Page 103 of The Princess of Portals

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.”