One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “Why would you come to me? Asking me to save a king? When I failed the first time?”

  Tedros didn’t understand at first. But then he saw the look on her face. The same look he’d seen inside a crystal ball. It happened that last time they were in Avalon . . . He and Agatha had gone into the Lady’s memories. They’d seen the Lady kiss the Snake, as Chaddick lay dead on the shore. Tedros watched the Lady with Japeth, her face blushed with love. But as her and Japeth’s lips parted, her eyes gazing into his, her face changed. Love turned to fear, panic, guilt as if she knew she’d done something wrong . . .

  Sweat trickled down Tedros’ back.

  The question isn’t who helped Arthur see the future, Hort had warned. The question is whether that person is on your side.

  “You made a mistake,” Tedros addressed the Lady. “The king you kissed. You knew it after you kissed him. You knew he wasn’t Arthur’s blood. I saw it in your face.”

  Merlin bristled. “This is Nimue we’re talking about, not some woeful first year at school. She is Good’s most reliable protector. The Woods’ greatest sorceress. She wouldn’t smell Arthur’s blood for nothin—” He swallowed his words. The wizard’s young eyes shuddered. “Unless . . .”

  Agatha looked right at Merlin, as if she was in his head. “Unless,” she said softly.

  “Unless what?” Tedros said, glancing between them.

  The Lady curled her face into her hands. Outside, rain began to fall in hard, punishing drops, like tears from the sky. Darkness amassed over Avalon, Lionsmane’s golden appeal for a sword the only source of light.

  “What is it?” Tedros asked Agatha.

  She didn’t look at him.

  “Tell me!” Tedros demanded.

  “Two boys.” Agatha met his eyes, her voice sick. “There were two boys that day on the shore.”

  Tedros’ heart stopped.

  Chaddick.

  His knight had tracked the Snake to Avalon. He’d ignored all summons to come home, believing he could kill the Snake on his own. Instead, the Snake had attacked him, trailing his blood across the Lady’s realm. Chaddick limped to the Lady’s shores, screaming for help, begging her to save him from the Snake . . .

  She didn’t.

  She chose the Snake instead.

  The Lady sobbed into her hands. “I smelled Arthur’s blood in both boys. But one had an aura of magic, an overwhelming beauty. He promised me love, freedom, everything I wished. Your friend offered me nothing. He wanted only to protect you. The choice was obvious, of course. The beautiful boy was a trap. Your friend was the one to be saved. Except then I remembered the future I’d shown Arthur. All the futures. And in one of those futures, I’d made the wrong choice. I saved the wrong boy, bringing a snake into the Woods. I couldn’t let that happen! And yet, I didn’t know which boy was that snake. An eagle on high has no view to the details, only the possible paths. I had to make a choice. Fears overwhelmed me. Fear of making the wrong choice . . . fear of being tempted by love and yet also giving up my chance at it . . . My heart and head were at war, time against me . . . So I changed course. I chose to save the boy who promised love. Even if it went against my instincts. You understand, don’t you? I tried to do the right thing. I tried to avoid the fate we are living now. But in doing so, I only ensured it.” She shrank deeper into the shadows. “He took my magic, left me like this . . . It’s the punishment I deserved. The true blood of Arthur was dead. He was dead. Because of me, who was supposed to be his loyal guardian.”

  “I—I—I don’t understand. What does Chaddick have to do with Arthur’s blood?” Tedros questioned, his palms wet.

  “That’s why I haven’t used my Wizard Wish,” the Lady wept. “Because I couldn’t leave this life . . . not until someone knew the truth . . .”

  “Chaddick was my knight. My schoolmate,” said Tedros. “He had nothing to do with my father—”

  “I did what I could to atone. I buried him near Arthur. Where he should be . . .”

  “What? You’re not making sense—” Tedros fought, his chest throttling.

  “Two kings, side by side,” the Lady mourned.

  Tedros choked, “What are you saying—”

  “He’s the heir, Tedros.”

  Agatha’s voice hit like a stone.

  “Chaddick was your father’s heir,” said his princess.

  Tedros shook his head. “But . . . that’s . . . that’s not true,” he rasped, appealing to Merlin.

  The young wizard’s gaze was far away. “It’s how Rhian pulled Excalibur, isn’t it? Japeth knew Chaddick was Arthur’s heir. He must have hidden a drop of Chaddick’s blood on Rhian. And Excalibur sensed this blood of Arthur’s son, his eldest son . . . That’s why the sword let Rhian take it from the stone. That’s why it denied Tedros all those months before the Snake appeared. Chaddick was still alive then. Tedros wasn’t the king.”

  “That age potion’s warping your brain,” Tedros assailed. “You’re talking in riddles—”

  But his words trailed off, a memory floating back.

  One he’d seen in a crystal of time.

  It came from the day Chaddick left to find knights for Tedros’ Round Table. Chaddick had stayed at Camelot in the week prior, Lady Gremlaine fussing and doting over him, far more than she ever did over Tedros or Agatha, as if Chaddick were the lord of the castle. While Chaddick readied his horse for the journey, Lady Gremlaine piled him with satchels with food, brushed his gray shirt which she’d had made for him that matched his eyes, a gold C on its collar, and again and again, she hovered over him, asking what else he needed. Agatha had remarked that it was only around Chaddick that she’d ever seen Lady Gremlaine smile.

  Now Tedros knew why.

  He was her son.

  Chaddick was Lady Gremlaine’s son.

  And King Arthur his father.

  A secret conceived in Sherwood Forest the night before Arthur married.

  A secret Rafal and Evelyn Sader came to know.

  Tedros was never Arthur’s eldest.

  Chaddick was.

  The true heir to the throne.

  Tedros looked at his hand. The carved silver ring cold on his finger. His voice was a whisper: “Dad gave it to me. Why?”

  “For the same reason he made the tournament. He saw the future and all its possibilities,” said the Lady. Her tears had ceased. Behind her, the rain abated over Avalon’s shores. She turned to Tedros, a light growing in her eyes. “And despite all the darkness in that future, he saw one hope. That hope was you becoming king. Not Chaddick. Not anyone else. You. Because it’s you who were the Lion. Only you who could have had the strength and will to rise out of the ashes of Arthur’s mistakes and build a better Woods. It’s why Arthur didn’t fight death when it came for him. His story was the beginning of yours and your story the completion of his. Father and Son. King and King. Two fates intertwined. The true End of Ends. This was the future Arthur believed in. And he was willing to bet everything on that future.” In the glow of Lionsmane’s message, she looked at him like a flame against the night. “But now it’s your turn, Tedros. You must finish the last test. Excalibur didn’t see a king in you before. Will it see one now?”

  Tedros walled off his feelings like a knight shielding dragon fire: a blast of rage, horror, shame, all the emotions of his father not being the father he knew, his liege now his brother, the throne he believed so rightfully his not his at all. But in the siege of these feelings, he sensed another wave, light and cool, washing them all away.

  Relief.

  As if at last he had the answer to what made a king. Not blood. Not birthright. But something deeper: faith. Faith his father had in him. Faith Tedros never had in himself. Until now. Because he was a better man than his father, loyal to his princess, loyal to his heart. Because he’d be a better king, having chosen not the queen who would compensate for his shortcomings, but would love him for them. Because of who he was deep in his soul, rather than what he thought should be. He was free.
Finally free. As if in being told he wasn’t a king, he found the reason to be a king.

  His blood burned hot. The veins of his neck throbbed, a roar licking at his throat. He raised his eyes to the Lady.

  “I’m ready.”

  Agatha’s hand wrapped around his, the princess at his side. Young Merlin flanked the prince, his hand on his back.

  The Lady smiled at Tedros, an inscrutable smile like the Lady of old . . .

  Suddenly the glow on her face darkened, like a candle blown out.

  She spun to the night sky—

  Lionsmane’s message.

  It was gone.

  For a moment, no one seemed to understand.

  But the prince did.

  His blue eyes knifed the dark.

  “He’s found it.”

  28

  SOPHIE

  Beasts and Beauty

  Arthur certainly hadn’t been subtle about it.

  Marking the house with a sword through the roof, like Zeus hurling a thunderbolt.

  The house of the true heir to Camelot.

  Sophie remembered the first time she ever saw Chaddick of Foxwood, strutting into the Welcoming with the rest of the Everboys, flaunting his swordplay and puffed chest and flirty gray eyes. And yet, all her attentions had gone to Tedros, even though Chaddick was handsome, charming, capable . . . But Tedros was the prince. Camelot’s future king. That’s why all the girls wanted Tedros. That’s why all the boys wanted to be Tedros. What would have happened if they’d known the truth? Where would Chaddick and Tedros be now? Where would Sophie be—

  The carriage hit a snag and her head thumped the roof. Sophie looked down at her rope-tied hands and the metal cuff around her neck attached to a chain, held by three women sitting opposite, with long gray hair, hawkish eyes, and bare feet snaking out from lavender robes. A single scim hovered in front of Sophie’s heart with a fatally sharp tip. Through the window, she could see at least fifty Camelot guards protecting the prisoner’s transport, the guards sealed in armor and carrying crossbows, marching with the carriage through the twilit Woods, dappled with copies of Excalibur.

  “Is all this really necessary?” Sophie growled.

  “You escaped once under our watch,” Alpa pointed out. She twisted her fingers and the eel at Sophie’s chest pinned closer. “We’ll return you to Camelot and seal you in the dungeons until it’s time for you to wed the One True King.”

  “I always wondered how you could control his eels,” said Sophie coolly. “Until I realized: you have his blood, too. Rafal’s sisters. Japeth’s aunts. You have access to his magic. Too bad magic can’t save you. Not from what’s coming.”

  She summoned the wickedest grin she could, but the Mistrals saw through it.

  “Sent word to the king that you’d been found in Foxwood prowling around a house hit by a sword,” Bethna said. “Didn’t take long for him to figure out which house it was.”

  Outside, Sophie could see Lionsmane’s message vanished from the sky.

  “He’s on his way to the Gremlaine place now,” said Omeida. “Fitting, isn’t it? Tedros once thought Excalibur was his by right. Now it’ll lop off his head. But what to do with that head?”

  “Auction it to the highest bidder,” Bethna proposed.

  “Mount it in the king’s chamber,” Alpa offered.

  “Send it to Agatha in a box,” said Omeida.

  Sophie swallowed her nausea.

  “Once Tedros is dead and the last ring in the king’s hands, then the wedding will resume,” said Alpa. “King Rhian and Queen Sophie, finally united. Queen for a night at least, then a return to the dungeons, where you’ll never again see the light of day.”

  “There’ll be no wedding, you hobbit-footed trolls,” Sophie snarled. “And with no wedding, there’s no One True King. That’s the Snake’s only path to the Storian’s powers. My blood with his. Me as his queen. Like his father Rafal needed me. And just like Rafal, he’ll never get me.”

  “Don’t think you’ll have a say in the matter,” Alpa replied.

  The scim floated up from Sophie’s chest to her head, cleaving into two eels, then three, then four, poised to spear into her ears, her mouth, her nose . . .

  “This time, we’ll use more than two,” said Bethna.

  The scims rejoined, aiming back at Sophie’s heart.

  She pursed her lips and returned her focus outside the window, projecting an unruffled calm. But inside, her bones had gone cold. Japeth was on his way to Chaddick’s house to win the third test. Tedros was in Avalon with Agatha, likely without a clue where the sword was. Sophie was their only hope—and yet here she was, back in the hands of her old captors. Think, Sophie. She was trapped in a carriage at scimpoint, walled in by soldiers, outnumbered a hundred to one. But every fairy tale had a moment like this, with Good beaten by Evil . . . until Good found a way to escape by the grace of true love. But Sophie wasn’t Good. And no one was coming to save her, because she didn’t have a true love. She peeked at her dress, praying that it might help, the way it had so many times, but it shrank from the scim, as if Evelyn’s spirit was on her son’s side.

  So why had it helped Sophie before?

  She thought about the moments the dress had come to her rescue: breaking her out of Camelot, hiding her in the Woods, thwarting the Empress’s geese . . . all times when the Snake was far away. Then she thought about the instances the dress failed her: when the Snake killed the Sheriff or when the Snake attacked her in the wizard tree or now, when a scim held her hostage . . . all times when the Snake or his eels were near.

  In a flash, Sophie understood.

  Evelyn’s dress only helped her when it wouldn’t get caught.

  Because Evelyn’s spirit was afraid of her son.

  This son.

  Back when Rhian was king, Evelyn’s dress was a loyal henchman, binding Sophie like a puppet. Because Evelyn loved Rhian. She wanted Rhian to become the One True King, even if it meant him marrying Sophie—the bride of Evelyn’s once true love, the girl responsible for Evelyn’s death. Because with Rhian as king, Evelyn knew she would get a second chance at life. She trusted her son to bring her back.

  Rhian.

  Not Japeth.

  Which is why the moment Japeth killed Rhian . . . the dress’s allegiance changed. Evelyn knew what Japeth was. She knew what he’d done to his brother. He had to be punished. But Japeth couldn’t get a sniff of what she was up to. So his mother’s ghost took her time. Slowly, carefully, the dress began helping his bride, each time out of the Snake’s sight, until the time came at last when Sophie could see that Japeth’s mother wasn’t loyal to Japeth. She was loyal to the girl trying to kill him.

  The dress’s white folds softened, caressing her like rose petals . . . before the eel sensed something afoot and pierced into the silk, grazing Sophie’s skin. Instantly, the dress stiffened like a straitjacket, afraid for its own preservation.

  Loyalty could only go so far, it seemed.

  For now, Sophie was on her own.

  They rolled deeper into the Woods, past the evergreen edges of the Stymph Forest, into the autumn hues of Camelot’s wood, the king’s castle only a few miles away. Dusk thickened, embers of sun widening to dark shadows around the hilts of buried blades. Trees began to tremble, the scufflings of metal echoing to the east. Through the window, Sophie glimpsed a thousand men riding past on horseback, outfitted with red-and-black helmets, armed with Camelot swords and shields . . . followed by another battalion, seven-foot nymphs with colorful hair, floating over the ground in neat lines, also with Camelot weapons.

  “Fleets from Akgul and Rainbow Gale,” said Alpa. “On their way to Foxwood.”

  “Camelot offered free arms to kingdoms that help the Lion win the third test,” said Bethna. “They’ll keep guard over the king while he’s in Foxwood—”

  “—in case Tedros tries to get anywhere near the sword,” said Omeida.

  More armies followed, silhouettes gliding across the trees: t
he red-horned goblins of Ravenbow . . . the giantesses of Gillikin with clouds of fairies in their hair . . . the blue-jacketed soldiers of Pifflepaff, wearing blue masks . . .

  The air went out of Sophie’s chest.

  Even if she could get out of this carriage, she’d never find her way to Avalon, track down Tedros, and somehow sneak him a hundred miles into Foxwood, let alone into Chaddick’s house before Japeth got there. Not with this many men out to kill him. There would be no rescue for the prince. Or for her.

  Then she noticed one of the Pifflepaff soldiers.

  He was glaring at her through his blue mask, his eyes sparkling in the dark. A tiny blue glow lit up his finger. Then he breathed out a trail of smoke towards Sophie’s carriage.

  SING

  Sophie spun back to the soldier but the carriage had already veered to the west, into the heart of Camelot’s forest.

  Sophie held still as treetops blacked out the sky, the Mistrals watching her in the window reflection. Outside, Camelot guards faded to inky outlines. She’d sung a thousand songs in her life, songs of love, but those had come to nothing and she couldn’t remember a one . . . No time to think. Sing! Sing something—

  “I’m Whisky Woo, the pirate queen!”

  Not that.

  A new tuft of smoke appeared out the window.

  LOUDER

  “I’m Whiskey Woo, the pirate queen!” she belted again.

  “Stop it,” Alpha snapped.

  “Whiskey Woo! Whiskey Woo!” Sophie crooned at a hellish pitch. “I’m Whiskey Woo, the pirate queen! Not yet eighteen, but still damn mean!”

  “Enough!” Bethna barked.

  “I’m Whiskey Woo, the pirate queen! Formerly known as Evil’s Dean!”

  She yowled so loudly the carriage seemed to shake, her voice drowning out a strange rustling outside. “I’m Whiskey Woo, the pirate queen! No autographs please, don’t make a scene!”

  “We said stop!” Omeida twisted her hand, the scim puncturing Sophie’s skin.

  But she kept warbling, the carriage jostling to more muffled sounds in the forest while the scim cut Sophie deeper, her song exploding to a wail of pain: “Whiskey Woo! Whiskey Woo—”