Soman Chainani

Then she saw Agatha. “You there! No smirking!

CALL THAT THING OFF!” Tedros yelled as he deflected Grimm’s arrows into the well with his training sword.

Tedros smiled. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
She fainted in his arms.

“I’m completely happy on my own. I don’t need a boy, so don’t make it sound like I do. Nor do I believe in love at first sight anymore or even true love for that matter. Not after Teddy and Rafal taught me that loving any boy only leads to them disappointing you once you realize that they’re boring or immature or an axe murderer. But this boy came out of nowhere when I least expected it and even though he didn’t say we’d meet again, I keep thinking about how nice it’d be to have a proper date where he picks me up and I wear my furs and boots and we dine on coq au vin so I can ask what his father does for a living and what he does when he’s not saving people and why he liked me in our fairy tale when I behaved quite badly most of the time, but . . .” She sank into the pillows. “I can’t really like him. I don’t even know his name.”

“And that is how a witch is felled,” Tedros whispered to Agatha. “Gourmet dining.”

Agatha nuzzled into his chest as they watched Sophie and Rhian kissing intensely.

“I remember when we were like that,” Agatha sighed.

“What do you mean ‘were’?” said Tedros, sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her as he carried her.

“Oh, put me down,” said Agatha.

“You told me to put you down when I carried you at school and then you fainted and Sophie turned into Satan and we almost died,” said Tedros, clasping her tighter. “So request denied.”

Agatha relaxed in his arms. “I love you, Tedros.”

“I love you, Agatha.”

Agatha heard a bloodcurdling shriek and spun to Sophie, back in her body, lips scrunched against Hort’s.

Hort released her. “Oh, the hand. Oops.” He popped another mint leaf. “Should we start again?”

“You APE!” Sophie kicked him and he crashed into the mint bush, onto the snacking skunk, which raised its tail and sprayed him in the eyes. Hort staggered around, ramming into coffins—“I’m blind! I’m blind!”—until he smashed into Sophie’s again, which slammed shut, sealing his skunked body in with hers. Aghast, Sophie rammed the glass, but it wouldn’t budge.

No one fights fair.

To the End of Ends

That’s why love is the ultimate test. It forces us to grow, to be better, and even then, sometimes it’s not enough. We get in our own way. We’re our own worst villains. But only a true villain believes he can control love. Love can’t be controlled any more than a wildfire can. It lives in the balance of fate and free will, Man and Pen. We do our part, we hope, we wish . . . but it writes its own story in its own time, the way it’s meant to be.

Relief.

As if at last he had the answer to what made a king. Not blood. Not birthright. But something deeper: faith. Faith his father had in him. Faith Tedros never had in himself. Until now. Because he was a better man than his father, loyal to his princess, loyal to his heart. Because he’d be a better king, having chosen not the queen who would compensate for his shortcomings, but would love him for them. Because of who he was deep in his soul, rather than what he thought should be. He was free. Finally free. As if in being told he wasn’t a king, he found the reason to be a king.