Quests for Glory

by Soman Chainani

  “No,” Agatha said to the last, about to add, “especially not fart bubbles like you,” but she held her tongue through nearly an hour of this before she’d had enough.

  “So do you and Tedros want children?” Bettina wisped.

  “Why? Are you looking for parents?” Agatha snapped.

  The meeting was over after that.

  She nearly lost her temper again at the Spansel Club fundraiser when she had to read The Lion and the Snake, a famous Camelot storybook, to rich, bratty children, who kept interrupting her because they already knew the story. Now in her carriage after picking wedding doves at the zoo, Agatha slumped over in her sweaty gown, thinking of the waltz and etiquette lessons ahead, and sucked back tears.

  “The king hasn’t mentioned your name once,” Lady Gremlaine echoed.

  She’d tried to pretend that the meddling bat had lied. But Agatha knew she hadn’t.

  Even when Agatha had run into Tedros in the castle these past few months, he’d tell her how pretty she looked or prattle something inane about the weather or ask her if she was comfortable in her quarters before shuttling away like a spooked squirrel. Last night in her room was the first time she’d seen him without a flushed, plastic smile on his face that told her not to ask how he was doing because he was doing just fine.

  But he wasn’t fine, of course. And she didn’t know how to help him.

  Agatha dabbed at her eyes. She had come to Camelot for Tedros. To be his queen. To stand by him in his finest and darkest hours. But instead they were both alone, fending for themselves.

  It was clear he needed her. That’s why he’d crawled into her arms last night. So why couldn’t he just admit it? She knew deep down it wasn’t her fault. But she still couldn’t help feeling rejected and hurt.

  Reaper curled up in her lap, reminding her he was there.

  She rubbed his bald head. “If only we could go back to our graveyard before we ever thought about boys.”

  Reaper spat in agreement.

  Agatha gazed out the window of her blue-and-gold carriage as it rolled into Maker’s Market, the main thoroughfare of Camelot City. Given the conditions of its roads, her driver normally avoided it and took the longer route back to the castle, but they were already running late for her wedding waltz lesson and she didn’t want to make a poor impression on her new teacher. Dirt kicked up around the carriage from unpaved streets, clouding her view of the bright-colored tents, each carrying a flag with Camelot’s crest: two eagles, flanking the sword Excalibur on a blue shield.

  But as the dust cleared, Agatha noticed a stark divide between the rich villagers in expensive coats and jewels as they shopped along the main street and the thousands of grimy, skeletal peasants living in crumbling shanties in the alley-ways adjoining the market. Royal guards patrolled these slums, forcefully blocking any peasants who drew too close to wealthy patrons entering or leaving the tents. Agatha slid down her window to get a better view, but her driver rapped his horsewhip on the glass—

  “Lay low, milady,” he said.

  Agatha pushed the window back up. When she first rode into her new kingdom six months ago, she’d seen the same slum cities smack in the middle of Camelot. As Tedros explained then, his father had led Camelot to a golden age, where every citizen improved his or her fortune. But upon Arthur’s death, his advisors had allied with the rich, passing shady laws to reclaim land and wealth from the middle-class, plunging them into poverty. Tedros had vowed to undo these laws and resettle those without homes, but in the past half-year, the divide between rich and poor had only gotten worse. Why hadn’t he succeeded? Had he not seen how far his father’s legacy had fallen? How could he let his own kingdom languish like this? If she was king—

  Agatha exhaled. But she wasn’t, was she. She wasn’t even queen yet. And from the way Tedros acted last night, he was clearly frustrated too. He was managing Camelot by himself and had no one to help him: not her, not his father, not his mother, not Lancelot, not even Merlin, the last three of who’d been gone for the past six months—

  SPLAT! A black, mashed hunk of food hit the window. Agatha spun to see a filthy peasant yell, “SO-CALLED KING AND HIS ALMOST QUEEN!”

  Suddenly, others in the slum cities spotted her carriage and globbed onto the chant—“SO-CALLED KING AND HIS ALMOST QUEEN!”—while pelting her vehicle with food, shoes, and handfuls of dirt. Her driver beat the horses harder, racing them out of the market.

  Blood boiling, Agatha wanted to leap out of the carriage and tell those goons that none of this was her or Tedros’ fault—not the slum cities, not the coronation, not a once-legendary kingdom gone to shambles—

  How would that help anything? Agatha scolded herself. If she were starving in the streets, wouldn’t she blame herself and Tedros too? They were the ones in power now, even if they hadn’t caused the kingdom’s fall. The poor and suffering had no time for the past, only for progress. But this wasn’t school anymore, where progress could be charted with rankings and a scoreboard. This was real life and despite the dismal results thus far, they were two teenagers trying to be good leaders.

  Or Tedros was, surely.

  She was on her way to dancing lessons.

  Agatha sulked as the carriage rumbled up the hill towards the bone-white gates of Camelot, which the royal guards pulled open for their arrival. It didn’t matter that the gates were streaked with rust or the towers ahead faded by weather and soot. Camelot Castle was still a magnificent sight, built into jagged gray cliffs over the Savage Sea. Under the August sun, the white spires took on a liquid sheen, capped with rounded blue turrets that speared through low-flying clouds.

  The carriage stopped short of a gap in the cliffs, leading to the castle’s entrance.

  “Drawbridge is still broken from the coronation, milady,” the driver sighed, pulling into a carriage house at the edge of the cliff. “We’ll have to use the ropes to cross.”

  Agatha barreled out of the carriage herself before the driver could open her door. Enough whining, she thought, as she wobbled along the unsteady rope bridge that even honored guests had to use until the embarrassing drawbridge problem could be fixed. Tedros wasn’t haggling over when they would have time alone. Tedros wasn’t hounding her about being a team. Tedros was working for his people, like she should be.

  Maybe Lady Gremlaine was right, Agatha confessed. Maybe she should stop obsessing over what she couldn’t do as queen and start focusing on the one thing she could. Indeed, a wedding filled with love and beauty and intention might be just the way to restore the kingdom’s faith in them after the coronation. A wedding could show everyone that Camelot’s best days were to come . . . that her and Tedros’ Ever After had brought them here for a reason . . . that they could find a happy ending not just as King and Queen, but for the people too, even those who’d lost hope. . . .

  Head held high, Agatha marched back into the castle, eager for her wedding lessons now and determined to do her very best.

  That is, until she found out who was teaching them.

  2

  TEDROS

  How Not to Throw a Coronation

  Though he had no time for himself, no time for Agatha, no time at all, Tedros refused to get soft.

  In his knee-length black socks and cut-off breeches, he snuck through the dark, muggy halls of Gold Tower, a towel slung over his bare, tanned chest. He knew it was vain and obsessive, this getting up at half past four to exercise, but it felt like the only thing left he could actually control. Because at six on the dot, Lady Gremlaine and four male stewards would barge into his room and from that moment until he slogged back into bed at night, he was no longer in charge of his own life.

  He passed Agatha’s room, tempted to slip in and wake her up, but he’d gotten in trouble for that last night and he didn’t need any more trouble. His kingdom was already on the verge of revolt. That’s why he’d ceded Lady Gremlaine total control over the castle. As Arthur’s once-steward, she was a known face and gave people faith t
hat the new king would be well-managed. But there was another reason he’d let Gremlaine keep him on a tight leash, one he could never say out loud.

  Tedros didn’t trust himself as king.

  He needed someone like Lady Gremlaine who could watch his every move, who would check his every decision. If he’d only listened to her at the coronation, none of this would have happened. But he was listening to her now. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that there could be no more mistakes.

  Last night had already been a serious blunder. Lady Gremlaine had warned him not to repeat his father’s errors and let a girl interfere with his duties as king. Tedros took this warning seriously. Up until yesterday, he’d done well to concentrate on his tasks and let Agatha concentrate on hers, even if it meant he’d had more freedom to see Agatha at school than he did now as king in his own castle. But then he’d gone and snuck into her room dead-tired, defenses down, and acted like a sniveling child. Tedros cringed, replaying the moment in his head. He’d brought Agatha to Camelot away from everyone and everything she knew, and he wanted her to feel safe and taken care of. He couldn’t let her see how weak and scared he was. He couldn’t let her see that all he wanted to do was run away with her. To hold her tight and shut the world out.

  But that’s exactly what he had done last night.

  And for the fleeting relief he’d found in her arms, he left his future queen anxious and worried for him and his steward angry and disappointed.

  Stop acting like a boy, Tedros chastised himself. Act like a king.

  So today he let Agatha sleep, even if it left a big black hole in his heart.

  Tedros scuttled through the hall’s colossal gold passage and soaring arches, sweat sopping his wavy blond hair, his breeches sticking to his thighs. He couldn’t remember the castle ever feeling this stifling. Two mice darted past him into a hole in the plaster. A procession of ants wove around the friezes of famous knights on the wall, now damaged and missing limbs. When his father and mother were king and queen, this hall used to be minty clean, even in the August doldrums. Now it smelled like dead cat.

  Down three flights he went, socks slippery on dull gold stone, before he hustled through the Gymnasium, a lavish collection of training equipment surrounded by weapons and armor from Camelot’s history, enclosed in glass cases. One would assume this was Tedros’ destination, but instead he scurried right through, his pure blue eyes pinned to the dusty floor, trying not to look at the large glass case in the center of the room . . . the one case that happened to be empty. Its placard read:

  EXCALIBUR

  He was still thinking about that large, empty case when he arrived at King’s Cove, a sunken bathing pool in the bowels of the castle. When he was a young prince, this manmade grotto had flowering vines around tall piles of rock and a steaming-hot waterfall. The balmy water once shimmered with a thousand purple and pink lights from fairies who tended the pool in exchange for safe shelter at Camelot. Tedros remembered his mornings here as a child, racing the fairies around his father’s statue at the center of the pool, his tiny opponents lighting up the water like fireworks.

  King’s Cove was different now. The pool was dark and cold, the water algae-green. The plants were dead, the waterfall a drip, drip, drip. The fairies were gone too, banished from the castle by Arthur after Guinevere and Merlin had both abandoned him, destroying Arthur’s faith in magic.

  Tedros looked down at the kettlebells he’d stolen from the gym and stashed by the pool, along with a sad, lowly rope he’d tied to the ceiling to practice climbing.

  He couldn’t exercise in that other room. Not if he had to be near that empty case and think about where the sword was now.

  Slowly, his eyes rose to his father’s statue in the murky pool, caked with moss and dirt—King Arthur, Excalibur in hand, staring down at him.

  Only he wasn’t staring. At least not anymore. His eyes were gone, violently gouged out, leaving two big black holes.

  Tedros endured a wave of guilt, more intense than the one he’d felt in the gym.

  He’d done it.

  He’d carved out his own father’s eyes.

  Because he couldn’t bear the old king looking at him after what happened at the coronation.

  I’ll fix it, Father, he vowed. I’ll fix everything.

  Tedros tossed his towel onto the mildewed floor and dove into the pool, thoughts wiped out by the harsh, stabbing cold.

  Six months before, the day of the coronation had been brilliant and warm.

  Tedros was utterly spent after everything that had happened leading up to it—reconciling with his mother, fighting a war against an Evil School Master, and making an all-night ride from school to Camelot in time for him to be crowned king the next day.

  And yet, despite feeling like a sore, sleepless zombie, he couldn’t stop smiling. After so many false starts and twists and turns, he’d finally found his Ever After. He was the ruler of the most legendary kingdom in the Woods. He’d have Agatha by his side forever. His mother (and Lancelot) would live with them in the castle. For the first time since he was a child, he had a full family again—and soon a queen to share it with.

  Any one of those would be a wonderful enough gift on this, his sixteenth birthday. But the best present of all? Sophie, his old friend-enemy-princess-witch, had been appointed Dean at the School for Evil far far away, where she’d remain at a safe distance from him and Agatha. Which meant no more Sophie thuggery, no more Sophie skullduggery for the rest of their lives. (He’d learned from experience that he and that girl couldn’t be in the same place without killing each other, kissing each other, or a lot of people ending up dead.)

  “Hmm, can’t Merlin do a spell to make this smell better?” Tedros said in front of his bedroom mirror, sniffing at his father’s old robes. “This thing is rancid.”

  “Whole castle is rancid,” groused Lancelot, gnawing on a slab of dried beef. “And I haven’t seen Merlin since he hopped out of the carriage in Maidenvale. Said he’d meet us at the castle. Should be here by now.”

  “Merlin runs on his own time,” Guinevere sighed, sitting next to Lancelot on her son’s bed.

  “He’ll be here soon. Can’t possibly miss my coronation,” Tedros said, holding his nose. “Maybe if we spritz this with a little cologne—”

  “It’s a coronation gown, Teddy. You only have to wear it once,” said his mother. “Besides, I don’t smell anything except whatever it is Lance raided from the pantry.”

  “Oh be serious, Gwen,” Lancelot growled, smacking at the bedsheets and spawning a dust storm. “What happened to this place?”

  “Don’t worry. Agatha and I will fix everything,” Tedros declared, combing his hair. “We knew what we were coming back to. Dad’s advisors let the castle go to waste and lined their pockets with the kingdom’s taxes. Would’ve loved to have seen their faces when Lance threw them in the dungeons.”

  “Oddly calm, to be honest. As if they expected it—or at least knew better than to fight,” Lance said, with a loud belch. “Insisted I don’t have the authority to jail them until Tedros is king. Told them to sod off.”

  “They’re right,” Guinevere clipped. “And if you can’t eat like a proper human, I’ll have the kitchen put you on a vegetable diet.”

  Tedros and Lancelot gaped at her.

  “They’re right?” Tedros asked incredulously.

  “Vegetables?” Lancelot blurted, mouth full.

  “Until your coronation as king is official, the Council of Advisors appointed by Arthur has full authority to decide who runs Camelot,” Guinevere explained. “But in a few hours you will be king and it’s not like there’s a rival with a claim to the throne they can summon out of thin air. That’s why the guards didn’t stop Lance from jailing them.”

  Reassured, Tedros went back to assessing his reflection.

  “Darling, enough with the mirror. You look beautiful,” his mother said. “Meanwhile, poor Agatha is getting ready by herself and surely needs a lad
y’s help. Why don’t I go to her and leave you here with Lan—”

  “Agatha’s fine,” Tedros said, picking at an annoying pimple near his mouth. God, I’m almost as bad as Sophie, he thought. But he was about to have an entire kingdom judging him. Who wouldn’t be self-conscious? “Besides, it’s my birthday,” he added, “and I want to spend time with my mother.”

  He saw his mother blush, still unused to him being nice to her.

  “Sounds more like Little King’s afraid of being alone with me,” Lancelot cracked.

  “Call me ‘little’ again and I’ll run you through,” Tedros flared, tapping Excalibur on his waist. “No one on earth would choose to be alone with you anyway.”

  “Except your mother. Likes our alone time just fine,” said Lancelot tartly.

  “Oh good lord,” Guinevere mumbled.

  “In any case, Agatha has that strange steward woman helping her get ready, the one who greeted us when we arrived last night and reeks of perfume,” said Tedros, checking his teeth. “Wanted to help me get ready but I said I had you two. Didn’t seem happy about it.”

  “What’s the story there, Gwen? Looked about as thrilled to see you as you did her,” said Lancelot.

  “There is no story. She was my steward until after Tedros was born. I had her dismissed. Now she’s back,” Guinevere said curtly.

  “Well, clearly something happened between you two—”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Then why are you making the same face about her as you made around Millie?”

  “Who’s Millie?” Tedros asked.

  “A horny goat that used to chase your mother around the farm,” Lancelot said.

  Guinevere kicked him.

  “God, you two had a lot of free time out there,” Tedros muttered into the mirror.

  “Lady Gremlaine is irrelevant,” said Guinevere, sobering. “A steward only has responsibility over a prince until his coronation. After you seal your coronation, you’re in charge and can remove Lady Gremlaine from the castle once and for all.”