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.”