فصل 25

Chapter 25

TEDROS

Game of Swords

“How are you going to propose?” Lancelot had asked him. They were swimming in the ice-cold sea a few miles from the castle, just the two of them, while Guinevere accompanied Agatha to dress fittings for the coronation. It had only been a few days since they’d all come to Camelot from the School for Good and Evil. Only a few days since the war against Rafal had ended with the School Master dead and a new alliance between Camelot and the School, the Woods’ two greatest powers. The future seemed filled with hope and promise. So much so that when Lance had barreled into Tedros’ chambers at the crack of dawn, demanding the prince come swim with him, for once Tedros decided to be agreeable and tagged along.

“Well?” Lancelot pressed, now that they were deep in frigid waters, the winter sun doing nothing to warm them. “If you’re going to ask her to marry you, you better have a plan.” “A plan I’ll keep to myself, thank you,” the prince replied, trying to stop his teeth from chattering, given Lance looked perfectly comfortable. “I hope now that you and Mother are going to live with us, it won’t make you think I care about your opinion. You’re not my father and you never will be.” Lancelot grinned a dirty smile. “Haven’t thought about how you’re going to do it, have you.” Tedros glanced at the wild-maned brute with a hairy chest, all leathered and brawny where the prince was smooth and lean, his skin pinking at every stab of cold. “What do you care? You never asked my mother to marry you.” “Your mother had the choice to marry me, but chose Arthur instead. In the end, it wasn’t what she was looking for,” Lancelot replied. “So we had to find something else to call what Gwen and I have.” “Like what?”

“Love.”

Tedros looked at him.

“That’s why it matters how you propose,” said the knight. “Because if it’s marriage you’re trying to get her to agree to, well, then that’s easy enough. Any king can make an offer a girl can’t refuse. The pull of duty and honor, the promise of riches and fame, the carving of a name into history. It’s why Gwen couldn’t say no to your father and why any girl won’t say no to you. But if it’s love you’re offering, love bigger than marriage, love that will last forever . . . well, that’s a very different proposal indeed. Because a girl can only say yes to that once. Like your mother did to me.” Tedros took this in, so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t see Lancelot’s big, meaty hand reach up behind him and dunk his head into the sea.

“Why are you such an ass?” Tedros spewed, spitting salty water.

“Someone needs to teach the cub how to be a lion, don’t he?” Lance chuckled.

By the time they swam back to shore, Tedros had scrapped his original plan for asking Agatha to marry him. Soon, a new proposal brewed in his heart: one that he didn’t second-guess. He didn’t share it with anyone. Not Lance. Not Merlin. Not his mother. Not a soul, until his princess on the day he chose. Since that day, neither he nor Agatha had spoken of it to each other or anyone else. What had happened was too sacred, too private to live outside their own hearts.

It’s why when Tedros watched that fourth Agatha lie about the proposal, telling a version that resembled nothing of the truth, he’d felt so offended, so violated . . . that his mother had known he would confuse her for a Snake.

“TEDROS?” HIS MOTHER’S voice spoke.

He opened his eyes to a wet, glacial darkness, as if he was trapped deep under the sea.

“Tedros?” the voice spoke again.

Not his mother.

Someone else.

A body climbed on top of him, light but bony, before thin, warm fingers touched his eyes, pulling away a cold veil. Sun blinded him, blotting out everything except his snow-dusted princess, panting softly, pink cheeks tinged blue, her cloak crusted with ice as if she’d been buried in it. More snow fell from the sky, filling Tedros’ eyes where Agatha had just scraped it away. The prince turned his neck and saw heaps of snow blocking his view, as if he, too, had been buried before his princess dug him up.

A short while ago, they’d been in the hot fog of the desert. Tan lines peeked from under his father’s ring. Sand was caked to his chest and armpits under his lace-up shirt, no defense against this cold. One thing was for sure: they weren’t in Shazabah anymore.

He looked at Agatha. “What is this place?”

Her throat bobbed, her big brown eyes lifting beyond the prince, as if Tedros was asking the wrong question.

Tedros rocked to his knees, craning over the mounds of snow— He fell backwards in surprise.

Everywhere he looked . . .

Swords.

The same sword.

Excalibur, trapped blade-first in snow, again and again, the lion-carved hilts jutting out of the white landscape, every six or seven feet, thousands and thousands of them, as far as the eye could see.

Tedros stumbled to his feet, lurching for the nearest one. He grabbed it— The sword crumbled to black dirt.

He tried another one. Another. Another.

All withered.

Suddenly Tedros understood. That vision in the night sky. Arthur’s prophecy of Excalibur hidden for him or the Snake to find . . .

It was here.

The third test had begun.

“Where is it?” said Tedros, yanking more and more swords, his shirt and breeches spattering with dirt. “Where’s the real one?” But Agatha was gazing out at sunlit snow, as if these too were the wrong questions. She looked back at her prince.

“Where’s Sophie?” she asked.

Silence hung between them.

Pink lightning shocked the sky, followed by a puff of pink smoke, somewhere in the distance.

Tedros and Agatha glanced at each other.

Then they started running.

NEITHER SAID A word as they sprinted across snow, Tedros sweeping his hand across hilts and turning them to dust. He knew in his heart that the final test couldn’t be won by luck, but still, he touched as many as he could, watching swords vanish as he tried to keep up with his princess, who was heading straight for where they’d seen the pink smoke. He heard Agatha holding her breath, which reminded Tedros to keep breathing, even if every breath brought with it thoughts of Rafal and Japeth and Aric and how Tedros had played the part of the last, the prince willing to kiss his own enemy to send him to hell . . . only to kill someone else instead . . .

My mother.

I killed my mother.

He buried his guilt and anguish, holding on to the peace in Guinevere’s face as she let him go.

“Lance is waiting for me . . .”

It was what his mother wanted. To be reunited with her knight.

But not before protecting her son. Not before sacrificing herself to get him to the last test.

To Excalibur.

The Lion’s Grail, his father called it.

The sword that once rejected Tedros as king.

The sword he now had to find and claim.

Not that he had the faintest clue how. He couldn’t possibly touch every impostor blade in sight; nor did he know how far this gameboard of Excaliburs would go on or whether the Snake had a better plan to win or where the Snake even was . . .

Or where I am, Tedros reminded himself, still flummoxed by the terrain. The Frostplains, maybe? But the snow was too soft, the land too rugged . . . He considered other options—Maidenvale, Altazarra, even Netherwood—but there was nothing to orient him, no town or castle or sea or something that might clue him to where they were . . . just more swords and more snow, as if they were stretching the bounds of the world, into the Endless of the Endless Woods.

“Hurry, Tedros!” Agatha urged, outpacing him.

“What happens if you touch one?” Tedros called out.

“Nothing happens! It’s your test!”

“Just try it!”

Agatha seized a sword by the hilt—it resisted her pull, staying trapped in the snow as if it were stone. “See? Worry about them later! We need to find Sophie!” she harped, running faster.

“We need to find my sword!” said Tedros.

But unless the real sword glowed like a beacon or sent up a flare or sang to him like a siren, this hunt would take a very long time.

And what if I do find it somehow?

Excalibur rejected me as king.

Will it reject me again?

Another bolt of pink lightning jolted the earth in front of them, sending a shockwave of pink light across a swathe of swords, disintegrating them into smoke. The pink mist fogged Tedros and Agatha in, the prince following his princess’s coughs before he found her, taking her arm and waving away smoke, until it finally cleared.

A boy peered back at them.

He was stringy and mop-haired, dressed in a purple velvet suit, his hands cupped around an orb of pink lightning.

Instantly Tedros shielded his princess and grabbed the nearest sword, only to turn it to dust. “Damn things!” Tedros lit his fingerglow, pointing it haphazardly at the stranger. “Stay back, whoever you are!” But Agatha was already moving towards the brown-headed lad, with full eyebrows, high cheekbones, and green eyes that blinked behind spectacles.

“Merlin?” Agatha said.

“I was wondering when you two would wake up,” the young wizard spoke with a singsong tone, before casting the ball of lightning and clearing more swords.

Tedros goggled. “But . . . you’re . . . you’re tall . . .” “That’s the Tedros I remember. I’m finally past the age of wetting the bed and calling you Tee Tee and the first thing you talk about is height,” said the boy. “Maybe it’s because most princes the Storian writes about are tall and you are . . . not.” Tedros looked like he’d been slapped.

“Oh, Merlin, we missed you,” Agatha breathed, hugging him.

“I’m still the same boy who thought you were my Mama. Just capable of full sentences now,” the young wizard chuckled, smoothing his purple suit. “First night was terrible. A six-year-old on his own? I was scared out of my wits. Then I shot up a foot overnight and my whole body felt like it might rip apart. Kept trying to wake you, but the magic that dropped us here affected you both more than me. After a while, I was just plain bored, waiting for you to get up. Tried to use the time to recover my own magic. Only figured out this sword-clearing spell just now. Puberty will probably start tomorrow. Oof. I don’t remember loving it the first time. At least it’ll only last a few days instead of a few years.” Tedros was still gawking at him. “But how did you—” “Hester’s potion,” Agatha realized, her hand in her coat. “Where is it?” Merlin’s blue hat flounced up from the snow, raggedy and dented, and belched out the vial from its mouth.

“Nicked it off you and took it each day on schedule. You missed the worst of it: at eight, I had a bout of chicken pox and spent most of the day mummified in snow to stop from itching . . . at nine, I rebelled against my hat’s ruthless insistence I eat vegetables and nearly beat the thing to death . . . then at ten, all my baby teeth fell out,” said the wizard, pointing at a pile of white shells in the snow. “Tomorrow I’ll officially be a teenager. Bet Hat’s excited about that.” (Merlin’s cap made a loud fart noise.) Agatha blanched. “So that means we’ve been asleep for . . .” “Six days, eight hours, and twenty-three minutes,” the boy wizard chimed.

“Six days?” said Agatha.

“Wait! If you’re almost thirteen, surely you remember your old life now!” Tedros jumped in. “You can tell us why my father made the tournament. You can help me win the third test! You can fix everything!” “I’m twelve, Tedros. I can barely concentrate on anything other than growing pains, how badly I need a bath, and the first pimple I got an hour ago, which magic won’t make go away,” said Merlin, puffing at his hair. “I remember most of my old life before I turned into a baby, along with my usual command of language, thank heavens, because if I had to speak in the stunted gargles of an adolescent, I’d gag myself with my hat. And yet, my command of magic is juvenile, my best spells erased from my memory. Maybe with each day I’ll remember more, but who knows? And no, I don’t have a clue where the real Excalibur is or how to find it or what your father was up to when he made this tournament, because as far as I can remember, he kept the details secret from me. I don’t know much of anything about his tests at all, other than that your enemy seems to be struggling as much as you are.” Tedros followed the boy’s gaze to the blinding glare of sun. The prince shielded his eyes and made out gold letters where he hadn’t seen them before. They were small and far away, as if he and his princess were on another planet, Lionsmane’s words faint against the sky.

Your king has returned to Camelot, only to find Excalibur missing and hidden in the Woods. King Arthur’s final test. Help me find it. Help the Lion win, so that Excalibur takes the head of Tedros the Snake. All of you are my Eagle now. He who finds the real sword shall be rewarded!

“Message has been up for five days, so clearly no one’s found it,” said Merlin.

“Japeth’s at Camelot?” Agatha asked. “Must have been dropped there, then.” “Wait. So he gets dropped at Camelot. Rafal’s son. At my castle. By my dad,” Tedros growled, “and we get dropped in a middle-of-nowhere snowhole?” “Not exactly nowhere,” said Merlin. He flicked his fingers and magically swelled the snow beneath his and Agatha’s feet, raising the mound higher and higher, until the wizard and princess were fifty feet above ground.

“What about me?” Tedros shouted below.

“Oops,” said the young wizard, flicking fingers quickly— The snow ruptured under Tedros’ feet, sending him plummeting ten feet into ice. “MERLIN!” “Still rusty!” Merlin called, with a wink at Agatha, before springing Tedros up on a spout of snow.

“This is pointless. I just see more swords,” wet Tedros groused, glaring into endless white— Only it wasn’t endless, he realized now.

In the distance, he could see a house on a hill.

A small farm cottage, breaking up the sweep of snow.

The same farmhouse where he and his princess once came to hide from the same School Master whose son threatened them now.

“Agatha?” he rasped.

But she was looking upwards, straight into the gray sky, which upon closer inspection had a flat, undulating sheen as if it was a glass wall, hiding waves of water behind it . . .

Not just water.

Hiding something else too.

A face.

Spying on them from behind the sky, before it vanished back into the lake from which it came.

“Always summer here when the Lady was in good spirits,” said Merlin. “Her mood has changed, it seems.” “But why are we here?” Tedros asked Merlin. “Why would Dad drop us in Avalon and Japeth at the castle?” “Who’s to say it was your dad and not you who decided that we be dropped here?” said Merlin, cocking a brow, suddenly looking like the wizard Tedros knew, despite his twelve-year-old form. “Japeth would have wished to return to the castle where he could seek the people’s help to win the last test. Maybe deep down, you knew coming here would be your best chance to find the sword.” Tedros crossed his arms. “Doesn’t make sense. Why would I come to the Lady of the Lake? What does she have to do with Excal—” His eyes widened.

Merlin grinned crookedly. “Everything to do with it, Tee Tee. She did make it, after all.” The prince swallowed. “We have to talk to her, don’t we?” “You need to talk to her,” said the wizard boy. “Can’t remember the specifics, but I have the vague feeling she hates me. Old me, I mean.” “While you were gone, she tried to kill me,” said Tedros.

“Mmm, maybe Agatha, then,” the wizard murmured.

They turned to the girl between them.

She was still looking into the sky.

“So let me get this straight,” Agatha spoke finally. “Japeth wished to return to Camelot. Tedros wished to come to Avalon . . .” She leveled with the two boys.

“So where did Sophie wish to go to?”