A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,160

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