One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “So you knew our brother?” a voice asked.

  Sophie turned to a younger boy at the door, with messy ash-blond hair and sad blue eyes. “Cedric said you thought he was Chaddick,” he explained, nodding at the older lad.

  Cedric smiled. “This is Caleb,” he said, shepherding the tiny boy in and hugging him to his side. “Chaddick is our middle brother.” His smile tempered. “Was, I mean.”

  “This is Chaddick’s . . . house?” Sophie asked, surprised.

  A swaggering, gray-eyed portrait at school came to mind: Chaddick of Foxwood.

  “That’s his bed you’re on now,” Cedric confirmed, quietly. “Mother wanted to keep the room just as he left it.”

  Caleb teared up. “Don’t even know who killed him.”

  The Snake, Sophie wanted to say. Killed him in cold blood. While the Lady of the Lake watched and did nothing to save him.

  “Last we heard, Chaddick was going to be lead knight for Tedros. That was his quest after finishing school,” said Cedric. He clenched his teeth, holding down emotion. “Doesn’t deserve to be king, that Tedros. A real king protects his knights. Chaddick would tell me to forgive him. To stand behind King Tedros instead of King Rhian. But I’m not as pure-hearted as Chaddick was. That’s why he made it into the School for Good.”

  Another family torn apart by the Snake, Sophie thought. Another fairy tale cut short. “Chaddick was so loyal to Tedros,” she said, her eyes on the mural. The knight in the mural looked just like him: dark blond and barrel-chested, chasing fearlessly at dragons. “Charming, courageous in every way. All the girls loved him. Boys too. He was rock solid. The one you could count on.”

  She glanced back and saw the two boys gazing at her.

  “Uh, how did you know Chaddick?” Cedric asked.

  Sophie blinked. “From school—” She cleared her throat, sitting straighter. “Foxwood School, I mean. Where I’m a new Dean. Chaddick and I crossed paths once. A fish market in Abu-Abu. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my students.”

  She rushed out of the room, stumbling down the stairs—

  Sophie froze.

  The bottom floor of the house had been smashed in, shattered blue tiles blanketing the living room. Sophie squinted up at a hole in the blue-tiled roof, sunlight catching the flurries of dust. The source of the roof’s hole lay in the center of the room: a Lion-hilted sword, stabbed into a heap of blue, broken stone.

  Sophie maneuvered through the wreckage to the front door of the house and pulled it open. Stepping onto the porch, she surveyed the quiet Foxwood streets, scattered with Excaliburs, a few young schoolboys jogging around and inspecting them. Colorful cottages lined the vales, all of them fully intact.

  “Unlucky,” a voice sighed.

  She turned to see Cedric at the door.

  “We’re the only house that was hit,” he said.

  A horn sounded in the distance.

  Sophie looked up and noticed a woman in a rose-pink turban hustling towards them.

  “Caleb! Mother’s coming!” Cedric called into the house, before glancing back at Sophie. “Chaddick dies, then a sword hits us . . . Caleb’s too afraid to go to school. Mother has to keep checking on him. You said you’re a Dean at Foxwood School? Mother will know you, then. She’ll be happy we nursed you back to health.”

  “I better be going. Have to gather my students,” Sophie replied quickly, about to take off in the opposite direction—

  “Headmistress Gremlaine, I found it!” a young boy hassled the turbaned woman, pointing at a sword. “There’s a dead mouse right by it. Must mean something!”

  “Horn sounded, Brycin. Head back to school,” Headmistress Gremlaine replied crisply, keeping on towards Sophie, who hadn’t moved.

  “Gremlaine? Chaddick was a Gremlaine?” Sophie asked Cedric. “Like Grisella Gremlaine?”

  “Wait. You knew?” Cedric said, wide-eyed. “That Chaddick was Aunt Grisella’s son?”

  Sophie’s heart jumped. “Grisella Gremlaine. Steward to King Arthur and King Tedros of Camelot? That Grisella Gremlaine? She was Chaddick’s mother?”

  “Oh, so you didn’t know.” Chaddick exhaled. “Caleb and I had no idea either. Mother only told us after Chaddick died. She thought it would make us feel less sad about his death if we knew he wasn’t our real brother. Only made it worse, really. No idea why Aunt Grisella didn’t raise him herself. But Caleb and I were lucky she didn’t. Chaddick was a real brother to us. We loved him so much.” His throat quavered. “Um, how do you know my aunt? Haven’t heard from her in months—”

  Sophie didn’t answer. She was watching the woman hustling towards her, with tan skin and sunken cheeks.

  Arthur . . .

  Rafal . . .

  Sader . . .

  Gremlaine . . .

  Sophie lost her breath.

  She knew where Excalibur was.

  She knew how Tedros could win.

  “Cedric, who’s that?” Headmistress Gremlaine called out, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I told you not to talk to strangers!”

  Cedric turned to his guest. “Didn’t you say you were—”

  But Sophie was already running.

  Away from the house.

  Away from Foxwood.

  She surged past the vales where she’d left her students, into the forest, chasing north towards Gillikin, where she could catch a fairy flight to Avalon—

  She stopped cold.

  “Emilio,” she gasped.

  The dark-skulled boy sat on a rock, all alone, in the middle of the Woods.

  “Been looking for you, Dean Rowenna,” he said. “Me and some friends.”

  “Go back to school,” Sophie panted. “I’ll be there soon—”

  Emilio whistled with his fingers.

  Through the columns of trees, shadows appeared, sifting into dappled light.

  Lion crests gleamed on their chests.

  “Friends of King Rhian, actually,” said Emilio. “They wanted to meet you after I wrote them about you.”

  Emilio stared Sophie down as Camelot soldiers surrounded her.

  “You know. Since you’re his cousin.”

  27

  TEDROS

  Ask the Lady

  Tedros didn’t love teenage Merlin. After trekking two miles through snow, it had been time for another dose of the wizard’s aging potion, the span from twelve to thirteen condensed into a single drop. And thirteen-year-old Merlin was as imperious and grandiose as eighty-year-old Merlin but also a moody, pubescent know-it-all, despite seeming to know nothing that could be of use.

  “Where are we going, Merlin? The Lady of the Lake already saw us,” said Agatha. “Clearly she doesn’t want to talk to us, let alone help.”

  “And she’s the only one who can let us out of this place,” Tedros added, using his hands and boots to turn more swords to dust, like a game of footie. “We’re trapped here, Merlin.”

  “Glad it was the witches who rescued me. You two would have given up at the first gust of wind,” Merlin replied, tossing pink lightning and clearing blades just as Tedros reached for another one. “I’m hungry again,” grumped the wizard boy. “No wonder Hansel and Gretel’s parents couldn’t keep food on the table. The kids probably ate it all, just like they did that witch’s house. Hat! Make me something with cheese!”

  “This is ridiculous, Merlin. You have to know where Dad hid Excalibur! It was you who helped August Sader leave clues for the first test!” Tedros said, light fading over the swordfields. “We saw your white stars in the Living Library. You gave Sader the stars’ magic—”

  “Because Professor Sader asked me for it,” Merlin snipped, munching on cheese-fried popcorn out of his hat, the boy’s scrawny frame snug in his purple suit.

  Tedros waited for him to elaborate, but instead Merlin paused at a sword in the snow. The prince’s heart swelled hopefully, only to see the wizard pulling at his face in the blade’s reflection. “Wow. Young skin is so elastic.”


  “And Professor Sader didn’t tell you what he wanted your magic for?” Agatha said, exasperated.

  “Yes, he told me every detail of Arthur’s tournament and I just enjoy the deadly consequences of not giving them to you,” Merlin huffed, with a loud burp. “Like I said, Arthur kept his second will hidden from me. For good reason. If he’d told me about a tournament to find his heir, I’d have asked why he doubted who his heir was in the first place. Clearly Arthur had secrets to keep. Secrets that Rafal and Evelyn Sader took advantage of.”

  “What about helping King Arthur see the future?” Agatha prodded. “His will said, ‘The future I have seen has many possibilities . . .’”

  “If I could see the future, do you think I would be here, decades younger than I’m supposed to be, battling my own hormones and your fruitless questions, instead of basking on the beaches of Samsara? Because that’s where I’d like to spend my future.” Merlin shoved his hat back on. “Once the work is done.”

  “When is that?” Tedros asked.

  “With you, the work is never done,” snapped the wizard child.

  That put an end to Tedros’ questions.

  They waded into an oak glen, between more snow-buried swords, past the twin graves of Tedros’ father and Tedros’ knight, to the old Wish Fish pond.

  “It’s frozen over,” said Agatha, knocking on the solid surface, the fish obscured by ice.

  Tedros rankled. “Merlin, what are we doing here—”

  But the young wizard was elbow-deep in his hat, rustling around, before gently extracting a single, perfect strawberry.

  He laid it on the ice, seeded dimples catching the last rays of sun.

  Tedros and Agatha exchanged glances. Before either could speak, a bony hand stabbed through the ice, snatching the strawberry and drawing it under. Two dark eyes glared through the hole at the boy wizard. Then they widened, recognizing him. Merlin winked. The Lady of the Lake held her stare . . . then vanished beneath, the ice resealing.

  The prince and his friends were alone again, swords surrounding them, the snow hard and wet under their knees. Silence misted through the glen.

  “So,” said Tedros. “That was helpf—”

  By the time he finished his sentence, they were someplace else.

  A WHITE STONE tunnel.

  They’d magically reappeared between cold, cramped walls.

  “I know this place. It’s her castle,” Agatha remembered. “Sophie and I were trapped here once.”

  Tedros had never been inside the Lady of the Lake’s lair. Neither had Merlin, from the way the boy was probing around the tunnel. The few times Tedros had seen the castle within Avalon’s gates, he’d taken note of its smooth white stone, laced with vines of bright green apples, the castle free from any doors or openings. Only the Lady could grant permission to enter. Yet the Lady was nowhere to be found.

  “Which way do we go?” said Tedros.

  They were at a fork in the passage. Four routes they could take.

  “This way,” said Merlin, crouching on the floor.

  Agatha shined her fingerglow where he was pointing.

  Strawberry juice, dripping to the east.

  They followed the trail down a maze of damp, chilly corridors, halting at a dead-end wall. Only it wasn’t a dead end, Tedros saw now. The wall had been propped open like a hidden door, smoky light spilling through.

  Agatha took a deep breath, as if she knew precisely where they’d been led. Tedros and Merlin followed her inside.

  The Lady of the Lake was crouched against the wide rim of a cave, opening to a view of Avalon’s coast. Swords dotted these snow-soaked shores, the sunset glow of Lionsmane’s message reflected in the Savage Sea. The Lady watched the waves, her hands under her chin, her thighs drawn to her chest. White coils of hair matted her skull, her face a shriveled mask.

  “Every king or queen who wanted something from me brought me gold and silks and the rarest of jewels. But not you, Merlin. All those years ago. You brought me a strawberry. Me, the Woods’ most powerful sorceress, who lives on the dew of the wind.”

  The young wizard smiled. “Just because you don’t need something to live—”

  “—doesn’t mean it’s not worth tasting,” the Lady finished, turning to him. “How bold you were. I thought you’d come to set me free. To love me for who I am, instead of what I can give. One kiss was all I asked, a kiss of true love . . . But you too wanted something. You asked that I watch over your young ward who had become king. That I help Arthur if he came to me for protection.” She took in the wizard’s moppy hair and rosy cheeks. “But now look at you. Younger than even that king was, with your old wisdom intact. However you’ve managed it . . . I’d make a deal with that devil.”

  “You already have. The same devil who kissed you and stole your magic,” the boy wizard cut back. “He is responsible for what I am now. And you know full well, Nimue.” Merlin glared through her. “Any deal made with that devil must be undone.”

  Nimue. It was the first time Tedros had heard the Lady of the Lake called by a name.

  She returned a fake, rotted smile. “I can’t undo anything, remember? No magic. A few powers are still left, of course. I am a born sorceress, after all. Until I use my Wizard Wish and take leave of this world. That day is coming . . . ’Til then, I have nothing to help you or anyone else. It’s a relief. No more visitors asking to see the future. No princes and wizards lurking in my realm to get something from me.”

  “That’s not why we’re here—” Tedros said.

  “Liar,” the Lady flamed. “You want to find the sword. The sword I made for your father. The sword he left for a king. And you want to know if you are that king. Except I cannot tell you, dear prince. The future I showed your father has many possibilities. But only that. Possibilities. The rest is your fate to find out.”

  Tedros’ legs jellied. He could hear Agatha holding her breath. Merlin, too, looked startled.

  “Possibilities,” said Tedros carefully. “Possibilities you showed my father.”

  The Lady gazed out at the herd of red-orange clouds. “When I looked into your father’s eyes, I saw a kindred soul. A soul blessed with great power and yet hungering for real love. At first, I thought he might be the one to set me free. But just as Aladdin saw a genie only as a path to a throne, Arthur saw me only as a means to protect his. But I believed in Arthur’s goodness. It’s why I gave him Excalibur, so that he could defeat any enemy from the outside. Little did I know the true enemies in Arthur’s life would come from within.”

  She paused, the sun sliding deeper into the sea.

  “One evening, after Guinevere and Merlin had deserted him, he came to me, looking nothing like himself. His hair was wild, his eyes frenzied, his breath smelling of drink. He’d made a mistake, he told me. A mistake long ago that he thought had no consequences. But someone had come to his court who’d suggested otherwise . . . a Green Knight who Arthur then killed . . . Even so, Arthur was afraid others might know what the Knight did. That Arthur’s secret would come to light and destroy not only him but his kingdom and those he loved. He needed to see what would happen. He needed to see the future, so that he could fend off any harm that might be done . . . He’d already gone to the School for Good and Evil, to his friend August Sader, but a seer like Sader cannot answer questions of what is to come, not without losing decades of life as punishment. Desperate, Arthur went to the School Master too, asking if the famed wizard had a spell or a crystal ball that might reveal the future. The School Master offered no answers and yet seemed amused, Arthur recalled, as if he knew precisely what disturbed the king . . . But then, Arthur noticed the Storian behind the School Master’s back. The Storian that was telling King Arthur’s tale at the time—a pen that Arthur and his new advisors believed responsible for the downturns in the king’s fate. Indeed, Arthur had been considering ousting the Storian and taking its powers for himself as One True King. Except now the enchanted pen was writing something behind the School Mast
er’s back . . . something only the king could see . . . ‘Ask the Lady.’ By the time the School Master had turned, the words had vanished. Arthur was stunned, of course. The Storian doesn’t address the reader. The Storian doesn’t jump ahead. And yet, now it had, as if the story was trying to lead him . . . So he came to me, just as the Pen told him, asking to see the future. I didn’t question the Storian’s orders; I knew the Pen did not write out of turn without good reason. I pulled an apple from my breast, greenest of greens, and told the king any question he asked would be answered with a bite. I am not a seer, of course. But the Storian knew my power: to see all the routes a story might take, like an eagle from above . . . Arthur spoke his question out loud: ‘Who will have my throne?’ He bit into my apple. The future flashed through his mind. All the futures. All the possible answers to his question, like a wizard tree bloomed from a single fruit, his eyes filling with surprise, regret, terror . . . and hope. That is what I remember most. That delicate look in his eyes, two gleaming pearls of hope.”

  Tedros’ throat had gone dry. It was Agatha who managed words first: “You both knew all of this would happen?”

  “Could happen,” the Lady replied. “That’s why Arthur made a tournament. That’s why I kissed the king I did. Both of us wanted to make sure the right king ended up on the throne.” Her face clouded, light emptying in the cave. “But the future we saw had other possibilities, too. Futures we each thought we could escape. But that was our biggest mistake. Believing we could choose our fate. Because fate’s web is as vast as it is inescapable . . .”

  She hunched deeper into her ball.

  “Nimue,” Merlin spoke, low and urgent, “but surely you know where the real sword is?”

  “You made Excalibur. It’s your magic,” Tedros pressured.

  “You can save Tedros,” said Agatha fervently. “You can save all of us.”

  The Lady of the Lake didn’t look at them. High above the snow, her eyes remained on the blades swept over her realm, each a copy of the one she forged for a king long ago. Tears dotted her eyes, her gaunt fingers trembling. Finally, she turned, half-shadowed.