Chapter Fifteen

  Determination

  Ben looked like Freya had just ran over his cat with a lawn mower. “I’m sorry you didn’t like it…”

  The Ballad of Blood and Iron box set was cradled in his arms. After quite a bit of gnashing teeth, Freya determined she couldn’t bear to give Sulivar a single page read more.

  “It just kind of fizzled out for me, the first one is still one of my favorites though!” Freya said, trying to blunt Ben’s heartbreak.

  Having something she loved dumped was something Freya understood well. Realistically she should have just told the truth, at least the partial truth, and not gotten his hopes up. But the lies had been told, and there would be no taking it back. All that was left was the consequences.

  Namely her closest friend trying to hide how much she hurt him. It seemed ridiculous to be so upset that something you loved wasn’t loved by someone else. More than a few fights in the comment section of YouTube videos came to her mind. One video in particular made her blood boil so much that she went a little off the rails. It was titled ‘Why you should read books written this century’, and it ended up being nothing but an inane rant against Tolkien by a bitter author who didn’t like that a dead man was selling more books than him.

  Most times people’s opinions weren’t that aggressive, or well, stupid. But it always felt like that. If someone didn’t like what you did, it threatened to diminish your own enjoyment of that thing.

  It took quite a few years for Freya to stop being dragged into slap fights on the Internet over it. Some people loved Tom Bombadil, and some people thought him a useless waste of space, somehow. She had actually been banned from the Lord of the Rings subreddit after defending her favorite forest hermit a little too aggressively.

  Freya stepped up to the large bookshelf Ben was putting his books back on. “I’m looking for something new, do you think you could suggest something for me?”

  At that Ben straightened, he looked over his shelf. “Sure!” He moved to the far end of the shelf, then slid a book out. Scarlet Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi.

  “Read the whole series, it was incredible.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes at the shelf and scratched at his jaw. “Looking for anything in particular?”

  “Do you have much Romantasy?”

  Ben’s cheeks flushed. “Uh some, how…spicy do you like your romance?”

  Freya hadn’t really considered that aspect of it. “I don’t know, give me something middle of the road.”

  There was a surprisingly large section of his shelf dedicated to the genre, certainly more than ‘some’. Freya couldn’t help a smile, what was there to be embarrassed about? Nothing wrong with a guy liking romance.

  Though of course Ben was always pretty sensitive about how people saw him. His masculinity being a particularly sore topic. For a short time she had felt much the same way about explaining her love for fantasy novels to other girls at school. It sounded too boyish, but it would be little more than a hiccup in her conversations.

  In High school Ben made the mistake of saying his favorite movie was The Lake House, an early 2000’s chick flick. A group of guys harassed him for weeks about it, one day they had actually shoved him into his locker as if they were living in the 1970’s and not the 2010’s. It ended very quickly after Freya threatened to send a video of the incident to the admissions board of the colleges they were trying to get into.

  Suddenly Freya felt even worse disappointing him with Sulivar’s books. For a moment she considered brushing the feelings aside. Sulivar had forced her to kill people. That was more important than making her friend sad.

  She made sure to chastise herself for the thought even if it was accurate. Ben’s feelings mattered, no matter the circumstance. Just because she had bigger issues, doesn’t mean she should discount people’s smaller ones. That would be a quick way to wreck what remained of her life.

  “Ah ha!” Ben handed Freya a book with a black cover. A Fire in the Sky, by Sophie Jordan. “This would be a good starting point, compelling, reasonable spice.”

  Freya took the book and thanked Ben before leaving. This would be a start, when she got home it would be some reading on George MacDonald, then some more fencing drills. Her parents might even bust out their sets and join her. Her mother had been ecstatic when she found out that Freya was putting her life back together. Annoyingly so.

  The thought made her chest swell. Back when Freya was practicing religiously, they would go at her two on one to really test her skills. It was a shame they would think her insane if she told them about MythHarbor. It would probably make them happy to know that their efforts had probably saved her life.

  Of course that feeling would soon shift to horror at realizing that her life had been in danger at all.

  #

  Two men of about average height were waiting for Freya. One she had seen briefly before, The Minister. He sat at a large wooden desk reminiscent of the Resolute Desk from the Oval Office.

  George MacDonald looked just like the few photos of him she had found online. About shoulder length black hair with an unkempt black beard. His eyes were piercing, looking into them was like having a staring contest with an owl.

  Next to him was a man unfamiliar to her. He was dressed in Victorian fashion. A thick green coat that fell just below his knees over a brownish vest. He wore a white undershirt mostly obscured by a black cravat. His brown hair and sideburns were speckled with gray.

  “Welcome Bookworm,” The Minister said as he stood. “You must forgive my shortness last night. It’s best to make clear the expectations with all due haste.” He gestured toward the man at his side. “This is the Storyteller, he is both the Dean of Magical Studies, and Practical Writing. He will be aiding us in determining how to accomplish your goals.”

  Despite wracking her brain for most of her time in the Source, Freya found herself without a truly compelling goal. Not one she could share anyway. It was a good thing winging it was one of her most developed skills. She offered her hand. “Thank you for helping.”

  The Storyteller shook her hand. “Happy to make myself useful.”

  Just from the Storyteller’s voice Freya could tell he was American, a modern American. At least born in the last seventy or so years. His modern voice coming out of that old fashioned body was jarring.

  The Minister sounded exactly how she expected him to. He spoke with the refined nature of an educated man in the 19th century, though that was contrasted by his thick Scottish accent.

  Despite the Storyteller’s casual tone, he had a sort of presence to him. It felt like standing next to a Lion at a zoo. She felt no real danger, but it was very clear the lion could destroy her, easily. She wasn’t sure if it was only in her head or not, but Freya would try to avoid annoying him all the same.

  The Minister took his seat, then motioned for Freya and the Storyteller to do the same. “What do you seek?”

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  Right into it then. Freya considered it, really considered it. What did she want? ‘I want to be famous’ didn’t seem an acceptable answer. “I want to protect the people of Sarehole, I want them to continue living their quiet happy lives without being dragged into outside conflicts.”

  The Minister narrowed his eyes. Freya wanted to shrink down under his relentless gaze. “I don’t believe you.”

  “But that’s true, I want them to keep living happily.”

  “It may be true. But it is not the true reason for seeking the strength of our education.”

  He had clocked her cold. “I don’t really know anything past what I told you. I’d have come here anyway without that goal, I would learn for the sake of it. There is so much to know, presumably hundreds, or thousands of years of history. Who hates who? What are the customs? There are a thousand and one details of cultural importance that I am completely ignorant of. I haven’t had to deal much with native cultures since I’ve been mostly around Fable-Walkers. But I want to explore the world eventually.”

  The Storyteller tapped a pen on the desk. “What do you want to protect Sarehole from? What reason do you have to believe they are in danger?”

  Freya wasn’t certain how much she should say. Would Zora want her to spread this information around? It probably didn’t matter too much. If she didn’t want it spread, she probably should have told Freya that. Besides, if she couldn’t trust the Chancellor and one of his most powerful instructors, what was the point of coming here?

  “H.A. Sulivar.”

  The Storyteller’s whole body tensed. “Ah.”

  That was a way of putting it. “I’ve been here less than a week, and because of him I’ve…” The words caught in Freya’s throat. Would they refuse her if they knew what she had done? She ran her fingers over the toy soldiers hanging from her torso. She met the eyes of both men. They were intense, particularly the Minister, but they were genuinely curious.

  It seemed they cared. This wasn’t just some box to tick off for them. “I’ve had to kill people because of him. We were just traveling and they…” Suppressed images flashed in her mind. A man looking up at her with pleading eyes as she crushed his throat beneath her boot. A woman clutching at the blood pouring from her throat, not believing that all that blood could be hers.

  Had they truly been so afraid? It was all so quick. It was so easy to convince herself that what she had done was okay, and maybe it was, but that didn’t change the sinking pit in her stomach.

  “I had to do it. They made me do it. I didn’t want to. They hurt Roman, and if I didn’t-” Freya tried to shove the tears away, but they wouldn’t stop. She had killed people, really killed them. Punching out some aggressive punk at work was an unthinkable act to her parents, what would they think of her if they knew what she had done? She clutched at the toys. That woman had children, probably young ones. “I just wanted to explore.”

  Both men’s faces had darkened. The Minister’s intense gaze fixed on his desk. The Storyteller however, his face was reddening. His jaw clenched tight. Oh no. Freya thought. She had said too much, this meeting was for picking courses, not breaking down over her sins. How had she managed to ruin this so quickly. Feeling the fool, she stood and made for the door.

  “Sit,” The Storyteller said. Freya did as she was told, her head hung low. He circled the desk and knelt beside the finely carved armrest of her chair. “How old are you? In the Source.”

  Freya wiped at her face with her sleeve. “Twenty-five.”

  The man muttered something under his breath. Then tapped the armrest with his palm. “You did what you needed, to protect yourself, and your friends.”

  The Minister nodded along with the Storyteller’s words. “What do you feel?”

  “Feel? I don’t-“

  “Don’t think. What has wormed into your heart?”

  The words were out before Freya could think to stop them. “Hate.”

  She covered her mouth. All her life her parents had treated hate as the ultimate curse word. Damn earned a day without TV, fuck was a week. But if she said she hated something, or someone, it was a month minimum. It was a position Freya agreed with. Hate burned a person’s soul until all else was secondary.

  But this was the truth. She hated H.A. Sulivar.

  “I hate him. I want to see his Tsardom toppled, I want him to see him suffer for what he made me do. He is supposed to be like us. A modern mind, without the backwards views of a medieval peasant. But he kills all the same, for what? Land? Titles?”

  The Minister held up a finger. “Tread carefully. Do not assume because you come from a world with electronic boxes, that you are more civilized than the people born in this realm.”

  Freya nodded. She had been awfully close to calling the first people of this realm savages, that was a thought she needed to expel from her mind.

  “Irregardless, your goal is made plain. You seek the end of the Latvian’s reign.”

  The thought made Freya uncomfortable. She knew she wanted to tear the man down, and she planned on doing so. But to hear someone else state it so plainly made her feel dirty.

  “I don’t like that.”

  “Fret not child. You must see a wrong righted, it is a worthy goal.”

  “If it is a worthy goal, why haven’t the powerful among you stopped him?”

  The Storyteller gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  “What do you know of this realm’s history?”

  “Nothing. Well, almost nothing.”

  “I knew a young man, he was born after my time, yet far before yours. He was kind yet firm. Religious, yet open minded. Faith means little to one of your era, but in mine, it meant much. A man who’s name I won’t profane my tongue with determined to carve out a kingdom for himself. Unfortunately he had enough of a readership to try. The Believer determined to stop him, while the Disgrace was an author known by many, The Believer was an author known by all. In a fair meeting, The Disgrace had no chance. The pair met at a small pass in the Shield Mountains. The Disgrace at the head of an army, the Believer at the head of a small cadre of Fable-Walkers”

  The Minister let out a sharp breath, rubbing a small coin between his fingers. “The Disgrace, enraged at his perceived persecution, blew that pass to holy hell. Rather than accept that he was outmatched, he killed himself, and every other person there. That night has haunted all children of the Mind’s Mirror since. The army, mostly several large tribes serving as Acolytes of the Tenebrentis, were destroyed to a man. Under pain of death, the Orodelions have forbade any Fable-Walker passage through the Shields since. The magical enchantments which kept that section of Orodelion’s islands in the air were broken, sending the massive islands and the towns atop them crashing into the firestorm below. Death on a scale unseen since the days of the Third Change of the Ways, because of one of us. Not to mention the generation of Fable-Walkers who were lost in the conflict.”

  Freya wondered about the identities of both men, it sounded as if would know who the were. “So your solution is to just let any renegades go free?”

  The Storyteller cut in. “We are not a law keeping force, nor are we a military. The Mind’s Mirror is a group of like minded people sharing adventures together. Sulivar has been expelled from every region that was have a strong presence in, if he steps toward Esselem or the Mind’s Mirror he will face the most dire consequences. But the people of the Bluffs saw fit to stand behind him as he seized control. It is not our place to intercede against their will.”

  “They attacked me just South of the Mind’s Mirror.”

  “The Gardener’s realm only extends so far.” The Storyteller, seeing the heat in Freya’s eyes softened his tone. “What happened to you was wrong. But you must understand that we are not a monolith, some of us work against Sulivar, and some of us simply choose to enjoy what time we have here.”

  Freya took a breath. Getting angry with them wouldn’t help anything. “Fine. We have my goal, stop Sulivar. Tell me how you can help.”