The School for Good and Evil #5: A Crystal of Time

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The School for Good and Evil #5: A Crystal of Time Page 41

by Soman Chainani


  Sophie twinged with guilt and almost laughed. Guilt for a monster!

  “Oh? What do you think I want?” she asked, playing with fire.

  Rhian stopped on the path. He studied her carefully. “I think you want to make a difference in these Woods. That’s why you were unhappy as Dean. You said it yourself when we had dinner: you want a bigger life. It’s why you were drawn to me when we met.” He brushed aside a stray lock of her hair. “Think about it this way. The Pen put Tedros on the throne and he couldn’t keep these Woods safe. If the Pen can no longer be trusted to protect the Woods, then it’s up to a Man to take its place. Not just any Man. A King. The One True King. That’s why you came back to me. Your friends will think it’s because you’re Evil, of course. That you want to be a queen for the sake of a crown. But we both know the truth. It’s not enough to be queen for you. You want to be a good queen. And you can only do that with me.”

  Sophie frowned, thrown by his earnestness. She kept walking. “I would be a good queen. That is true. But where’s the proof you would be a good king? You don’t believe in the Pen and yet the Pen keeps the balance between Good and Evil. That’s why the Storian has lasted all these years. If a king had the Storian’s power, he would destroy that balance. You would destroy that balance. You would wipe out all those who rebel against you. You would rule with Evil in a way the Pen never would.”

  “Quite the opposite, in fact,” said the king, trying to keep up with her. “I would use the power of the Pen to do Good. To bring down that worthless school and reward ordinary people doing right in these Woods. Just like Lionsmane’s messages tried to do, before you hijacked them.”

  “Oh please. Those messages were filled with lies—” Sophie argued.

  “In the service of Good. To raise people up,” said Rhian. “But Lionsmane’s messages are just the beginning. A Good king protects his people. A Good king protects the Woods. What better way to protect the Woods than to wipe out Evil completely.”

  “Impossible,” Sophie pooh-poohed, facing him. “Evil has always existed. You could never wipe it out.”

  “I can and I will.” Rhian stared at her, his eyes glazed and hot. “Everything I’ve done in my life has been to get me here. I didn’t get into your lofty school. I wasn’t kidnapped from reality and dropped into a magic castle like you and your self-righteous friends. While you basked in the privileges of your school, bright, young ‘lords’ of the Woods, I was with real people. In the real Woods. And here’s what I learned. The Storian isn’t the keeper of balance. It isn’t a peacemaker at all. The Storian thrives on the war between the two sides. On pitting Good and Evil against the other and letting that war drag on for eternity. That’s why my pen made a show of twisting the Storian’s tales: to prove that every one of its villains can be a hero and every hero a villain. And yet, we cling to the Pen’s every word, reacting to each victory and loss as if it was our own, the balance swinging between Good and Evil, back and forth, back and forth, while the real people of the Woods are forgotten. Their lives left out of our storybooks, lost in the fog of a pointless war.”

  The king’s face softened. “But the Pen has the power to end that war if it chooses. It knows that every villain has something they want. Something they’ve turned Evil to get. Give them what they want and it can stop them. Before they cross the point of no return. Evil preempted by the hand of fate. The Pen would never do such a thing, of course; it needs the two sides at war to preserve its power. So it binds them together like twins, so that Good can’t live without Evil and Evil without Good. . . . But I know better. If I had the Pen’s power, I’d wipe Evil out. Neutralize it. Cut it off at the root. Take my brother, for instance. His soul skews to the worst kind of wickedness. But with the Pen’s power, I can bring back to life the only person Japeth has ever loved. I can give him the only Ever After he’s ever wanted. His Evil would be cured. Imagine if I could do that with every threat, extinguishing every villain, every spark of darkness. If I could use Lionsmane to give them love or fortune or even just a friend: whatever it takes to restore their souls to Good. I could prevent attacks like the Snake’s from ever actually happening. The war between Good and Evil would end. The spotlight stripped from a Pen and a School and returned to the people. Peace, true peace forever. That’s why I need to be king. The One True King. I can do what the Storian could never do. I can erase Evil from these Woods permanently. I can be the balance.”

  Clammy coldness clawed at Sophie’s core. The boy in front of her suddenly felt like the knight she once fell in love with, his aqua-green gaze clear, honest . . . real.

  “But you can’t stop Evil. Look at you! You’re Evil!” Sophie resisted, snapping from her trance. “You ordered the attacks on kingdoms! You set the Snake loose just so you could be king! You’re responsible for people’s deaths! And so much more. You enslaved Guinevere: a queen. You blackmailed leaders. You’ve tortured Merlin and sent pirates to attack schoolchildren and stabbed me to give my blood to your brother. You told lies about Tedros to get leaders to burn their rings. Lies about Agatha. Lies about me. Lies about everything!”

  “Yes, I have told lies,” the king replied evenly. “I have done things that are ruthless and vile. I’ve let my brother attack the Woods at will. At times, I’ve hated myself for it, but like a good king, I know how to do what needs to be done. Even if it means I have blood on my hands. Because unlike Tedros, I spent my life in the shadows, where Good and Evil are never so simple. Every day in my world requires sacrifices. Sacrifices that can be awful and ugly. But I want a better future for people like me, where even a baker or bricklayer has the chance to tell his story. To know that they matter. To be proud of their lives. For that to happen, the Storian must be replaced. The School must fall. And a King of the People must rise. Any Evil I’ve done, any lie I’ve told, it’s to make that future possible. Because only I can lead these Woods to a real peace, a real Ever After, for everyone. Beyond the legacy of my father. Beyond Good and Evil. I can save the Woods from all Evil, forever. I can be the One True King, the immortal Lion, cutting the head off every Snake. Anything is worth that. Anything. So look me in the eye and tell me I’m not as Good as my father. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m Evil, when everything I’ve done has been to save these Woods from it.”

  Sophie’s lungs turned inside out.

  This was lies.

  This had to be lies.

  This was the villain!

  The boy she needed to kill!

  The boy who was pure Evil, except now he was telling her he was the Good one . . . the one who could keep the Snake contained, the Snake living inside every villain . . . the one who could erase Evil forever. . . .

  What if it was true?

  What if it were possible?

  Her head spun, like she’d been bashed by a crystal’s blue light and dropped in another dimension.

  “Your mother,” she breathed. “She’s the one you want to bring back to life?”

  Rhian nodded. “My mother’s the only person Japeth ever loved. If he had her back . . . he would be happy and at peace. His Evil would be gone. I could be the king I want to be, the Lion the people need, without a Snake breathing down my neck.”

  Sophie was so addled that she found herself trundling ahead, leaving him hobbling behind her. All this time, she’d believed Rhian a savage intent on the Storian’s infinite power, his brother his loyal henchman. That was her version of the story. The one she and her friends agreed on. But in Rhian’s version, Rhian wanted the Pen’s power for another reason: to keep his brother happy. To kill the monster inside of him. To kill the monsters inside all the villains of the Woods. To bring peace to the people. Forever.

  Sophie pictured the eel-covered pen she’d first met in the Snake’s hands, changing the Storian’s tales to make the heroes villains and the villains heroes, twisting known stories into something darker and untrue. Lionsmane, the messenger of lies.

  But when it came to Rhian’s tale . . . had she become the
messenger of lies? Had she failed to see the real story, while clinging to a warped version of it?

  Impossible, she thought.

  And yet the way he’d looked at her, so pure-eyed and sure—

  “How did you escape?” he asked, appearing at her side again. His forehead shined with sweat. She hadn’t realized how far she’d gotten ahead of him.

  “Escape what?”

  “Agatha and Tedros. You escaped them and their rebels. Where are they? Where are all of them?”

  Sophie blinked at him. “On the run, of course. That’s how I got out. In the chaos of moving between hideouts.”

  Rhian searched her face. His knuckles twitched near Excalibur’s hilt.

  Sophie’s finger glowed strong behind her back—

  “Doesn’t matter,” the king groused, moving towards the last patch of trees. “Once my brother claims Nottingham’s ring, their days are numbered.”

  “I thought you said you were Good,” Sophie retorted, tailing him.

  “I am Good,” said Rhian. “My father’s sword choosing me is the proof. Your friends are the ones who are Evil. They deny the will of the people who want me as King. They arrogantly stand in the way of a better Woods. A more peaceful Woods. A Woods that King Arthur would have been proud of. Your friends aren’t just rebels against what’s right. They’re my Nemesis. They won’t stop attacking me until I’m dead. Which means I need to defend myself. First rule of Good.”

  Sophie opened her mouth to argue. Nothing came out.

  Rhian pulled up his shirt to inspect a deep laceration between two ribs, a pinprick of blood oozing between two stitches. He exhaled and kept walking. “Wish your blood healed me.”

  “Why doesn’t it?” Sophie prompted. “Strange that my blood would heal one twin and not the other.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment.

  “Rhian?”

  “It’s the pen’s prophecy,” he said, pausing on the path. “Only with you as a wedded queen can the Storian’s powers be claimed. One brother weds you and becomes the One True King. The second brother is restored by your blood. Sophie, the Queen for one. Sophie, the Healer for the other. You, the bond between brothers, each with an incentive to protect you.”

  Like the Storian, Sophie thought. Kept by two brothers, each safeguarding it for their side.

  Something needled at her. Something that didn’t make sense.

  “One brother weds me and becomes king?” Sophie said. “You meant when you wed me. You’re the elder. You’re the heir.”

  Rhian cleared his throat. “Yes. Obviously.”

  Sophie walked ahead. “But which pen? You’ve spoken of this mystery pen again and again. The pen that supposedly told you all these things. Which pen was it? The Storian or Lionsmane? Which pen knew I would be your queen? Which pen knew I could heal your brother?”

  She looked back at Rhian and to her surprise, she saw him grinning. “Found a way to magically break into my room. Found a way to get me a message under your friend’s nose. And yet, you still don’t know why you’re here. Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought.”

  If there was one thing Sophie despised, it was being called stupid.

  “Oh?” she said cuttingly. “I know who your mother is. I know all about her. I know how you came to be born. Do you?”

  Rhian snorted. “You don’t know the slightest thing about my mother.”

  Sophie gave him a cold stare. And suddenly, as if her thoughts were making it happen, her dress shape-shifted again. This time, the lace ruffled tighter, tighter, pinching in at every corner, before the ruffles began to quiver in unison, like a thousand gossamer wings. The white wings flapped harder, a little head poking out between every pair, as if about to take flight. A shot of color appeared at Sophie’s breast, like a stab wound, which bled outwards, covering these tiny winged creatures in rich, brilliant blue, the dress on her body now transformed into a dress so familiar, a dress once worn by her enemy, a dress made out of . . . butterflies. An army of them, blue as sapphires, rippled and flowed as she breathed in and out, their heads rising and falling with her heartbeat, as if the dress was no longer fighting her or binding her, but obeying her.

  Rhian’s eyes went big, his skin as pale as his brother’s.

  Then in an instant . . . the butterflies vanished.

  The dress melted back to white lace.

  Sophie arched a brow at the king.

  “Oh, I know more than you think,” she said.

  25

  SOPHIE

  Rhian and the Real Thing

  “My mother was a secretive woman,” said Rhian, taking off his shirt. “I know very little about her time as your Dean.”

  With cloud cover cooling the garden and the king increasingly limp, they’d returned to the veranda. Maids brought Rhian fresh bandages and creams for his wounds, which he now applied to his bare torso, grimacing and struggling to reach.

  Sophie sat next to him.

  Do I kill him?

  Do I not kill him?

  After everything Rhian had just told her, she didn’t know if he was Good or Evil anymore. If he was lying or telling the truth. If he should live or die.

  But one thing was still true.

  His brother had to die.

  Kill Japeth and the worst Evil would be gone.

  Kill Japeth and Rhian might leave Evelyn Sader in her grave.

  Kill Japeth and maybe she could let Rhian live.

  Maybe.

  But what about Tedros?

  Rhian had to die or Tedros couldn’t retake the throne.

  Presuming Tedros should retake the throne.

  But what if Rhian was right?

  What if Rhian would be the better king?

  He was the real heir, after all.

  And just because Agatha and Tedros were Sophie’s friends didn’t mean Tedros should rule Camelot. Nor had Tedros ever talked about his people or why he should be king with the same passion that Rhian showed her.

  What if being the One True King is Rhian’s destiny? Sophie thought, stiffening. What if his having the Storian’s powers could bring lasting peace to the Woods? What if it could stop Evil forever, just as he promised?

  Then killing Rhian wasn’t the Good thing to do.

  Killing Rhian would be Evil.

  Sophie’s heart shriveled.

  And I’m Evil.

  Is that why the crystal showed her murdering him?

  Because her soul wanted her to do an Evil deed?

  Because it wanted her to be a witch?

  Rhian wrestled awkwardly with a bandage—

  “Oh, I’ll do it,” Sophie sighed.

  Rhian eyed her tentatively . . . then lay back. She kneeled by his side and wrapped the cloth around his ribs. He flinched at the coldness of her touch.

  First things first, she told herself.

  Rhian kills Japeth.

  That part of the script hadn’t changed.

  Which meant she had to find their weak spot.

  That thread of mistrust she could unravel.

  “Tell me about her,” she said, rubbing cream into a bruise on his shoulder. “Your mother.”

  “Japeth inherited her magic, unlike me,” said Rhian, eyes closed, trying not to wince. “I must be like my father. Who my mother never, ever brought up. We knew not to ask. But I had my suspicions.”

  “Such as?”

  “There was the old card with Camelot’s seal I found in my mother’s room, inviting her to dine at the castle. ‘Looking forward to seeing you,’ it said, in the king’s own hand. I was obsessed with Camelot like every young Everboy, so imagine my excitement. My own mother knew King Arthur? My own mother once dined with the king? But when I asked her about the card, she punished me for snooping in her things. Then there was the way she hid us in Foxwood, not allowing us to leave the house or go to school, as if she was afraid someone might find us out. Then one day, a woman showed up at our door: a woman I recognized from the Camelot Courier as King Arthur’s stew
ard. I couldn’t hear her and Mother’s conversation, but why would King Arthur’s steward come see our mother? Yet if I tried to ask questions about the king, Mother would shut me down. And any mention of Queen Guinevere would draw a black glare and mumbles about ‘that uppity shrew.’ It was obvious my mother and King Arthur had a history. That something happened between them. And both Japeth and I seemed to have Arthur’s looks . . . or at least I did. A little bit of sun and I match his complexion. Put Japeth in the sun and he looks like burnt ham.”

  “But that’s absurd! Why wouldn’t your mother tell you who you were? Why not tell the whole Woods she’d borne Arthur’s sons?” Sophie asked. She thought of the way Evelyn’s eyes gleamed triumphantly before she looped the spansel around the king’s neck. “That was the point. To claim Arthur’s heirs—”

  Rhian opened his eyes, peering at her.

  He doesn’t know, Sophie realized. He doesn’t know how he was made.

  “I think she tried,” said Rhian. “I heard her crying once, cursing my uncle August for siding with ‘him.’ She must have told Arthur she was pregnant with his child. But Arthur had a queen by then. He had Guinevere. Maybe he threatened my mother to keep her quiet. Maybe my uncle August helped him. That’s why she was hiding us.”

  “But what about after Arthur died?” Sophie pushed. “Surely then she would have told people—”

  “Who would have believed her?” said Rhian. “What proof did she have?”

  “And your brother? Did he suspect that King Arthur was your father?”

  Rhian batted away a fly. “Tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he was quite sure who our father was.”

  “Who?” Sophie pushed.

  “‘Not King Arthur,’” said Rhian, mimicking Japeth’s hard tone. “He thought I was a fool about all of it, so enamored with the king that I’d convinced myself I was his long-lost son. But truth be told, Japeth and I never really saw eye to eye about anything. We’re twins, but total opposites. Two halves of a whole.”

  Sophie resisted a smile. Rhian and his brother weren’t so different from she and Agatha. Finding the wedge between brothers might be easier than she thought. . . .

 

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