“Come on!” I yelled to the girls. I bounded up the steps, channeling my will to slowly, but continuously, suck the life from the snake. When I was halfway up the wall, the massive creature began to disintegrate. Its blue scaly skin lifted off its body, turning to ash and swirling around with my magic energy.
“Crisa, you’re killing it!” Blue said as she and SJ hurried after me.
“No, I’m only draining the life from it until we get out of here. The action creates the right amount of darkness to satisfy the temple.”
We made it to the top of the room. “SJ, use Excalibur to cut the bars on the cages,” I instructed. The snake writhed violently and I saw the pain and fear in its face at a perfectly clear angle. Looking straight into its eyes, the wicked magnitude of my actions began to sink in.
My heart twisted with conflict. The snake’s hiss-screaming was almost unbearable, yet something inside me felt satisfied. With the influence of the oncoming Aurora, the recent magic energy wave, and the intoxicating feeling of being called upon, my Pure Magic felt strong and enticing. I struggled with that, for while I enjoyed using my powers, deep down I knew the sensation was wrong. I shouldn’t feel so alive using them like this.
With every second I fought harder to retain the delicate balance between fully unleashing my power and letting up. I couldn’t do either. The first action would completely kill the creature and the second would let the snake go and cause the temple to reject us again.
More and more of the snake’s blue scales and skin drifted off its body and turned to ash as I continued to take away its life force. Hard as I was trying not to kill the monster, soon there would be nothing left.
Sweat dripped from my forehead as I desperately tried to rein in my ravenous magic. “Hurry!” I called to SJ over my shoulder. “I can’t keep this up much longer.”
“We’re all free!” Ormé said, suddenly beside me. “But, Crisa, if you don’t kill the snake, how are we going to get out of the temple?”
“Leave that to me,” a cuff-free Peter Pan said. SJ must have used Excalibur to free him. He dove off the ledge and flew to the exposed half of Victor’s body. After snatching a small sack from the soldier’s belt, he returned to us.
“That guy confiscated my fairy dust,” he explained. “I’ve got just enough left to help us for a bit.” Peter reached into the sack, pulled out a handful of sparkling dust, and tossed it over our heads as SJ slashed the cuffs off the last Gwenivere Brigade girl. “Quick, everybody! Concentrate on a joyful thought so we can fly out of here without activating any more traps.”
One by one, the members of our group floated into the air. All except for me. I knew I couldn’t fly. When Peter’s Lost Boys and Girls tried to teach us, I couldn’t keep hold of a joyful thought long enough; there was always too much darkness weighing me down. This had never been truer for me than at this moment. I was literally utilizing the darkest form of my magic, radiating negative energy to its fullest extent.
My arms started to shake under the stress of both releasing and restraining my Pure Magic. The power equilibrium brought me to my knees. It was now or never. Kill the beast or set it free. I knew the power burning in my blood wanted to kill. It was easier. But I didn’t want to. It didn’t feel right. Since all my friends were in flight, I used every ounce of strength to suck back my Pure Magic energy. It hurt almost more than I could bear. I shouted from the effort.
The golden aura around the snake ceased immediately and the creature dropped to the floor. The snake writhed weakly; it was alive, but barely.
Ache pulsed through me. The intensity of calling off my magic so curtly was like getting body-slammed. The room blurred and I fell forward off the stairs. Luckily a hand caught one of my wrists, pulling me out of the fall. I looked up meekly. SJ had grabbed me. She and the others proceeded to fly through the tunnel the snake had come from.
“Blue, help!” SJ called, struggling to keep airborne while holding onto me. She still had Excalibur in her other hand.
I perceived Blue flying in to take over. She told me to give her my other hand and enough of my subconscious heard her to oblige, but much of my hearing and sight were warbled. My head remained fuzzy as my friends maneuvered through the labyrinth of corridors. In that interval of blurry flying, I thought of something Merlin had said about how the Vicennalia Aurora would affect us. He said it would make people with Pure Magic stronger. I had interpreted that to mean it would make me stronger because of my Pure Magic. But the truth was that I had nothing to do with it. The Aurora, like the waves of magic energy rolling through the atmosphere, made my Pure Magic stronger. I was simply along for the ride—merely the vessel the Pure Magic came in.
As a result, trying to rein in the magic, especially after I’d already set it loose on the snake to such a degree, was incredibly painful. It had been nearly too powerful for me to keep control of. I worried that as Pure Magic grew stronger because of the Aurora, attempting great feats like this would only make my power more difficult to rein in.
At least the recovery was quick. As we swooped upward—Blue alone now holding onto me by both my wrists—my head cleared and my constitution returned. Our team was flying up a staircase that led us to the main level of the temple.
“Detour!” Ormé suddenly shouted. “Victor tossed our weapons in here!” Our party darted into one of the temple’s rooms behind her. She and our other allies scooped up some weapons without landing and then we U-turned back out and were back on track.
We were moving fast, and I expected us to reach the surface in the next five minutes. Then my ride began to teeter and I heard a loud sniff, like someone trying to hold in a sneeze.
I looked up again and saw Blue’s face all contorted. She started to wobble and we dipped lower toward the ground. The other flyers zoomed ahead, not noticing her deterioration. Blue tried to regain altitude, but the more she sniffled, the harder it became for her to stay airborne.
Blue closed her eyes for a moment. Her nose was scrunched up as the other members of our team whizzed around the corner.
“Blue!” I called to get her attention.
“Snake!” someone else unexpectedly yelled.
We rounded the corner and smacked into the head of another giant reptile. The impact knocked us straight through a large archway into a different room.
We sailed through and bounced against the far wall, which of course was made of glowing bricks. The ones we touched shone white and their annoying high-pitched sound echoed through the chamber. Sharp points sprouted from the wall we had hit and then the entire wall began to move toward us with a low rumble. We scrambled away—the floor was made of amber here—but the snake’s head came through the archway and cut off our exit. Shouting from beyond told me the third snake was clearly causing problems for our friends. Blue and I were on our own.
Then Blue abruptly lost her balance and staggered back a bit. The wall was picking up speed and I hastened to grab my friend’s arm and pull her forward to keep her away from the spikes. A shadow cast across us both. I spun around to find the snake bearing over us—yellow eyes gleaming and enormous mouth open. My eyes grew wide. The snake lunged. I thought we were done. And then Blue sneezed. The sneeze was so powerful it would have surely blown any house down. Only instead of knocking anything over, it produced a crimson-colored snot ball that expanded in half a second to the size of a serving platter and collided with the snake’s open maw when it was barely a foot away from us.
On impact, the snot bubbled and burned and seared. The snake reared back, thrashed, and hiss-screamed as smoke poured from its mouth.
Blue stumbled clumsily so she was facing the wall of spikes. I was about to pull her in the right direction when she sneezed again. Another crimson snot ball struck the wall, causing a three-foot-square section to disintegrate, spikes and all.
Acid sneeze.
My mouth hung open in astonishment. Then an enormous thump made me whirl around. The snake had collapsed. Unlike the one I’d lef
t alive (though zapped within an inch of its life), this one was dead. I could tell by the giant hole in its face.
Blue’s eyes glowed Questor Beast green for a second before she blinked and they returned to normal. “Did I just . . .”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I thought I was the one we had to worry about murdering a snake.”
“It was an accident!” Blue protested.
“That’s not as reassuring as you might think,” I replied. “You don’t feel any more sneezes coming, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here. But we’re talking about this later.”
Blue closed her eyes and clenched her fists. Then she huffed. “I can’t fly. I can’t focus on a joyful thought. Not with all this.” She gestured to the snake’s body.
“Then we run.”
We dashed toward the exit. The fallen snake’s body blocked the entrance so I gave Blue a boost and lifted her onto the creature’s torso. She then hoisted me up and we slid down on the other side. When we caught up with our friends in the corridor, we found them engaged in battle with the third snake.
The Gwenivere Brigade’s golden headscarves, which they wore over their faces in battle, glistened in the light of the temple’s glowing bricks. Their graceful movements and fluttering brown robes looked beautiful as they flew around, even as they fought for their lives. Regrettably, the snake’s scales seemed impervious to their blades and arrows. Arthur and Peter were trying to distract it as a means to help them, but the creature moved quickly and erratically.
Suddenly the snake made a move on SJ. It was too close range for her to fire a portable potion. She reached into her potions sack, only this time she withdrew a nozzle attached to a long hose. A powerful blast of ale shot out.
The beverage gun from Once Upon a Tavern!
Genius.
The ale startled the snake sufficiently and it began to cough. SJ had the distraction she needed. She hadn’t had the chance to return Excalibur to Arthur with all the commotion and had stashed it in its sheath. Now she drew it and tossed the blade to Arthur, who was flying overhead. When the king of Camelot caught the sword that was inherently his, Excalibur released a powerful flash like it knew it was finally in the right hands. For a brief moment, everything seemed to freeze except king and sword. Then, in one swift movement, Arthur plunged Excalibur into the top of the snake’s head.
With a thud, the beast fell to the floor.
Arthur floated above us, his face illuminated in the light of his long-missing blade. He looked young, proud, and powerful. It was awe-inspiring. Excalibur blazed brightly for another second before returning to its normal radiance.
My friends and I couldn’t help but grin. I glanced at Peter, gleefully floating behind Arthur, and noticed how much the two looked alike—the blond hair, thick brows, and defiance in their eyes. I was glad we had both of them on our side.
Arthur landed in front of me, smiling. “You did it,” he said. “You retrieved Excalibur. I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“We did it,” I corrected, gesturing to Blue and SJ. “And you’re welcome.”
SJ smiled and handed Arthur the sheath she’d been carrying Excalibur in, then took flight alongside the Gwenivere Brigade once more. The king loosened the sheath’s belt to fit his larger torso and stored the sword before extending his hand to me. Peter swooped in and offered Blue his. Our heroic friends lifted us off our feet and carried us the rest of the way through the temple, up the trapdoor in the ceiling, and finally to freedom.
hat do you mean, you can sneeze acid?” SJ asked Blue as we zoomed over the treetops.
We’d left the Temple of Malbona behind and were hightailing it across the island to the nearest wormhole. Blue still hadn’t been able to concentrate on a joyful thought so Peter, with Ormé’s help, continued carrying her while Arthur pulled me along. They held onto us by our wrists so we dangled beneath them. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel—I felt like my arms were getting stretched out—but I trusted our friends wouldn’t let go.
I’d checked my Hole Tracker map outside the temple and seen that we had five minutes to reach the next wormhole, which, fortunately for us, was nearby and a Portalscape Portal. Peter was familiar with the spot where the portal appeared on the map and he and Ormé were hastily leading our pack.
Despite the time crunch, SJ still found it necessary to harp Blue about what went down in the temple.
“Don’t give me that look, SJ,” Blue said. “It’s not as if I knew I could do it.”
“You should have been more in touch with what is going on inside you,” SJ continued to nag. “You brutally murdered that snake.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“Crisa said you put a hole in its head!”
“Well, frankly, I’m glad I did,” Blue snapped. “That thing would have put more than a hole in us if I hadn’t blasted it. Besides, Arthur killed a snake and you’re not bothering him about it.”
“You two can leave me out of this,” Arthur said calmly from above me. “I don’t know what your code of honor is in Book, but in Camelot, we defend our realm and ourselves when we’re under attack. That’s all there is to it.”
“Which is exactly how it should be,” Blue agreed. “I killed the snake in split-second self-defense. Any hero would have done the same.”
“I suppose so,” SJ said slowly. “But you, Crisa, have some explaining to do. What were you thinking crossing the Malice Line like that?”
“I’m sorry, what?” I was so offended my eyes bugged out.
“You heard what I said.” SJ flew right next to me. “You used your magic to kill the Giant of Geene by accident, but you made an active choice in that temple. You used your magic for evil, which is exactly what you are supposed to avoid doing.”
“SJ, I am not having this conversation with you,” I replied curtly. “Just like Blue, I did what I had to in order to protect us. I had no intention of killing the snake with my magic; I only drained its life force long enough to generate the dark energy we needed to escape. But even if I had meant to kill it, would that have been so bad? If Blue can kill a snake and call it self-defense and Arthur can kill a snake and call it honorable, then why is me killing a snake any different? I’m a hero too, aren’t I?”
“It is different because they had no time to think of a better option; they reacted in the moment. You thought about sucking the life from that snake. You planned to use your magic to torture the creature within an inch of its life. We managed to get through all the other obstacles in the temple together without resorting to dark magic; we could have come up with another way there too, but you knowingly chose to do something evil instead.”
“Take it down a notch, SJ.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s an exaggeration.”
“No, it is not,” she argued. “Do not pretend like you did not see it that way. Just now you admitted to using your magic to take life because it would demonstrate the true darkness that the temple would respond to. You knew what you were doing was evil and you did it anyway.”
I glared at her and then looked away. Her accusations got under my skin. On the one hand I felt insulted, like I was being put to a double standard. Another part of me felt uncomfortable with the truth in her words. However, my most prevalent feeling was my frustration that she didn’t understand I was trying to grow as a character.
Throughout this journey I’d gone back and forth on the morality of killing one’s enemies. My friends hadn’t made it any easier. Their varying opinions had provided me with a mix of conflicting viewpoints about when or if it was okay to take a life. Sometimes it felt like the action of a hero; sometimes it felt like the action of a monster. Either way, I did not appreciate being judged as I tried to figure out my stance.
While I did not have a finite answer about what was right and what was wrong, I did know that I had to trust my heart when tough decisions came up. I had faith that it would guide me as I tried to find
balance between the kill-the-bad-guy attitude of the traditional hero and the mercy-centered perspective of the conventional princess. And overall, I had to believe that my character could mediate these conflicting opinions about morality in order to define justice for myself.
My first big test of this had occurred while we were on the isle of Avalon. After I pulled Excalibur from the stone, a side effect was everyone else in the area being temporarily frozen, including Alex, Arian, and Mauvrey. I could have killed them all in that moment, but murdering my foes in cold blood had felt wrong, no matter how much I hated them. I still wasn’t sure if that was the best decision, but it was what my heart had compelled me to do at the time. Just like taking that snake’s life energy was what my heart had urged me to do in the temple. Given the dangers of crossing the Malice Line, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that had been the best thing to do either, yet I’d made the choice. To me, that in itself was a triumph. I was making choices. I was garnering the courage to use my heart, head, and power to the best of my ability in the face of a storm of consequences, opposing viewpoints, and potential failures. That had to count for something. In fact, as I grew as a person, I felt it counted for everything.
“Look!” Ormé interrupted, signaling ahead.
A flash of silver caught my eye. The wormhole was spiraling in the middle of a clearing below. Our group descended. Once we landed, I stretched my tired arms and approached the dimensional breach. Usually a White Rabbit guarded every Portalscape Portal, but there wasn’t one posted here. With so many wormholes opening across every realm because of the Aurora, I imagined there weren’t enough fluffy creatures to cover them all.
“This is where I leave you,” Arthur said.
I glanced at the king. There was sorrow in his expression, though it was masked by bravery. It must have been so hard for him to stay in Neverland. His realm was so close, but with a mortal wound that would take his life if he left, Camelot might as well have been a million miles away. How painful it had to be to live trapped in a place where time didn’t move forward while your home world kept turning and your friends and family continued to age.
Crisanta Knight: The Lost King Page 6
