Crisanta Knight: The Lost King

by Culbertson, Geanna;

  “You’ve seen it before?” I commented.

  “Don’t let the bad boy vest and jeans fool you,” he replied, gesturing to his ensemble. “I’m a bookworm. Or rather, a book rabbit. I know things.”

  “My kind of bunny,” Blue said.

  “Rabbit, Blue. Not bunny,” SJ said.

  “Joke, SJ. Not serious,” she replied with an eye roll.

  With a last smile, Harry hopped away and went to join the other White Rabbits.

  While we’d been talking with our friend, Merlin had pulled Ozma off to the side and he currently held the Simia Crown in his hands. I cleared my throat to get their attention. He awkwardly handed the crown back to her and they came over to us.

  “Okay, so the Oz and Camelot doors are Shadow-free,” Kai said. “Where should we go first?”

  “Well, the Gwenivere Brigade needs to get home and we have to return Excalibur to Arthur, so I vote Camelot,” I said.

  “I second that,” Ormé said. “Several of us are injured and the rough landing on this mattress did not help the situation.”

  I took a look at our allies and saw a few of them clutching their arms and wincing. I felt bad that I’d been so consumed with my own debilitating post-battle weakness I hadn’t properly noticed their plight.

  “You all go ahead without Glinda and me,” Ozma said. “We should return to Oz straight away. We need to be with Julian. You guys can meet us there once your business in Camelot is sorted and you’re ready to pick up that blonde girl.”

  “Mauvrey,” Daniel clarified.

  “Right.”

  It felt weird to part ways with our new friends; it was remarkable how much you could bond with someone in just an hour. But there was no time for sentiment now. We had to keep tying up loose ends.

  We escorted Ozma and Glinda to the vibrant yellow door that led to Oz. Glinda opened it, revealing a pathway of yellow brick that stretched into a forest.

  “Are you going to be okay traveling to the Emerald City alone?” I asked.

  “Now that the Vicennalia Aurora is over, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Ozma replied. “That crazy lightshow really put a damper on our normal magic. I feel much stronger now. If anyone tries to mess with us, we’ll tear them apart—including Eva.”

  “Especially Eva,” Glinda added.

  After exchanging goodbyes and see-you-soons, the girls stepped through the door and we moved to the Camelot entrance. In a welcome change of pace, our door opened to a familiar, and conveniently located wine cellar. It was the one in the lower level of Arthur’s castle we’d escaped through a few a days ago.

  “Wow, I haven’t been here in a while,” Merlin mused. “My potions lab is actually through a secret door at the back.”

  “You built your lab behind a wine cellar?” Blue commented.

  “You don’t know my whole life.”

  Ormé directed our team out of the wine cellar then through the west wing of the palace, which eventually allowed us to reach the throne room. It was impressive, even for a throne room. It had checkered tiled floors with marble pillars the size of baby redwoods that stretched to a faraway ceiling. Rafters cut across the top of the room at different angles and lit braziers lined the stone walls in between grand windows. A large walkway split the room in half, leading up to a pair of obsidian thrones elevated on a platform.

  Most of the people in the hall were castle staff, still cleaning up the damage caused by the factions of battle that had passed through here. They’d done great work in a short time. The majority of the debris was piled into a corner, the shattered glass was almost totally swept up, and some workers were scrubbing away the last of the blood spatters on the floor.

  “Crisanta Knight,” Arthur called happily as our team entered the room. He and Gwenivere were conversing with some staff by the thrones.

  As we approached the king and queen, I spotted Peter near the rafters playing a game of chase with a few Lost Boys and Girls. He waved to us briefly then zipped around a pillar when one of his friends got too close.

  “Merlin, Ormé, everyone,” Arthur continued, opening his arms as a sign of welcome. “I am so glad to see you all made it. I trust you were successful?”

  “For the most part,” Daniel replied. “We stopped the antagonists in Oz and Book, and we saved Glinda, but we didn’t succeed in getting Paige Tomkins’ memories.”

  Gwenivere gasped. “The antagonists know the location of the genies?”

  “No,” SJ said. “Honestly, we are not sure what happened to Paige’s memories. It is a bit of a long story.”

  “Why don’t we take a break from our preparations and let them tell us about it,” Gwenivere suggested to Arthur.

  “I think the den is destruction free. Shall we?” He gestured toward the doors.

  “Some of my girls need to visit the infirmary,” Ormé said. “Flying monkeys have terribly sharp claws.” She turned to her troops. “Ladies, why don’t you take some well-earned personal time? I will fill you in later.”

  The Gwenivere Brigade girls nodded and while all of them looked tired, only a few left in search of the infirmary. The others (ever loyal and helpful) joined the palace staff with cleaning up the throne room.

  “Wait. Preparations for what?” I asked, finally processing Gwenivere’s words.

  “A small re-coronation ceremony tomorrow,” Gwenivere replied. “Arthur has been gone for years and we think it would be a good omen to officially begin our new reign on a celebratory note, not with this battle.”

  “I like it,” Merlin said. “Artie, you deserve a proper welcome home.” He put an arm around Arthur. “We missed you, you know.”

  The gesture was touching. Merlin didn’t show emotion often. He was calculating, and tricky, and kind of a jackwagon. But I appreciated true friendship when I saw it, and he obviously cared for Arthur a great deal.

  “We missed you too, you crazy old wizard,” Arthur responded. “And now that the commotion is over, if you’re all not too exhausted, I say we do as Gwenivere has suggested and discuss what has transpired. I want to hear everything—where you’ve been Merlin, what happened to Paige, why Crisanta looks like a glowing, broken coffee cup.”

  “That one’s a short story,” I responded with a huff. “I used too much magic and almost destroyed myself. Blah, blah, blah. Let’s focus the conversation on things other than me. There’s a lot more to tell.”

  “Fair enough,” Arthur replied. “Hey, kid!” he called up to the rafters. Peter stopped midflight and held up a hand to indicate a time-out to his friends.

  “You want to join us for a recap?” Arthur asked.

  “You bet,” Peter responded. He bid goodbye to his pals and flew down. He offered me a fist bump when he descended, which I happily reciprocated, then floated to the front of our pack with Arthur and Gwenivere.

  “Oh, but before we get into all that,” I interjected, “I want to return what we borrowed.”

  I nodded to Kai, who removed Excalibur from her sword sheath. She’d gotten rid of her original weapon at some point to make room for it. She presented the glowing blade to Arthur, offering it up with both hands and a slight bow of her head.

  Arthur took the sword and smiled. “Looks like I trusted the right people.”

  I smiled too, for as I looked at the group around me and appreciated everything we’d accomplished in the last few days, I felt the same way.

  It was a long night of storytelling. Arthur, Gwenivere, Peter, Merlin, and Ormé settled in with my friends and I for a couple of hours, though with our tiredness it felt like longer.

  At least the den was cozy. SJ lit the fireplace with a contained blast of an explosion portable potion and Ormé sent out for food and drinks, which I was beyond grateful for. Near death had a way of suppressing appetite, but storytime by the fire awakened it something fierce.

  Arthur began by telling us that Morgan, Elaine, ghostly Elaine the Younger, and some of our other acquaintances were in the infirmary, still recovering from
the Poppy Potion and their own injuries. He, Gwenivere, and Ormé would fill them in on our discussions later.

  Arthur also invited us to stay the night and attend the re-coronation tomorrow as honored guests. He asserted the ceremony itself was going to be small, but it would be broadcast to the entire citadel via projection orbs.

  “We would love to stay for the re-coronation,” SJ responded. “But we must leave immediately after. We still have to stop in Oz and then we need to return to Book right away. The time changes between Wonderlands have made the exact length of our absence a tad hazy, but our spring break from school was supposed to end the weekend after the Aurora.”

  “School? Really, SJ?” Daniel responded in surprise.

  “Daniel, we are juniors. We cannot afford to shirk our academic responsibilities.”

  The thought of returning to a world of homework and exams made me want to throw myself out a window, but I knew SJ was right. We’d barely gotten away with ditching school for a mission last semester. It’s not like we could turn in a tardy note to Lady Agnue and Lord Channing that said:

  Please excuse Crisanta, SJ, Blue, Daniel, and Jason from classes. They worked hard fighting evil over spring break and want to take a few personal days to party it up in Camelot and maybe go to the beach.

  “Fine,” Daniel grumbled. “But if Book time moves four and a half times faster than this realm and Oz and Neverland, we’re going to be late anyway.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said. “For tonight, let’s focus on the here and now.”

  And that’s just what we did. My friends and I took turns detailing our adventures and revelations. I stayed quieter when sensitive topics were raised—like using the last of the Four Waters of Paradise to cure Glinda, exorcising the Shadow from Alex only to have him vanish without a trace, and deciding to give Excalibur to Arian so I could save my friends.

  I was ashamed to admit that last bit to Arthur and expected him to be disappointed, but he said he didn’t hold the choice against me. He asserted he made me a Knight of the Round Table because he trusted my judgment and knew I would always act in the interest of honor. If my heart felt like that choice was the right one, he supported it. After all, I followed through and got Excalibur back shortly after.

  I appreciated that. Alas, this portion of the story only steered to an aspect of our escapade that I was even more conflicted by: bringing the dragon to life in Century City.

  It was a hard event to relive. I could feel Kai’s displeasure with my decision as her gaze fell on me while mine dropped to the floor. Thankfully, none of my friends lingered on this part of the recap. I figured they wanted to spare me any more grief. They knew they didn’t need to rub the death and destruction in my face; I was already feeling plenty guilty about it.

  Though I did wonder if another reason they didn’t prolong this passage of the story was because they felt conflicted about it too. I knew Daniel was glad I’d saved Kai, even if it meant tearing his home city to pieces. He loved her more than anything. But, while I’m sure my other friends were happy Kai was alive too, they probably were removed enough from the situation to question the action. Like my choice to trade Excalibur for their safety, they likely speculated if it had been the right thing to do. I imagined that because I still asked myself the same thing.

  “It’s easy to stay on your high horse when you’ve never faced tough choices—when you’ve never had to decide who lives and who dies based on what you want and what would benefit your needs,” Rampart had once lectured me. “If push came to shove, you would be no different than your brother.”

  I’d adamantly rejected Rampart’s claim at the time, but now I pondered if he was right. I’d spent so much of this adventure weighing the morality of taking life, with or without magic. Yet, in one of my greatest moments of truth, I’d chosen to forgo Merlin’s preaching about acting in the greater good and had sacrificed the well-being of a city’s worth of people for just two because they mattered to me specifically.

  Sigh.

  The whole thing made me feel more shattered than the fissures across my skin. As a result, I chose to let this exposition breeze by without sharing the one piece of information that my friends didn’t know. I didn’t tell them about the Lady of the Lake appearing to me when I’d brought the dragon to life.

  I was afraid to.

  I could give a bunch of other reasons, but fear is what it came down to. Fear that it meant my demise was coming quicker than I thought. Fear that in my own foolish actions, I would be responsible for this demise, not my enemies. And most of all, fear that sharing this information would cement the notion that it truly was wrong of me to bring that dragon to life and I really should have let Kai die.

  “It’s a good thing Lenore didn’t know it was you who brought the dragon to life, Crisa,” Jason commented. “There was too much chaos going on in Century City for anyone to recognize us. Not even the guards we fought with in the skies ever got close enough to.”

  “That is a hugely good thing,” Blue said. “It definitely would not help with the whole you-pose-no-threat-to-the-realm angle if Lenore knew the truth.”

  “I don’t pose a threat to the realm,” I insisted adamantly. “It’s not an angle; it’s the truth.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” Blue responded. “Crisa, we all agree a hundred percent with what Daniel said to Lenore. We know what you’ve sacrificed for others, that your heart is always in the right place, and that you would literally fight the antagonists till your dying breath. But your honor and heart and commitment to protect others don’t change the fact that you’re insanely powerful. I know we’re not in the habit of talking about it directly, but if you look at plain facts, Lenore and anyone else would be silly not to consider you a threat. You can literally give and take life from anything and anyone. Apparently, you can even do it in bulk.”

  My cheeks were heating up. Maybe from the Magic Burn Out or my proximity to the fireplace, but more likely from the indignation of Blue’s comment.

  “Like I told Lenore, Blue, whatever I did in the last few hours was not a reflection of what I can really do. The Vicennalia Aurora made my kind of magic more powerful and unstable. With the world back to normal, so am I. I doubt on a regular day I can do even a fraction of the grandiose things I was able to do today.”

  “Are you sure?” Kai asked.

  No.

  No, I’m not.

  “Yes,” I said. “And I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  Mercifully, my friends surrendered the topic, though Merlin continued to observe me. His gaze made the massive room seem smaller and the fire-warmed atmosphere seem colder.

  “And now that brings us back to you, Merlin,” Jason said, redirecting the topic. “You’ve been putting off telling us about Mauvrey. What’s the deal with that random blonde girl that exploded out of her?”

  “It wasn’t a random blonde girl,” I interjected earnestly, only then realizing that my friends didn’t know what Tara looked like. “That was Tara Gold—the antagonist who I’ve envisioned working for Arian on Earth to destroy Natalie Poole.”

  “I’m sorry, WHAT?” Blue said.

  “It’s true. I knew it the second I saw her,” I confirmed.

  “Wait. Who is Natalie Poole?” Gwenivere asked.

  We gave a quick recap of my visions of Natalie Poole and the Eternity Gate so that our Camelot friends were up to speed. Then we all turned to Merlin.

  “Well?” Daniel said.

  Merlin sighed. “I had visions a while back that Crisanta would need to access the memories of two of her greatest enemies. One of those visions was about Mauvrey. That is why I gave you the Forget-Me-Nots,” he said to me. “You still have them, don’t you?”

  I pulled out the cord necklace that was tucked inside my dress. The unbreakable glass tube still held the two petite yellow flowers.

  “Sweet necklace,” Peter commented.

  “This is where SJ comes in,” Me
rlin indicated, pointing at my friend. “There is a very complex reverse Sleeping Capsule Spell that only a master potionist can craft using these flowers. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to survive this day and thought you’d have to do it on your own, but as I am still here, I would consider it a privilege to work with you. It is tricky business to brew and it will be better if we forge ahead together.”

  “I . . . I would be honored,” SJ replied.

  “Honored schmonered,” Blue piped in. “What about Mauvrey?”

  Merlin hesitated.

  “Merlin, what else did you see?” Arthur asked.

  “Regarding the girl, just two more things,” Merlin said. “The very scene most of us witnessed where Mauvrey split apart and produced Tara. That’s how I knew the girl Crisa was strangling earlier wasn’t Mauvrey. At least not completely.”

  “Strangling?” Kai shot up an eyebrow.

  “And one other vision that came to me last night,” Merlin continued. “The dream was short. It was raining outside the window of what I imagine to be your room at Lady Agnue’s, Crisanta. You were with Mauvrey. And you thanked her. You told her you’d changed and weren’t ready to talk about what Arian had turned you into, but of all the things you regretted, sparing her in Oz was not one of them. You were glad you saved her because you never would have made it out of Big Bear or escaped the antagonists if not for her.”

  The sound of the flames snapping was the only noise in the room. There were so many questions. What was Big Bear? How far in the future did this vision play out? What was Arian going to turn me into? And how many things was I going to regret?

  “So, you honestly don’t know how or why Mauvrey’s body split and produced Tara when that purple light with Paige’s memories struck her?” Daniel clarified.

  “I’m afraid not,” Merlin said. “But that is where the Forget-Me-Nots come into play. SJ and I can use one to brew a potion that can draw the memories from Mauvrey, even if she is under a sleeping curse.”

  “A sleeping curse?” SJ repeated.