Chapter 6
THE PRINCESS OF PORTALS
While the Court debated the matter of Fenris’s guilt, Conner, Kato, and I retreated to a meeting room just down the hall from the ballroom.
“What do you think?” I asked them. “Will the Court vote against him?”
“Hard to say,” Kato replied. “Fenris has a lot of allies.”
“But how many of them are in the Order of Kings?”
“Best guess?” Conner frowned. “Far too many.”
I was afraid he was right about that.
The door opened, and Portia stepped into the room. Given how good she was at teleporting, I had to wonder why she even bothered with doors.
“The Court will vote against Fenris,” Portia told me.
“How do you know?”
“Fenris is not as popular as he appears. His allies are outspoken, but his enemies outnumber them. Even so, the members of the Court are set in their ways. They fear change. That’s why they generally vote to maintain the status quo.
Imprisoning one of their own would disrupt that status quo.
That’s why I had to provide them with evidence that they could not ignore.
Fenris is guilty, and they know it. Now they just need time to come to terms with what they must do.
In the end, they will do the right thing.
Convicting Fenris is preferable to allowing him to go free.
He captured spirits and used them in his experiments.
The members of the Court cannot allow his crime to go unpunished.
The people of the Many Realms revere the spirits. ”
I watched her, wondering.
She smiled at me. “Yes?”
“I know you’re one of the Paragons of Magic.”
“I am.”
“You’re the Princess of Portals. That’s how you can summon and read the Paragons’ spellbook.”
“I couldn’t summon it to me for many years.”
“Why not?”
“Fenris. Long ago, he stole the spellbook. I couldn’t sense it anymore. He’d locked it away inside of a special box that kept it hidden from my magic.” The book appeared in her hand. She handed it to me. “Here, take it. Let it help you, Savannah. Let it guide you.”
“Why me? Why give this incredible book to me?”
“You have so much potential, Savannah. You will change the Many Realms.”
I held the book to me; it hummed with power. “When most people look at the pages, they see nothing.”
“You are not most people.”
“I’m a Polymage. But so are Kato and Conner. And they can’t read the book.”
“Your ability to read the book has nothing to do with your being a Polymage.”
“Ok, then what does it have to do with?”
Portia didn’t answer. She merely smiled, then disappeared.
The door to the room swung open, and this time it was the General who stepped through. “The members of the Court have come to a decision.”
We followed him back to the ballroom. Vela stood there, in front of the twelve gold thrones, eleven occupied, one empty.
That empty throne was a painful reminder of why I was here.
Of why I had survived. Queen Seriana had fought her son so that I could live.
She’d protected me, but she hadn’t died for me.
She had died to save the Many Realms. She’d died so that I could stop Fenris.
We were about to find out if she’d died in vain.
“The Court has reached a consensus,” Vela said.
I waited, hardly able to breathe.
“The Court has decided that Gaia did not kidnap your own Apprentices,” Vela said. “You are not waging a war against us. Consequently, we will not take your Knights from you. And we will not send our armies to invade Gaia.”
I finally exhaled.
“We have taken Prince Fenris into custody, and we will get to the bottom of everything he has done. We will find all of his accomplices.” Vela’s hard stare panned across the many members of the Court. “They cannot hide from us.”
The Court adjourned for the day. The doors to the ballroom flew open. Members of the Court filed out in smooth, unbroken lines, as regal as always.
I watched them go, wondering just how many of them belonged to the Order of Kings. “Now what?”
“Now, you go home and get some rest,” Kato told me.
“But this isn’t over.”
“It’s over for now.”
I frowned.
“For once, Kato is right,” Conner said. “You’ve been through a lot these last few days. Get some sleep. Recharge your batteries so you can fight another day.”
“I wonder when the next battle will be.”
Conner gave me a big smile. “Oh, that’s easy. It’s in two days at the Castle.”
I blinked in confusion. “In two days at the Castle?”
“The Castle’s annual Masquerade Ball, Seven. The day you become a Knight.”
I couldn’t believe I’d even needed the reminder. Becoming a Knight was the whole reason I’d come to the Fortress in the first place. It’s what I’d been preparing for my whole life.
It’s just that, well, after all that I’d been through, after all that I’d seen, I couldn’t shake the feeling that becoming a Knight was just the beginning of my story.