A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,100

friends instead of enemies.

Sophie turns on me with fire. “You think you can trap me here under the stage while my king fights alone! You shriveled dragon! I’d rather die than abandon my love!” She raises a glowing finger and blasts me with a stun spell, shooting me backwards off the stage and crushing my flank against hard dirt.

Sophie tried to soften the blow, but magic follows emotion and her fear made the spell worse. The pain is red-hot, as if I’ve been impaled by a firebolt. My ribs are cracked, my lungs cast in iron. I try to suck air into my throat, but my ears are ringing with a tone so high and strident that I can only grit my teeth. My spirit dims like a dying candle, my heartbeat slackens, as if this is the last my body can take, as if there’s no coming back from this.

But I have to fight. No matter what it costs.

I turn my head in the dirt and pry open my eyes, my head feeling like a melon that’s been dropped from a tower. Water clouds my vision and I blink, struggling to see what’s in front of me.

The Queen of Jaunt Jolie is gone.

But Rhian’s storming towards Tedros now, the prince exposed at the top of the prisoner pile, pirates bludgeoning him. Rhian hurls his guards aside and, with a snarl, swings Excalibur at his rival’s chest—

Sophie crashes into Rhian, acting as if she’s been helplessly pushed in the mayhem, sending Rhian careening onto the mound of bodies. Pirates and leaders try to extricate the king from the pile, the Ice Giant leading the efforts, while Tedros, Agatha, Hort, Robin, and others try to wrest Rhian back, their only leverage against a sure death.

Meanwhile, Sophie keeps throwing pirates aside so she can pretend to help Rhian, mewling “My king, my love!”, only to let go anytime she has a firm grip, dropping him back into the cesspool of bodies. More pirates trying to save the king get pulled into this hellpit, including the Ice Giant, who topples like a tree, smashing into the stage. Wooden planks shatter and the platform implodes, sending every last soul, friend and foe, plunging to the grass and rolling down the hill. Flying wood obliterates the frozen blocks with Hester, Anadil, Dot, and the demon, who slide out of the ice and plummet down the slope with the rest. As bodies pile up at the base of the hill like a human bonfire, those defending the king meld with the students defending the school, fists and limbs flying, screams rising up like a smoke cloud, until I haven’t the faintest clue who is who.

Except one.

A prince glowing in the sun, gold hair matted in sweat, blue eyes afire as he fights for his kingdom, his people, the way his father once did, a Lion amongst kings.

Then it comes.

The answer I’ve been waiting for.

Floating out of my soul, like a pearl.

Not an answer, but a spell.

A spell that Yuba uses for his Glass Coffin challenge. A middling, magical gimmick, but now, as I watch Tedros fight, it comes to me like water in a desert. The spell pulses at my fingertips, demanding I intervene.

I know the Storian’s rules. This is beyond a godmother’s work. This is changing the course of a fairy tale.

But it must be done.

I see everything that is about to happen, as if my mind’s eye is my real crystal ball. Yet there is no fear of what is to come. Only certainty that I’m on this field for a reason. That I came to Camelot to be here now. To do what I’m about to do.

Down the hill, Agatha and Tedros crawl for Excalibur, orphaned in the dirt, their friends and the pirates locked in muddy free-for-all around them. Sophie is racing alongside Tedros to get to the sword too, but he sideswipes her, knocking her into Agatha, taking both girls down and slowing his own progress. He realizes his mistake. Rhian lunges from the other side of the sword, his hand clasping the hilt—

I raise my shaking finger and with all the will I have left, I shoot a blast of white light into the sky, which rains down as sparkling dust, touching every friend and enemy, every pirate and prince and queen and witch, every single body on the battlefield, including mine.

The war stops.

No one moves.

Because I’ve turned us all into Tedros.

Fifty Tedroses, with the same bloodied mouth and black