Chapter 8
THE CITADEL
Istumbled out of the prison. Somehow, I managed to make my way down the tower without falling. My mind was spinning, trying to make sense of this, trying to squeeze this new information into my reality. It didn’t fit.
“Savannah!” Skye was at the other end of the hallway, moving toward me fast. “Orion and Jareth told me about your mother. I’m sorry.”
I wanted her to go away. I wanted them all to go away. My whole life was crashing down all around me. I really needed to be alone right now.
“We’ve given Melanie Meyer to the General. He and his Watchers left with her,” she said. “It’s just us now. And it’s really starting to sink in, you know? We are alone. We decided to be independent, and now we have to rule ourselves. Somehow.”
I didn’t see how I could help with that problem. I had enough problems as it was. And, besides, I didn’t know anything about ruling.
“The Knight Commanders are organizing a forum to discuss the future of the Knights. I was hoping Kato and Conner could weigh in,” Skye said.
“Kato is a Knight Commander, and Conner led the Rebels. People respect them. We all want to hear what they have to say on the matter. Do you know where they are?”
Conner and Kato were gone, and they weren’t coming back. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but the words didn’t come out. Saying the words would make them real, and they couldn’t be real. They just couldn’t be.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know where they are, Skye.”
I turned and walked away. Kato and Conner were coming back. They had to come back. It was as simple as that. This wasn’t the end. I would see them again. Hadn’t they promised me that if I ever needed them, they would be there for me? Well, the whole Castle needed them now.
I found an empty corridor. It was usually empty. People didn’t come this way very often. I set my hand over the two necklaces they’d made for me. The metal started to glow.
I waited for them to come. It was high time that the three of us had a real, honest conversation about the past. Why did they really come to Gaia, and what did it have to do with me?
My mind churned through scenario after scenario after scenario, each one even more impossible than the last.
The minutes passed, and still I stood there, clutching my necklaces. It was getting late. The sun was gone, and Conner and Kato still weren’t here. How long did it take to go from their realm to this one?
I’d been waiting long enough. It was time to go to them.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the necklaces’ magic—on its rhythm, its flow, its melody.
And there it was: the thread that connected my necklaces to theirs.
But it was more than just that. It wasn’t just the necklaces that were connected; it was the three of us: Kato and Conner and me.
I followed the thread to them, cutting through realms. For once, the magic came easily. It was almost effortless, like I was supposed to go to them now.
I found myself in a long corridor with impossibly high ceilings. Archways lined one side of the hall. Natural light streamed in through them. I started walking. An armored soldier stood guard in every archway, motionless but alert. Their eyes watched me. They didn’t try to stop me.
A man and a woman came down the hall in the opposite direction. They saw me. It was obvious I didn’t belong here, but they didn’t try to stop me either. No one I encountered made any move against me. They all just ignored me. I guess they didn’t see me as a threat.
This place was unsettling. Something about it just didn’t sit right with me. Everyone I saw was a soldier. Some of them spoke of serving a higher purpose, like they were holy knights or something. Most of them said nothing at all.
Finally, I reached the end of the thread. I found Kato and Conner in a stone courtyard. They were dressed in the same armor as everyone else here. They stood facing each other. Sweat coated their faces. They’d clearly just been sparring.
“Seven?” Kato moved toward me. “What are you doing at the Citadel?”
So this was the Citadel. It was beautiful, but also kind of soulless, if you asked me.
“I came to talk to you. To both of you.”
Conner sighed. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I countered.
“We belong here, Red. I know you want us to come back with you, but we can’t. This is our home. We aren’t from Gaia.”
“And yet you went there. You spent years there. Gaia was home to you once.”
“We didn’t remember who we were,” Kato said. “We’re members of the League of Destiny.”
“And what exactly is the League of Destiny?”
“The League of Destiny was created long ago by a few rebellious spirits,” Kato said. “I know you’ve heard of them: the Paragons of Magic.”
The world flipped upside down for at least the third time this week.
“The Paragons of Magic wanted to protect the Many Realms, and they didn’t think the spirits’ hands-off approach was working,” Conner said. “They created the League of Destiny to tackle problems more directly.”
“Directly?” I said. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“For centuries, the League has been trying to create the ultimate champion,” Kato said. “A warrior without boundaries, someone who can wield all kinds of magic.”
“A Polymage,” I realized.
Kato nodded. “Yes. Many children were born. Most of them could master spells from two or three branches of magic, but never all six.”
“Until Kato and I were born. We are the League’s first and only true Polymages.”
“We trained for many years. Threats to the Many Realms were growing by the day. The League wanted to make us even more powerful. So when we were sixteen, they sent us to Gaia.”
“Where you blended with the spirits.”
Kato nodded. “The great collective of spirits, yes. They have a lot of magic, but they only share that magic with a limited few from Cursed realms.”
“The spirits can read minds,” Conner said. “If they read ours, they’d know that we not only already had magic and weren’t from Gaia, but we were from an organization created by rogue spirits. The only way to gain extra magic was for us to forget who we were.”
“So the League wiped your memories.”
“We volunteered for the mission,” Kato told me. “We knew what it meant.”
“And where do I fit into all of this?” I asked. “You said this was about me.”
“We came to Gaia for magic, but we also came for you, Red. You are—”
“No,” Kato cut him off. “Erador forbade us from telling her.”
Just another reason to hate Erador. Conner and Kato hadn’t kept secrets from me before this Erador guy had showed up.
“Who exactly is Erador?” I asked.
“He is the League’s leader,” Kato said. “And our father.”
“So you’re brothers.”
“Kind of,” Conner said. “But it’s so much more than that. We’re united by a destiny that stretches back centuries. Don’t you see? We’re doing what we were always meant to do, what we were born to do. We are going to save the Many Realms.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing together.” My throat tightened, choking on the words.
Kato looked at me, his eyes so kind and beautiful and annoying. “We’re sorry, Seven. We didn’t want to leave the Castle, but this is where we belong. It’s our duty and our destiny to serve the League.”
“And what about our duty to one another?” I asked. “What about the promises we made to one another? We said we’d always stick together.”
The boys’ faces were sad but unyielding. I could read them all too clearly. They weren’t leaving, no matter what I said. Even Conner was refusing to play the rebel and the rogue.
At least for now. They’d come around eventually. For two whole years, the Knights of Gaia had been their life. They had friends there.
They’d come back. And for now, I just had to be patient.
So I left them in another realm and went home.
The Castle was buzzing with energy, so vibrant and alive and youthful.
It felt so different from the stark, solemn, ancient vibes of the Citadel.
I followed the Knights streaming toward the dining hall.
The room was packed. Every single Knight on Gaia must have been here.
The Knight Commanders stood together. Their eyes snapped to me.
Linden, the Sorcerers’ Knight Commander, came forward to meet me. “Did you find Kato and Conner?”
“I did.”
“So where are they? They’re going to be late for the debate.”
“Start without them,” I told him. “They aren’t coming tonight.”
“But they will be coming tomorrow morning, right?”
It was right then that it finally clicked. The thin sliver of denial that I’d been clinging to these past few hours shattered. Reality hit me like a stone wall to the face, and something inside me broke. I looked at Linden, my eyes burning with hot, wet tears I was desperately trying to hold back.
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “They aren’t ever coming back.”