Into the Gray

by Geanna Culbertson

  Crisanta Knight: Into The Gray

  © 2020 Geanna Culbertson. All rights reserved.

  Book Seven in The Crisanta Knight Series

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

  (an imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company, Inc.)

  www.bqbpublishing.com

  978-1-945448-83-6 (p)

  978-1-945448-84-3 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020942918

  Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

  Cover concept by Geanna Culbertson

  Cover design by Ellis Dixon, www.ellisdixon.com

  First editor: Pearlie Tan

  Second editor: Olivia Swenson

  Books in The Crisanta Knight Series

  Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound

  Book One (2016)

  Crisanta Knight: The Severance Game

  Book Two (2016)

  Crisanta Knight: Inherent Fate

  Book Three (2017)

  Crisanta Knight: The Liar, The Witch, & The Wormhole

  Book Four (2018)

  Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back

  Book Five (2019)

  Crisanta Knight: The Lost King

  Book Six (2019)

  Crisanta Knight: Into The Gray

  Book Seven (2020)

  Crisanta Knight: Midnight Law

  Book Eight (2021)

  Dedication

  This book, like everything I shall ever accomplish, is dedicated to my mom and dad. You are my heroes, my coaches, and my best friends. I am thankful for you every day for more reasons than there are words in this book.

  Special Thanks

  Terri Leidich & BQB Publishing

  Thank you for your hard work, patience, and belief in me. We may not have gone “Into The Gray” together, you and I, but we’ve gone into the unknown plenty of times and I appreciate you having the faith to take those rides with me as we produce great things together.

  Gallien Culbertson

  For being there. All the time. In every way a brother and friend should.

  Alexa Carter

  For being an exceptional friend, trusted critic, and lovely person all around.

  Julie Bromley & Jennifer Herron

  For working hard to help Terri and me develop this series in new ways.

  I also want to thank Ian Culbertson, The Fine Family, Bree Wernicke, // TECHYSCOUTS, the Girl Scouts organization, Girls on the Run, Aimee Bender, Bedside Reading, and all the other wonderful people who have supported this series so actively, and my many fans who I hope to continue to amaze, enthrall, and surprise in the future.

  Bonus Dedication

  Since this is going to be a series, each book will include a bonus dedication to individuals who have significantly impacted my life or this series in some way. This book is dedicated to three of the most important members of Team Crisanta Knight: Pearlie Tan (Editing), Olivia Swenson (Editing), & Ellis Dixon (Design).

  The three of you have been with me since the beginning. That’s seven books ago! I always intended to dedicate a book to you and I think this one—which delves so deeply into exploring change and relationship dynamics and different kinds of power—is the perfect installment. Because the three of you have changed the trajectory of my journey as an author and person. Because our working relationships are so critical to my creative process. And because your contributions in editing and design have had a powerful effect on the development of this series and me personally as a writer. Thank you for being on my team. Thank you for pushing me to be the best I can be.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1 Games with Boys

  2 Me & My Magical Friends

  3 Driver’s Ed

  4 The Date

  5 Fight or Flight

  6 Bad, Brewing Things

  7 12 uNDER

  8 King of the Kids

  9 Carrier Griffin

  10 My Best Friend the Entrepreneur

  11 Boy Friends

  12 Trial & Error

  13 Patents

  14 Ball Interrupted

  15 The New Captain in Town

  16 Thirty-Eight

  17 Endings & Beginnings

  18 Meet the Darlings

  19 Mark

  20 FGWs

  21 Mr. Sandman

  22 Stella

  23 Harbinger of Death

  24 Rebels with a New Cause

  25 Change

  26 Goodbyes

  27 Enigma

  28 The Hypotheticals

  29 Wanderers

  30 Nightmare

  31 Queen’s Gambit

  About the Author

  Prologue

  All main characters surely hate their authors.

  It makes sense. An author’s job is to get the main character into trouble. A main character’s job is to find his or her way out of it. As the feisty, trouble-prone daughter of Cinderella, I understood this concept better than most. It went with the territory when you grew up in a world called “Book” that had a designated prophet known as “The Author” whose visions influenced the realm’s structure.

  For generations our world worked like this: the Author decides what overall archetype Book’s citizens fall into—protagonist or common character—and her decisions are made known via “protagonist books,” physical texts with a person’s name engraved on the cover. Those with protagonist books are the chosen few meant to be main characters—the leaders in our realm. The details of those roles are not clear initially because the books appear blank. However, all chosen protagonists attend one of two special academies to prepare for the protagonist mantle: either Lady Agnue’s School for Princesses & Other Female Protagonists or Lord Channing’s School for Princes & Other Young Heroes.

  As we main characters receive general schooling, a metaphorical wraith hovers over our shoulders—a lingering, shadowy reminder that eventually the Author will begin to write our stories, starting with a prologue prophecy that summarizes a protagonist’s important fate.

  Every prince and princess is supposed to be a protagonist, so I’d known my book and prologue prophecy were coming my entire life, just as my friend SJ (daughter of Snow White) had. On the other hand, growing up my friend Blue, younger sister to the famous Little Red Riding Hood, didn’t know whether she’d be a main character or common character because she is a non-royal. When she found out in her preteens it was a bit of an adjustment. While being a main character comes with many perks—the special school, the preferred treatment of our realm’s higher-ups, the assistance of Fairy Godmothers—it also comes with many restrictions in terms of who and what you can be. Protagonists are mercilessly expected to live up to certain traditions and standards of greatness. Meanwhile, commons are free to make their own choices sans the Author’s influence but without nearly as much favor, opportunity, or attention.

  I guess each group had its faults—one point against our realm’s structure.

  Second point?

  Oh, right. It was all based in lies.

  Our storybook world was not as cut-and-dried as everyone believed. Last semester, my friends and I discovered that the Author didn’t actually control our fates. She was just a woman named Liza who had the ability to see the future because she possessed a rare type of power called Pure Magic. Since Pure Magic visions focused on people
meant to do important things, more than a century ago the realm’s higher-ups and Fairy Godmothers decided to concentrate on only helping the people Liza dreamt about. Those citizens were henceforth known as our realm’s “protagonists” and Book’s grand deception was born.

  Lena Lenore—the Fairy Godmother Supreme of our realm, and regrettably Liza’s sister—had conspired with the higher-ups to mythologize Liza’s origins. A combination of magical reinforcement and time built up the legend. Both Lena and Liza were put under an anti-aging spell. This allowed Liza to keep up her protagonist work eternally in a specially barred off kingdom while Lena Lenore watched over things. And, well, here we are.

  I felt bad for Liza—doomed to an everlasting role as the Author that most people resented. She never wanted this. Though I suppose it was a better life than the alternative. Turning evil.

  See, normal magic is supposed to work like a piece of clothing—you can take it on or take it off. However, Pure Magic is a disease that occurs when magic bonds to its host irrevocably. When that happens, the host is gifted not only with visions of the future but also one profound magical ability. Sadly, this magic slowly corrupts its host. Liza was the first person in Book who had avoided succumbing to the disease’s cruel fate.

  Not that the world was privy to that secret, which Lena Lenore had worked so hard to conceal. She and the higher-ups were good at that—keeping the truth from people, bending the rules for the sake of order and tradition. It was fairly despicable and also very messed up. Their realm-wide deceit didn’t even stop with Liza. Protagonist selection was rigged past that. The higher-ups sometimes got rid of protagonist books when too many main characters were chosen. And the previously mentioned fact I had grown up knowing (that every prince and princess automatically became a protagonist) was utter falsity as well. Royalty and bloodlines had nothing to do with whom Liza chose. Yet, the higher-ups forged protagonist books for royals who didn’t have them. The volumes of my own two brothers and SJ had been faked so they could attend school with the rest of us and not disrupt the realm’s customs.

  Who knew how many other royals out there had similarly claimed someone else’s spot at Lady Agnue’s and Lord Channing’s?

  If the common characters knew about this duplicity, the whole realm would implode. A commons rebellion had already started earlier in the year due to decades of people in the archetype feeling like second-class citizens. Finding out about the higher-ups’ protagonist book sham would bring incredible strength to that cause. Not that the commons needed the help; their rebellion was gaining aggression and power, and there were way more of them than us.

  From an objective perspective, I understood why many commons were fighting the system. Separating our realm into the specials and non-specials was a social recipe for disaster. Nevertheless, my empathy for the rebellion’s plight had long disintegrated. I couldn’t condone the horrible things the commons had done in their quest for recompense. Funded by our realm’s antagonists (former commons who chose to be evil and aim to disrupt our world), the rebellion had attacked kingdoms, not only weakening infrastructure, but killing royals and any innocent people caught in the crosshairs. My own family’s castle had been assaulted and partially wrecked. The kingdom that had gotten the worst of it thus far though was Gallant. That kingdom had fallen to a coup earlier this month, the king and queen killed, and the Fairy Godmothers had yet to reclaim it.

  In sum, things were not great in our realm. And not to be a princess with an all-about-me mentality, but stuff had never been more complicated for me personally either. It kind of made me wish that I did have an “Author.”

  Don’t get me wrong; I was beyond grateful that Liza didn’t control our lives as the higher-ups propagated. I was a firm advocate of free will—that one should take charge of their fate and own their choices. But discovering the truth about Liza had cost me the ability to blame my problems on someone. Which—let’s be honest—people inherently like to do.

  Unlike most citizens in our realm, I could no longer hold the luxury of harboring hate toward an author for messing with my life. I could no longer pin my misfortune and struggle on a higher power. It was just me. I had to try and navigate the temperamental waters of a protagonist’s journey alone. And I had to accept that living a life in the protagonist fashion meant hardship was a part of the deal, as was the responsibility to own it and overcome it with my own character.

  That’s no surprise, right? I mean, the very fundamentals of conventional storytelling dictate that what makes a main character worthy and interesting is his or her ability to traverse obstacles. If a story was simply: “Once upon a time there was a princess. She ate a sandwich. Then she rode off into the sunset,” it wouldn’t be compelling or inspiring. No one would care. We need the conflict to thrive, to become better, to grow into the people we have the potential to be. And taking on that perspective I do get why, if I had an author, she wouldn’t let up. Because an author’s job is to make a main character’s life as tough as possible, hoping he or she will rise to the challenge.

  Furthermore, with or without an author, we all need the suffering for our stories to mean anything. Over the course of the last eight months since this story began, I had certainly come to value my suffering—to an extent—as every wise person should.

  Since last semester, I had been eluding antagonists that wanted to kill me because my prophecy dictated I would either be key to helping them break out of their kingdom of Alderon to destroy all protagonists or stopping these efforts. Since finding out I had Pure Magic like Liza, I had been training with her in my attempts to control the power and not have it control me and turn my heart dark—which is harder than it sounds. And since my friends and I had elected to stop the antagonists, we’d been sentenced to one harrowing quest after another—almost getting destroyed by epic villains and monsters at every turn. Oh, and magic hunters were constantly trying to kill us and take my magic along the way.

  But it was through all this suffering that we had achieved great things too. We had managed to thwart the antagonists thus far. We’d restored the long-presumed-dead King Arthur to his throne in Camelot with the Pure Magic-powered wizard Merlin at his side. We’d returned Ozma—the rightful queen of Oz—to the throne and saved her friend Glinda the Good Witch. And we’d helped countless other creatures and innocents as well. Heck, it was only three weeks ago that we’d rescued our land and its Fairy Godmothers from a siege of antagonists that nearly broke out of Alderon. That’s some pretty awesome stuff.

  Additionally, on a more personal level, through the course of these trials I had grown into a fierce-hearted, confident, powerful girl who worked honorably and relentlessly for what she believed in. I had trained hard to become a skilled fighter on multiple fronts. My magical abilities only grew more formidable each day. And pushing through these hardships had forged unbreakable bonds with my friends.

  So you see—through the suffering a lot of good had come about. I guess that was the double-edged sword of being a true main character. You are smart and self-aware enough to accept and appreciate the struggles that make you you, but you can never be the kind of person who just lets life happen to you. Main characters have to take the reins and try to do something that matters—make a mark on the world.

  Which meant I would probably never get a break.

  And seriously, sometimes I could use a break. The trials never seemed to end. Every victory had a caveat. Each mission accomplished only opened the doors to more impossible odds and obstacles.

  Sigh.

  At least at school I had a safety bubble to keep some of the bad at bay. Lady Agnue’s was protected by an In and Out Spell—a force field enchantment that prevented living beings from entering or exiting the areas they enclosed. There were different versions and strengths of said spell. Our school’s version allowed woodland creatures to pass through; meanwhile Alderon’s was more of an “Out” spell—villains and monsters could be thrown into the desolate kingdom, but not escape it.


  There were very few loopholes to such enchantments, so at school I felt relatively protected from our enemies. Only a handful of my friends and I were immune to In and Out Spells as a result of our quest to find the Author last semester. Aside from us, the only others who could pass through were Shadow Guardians. These were people who allowed an otherworldly creature called a Shadow to live inside them, surrendering their souls to be slowly devoured by the weird monsters in the process.

  Several of my foes had adopted a Shadow exactly because this soul devouring let you get past certain In and Out Spells undetected. Thankfully, not everyone was compatible with being a Shadow Guardian. I didn’t know what the requirements were, but I’d once been told only one in every hundred people was a match for the process. As it stood, I could only name a few enemies with Shadows, and they were much too smart to show their faces outnumbered on my turf.

  Hmm. My turf.

  It’s funny that this is what Lady Agnue’s had become for me. In the past I looked at the pretentious boarding school as a sort of prison trying to shave off my spunk and rob me of identity. Now, I’d come to be unburdened by it. In spite of prejudice and judgment, I felt so much freer and stronger here than in previous years because I’d taken charge of my destiny. And when you have that grasp on who you are and who you want to be, any place can be your stomping ground. Any place can be your basecamp, your home front, your turf.

  No author had given me that. No author could take it away. That confidence and grounded conviction of self came from within. For good and bad, I made the world I lived in. Any higher power that tried to take it from me was in for a fight.

  I was no one’s main character but my own. And if I had an author, I would tell her to hit me with her best shot.

  atch your six!” I called to Daniel through my helmet.

  We were high in the clouds playing our realm’s favorite sport, Twenty-Three Skidd. Previously an all-boy sport, Lord Channing’s had opened tryouts to Lady Agnue’s students last semester. I was one of five girls who had made it onto a team. And I had made it onto a team with Daniel.