. But you’re right: the people don’t. The people never got to know the real Tedros the first time you wore the crown. You were too preoccupied trying to hold on to your place as king to actually stand up and be the king. This time is different. There is a Snake on your throne posing as the Lion and you need to save your people from him. Only the true king can make it through that kind of trial. Only the true king can prove he is the real Lion, with everything against him. This is your second chance, Tedros. Excalibur is back in the stone. But the sword can’t choose you until you’ve passed your father’s test. All of his tests.”

  Tedros gazed deep and hard into his true love’s eyes.

  “And even then Excalibur might not choose you,” Nicola pointed out. “The Snake could win the race. And, even if he doesn’t, Rhian likely pulled Excalibur the first time because he and his brother tricked it. Same trick that made the Lady of the Lake kiss Japeth, thinking he was king. How do we know Japeth can’t trick it again? In which case, the sword will never pick you.”

  “Thanks for that,” Tedros grunted, glancing at Hort. “Your dates must be loads of fun.”

  “It’s not like you’re marrying Miss Sunshine, either,” Hort pipped.

  The fairy ball lurched and Tinkerbell flung back a hissy squeak.

  “Stay still, she says,” Tedros whispered, looking down. “Foxwood hawks. Royal collars. Must be on king’s business.”

  Carefully the fairy hive floated upwards, while Agatha watched a gang of hawks, fitted with red-and-gold neck cuffs, surf low over the Foxwood vales below. They scanned the houses, until their leader gave a winged signal and the hawks dove, ripping through an open window and interrupting a young fairy godmother at work peering into her crystal ball, before the birds swiped the ball from her. The hawks flew to a forest a few miles ahead, where they dumped the ball into a mound of others, birds arriving with various royal collars and dropping more orbs into the pile, as guards in Camelot armor bashed the crystals to pieces with clubs and melted down the shards.

  “Only one reason Japeth would be destroying crystal balls,” Nicola said to Agatha once they were safely hidden in clouds. “That history you witnessed in Rhian’s blood crystal. About Arthur and Evelyn Sader. Clearly Japeth doesn’t want you to see anything else.”

  Tedros bit down. “The way he grinned at me. The way he said it . . . ‘I know.’ He got away with making us think he’s my brother. Making us think he’s my dad’s son.”

  “But he has to be Arthur’s son. The blood crystal couldn’t have lied,” said Agatha. “I was inside Rhian’s blood. His real past. I saw Evelyn Sader put the spansel around Arthur’s neck while he slept. She enchanted him to have his child. From what I saw, Arthur was Rhian’s father. Evelyn Sader was Rhian’s mother.”

  “And yet Japeth just told us that Arthur isn’t his father,” said Nicola. “And Arthur giving Tedros his ring proves it. Camelot’s ring can only go to the heir.”

  “Maybe Arthur ignored that rule,” Hort offered. “Knowing Evelyn had tricked him, I mean. Maybe he skipped the real heir and gave the ring to the heir he wanted.”

  “No,” said Tedros and Guinevere together, trading looks.

  “
It’s the law of the Woods,” the prince added. “Dad would never flout that, no matter the circumstances.”

  “So we’re back where we started,” Agatha muttered. “Rhian’s blood says Japeth and Rhian are the sons of Arthur and Evelyn Sader. All other evidence says they aren’t. We still have no idea who the Snake is.”

  “Hmm, could Rhian have one set of parents and Japeth have another?” Hort asked.

  “They’re twins!” Tedros barked, expecting the others to scoff too, but Agatha was thinking about this, and so, it seemed, was Nicola, who was gazing right at the princess, having clearly remembered all the details of The Tale of Sophie and Agatha. Twins could have very strange histories, indeed . . . no stranger than the history of Agatha and her best friend . . .

  “Maybe the answer has something to do with Sophie,” Agatha wondered, thinking of that friend now. “It’s her blood that healed the Snake. And it’s Sophie he needs as queen. Why her? What’s special about her blood? Why does Japeth need Sophie to become king?”

  “You’re the Sophie expert,” said Tedros.

  Agatha sighed. “Wish we had the witches here. They know magic better than any of us.”

  “The witches are better off looking for Merlin,” said Guinevere. “If Merlin hasn’t been killed already. Or used his Wizard Wish.”

  “Wizard Wish?” Agatha asked.

  “A single wish every wizard keeps tucked away where only they can find it,” said the old queen. “A wish that can be made for anything, as long as it’s said out loud, but usually saved by a wizard to choose the precise moment of his death.”

  “Merlin’s been threatening to use it since I was a kid,” Tedros murmured. “Any time I had a tantrum: ‘Don’t make me use my Wizard Wish, boy!’”

  Guinevere looked at her son. “Let’s hope the witches find Merlin alive.”

  “And in time to help me with my first test, whatever it is,” said Tedros.

  “Maybe it’ll be something stacked in your favor,” said Hort. “If it was my dad, he’d make the first test something I’d do well. Like picking locks. Or spying on girls.” (Nicola frowned.)