Crisanta Knight: The Lost King

CHAPTER 1 DIVIDE & CONQUER-1

y entire world flashed and I found myself standing six feet in front of Blue.

“You’re back!” my friend exclaimed, scrambling to her feet.

She’d been sitting on the sandy embankment of the lake that surrounded the mystical Isle of Avalon. While she and the others needed to stay behind, Jason, Daniel, and I had gone over to the isle to find and retrieve Excalibur.

Blue threw her arms around me. Then she abruptly pushed past me to hug a surprised Jason, who had appeared behind me alongside Daniel.

“How’d we get here?” Daniel asked. “We were just in that cave battling the antagonists.”

“The Lady of the Lake,” I replied. “It was part of our reward for successfully claiming this.” I raised my arm and proudly held up Excalibur. The sunshine reflected off the glorious blade, which glowed light blue.

“Oh, my word! You did it!” SJ gasped. Our princess friend was standing high on the bank near the treeline, on the lookout for enemies. Her long black braid swung behind her as she cantered toward us. “You actually did it!” she said, her gray eyes full of wonder.

“Was there ever any doubt?” I asked sassily.

“Yes,” my friends replied in unison.

“Fair enough.” I shrugged and smiled.

SJ gave me a hug as Kai embraced and kissed Daniel. Kai was Daniel’s long-time girlfriend from their hometown of Century City, the capital of our realm. She wasn’t a protagonist like the rest of us; we’d only met her recently. But through a bizarre turn of events and a potion that the wizard Merlin had given us, she’d ended up in Camelot.

Ordinarily I would have welcomed all the help we could get. Kai was courageous, fierce, and an amazing swordfighter. Unfortunately, Daniel’s prophecy complicated things. It dictated that I would be a key ally to him and Kai, but it also said I had the potential to destroy her.

Daniel had entrusted me with this information last semester, assuring that he didn’t hold it against me. We both believed we could take fate in our own hands, so he was going to do everything he could to ensure his prophecy had a favorable outcome and he ended up with Kai. Meanwhile, I had promised to do everything in my power to help him protect her along the way. While Daniel may not have held me responsible for his prophecy, I felt responsible for him, at least his happiness. The hero had been my ally and friend throughout this journey and he meant something to me. As for Kai . . . we’d gotten off to a rocky start, but I liked her. I just hated that she was in the thick of it with us because protecting her was about to become much harder.

Blue took the sword from my hand and examined it with awe. The blade gave off a pale blue glow from every angle. “It’s incredible,” she marveled as she passed it to Jason so he could have a closer look.

“The antagonists can suck it,” he commented.

Kai gestured for the blade and Jason handed it to her. She and Daniel admired it together. I watched them. They were a handsome pair—him with his tall, muscular physique, brown hair, and deep brown eyes, and her with her chocolate eyes, wavy black hair, and light olive skin.

“It’s the greatest sword I’ve ever seen,” Daniel said.

Kai nodded in agreement. “Your new sword isn’t half bad either,” she said. “Where did you get that?”

I glanced at the sword Daniel was carrying. I didn’t recognize it.

“Avalon,” he answered. He looked over at Jason and me. “It’s the other sword that kept magically popping up on the isle.”

“I thought we decided not to touch that,” Jason said, raising an eyebrow.

We had. Avalon was full of enchanted traps. Moreover, the Lady of the Lake had appeared to me while crossing to Avalon and cautioned that if Daniel continued his journey with us to the isle, an unfavorable obstacle would be brought upon his fate. I’d chosen to forego this warning because we desperately needed him in the fight against the antagonists and because I felt sure that together we could handle any twist fate threw at us. However, there had been a brief period when Jason and I had been separated from Daniel on Avalon. What had Daniel gotten into in our absence?

“When the antagonists caught up with me in the cavern where Excalibur was, this sword showed up again,” Daniel explained. “I needed to defend myself, so I grabbed it.”

“I gave you my spear before we got separated,” I said.

“I’m not that experienced with a spear; it’s way more formidable in your hands,” he replied, gesturing to the weapon in my other grip. “And it was three against one. I thought I was a goner. Luckily, this sword appeared and I was able to use it to fight back.”

I transformed my spear back to its true form—a magic wand. The wand had been given to me when I was seven years old and was enchanted to change into whatever weapon I willed it into. It could also be converted into a clandestine state. I used the telepathic command Lapellium to morph it into a hairpin and then clipped the wandpin to my bra strap.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said to Daniel.

“Would you have preferred if they killed me?”

“No, I just . . . We don’t know what that sword is. It could be dangerous.”

“Relax,” Daniel said. “Nothing bad happened and no traps were sprung. Considering I lost my old sword in quicksand, I’m calling it a lucky break.”

“Speaking of lucky breaks,” Blue interjected. “Where are Arian, Mauvrey, and Alex?”

Ah yes, our three least favorite villains.

“After I claimed Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake temporarily froze them and brought the three of us back here,” I replied to Blue. “That means we have a head start, but I doubt it’ll last long. You know those guys. We need to decide our next move fast.”

“I actually have some thoughts on that,” Blue said eagerly. “Since we previously took care of the three guards traveling with Arian, Alex, and Mauvrey, we can use all of their rides.” She gestured at the half dozen horses tied to the trees atop the bank. “There are six horses and six of us. We have five hours before we need to rendezvous with Morgan and Gwenivere’s army. With the help of Merlin’s magic map, and if we don’t get held up by any more magic hunters or monsters, we can make it. We’ll help our friends take back the citadel and kick Rampart off the throne of Camelot. Then we should still have plenty of time to use one of those nifty interdimensional wormholes to get to Oz, take down Glinda, and free Paige’s mind from the memory stone just as the Vicennalia Aurora hits.”

“That is an optimistic plan,” SJ commented wryly, raising her eyebrows.

“We are inbound for several colossal battles with enemies across multiple realms,” Blue retorted. “Would you prefer me to be cynical?”

Definitely not. Blue’s summary may have been concise, but it by no means lessened the scope of what we had to do. Getting back to Oz to retrieve Paige’s memories and save her from her scarecrow state like I’d promised was only one thing we had to accomplish today. We had made commitments to people in many realms, particularly Camelot.

In our original search for Paige, we’d spent time in Neverland. There, we had befriended the legendary twelve-year-old Peter Pan and his band of Lost Boys and Girls, as well as several other important characters, one of whom was King Arthur.

Yes, the ruler-of-Camelot and head of Knights of the Round Table King Arthur.

Stories told that the king had perished years ago, killed by his half-brother Mordred. But this was not the complete truth. The king had been mortally injured in battle by Mordred’s poisoned blade, however before Arthur’s demise he’d gone through a wormhole that led to Neverland. This saved him—at least in a way. Biological time magically stood still in Neverland, which meant that people never aged and non-instantaneous wounds that would normally progress and worsen to kill the afflicted over time were frozen as well. As such, Arthur’s wound would not finish him off so long as he remained in Neverland.

No one in Camelot had known the truth about what happened to the king until we made this discovery. During our search for Excalibur, we’d teamed up with Arthur’s wife Gwenivere and his half-sister Morgan La Fay and told them of Arthur’s fate. They could not have been more thrilled he was alive, but were dismayed that he could never return to their realm because of his wound.

These conflicting feelings aside, the news gave them an extra boost of motivation to carry through with their plan to overthrow Camelot’s current ruler and son of Mordred, King Rampart, in order to restore Gwenivere to the throne. With the help of the trusted order known as the Gwenivere Brigade and the royals’ other allies, this was happening tonight. The distraction of the Vicennalia Aurora was the perfect opportunity. The plan had been set for a while, but the morale boost of Arthur being alive mixed with my powerful friends and I showing up to aid the cause was a bonus. Again, we just had to get from Avalon to the Camelot citadel within the next five hours in order to do it.

Blue removed an empty sword sheath from one of the horse’s saddles and tossed it over to SJ. “Here, make yourself useful, Princess Doubty. You’re the only one without a weapon. Put Excalibur in that and carry it for the team.”

SJ caught the sheath but glowered at Blue. The pair sometimes clashed. It came with the territory when two close friends were so different—SJ was a graceful, logical princess, and Blue was a blunt, bold protagonist who relied on gut instinct. But the teasing was generally amicable as the two cared for each other deeply.

Daniel passed Excalibur to SJ and she firmly secured the sword then swung the sheath over her shoulder.

“Not to be cynical either,” Jason interjected, giving SJ a supportive pat on the shoulder, “but I have to say, this seems too lucky. I mean six horses and six of us? That’s a bit convenient.”

“Have we been on the same quest, man?” Daniel asked. “Nothing is ever convenient. Maybe the universe feels like it owes us one. Let’s take this stroke of luck and get on with it.”

I instinctively moved to check the time on my watch and remembered the other prize I’d brought back from Avalon—the Hole Tracker. Hole Trackers were magical watches that showed when and where wormholes were about to open, thus allowing you to navigate from one Wonderland to the next through the interdimensional tears.

“I think we should split up,” I said suddenly.

“Why’s that?” Kai asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“Because Blue’s right,” I responded. “With the horses and Merlin’s map, we should be able to get to the Gwenivere Brigade’s rendezvous point outside the Forest of Mists by five o’clock. But things almost always go wrong for us, and if we get side-tracked by more monsters or whatever, we won’t make it, and the domino effect will be disastrous. If we don’t leave Camelot in time, then we won’t reach Oz in time. If we miss that deadline, then we may not make it to Book to help the Godmothers and all the antagonists could break out of Alderon . . .”

I took a breath. That last impending climax had me the most worried. Threats in other realms (no matter how great) did not sting as much as those on your home turf. That’s where our families were, our homes. And they were all in grave trouble.

Our realm’s Fairy Godmothers knew that the Aurora would affect the In and Out Spell around Alderon, and many had been assigned to reinforce the magic in the spell throughout the evening. Unfortunately, the numbers assigned weren’t high because the Godmothers were also responsible for safeguarding Book’s kingdoms against more commons rebellion attacks that were rumored to occur this evening as well.

The commons rebellion in Book was a growing problem that had recently taken significant shots at our realm. Because Book separated its classes and showed favoritism to protagonists, those who were not chosen by the Author were typically given less attention and opportunity. And while many commons were okay with that (people could certainly succeed in life without the advantage of being chosen at birth for a higher calling) others had grown discontent.