While these animal statues were grand, what really caught my attention was an elusive, connecting metalwork structure twisted near the ceiling of every room. It was the most ambitious piece of metalwork I’d ever seen—a singular, giant working of bronze jutting in and out of the highest part of the hallways. It was smooth and rounded and wide as a redwood tree, sort of like a really big water pipe. The creation was constructed in a way that made it look like it was writhing through the innards of the palace.
My eyes kept shooting back to it, trailing the tube of bronze through the walls as we made our way through the compound. I was fascinated by its magnitude and curious about what it actually was and where it ended. As we emerged through a grand archway I finally discovered its end—or rather, its beginning.
I gazed up at the face of an enormous metal serpent protruding over the door. The monster’s head was as massive as a carriage. Constructed from the brightest bronze, it was offset by the deep red tapestries that hung from the wall on either side of the entry.
I gulped as I recognized its awful face.
The serpent from my dreams.
It was exactly as I remembered it, all but the eyes. They’d been gold in my dreams. These were black and scarlet, shining like burnt stars.
I couldn’t help but pause as I looked up at the creature’s gleaming fangs. They hovered above our heads in the frame of the doorway—smoother and more polished than the stalactites at the Cave of Mysteries, but just as sharp.
When I tore my attention away from the bronze creature, I realized that we’d entered a throne room. It contained an elaborate arched ceiling reminiscent of a cathedral. The room featured red flags emblazoned with phoenix insignias, cedar floors, countless guards, and . . . my friends.
My eyes widened with relief.
Blue, SJ, and Jason stood in the center of the ballroom. With the different worlds Daniel and I had passed through—and the Earth-to-Book time difference—it felt like I hadn’t seen them in ages. But in truth, it had barely been a day.
Had it really only been yesterday morning that we’d been separated on Adelaide? Good grief, how’s that possible when it feels like I’ve turned through so many chapters?
Blue’s dark blonde hair was messy around her face. She wasn’t wearing her cloak, which made her look incomplete. Jason’s intense blue eyes were stern and fiery with defiance. The sheath across his back that normally held his axe had been taken from him. SJ’s long black hair was still perfectly braided and her outfit (like that of the others) remained crisp and clean due to her SRB. However, she looked more frazzled than I’d ever seen her. The expression on her face was irritated, confused, and anxious.
Seeing them filled me with gladness. But it also caused my stomach to flip. Because while I may have been excited to see them, I knew that the way I’d left things on Adelaide meant they probably felt no such glee in looking at me.
I could see it in their eyes.
They probably still cared for me. We’d been through too much together for our friendship to be gone completely. And they also had bigger things to worry about—being in the heart of antagonist country and all. But I detected anger in their expressions. And I knew I deserved it.
The guards led Daniel and me to where our shackled friends stood.
“What are you doing here?” SJ asked tersely.
“What do you think?” I responded. “Saving you guys.”
SJ glanced at the dozens of guards that had brought us in and then at the meaty handcuffs restraining us.
“It’s a work in progress,” Daniel admitted.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Blue interceded. “The point is you shouldn’t have come. How was it not obvious that this was a trap?”
“Of course it was obvious. We’re not stupid,” I replied. “But whether it’s a trap or not doesn’t matter. There’s no way we were going to abandon you guys.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” someone cooed.
A tall girl in her mid-twenties had suddenly appeared at the head of the room through a curtained-off door next to the throne. She was strong and slender, confident and poised.
She nodded at us pleasantly enough as she seated herself upon the throne, draping herself across it like a cat on a couch. Her smiling eyes were trained on us, causing me to notice their hypnotic nature. They were big like a caricature’s, the irises black as night and even more pronounced by her dark eyeliner. The girl’s midnight hair was pulled back in a flowing ponytail that allowed her long neck to be prominently displayed. She wore flattering bronze armor that complimented her light brown skin.
Overall I’d have said she was pretty. At least in the way Venus Flytraps are pretty. But in my eyes the most notable thing about her was that I recognized her from her recurring role as a character in my nightmares. This was Nadia.
Arian entered the throne room via the same entrance Nadia had used. He positioned himself at her side like a loyal retriever. She clapped her hands together as if she was a schoolteacher trying to get her class’s attention.
“So then,” she said merrily. “Which one of you is Crisanta Knight?”
I hesitated. I hadn’t yet decided on an appropriate course of action. When I failed to immediately acknowledge myself, Arian nodded to one of the guards behind us and he shoved me forward.
He and one other guard came up behind me, invading my personal space. I glared at them then back at Arian. Then I met the gaze of the girl on the throne.
“Hmm, not what I would have imagined.” She sounded a little disappointed. “But, well, what ever is? I’m not going to lie though, Arian, I had sort of hoped she’d be a bit less . . . ordinary.”
Hey!
“She doesn’t look like much, Majesty,” Arian agreed. “But I assure you she’s capable. I wouldn’t have insulted you with her presence if she wasn’t.”
Well, okay, that’s better . . . I think.
Nadia raised her eyebrows at Arian. “We shall see,” she mused. She turned her attention back to me and sat up straighter on her throne. “I suppose introductions are in order, aren’t they?”
“Not really,” I said. “You’re Nadia. The chick who’s had Arian killing protagonists and chasing me across the realm like a hound on a foxhunt.”
“Informally, yes,” Nadia affirmed. “But formally is another matter. For example, if we are to discuss things with proper respect, I would say that you are Crisanta Katherine Knight, the volatile princess who’s been causing a ruckus all over the realm and throwing our plans off charter for the last two months. Meanwhile I am Nadia Vitalli-Suratt, leader of New Ever After and crowned queen of the great state of Alderon.”
I blinked—a beat of silence settling between us before I realized it was my turn to talk.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I asked.
Nadia shrugged. “Not necessarily. Titles are meaningless in the end. But I did expect some sense of decorum. You are a princess, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Depends who you ask.”
“Regardless of that and your lack of civility, I am still delighted to welcome you to my kingdom, Crisanta Knight,” Nadia said. “We don’t receive many visitors here, and I’ve truly been looking forward to meeting you.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Not that this little exchange isn’t fascinating and everything,” an irritated Blue suddenly interrupted. “But aside from the meet and greet, why exactly are we here?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Nadia replied as she casually stepped down from her throne. She made her way across the room, coming to a stop a few feet in front of our group.
“While eventually I might need Arian to kill the three of you,” she nodded at Blue, Daniel, and Jason, “the lot of you are here now because of this one.” Nadia gestured to me. “And she is here because of one thing.”
“Care to expand on that?” I asked.
“I could . . .” Nadia lingered. “Although the explanation can be summed up in a single word: antagonist.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” Nadia responded with a glint in her eye. “At least not in the proper sense of the term as it applies to our situation. You see, Crisanta, I am not the antagonist here. You are.”
“What are you talking about?” I scoffed.
“I am talking about looking at people for who they truly are in the grand scheme of things. You, for example, were chosen at birth to be a protagonist by our realm’s higher powers. But the question remains why? You are just another princess—a sad excuse for one based on what I’ve been told. And there is nothing extraordinary about you in the slightest aside from a claim to royalty and a unique set of self-destructive tendencies. Despite that, the world has decided that you of all people are allowed to be special. That you—unlike the rest of us trapped in this strife-ridden kingdom like rats in a cage—are allowed to live a life of riches, spoils, and greatness.
“Well I have news for you, Crisanta Knight. You have been living a lie. Until now you might’ve been able to hide from it with your precocious boarding schools, your regulated kingdoms, and the Author’s ego-inflating words. But they can’t protect you from the truth here. And the truth is that I am the protagonist of our shared story. I am the person fighting for what’s right and just—the one who will finally bring justice to the deserving people of this realm. While you, my overly entitled princess, are the adversary—the antagonist designed to keep me from achieving my goals.”
I was struck by Nadia’s analysis. I couldn’t believe the nerve of her, calling me an antagonist when she’d sent her henchman to kill me and my friends. It was an absolutely ridiculous accusation.
Still, remnants of my conversation with Daniel regarding the antagonists being braver than us—as well as my own earlier reflections on Alderon—poked at my subconscious, allowing bits of Nadia’s words to seep under my skin.
The queen paced around me like a lioness encircling prey. I followed her with my eyes, tempted to make a run at her with my bare hands. Though I knew that the armed guards standing behind me would swiftly chop off my fingers before I got anywhere near her.
“And what goals are those exactly?” I asked.
“In a word?”
“If you can spare it,” I mocked.
“As a matter of fact, I can,” she said calmly. “I’ll even do you one better and give you four.”
Nadia held up her hand and counted off the words with four fingers. “Kill. The. Main. Characters.”
I was speechless.
“You can’t be serious?” Jason blurted.
“Oh, but I am,” Nadia assured him. “For countless generations the citizens of Alderon have been tossed aside and disregarded like garbage—all of us lumped into a giant stereotype of villainy and locked in here without hope of escape, retribution, or any kind of life for our descendants outside of the one you’ve forced upon us. Well, no more. My people have had enough of it and enough of you main characters. Which is why we’ve decided to wipe the realm of your kind—the over-privileged, cliché-dependent, so-called protagonists of our land. You and your leaders have plagued our realm like a sickness. And like any disease, you must be expunged completely if the rest of us are to thrive.”
The throne room was silent for a solid beat.
And then I laughed.
It was an abrupt, condescending scoff that echoed across the chamber and caused everyone to look at me—some with fear, some with confusion and shock. I shook my head, giving Nadia a disdainful smirk.
“Great diatribe, Nadia. Really. You make insanity sound super noble. But aside from the high-and-mighty attitude, let’s face it—you’re no better than all the other villains out there. Go ahead and pretend all you want that you’re some big savior fighting for fairness, but nothing about a plan involving mass genocide equals heroic justice. You’re no protagonist; you’re just another power-hungry maniac masquerading as some sort of enlightened humanitarian. You couldn’t be a more stereotypical antagonist if you tried.”
Nadia sighed like an adult tired of the antics of a stubborn toddler. “So typical,” she said. “Just the type of response I’d expect from a weak, irrelevant relic of fairytales past who herself is masquerading as some sort of awe-inspiring hero.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?” I tried to take a step forward but was firmly stopped by one of the guards.
I thrust his paw off my shoulder. “Come on, Nadia,” I continued. “We both know not even you really believe that’s who I am. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had Arian work so hard to get me here.”
Nadia shook her head in amusement. “Silly princess. This isn’t about who you are. It never was. This is about who you have the potential to become. Oh, I stand by everything I’ve said about the ‘you’ that stands before me now. But that is not the girl anyone here cares about. Now the girl your prologue prophecy describes, that is an entirely different story, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
“Ugh, this again. Look, it’s like I told your lapdog over there.” I nodded to Arian. “The prophecy the Scribes sent me is as lame as they come. So unless you provide me with a little more to go on, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And it’s like I told you, Knight,” Arian interrupted brusquely as he stepped toward the center of the throne room, “your prologue—”
Nadia glared at Arian, silencing him. “Your prologue prophecy,” she said, resuming control of the conversation, “or at least the version you are familiar with, is just another lie—a pretense put on a shelf to distract people from what’s real.”
“Meaning?” Blue asked.
“Meaning that there is too much at stake with our plans for this realm, and the others, to allow for even the slightest problem,” Nadia responded. “This is why we’ve recruited one of the Scribes to monitor protagonist books and look for prologue prophecies that might be of interest to my antagonists. Whenever my Scribe finds a prophecy that describes a person who will pose a threat to our mission, we can swiftly take care of it, and them. The ambassadors of the realm manipulate protagonist selection for their own reasons; we’re simply doing the same. Without anyone being the wiser, my Scribe can confiscate an original book and prophecy and have a fake one drawn up to replace it so no one will think twice about that main character. This buys my people time to eliminate them without raising any red flags.”
“So your Scribe replaced Crisa’s prologue prophecy?” Jason clarified. “Her real one made her out to be a formidable protagonist and you wanted to keep her in the dark so you could get the jump on her?”
Nadia sighed again and sashayed back to her throne, settling in her seat. “Yes. As hard as it may be to believe looking at her now, it is the truth,” she conceded. “But it is also a bit more interesting than that. For unlike so many of the other protagonists we’ve had to preemptively silence, your situation, Crisanta, bears much greater weight and, ergo, required a bit more precision.
“As my plans and forces gain momentum, the Author has prophesized that there will be one person with the power to oppose us. One person alone who will possess the ability to stop our mission and prevent my people’s rise to power. You.”
“Me?” I repeated in shock.
“Her?” I heard one or more of my friends gasp from behind.
Thanks, guys. Love the confidence.
“Yes,” Nadia affirmed. “You, Crisanta Knight—princess of Midveil and last in your class at Lady Agnue’s School for Princesses & Other Female Protagonists—are foretold to stand in my way. Which means that I cannot allow you to remain standing.”
The information hit me like a tidal wave. I’d never felt so many conflicting things at once.
I was happy that I’d finally gotten confirmation that the putrid prophecy I’d come to know was not my fate. I was kind of flattered that there was actually someone out there—crazy, villainous tyrant or not—who actually believed I was a threat. I was fairly freaked out that being seen as this threa
t had earned me the label of “Public Enemy Number One” to the people of Alderon. And I was indescribably, unequivocally speechless to learn that I was prophesized to be the sole person responsible for stopping them.
It was a lot to take in.
“So why the big show then?” Daniel asked, breaking the silence with a very reasonable question. “Why not just kill her now, kill all of us now? If she’s so dangerous to you then why go through the trouble of the whole prisoner routine when you could’ve gotten rid of us the second we got here?”
“I swear, does no one appreciate proper showmanship anymore?” Nadia asked Arian rhetorically. She huffed in annoyance. “Look, Daniel. It is Daniel, isn’t it? I am trying to mount a rebellion here. So why kill you all in seclusion when I could rally my fellow Alderonians by executing our main enemy and a handful of you bonus protagonists in front of a live audience? It’s free publicity for the cause, morale for the troops, and all in all just a smart leadership strategy for a young, up-and-coming warlord such as myself. I mean, nothing unites people like a common enemy. Wouldn’t you agree, Crisanta?”
I glanced around at my friends, whose faces shared the same newfound simmering hatred for the wicked girl on the throne. Then I glared at Nadia—all too certain of my answer.
“Agreed,” I said.
The queen turned her attention to Arian. “Escort the lot of them to the dungeon.”
He nodded and approached us as the guards began to maneuver my friends and I toward the door. Despite the shackles and number of guards (which already seemed like overkill), Arian drew his sword.
“What’s wrong?” I huffed, impertinence outweighing whatever fear or common sense should’ve colored my speech. “Afraid I’ll make you look bad in front of your boss by escaping again?”
“Not quite,” Arian sneered.
He raised his blade. The last thing I saw was the pommel headed straight for my head.
Aw, crud.
rian’s blunt strike to the side of my head knocked me out. In the brief unconscious spell I fell through a funnel of vision flashes.
Inherent Fate Page 23
