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  Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound © 2016 Geanna Culbertson. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

  (Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)

  www.bqbpublishing.com

  978-1-60808-154-7 (p)

  978-1-60808-155-4 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933377

  Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

  Cover concept by Geanna Culbertson

  Cover design by Ellis Dixon, www.ellisdixon.com

  Other upcoming books in the Crisanta Knight series

  Crisanta Knight: The Severance Game

  Coming December, 2016

  Crisanta Knight: Inherent Fate

  Coming Spring, 2017

  Dedicated To:

  This book, like everything I shall ever accomplish, is dedicated to my mom and dad. You are my heroes, my coaches, my best friends, and I am thankful for you every day for more reasons than there are words in this book.

  Special Thanks To:

  Alexa Harzan Carter

  Dear friend and big sister, it means a lot to know I can always count on you. You were one of the first people to read this, and for good reason. I am grateful to have you in my life.

  Terri Leidich & BQB Publishing

  Thank you for this (for all of this). Thank you for believing in me, and Crisanta Knight. And thank you for being the Fairy Godmother that made it so this protagonist’s wishes could come to life.

  Alex Padalka & Pearlie Tan

  I am eternally grateful to you for all of the hard work you have put in to make this book the best it can be. Whenever I describe my experience working with you both, I always say, “They pushed me to be better,” because I know it is the truth.

  Gallien Culbertson

  Brother, I appreciate your tough love, shrewd opinions, and the insult-laden banter that is our way of talking. Thanks for keeping me sharp.

  I also want to thank Elise Fabbro, Claira Dieda, Erica Fine, Mary Roberts, John Daly, Ian Culbertson, & Kat Galindo/Paul Cassidy of Kinkos for their support of this project.

  Bonus Dedication:

  Since this is going to be an eight-book series, each book will issue a bonus dedication to individuals who have significantly impacted my life or this series in some way.

  For this first book, I want to thank two of the greatest professors I ever had at USC—Aimee Bender and Geoffrey Middlebrook. Professor Bender, I loved learning from you. The work you exposed us to in our “Classic & Contemporary Fairytales” class inspired me tremendously, as did you. Professor Middlebrook, your Writing 340 course is one of the best classes I have ever taken. You helped me develop my own voice and ideas—you didn’t force anyone else’s on me. The work you allowed me to produce on “The Hero-Princess” archetype went on to be the foundation of my USC Discovery Scholar distinction, and enhanced my understanding of the characters and world I was already in the midst of creating.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1 ONCE UPON A . . . WELL, YOU KNOW THE REST

  CHAPTER 2 WE Meet Again

  CHAPTER 3 THE PITS (PRINCESSES-IN-TRAINING)

  CHAPTER 4 UNEXPECTED UNPLEASANTRIES

  CHAPTER 5 THE PRINCE & THE HERO

  CHAPTER 6 THE CHANGE

  CHAPTER 7 SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN-MINUTE STUDY BREAK

  CHAPTER 8 SOMETHING FISHY

  CHAPTER 9 MERMAIDS LIKE TAFFETA

  CHAPTER 10 TWENTY-THREE SKIDD

  CHAPTER 11 I’M DOOMED

  CHAPTER 12 I HITCH A RIDE ON A MAGIC MUSHROOM

  CHAPTER 13 PAY ATTENTION: THIS CHAPTER’S IMPORTANT

  CHAPTER 14 PEARL OF WISDOM

  CHAPTER 15 FRAME JOB

  CHAPTER 16 RAPUNZELED

  CHAPTER 17 THE ART OF GOING AWOL

  CHAPTER 18 MY RELUCTANT TRUTH

  CHAPTER 19 EMMA

  CHAPTER 20 AN HOUR IN CENTURY CITY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  What most people think of when they hear the phrase “Happily Ever After” is the romance, excitement, and adventure that led up to it. Very few people think too much about the “after.”

  That’s me by the way . . . I’m the “after.”

  My name is Crisanta Knight, but I go by Crisa. You probably haven’t heard of me, but I’d bet anything you’ve heard of my mother. She goes by Cinderella.

  Okay, don’t freak out.

  The back-story is that I live in a world called “Book.” Book is an enchanted realm, and certain stories about the lives of the people here filter into our neighboring realms, like Earth, in the form of “fairytales.”

  One year in my home world is equal to, like, twenty years on Earth, though. So, while you may know Prince Charming and Cinderella as characters in a four-hundred-year-old story, we know them as the current king and queen of Midveil, a.k.a. my mom and dad.

  The thing is, not everyone in Book is what you might call the “main character” of his or her own fairytale. My parents and teachers tell me this just makes sense. Not every person is meant to be an epic-worthy protagonist, they claim, because the world needs supporting characters, and love interests, and antagonists too. Personally, I think it’s a pretty messed-up system. I mean, the idea that we can only live up to whatever archetype is assigned to us—never able to aspire to be something more or even something else—just feels wrong.

  I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.

  Anyways, as the daughter of Queen Cinderella and King Jeremiah Knight (Midveil’s former Prince Charming turned King Charisma), I am a princess. So, unlike many other people in Book, I’m actually guaranteed to be the main character of my own story one day.

  As a result, I attend a special, extra-snooty private school for girls who are destined to be the next generation of female protagonists. My school, Lady Agnue’s, and the school equivalent to it for future male protagonists, Lord Channing’s, are geared toward grooming and preparing students for their impending fairytale fates.

  Just so we’re clear though, the children who are chosen to attend these academies are not all royals like me. Nevertheless, they all do know for certain that they are going to have their own stories.

  How, you may ask?

  Good question.

  A portal is said to appear in an area of the Forbidden Forest near the kingdom of Harzana. It is guarded by a group of Book’s most powerful Fairy Godmothers known as the Scribes.

  Every so often this one-way portal regurgitates an actual “book.” And each of these volumes, though initially blank on the inside, always has the title of the story—the name of a citizen of Book—engraved on its cover (e.g., Snow White, Sleeping Beauty—you get the gist). Ergo, that is how each school knows which children of the realm to take in.

  Talk about living life paying attention to the fine print, am I right?

  If you’re having trouble processing all of this, by the way, don’t worry. We ourselves do not even really understand the higher power that decides who we are. All we know is that somewhere in the off-limits part of Book, the Indexlands, a sort of prophet who has never been seen is responsible. We call her the Author, because it is said that she spends her life writing and nothing else. The words her enchanted quill pen into parchment become the realities that Book’s people live by. And bing, bam, b
oom, our fates are assigned and our identities are cast. We’re put into these perfectly neat little boxes of character development that the Author has picked out for us and the world goes on ticking to its succinct rhythm of calm and tidy conformity—tradition (tick), order (tock), convention (tick), sedation (tock).

  The Author works on the original copies of our books wherever she is, and then a twin of each one appears in the Forbidden Forest for the Scribes to share with the schools.

  However, since these books begin blank, chosen protagonists, such as myself, must train and prepare for indefinite fates at the academies. We are cursed to wake up each morning not knowing when the Author intends to set our stories in motion, and, more importantly, not knowing what those stories will be.

  Given that they have no control over what the Author writes or when it will be written, the people of Book have completely embraced the idea that who they are is not something they can decide for themselves. Those roles, it would seem, have already been cast . . .

  On that note, I believe that’s just about everything you need to know about my home world before you endeavor into it.

  Wait; hold on a second. There’s something else I should mention, something important that I’ve left out about my realm’s rules, my princess-ness, my school, and so on.

  I can break it down for you in five words.

  I absolutely can’t stand it.

  Once Upon A . . . Well, You Know the Rest

  was going to be a great protagonist; at least that’s what my mom, Cinderella, kept telling me. She assured me of this that sunny morning in September as she did every day. I, however, continued to have my doubts. Honestly, I was as much princess material as a wolf was grandmother material.

  Alas, my mother did not find this fairytale comparison witty or amusing. Instead, she was convinced that someday all of my training and breeding would kick in and I would become the pinnacle of poised princess perfection.

  A lot of alliteration and expectations for one girl and one sentence, I know.

  But, well, them’s the breaks.

  Anyways, my complete lack of appropriate princess demeanor was only one of my problems. The other was that I really hated the whole “pre-chosen protagonist” idea. While everyone else in Book might have accepted the notion that they had no say in who they would be in life, I did not. It infuriated me to know that at some point the things I would do or say were inevitably not going to be my doing or saying; they’d be the Author’s.

  The icing on the cake, of course, was Lady Agnue’s. As if having the Author’s will to constantly worry about wasn’t enough, I had to live at a pretentious boarding school that reminded me every day of the lack of control I had over my life, and that reinforced my celebrity-child syndrome.

  I supposed I would have to try harder to get used to it this semester. Mind you, I’d been trying to get used to it for the last six years, since I’d started attending Lady Agnue’s at the age of ten. But maybe my mom was right. Maybe one day I would wake up feeling totally content with the invisible shackles on my life.

  Cue eye roll.

  For now, all I knew for certain was that I was dreading where this carriage was taking us, and that my feet hurt. My mother had insisted that I wear heels, despite my protests about their discomfort and the short presentation I’d given her on the benefits of orthopedic footwear. Of course, neither of these efforts convinced my mother—the queen—that a princess should be allowed to wear combat boots on her first day of school.

  “Mom, these shoes are killing me,” I complained yet again as I examined the glittering pumps.

  “They are supposed to, Crisanta dear. The pain reassures us of how lovely they look,” my mom said as she patted my hair affectionately. “Trust me, Pumpkin, I speak from experience. The prettier the shoe, the more painful.”

  I sighed and decided to abandon the argument and my hopes for proper blood circulation in my toes. I would never be able to convince a woman who once waltzed in glass stilettos that my three-inch heels were unbearable. I turned my attention back to the window and watched the green blur of trees that continued to whizz past us.

  We were getting closer.

  My staring match with the local foliage was interrupted by the abrupt stop of the carriage. Several plainly dressed kids ran across the road in front of us. When they got to the other side, they took off toward a nearby field and continued whatever game of tag and chase they’d been playing. I observed them through the vehicle’s rear window as we started to move forward once more.

  It must be nice, I imagined, to not be assigned a role. To not have to worry about being a “main character” and just be. I wonder if—

  “Dear, put on some lip gloss. Your lips look dry,” my mom nagged, disrupting my train of thought.

  “Mom,” I huffed. “I’m fine.”

  “Crisanta,” she said evenly.

  “What?”

  “What does Lady Agnue say is princess rule number twelve?”

  I groaned. “Never leave the house without applying lip gloss?”

  “No, dear. That is rule fifteen. Rule twelve is never use contractions, and you know how your headmistress feels about that rule in particular. So please, tell me you will try harder to work on that this year?”

  “I can’t make any promises.” I smirked deviously.

  My mother smiled, but shook her head. She handed me a tube of wild-orchid lip gloss that I begrudgingly took and applied.

  “I am helping, not hurting, sweetie,” Mom chirped.

  Suddenly, our carriage made a right turn and entered a driveway. The hedges began to stretch higher and higher around us, progressively blocking the outer world the further we proceeded down the path.

  Savoring my last few moments of peace, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. A mere minute later, my Zen was lost as our carriage approached the gates of the institution we’d been journeying toward for the last several days.

  We’d arrived.

  Guards minding the gates opened them inwards. They made it look effortless, but it took three men on each side to get the job done. The gates were massive, after all—constructed from a combination of iron and bronze, and measuring at least fifteen feet in height. They must have weighed a ton. In truth, the only thing about them that didn’t exude a sense of heftiness was the light-hearted nature of the golden leaf design, which decorated their exterior.

  As we drove across the threshold, I couldn’t help but cringe in anxious anticipation.

  Sensing my stress, my mom took my hand and squeezed it.

  I really had to give her credit. She did hassle me a lot, but she knew how difficult this was for me. And I guess it must’ve been rough on her too––having a daughter who was so different from her and all.

  The carriage came to a sudden halt and I grabbed the velvet seat cushion as if bracing for impact.

  We were parked among a wave of other carriages and a sea of girls in chiffon and lace being pursued by attendants carrying their designer luggage. Our carriage doors were opened from the outside and a large, white-gloved hand offered me assistance out of the vehicle. I took the hand and was pulled into the sunshine.

  The day was perfect (atmospherically at least). Blue birds were singing in anticipation of our arrival, and the sun was reflecting light off every bejeweled bobble in the crowd.

  I gazed at the building before me. It was crème colored, covered with purple flowering vines that climbed its walls. On the balconies a selection of silk, violet, and mauve curtains caught on the breeze, fluttering above like giant butterfly wings. The richly shaded purple flags with our school’s golden crest emblazoned on them flew proudly overhead from tightly twisted bronze turrets.

  From an architect or a tourist’s perspective, I imagined the sight might’ve been quite beautiful. But to me, it was just daunting. For I knew that each of the majestic compound’s tall ivory towers came with the price of equally tall expectations.

  “Your Highness . . .”

/>   I winced at the irritating title.

  Why couldn’t our staff ever just call me Crisa? “Your Highness” was such a precocious term. The only way I remotely associated with it at this point in life was in relation to the height I’d achieved with the pumps my mother was making me wear.

  “Would you like me to carry your bags to your room, or would you prefer to check them in with the school’s regular staff?”

  I forced the annoyance down and plastered a pleasant smile across my face before turning around to address Jacque, one of our family’s long-time attendants. After all, it wasn’t his fault that I felt disconnected from the title. He didn’t know he had the wrong girl.

  “You can take them, Jacque,” I said. “But I’ll carry the satchel myself, like always.”

  Jacque nodded and went off to the trunk of the carriage. He reached inside and presented me with the bag in question. I grasped it protectively and thanked him just as my mom came over to join me.

  She looked perfect today, just like she always did. Her soft peach sundress glittered, matching her strappy satin heels. Her short, strawberry-blonde hair bounced off her shoulders as she walked.

  “Come on, Pumpkin,” she said. “Time to go.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  My mom brushed a loose strand of hair from my face. “Yes, Crisanta. Please try to remember that a princess always says ‘yes’ and not ‘yeah.’ I cannot . . .”

  She cleared her throat slightly—swallowing down the unqueenly public display of emotion I could hear in her voice.

  “I am not going to be with you for some time to remind you.”

  I gave her a big hug. “I’ll miss you too, Mom.”

  She hugged me tightly and warmly for a moment, in the worried way that only mothers could. Then she recomposed herself, sucked in her concern (the way she so often reminded me to suck in my stomach at royal functions), and sent me off.

  I turned my attention back to the building ahead—the building that would be my home (or prison, depending on your outlook) until the summer returned. With a deep breath, I reluctantly proceeded through its arched entrance under a great, gold-encrusted sign that read: