One True King

by Soman Chainani

  Together, with the Queen of Jaunt Jolie, they made ten knights.

  The eleventh sat at the far end, a stout woman, hair pulled back into a bun.

  “Friedegund Brunhilde,” she identified herself. “Dean of Arbed House at the Foxwood School for Boys.”

  Slowly, the story unfolded. Nicola and Guinevere had come to Jaunt Jolie to ask for the queen’s help fighting the Snake: help that the queen refused, given her fear of Japeth’s retaliation. But then Maid Marian arrived in Jaunt Jolie with news of Bettina’s death, which she’d learned of from Robin Hood. When Robin failed to retrieve her from Glass Mountain, Marian had gone searching for him. She found her love in Putsi’s forest, scim-stabbed and bleeding. Robin urged Marian to go to Jaunt Jolie . . . to tell Queen Jacinda what became of him and her daughter and ask for shelter . . .

  “That was his dying wish,” Marian recounted, her voice tremoring. “But what about my wish? I can’t ever see Robin again. I can’t claim the Storian for myself and rewrite the story. No magic can bring him back. Not even a wish in Aladdin’s Cave or the darkest sorcerer’s spell.” She smeared away tears. “Robin made me promise to hide . . . but there can be no hiding anymore. He’s gone. My true love. The Snake took him from me.”

  “He took my daughter, too,” said Queen Jacinda.

  “And my dad,” said Dot.

  “And our Millicent,” said Beatrix with Reena.

  “And my Lancelot,” said Guinevere, white-haired and drawn. “He’s made us widows, orphans, and killed our children. He finds the thing you love the most and destroys it, like the darkest curse. But I won’t let him take Tedros. Arthur left him his ring for a reason. Tedros can bring us back. To balance. To truth. If only he gets the chance.”

  “Which is why we’re all here,” said Queen Jacinda. “To defend your son. To give the true Lion his pack.”

  “Then I am your servant, Your Highness,” said Guinevere.

  Two queens bowed to each other, bonded by loss.

  As for how they’d all made it to this table, Jacinda had the answers to that. After Marian came to her, she’d kept Bettina’s murder a secret. Even her husband, the king, was left in the dark. She sent him on a mission in Runyon Mills and packed her younger children off to their grandmother’s.

  Then she went to work.

  “I didn’t trust the Knights of Eleven to avenge Bettina’s death,” said the queen. “For one thing, they still believe in King Rhian and I have no proof of Japeth’s ruse. Nor do I even have evidence of my daughter’s death; inquiries to both Camelot and Putsi yielded nothing but silence and stonewalling. And then, of course, there was the last time I sent my Knights to confront the Snake, when his pirates first invaded my kingdom. They were lured by the Snake to a Sleeping Willow and put into a slumber before striking a single blow, while me and my children were noosed up to hang . . . No, I needed to find better knights to fight Japeth this time, equipped with more than weapons or brute strength. Knights who had a stake in this war. Knights who knew the depths of love and loss. Knights who would persist until the end.”

  Jacinda looked around the table. “Such knights wouldn’t be found amongst men.”

  Thus Nicola and Guinevere were summoned back to the castle, where they joined Maid Marian. At the same time, the queen had been hearing of three warrior princesses who’d been attacking Agatha bounty hunters in the forest, ever since Lionsmane had announced the second test to the Woods. She had these girls brought in, too—Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko—which made seven knights for her table.

  The eighth came easier than expected: Dean Brunhilde of Arbed House, who Jaunt Jolie had sent many an Everboy to for rehabilitation. Only this time, it was Dean Brunhilde who had traveled to Jaunt Jolie for help . . . asking if its queen had noticed any similarities between the masked attacker who’d tried to hang her and the new, cold-eyed king . . .

  “Which left three knights still to be named,” said the queen, turning to the witches. “And I know The Tale of Sophie and Agatha well enough to be certain that there are no fiercer protectors of justice than you.” She smiled towards Dot. “At any age.”

  “It’s highly temporary,” Dot contended.

  Jacinda looked at the rest. “So now our work begins, Knights of Eleven.”

  “But what work, Your Highness?” Beatrix asked. “The whole Woods is after Agatha. If a single person finds her and brings her to Japeth, he’ll win the second test. He’ll be a step away from being the One True King. From having the Storian’s powers and wiping us out before we ever have the chance to fight him.”

  “Beatrix, Kiko, and I tried to stop the Agatha hunters,” Reena agreed. “But every kingdom has people searching for her. Even in my homeland of Shazabah, my father is leading the search for Agatha. He thinks I’m still at school. He has no clue I’m fighting for the ‘rebels.’ If he did, he’d throw me in prison or have me killed. No one is on Tedros’ side anymore. We’re outnumbered by thousands.”

  “And we don’t even know where Agatha’s gone,” said Dot. “The camel swept her, Tedros, and Sophie off to some secret place.”

  “Which means we don’t know how to protect her,” said Beatrix.

  “If killing Agatha is the second test, imagine what the third test will be,” Kiko peeped.

  “Nor can we just go riding after the Snake. The Snake killed Robin and the Sheriff. The two strongest men I knew,” said Marian, with a quick glance at Dot.

  “And their strength was surpassed by Lancelot’s, who suffered the same fate,” Guinevere added. “Marian is right. We’re not warriors. We can’t succeed in killing a monster where men have failed.”

  “On the contrary.” Jacinda sat taller. “True, we cannot win the second test for Tedros. Surviving the death warrant hung on his princess is his quest alone. But there are other weapons we have to defeat the Snake. Cleverness. Resilience. Insight. Weapons that a woman wields far better than a man. It is why we wear the armor of the Eleven now.”

  Dot and Anadil peeked at Hester, both unsettled that they’d come here to get the help of knights and were instead asked to be those knights . . . But Hester was staring squarely at the queen, intrigued.

  “When Betty chose to continue writing for the Courier, even after the others fled, I asked her why,” the queen said. “Why risk her life when she could be safe? And she told me, with so much conviction, ‘Not everyone can see the truth, Mother. It is so easy to be blind to it. But those of us who can see the truth have the responsibility to help others see it too. Even if it’s dangerous. Even if it puts us at risk. The truth is worth it.’” The queen’s voice wavered. “We know the truth about Japeth. All of us. We just need the Woods to see it. And for that, we must have courage. Like my daughter had. Like your Lancelot and your Robin and your father.” She looked at Guinevere, Marian, Dot. “We may not be knights in body. But we are knights in heart. And I’d take that knight against our enemy over any other kind.”

  This time, there was no argument.

  The queen turned to Dean Brunhilde. “You’ve known the Snake since he was a boy. What does he want? Why does he seek the Storian’s power?”

  “He’s hateful. Pure Evil. From the beginning,” said the Dean, instantly.

  “You’ve made a life out of taking those believed to be Evil and leading them to Good,” the queen pointed out. “It was your mission at Arbed House. This one thwarted your efforts, but surely you had a glimpse into his soul along the way. Evil, yes. Hateful, surely. But his hatred might be the chink in his armor, if we can come to understand it.”

  “He was always a beast,” Brunhilde dismissed. “From the moment his mother brought him and Rhian to me. RJ was bitter and cruel in all the ways Rhian was earnest and warm.”

  “What does RJ stand for?” Nicola asked. “J for Japeth, and R for . . .”

  “It’s been more than a decade. My files have his records,” said Dean Brunhilde.

  “We searched for them in your office. Rhian’s and Japeth’s files,” said N
icola. “But we found a squirrelly nut to Merlin that claimed you’d hidden them somewhere.”

  The Dean bolted straight. “You? You were the one who broke in?”

  “And now we’re on the same side, so it doesn’t matter,” said Nicola, impatient. “We found other files in your office. A letter from Aric to Japeth. Proof of their friendship. But we couldn’t find Japeth’s. Where did you hide it?”

  Dean Brunhilde crossed her arms. “I’m not confiding in a thief.”

  “Perhaps you’ll confide in us once you, too, lose everyone you love,” said Maid Marian.

  Dean Brunhilde felt the eyes of Marian and two queens upon her.

  “That letter from Aric to Japeth,” said Hester delicately, turning to Nicola. “What did it say?”

  Nicola opened her mouth, but Dean Brunhilde cut her off. “They were my students,” she said briskly. “Aric and RJ were close. Aric was the only one who could keep RJ’s rages at bay, even more than Rhian. Perhaps they recognized something in each other. Two poisoned hearts that were each other’s antidote. But Rhian was RJ’s twin. There was jealousy there. Aric envious of the bond Rhian had with his brother. Rhian resentful of Aric and RJ’s friendship. It all boiled over when Aric stabbed Rhian in the head. Somehow Rhian managed to survive. And when the time came, I let the students vote on Aric’s fate. RJ begged his brother to forgive Aric . . . if Rhian forgave Aric, so would the others . . . But Rhian voted to expel him instead. Aric was sent back into the Woods. Other than his letters to RJ, I don’t know what became of him.”

  “Ended up at the School for Boys, torturing everyone in sight,” Anadil muttered. “Unleashed his fury on all of us. Until Lady Lesso stabbed him. His own mother.”

  Dean Brunhilde took this in. “So Aric might still be alive today if Rhian had forgiven him.”

  “At least Rhian did one thing right,” Kiko sighed.

  Hester caught Anadil and Dot staring at her. No one else in the room knew what the coven did. No one else knew what Sophie had told them at school.

  “No, he didn’t do it right,” Hester said. “Rhian should have forgiven Aric. He should have followed the rules of Good and Evil. Rule #1. The Good forgive. And Rhian wanted to be Good. Taking Aric from Japeth was his fatal mistake.”

  “What are you saying?” Beatrix asked.

  “Japeth killed Rhian. And it all traces back to him losing Aric,” said Hester. “That’s why Japeth wants to be the One True King. That’s why he wants the powers of the Storian. For Aric. He wants to bring his friend back to life.”

  Dean Brunhilde froze in her seat.

  Sweat beaded Hester’s forehead, the room sucked of air.

  “Love. Friendship. These are the oldest stories of time,” said Queen Jacinda finally. “And not just the domain of Good. An Evil School Master believed love gave him the right to claim the Storian, just as the Snake believes love gives him the right to replace it. It’s not the pen they ultimately seek to control. It’s love itself. But love can’t be controlled. Love requires surrender and faith. A trust in the winds of fate that the darkest hearts reject. If Aric and Japeth were meant to be together, they already would be. But fate is a power beyond our grasp. That is why we fight for the Pen. Because Man cannot be trusted to write his own fate. And the Snake shows us why. He believes fate made a mistake in separating him and Aric. That blood must be spilled, over and over, until he claims the power to rewrite that mistake and bring his friend back to him. Even if it spawns nothing but lies and murder and suffering along the way.”

  She raised her eyes to her knights. “And it is this rejection of fate, this terrible misunderstanding, that is his greatest weakness,” said the queen. “We cannot help Tedros win the second test. For him to kill Agatha is unfathomable. He has no way to win. But what if we could make Japeth abandon the test too? What if we could make him surrender the tournament altogether?”

  “Now that sounds unfathomable,” Beatrix scoffed.

  Other knights murmured agreement. “Nothing could make Japeth give up the crown,” said Dean Brunhilde.

  “Nothing except the person that’s making him fight for the crown in the first place,” Hester countered.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “Japeth wants his Ever After with Aric,” the witch reasoned. “So we have to make him believe that Aric never wanted one with him. That Aric is rejecting his plan. That he doesn’t want to be brought back. The queen is right. It just might work . . .”

  “Um, Aric is dead,” said Beatrix, “and unless I’m missing something, no one but the Storian has the power to raise people from the grave.”

  “We don’t need to raise him from the grave,” said Anadil, catching on to Hester’s plan. “We just need to make it seem as if he has. Long enough for him to give Japeth a message. A brutal, undeniable message.”

  “A message which will make him doubt,” the queen confirmed. “If his guard is down, then we stand a chance.”

  Dot frowned. “How can you fake a message from the dead?”

  “Only one place,” Maid Marian realized, looking at Jacinda. “A faraway cave where anything can come true for the right price . . . even a message from the grave . . .”

  “Aladdin’s Cave,” said Guinevere. “The lost Cave of Wishes.”

  “Lost cave?” Kiko wisped. “How do you find a lost cave?”

  “You ask the last man who found it, of course,” the Queen of Jaunt Jolie replied.

  Her eyes fixed on the knight a few seats down.

  Eyes wide. Sunk in her chair.

  Pale as a ghost.

  “My father,” Reena gasped.

  17

  AGATHA

  Never Trust a Princess

  In the storybooks Agatha read back in Gavaldon, the land of Aladdin was a feast of color and fragrance and earthy delights: loafing camels, dusty spice markets, palaces veiled by storms of sand.

  But in real life, that’s not what it was like at all.

  As the Shazabah Sikander had neared its homeland, Agatha, caged in the bowels of the ship, peered out a porthole at a fertile metropolis lording over the desert. Jewel-green palms bowed to each other over paved streets. Sleek red-and-gold buildings speared through the sky, with a controlled traffic of magic carpets transporting citizens around the kingdom. And everywhere she’d looked: camels, squads of them, military-garbed and precise in their march, patrolled the city while also guarding the imperial palace at its center, a pyramid of red-and-gold glass.

  It was deep within this palace that Agatha found herself now, imprisoned with her friends, looking out their cell’s only window at the royal camel pastures, where the camel that had turned them in was now happily grazing, reunited with its family.

  “Still trust that thing?” Tedros growled from Agatha’s right, the two crouched in the dark cell.

  Agatha couldn’t speak. As soon as they’d reached the palace, the guards had stripped Merlin from her. She had no idea where they’d taken the five-year-old wizard. With each passing second, her skin went clammier, her stomach sicker. “Mama!” Merlin had cried. Again, the wizard was prescient. Because she felt like she’d lost her child.

  Despairing, she appealed to the camel through the window, but it offered her only the calmest of nods, as if everything was as it should be. As if it hadn’t betrayed her. As if this was the way to Tedros winning the second test. For a moment, Agatha wondered if she should still have hope . . . if the camel had a larger plan in motion . . .

  Then she saw Hort glaring across the cell. “To answer your question, Tedros, yes, she totally still trusts that thing. Same way Sophie trusts guys whose names start with ‘R.’”

  Sophie let out a long sigh. “You know, Aggie, normally I shield you from boorish boys, but I did warn you about that camel. Animals aren’t our friends. Especially ones with humps.”

  “Only a Never would say something so foolish,” Princess Uma muttered.

  “Oh?” Sophie retorted, nursing her bandaged wrist. “Then why can’t
you do one of your bird whistles or wolf calls and summon your friends to help us?”

  “Not in Shazabah,” Uma said vaguely, looking away.

  “Well, someone better help us,” Hort said, standing up. “We’ve been dumped in jail a million miles from home and Rhian and the Sultan were chums, so the Snake’s surely on the way to kill Agatha, win the second test, and then kill the rest of us.” The weasel paused. “It’s that last part I care about.”

  “Hort’s right,” Agatha confessed, still thinking about Merlin. “Maybe the camel betrayed us. Maybe I was wrong. But we can’t just wait to die.”

  “What should we do, then? Wish the Snake away? Stick a doll with pins? He’s out there and we’re in here,” Tedros said, clearly frustrated.

  “We’ve gotten out of prison before,” said Agatha.

  Tedros shook his head. “We shouldn’t have tried to run away. I knew it was cowardice. Dad doesn’t want me to hide from my own test.” He slouched against the wall. “They’ll probably give Merlin to the Snake too.”

  The thought of Japeth claiming Merlin chilled Agatha’s blood—

  “Sounds like Aladdin’s Cave is your only hope now,” a voice chuckled.

  Agatha and Tedros flashed their gold fingerglows to the back of the cell.

  No one there.

  “Up here,” said the voice.

  Agatha cast her glow towards a ceiling pipe—

  Hanging by his boots was a young man, with smooth brown skin, thick eyebrows, and a strapping physique, doing stomach crunches upside down.

  “Too bad only my father knows where to find the Cave of Wishes,” he said.

  Princess Uma rose slowly. “Kaveen?”

  “Thought you’d promised never to return to Shazabah, Uma,” said Kaveen, hanging like a bat. “Wasn’t that part of our divorce agreement?”

  “Your father handled that, just like he handled every other piece of our marriage,” said Uma.

  “You had a habit of not listening to me,” said Kaveen, “and yet you always listened to the Sultan.”

  “Because if I didn’t listen to your father, I would have been thrown in here,” Uma fired back, “so clearly it’s you who didn’t listen to him in the end.”