Catching Pathways

by Danielle Berggren

  “I don’t have an Instagram,” Rodan said, sidestepping the man. “But thank you.”

  The whole thing amused him. The complete self-obsession with getting these virtual likes and watches. Rodan played the video of when he approached Maeve the day before on Twitter. It also went up on some forums he kept an eye on. Already, people wondered who he was and where to find his accounts.

  For all that he enjoyed the instant communication and connection of this world, he felt uncomfortable delving too deep into it.

  Today’s panel, titled, ‘Fantasy Meets Reality: What Our Favorite Stories Tell Us About Ourselves,’ attracted a decent sized crowd. He settled himself in the middle section, close to the front, as he did every other time Maeve came out to speak. On stage before the rest of the guests, shuffling some note cards in her hands and taking a swig of the water bottle that sat at her feet, he was able to observe her for several long moments before the event started.

  “Wonderful costume,” someone whispered from behind him, and he turned to flash a quick smile. The lady behind him gave him a thumbs-up, and he repeated the gesture.

  The other panelists funneled out onto the stage, and the talks began. Rodan settled back in his seat, watching and listening.

  “For a genre that is supposed to take us out of our world, fantasy echoes what is happening in our society. It shows us what we care about. The obvious is good versus evil. We all hope to be noble and conquer the darkness within or without. What we hope for is that through the reading of our favorite fantasy heroes, we can be inspired to find our own strength.”

  As she spoke, her amber eyes shone, and her body came alive with the telling. Rodan leaned forward, noting how her shoulders straightened, and her pulse jumped in her throat while she debated with one of the other authors on stage.

  She’s enjoying this, he thought. She likes a challenge.

  The conversation continued, touching on societal and political issues that Rodan grasped only a little, the politics of this world unimportant to him. Maeve was important. Finding out if still, at her core, the woman he needed by his side thrived within.

  When the time came for questions from the audience, Rodan raised a hand for the microphone. The moderator spotted him in an instant, and the metal device slipped into his grasp.

  “This question is for Maeve Almeida,” he said, his deep voice reverberating through the auditorium. He noted that Maeve straightened, her eyes a little wide as they searched the audience for him. “If fantasy heroes and their struggles tell us the truth about ourselves and our society, what do the villains represent?”

  He handed the microphone back to the moderator and leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixated on her. Her chest rose and fell as she leaned forward into the microphone. “Villains are as much a part of our struggle as the heroes. They show us what we desire. In essence, a villain is our needs boiled down to their simplest forms. The desire for what we cannot possess. To take what is not ours to take. We sometimes cheer for the villain because of their courage and audacity to stare the world in the face and say ‘I will conquer you.” She swallowed hard, eyes still roaming the shadowed auditorium. “Often, the villains represent what we’re most afraid to face. Our darkest impulses.”

  And what about me were you afraid to face? Rodan wondered.

  For all that Maeve painted him as the villain in her stories, she softened the edges of her narrative a little at the end. The Restless King glossed over some crucial parts of the final battle between him and Sebastian and the events leading up to it. Yet, she gentled her depiction of the evil King Rodan. Almost as though she sympathized with him.

  Rodan wished, not for the first time, that she took him up on his offer. An offer he gave to no other woman. An offer that others would fight for. Die for.

  Join me, and I will give you everything you have ever desired.

  He meant it, back then.

  Rodan stood and left the auditorium before the question and answer session ended.

  The last day of the convention, Rodan noted people packing up and selling off their wares at discounted rates. Tomorrow, Maeve would be traveling home. Through some careful study, and bribing people far more tech-savvy than himself, he now knew the exact location of that home.

  Yesterday had been but a taste. Tomorrow would be the true reunion.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Maeve

  MAEVE POURED BOILING WATER OVER the tea infuser and breathed in the aromatic steam which rose from her mug. Her favorite, a bulbous light blue cup stamped with ‘Keep Calm and Write a Book.’

  She never envisioned herself as a writer until she became one, quite by accident. Years after her last foray into the Five Realms, she started a blog to record the stories of her travels there. She’d made up a nom de plume, writing as Jessica Lambert.

  Then the blog got popular. So popular that it ended up featured in several online publications and even a few quick news clips. Jen reached out to her soon after stories of her blog went viral, and the rest was history.

  In her living room, poster-sized prints of her book covers fixed to the wall next to smaller framed photos of the international versions. It struck her as narcissistic, sometimes, to display these talismans to her craft in such prominent view. But she was proud. Proud of the work she poured into the stories.

  Taking her mug of tea in hand, Maeve moved into the living room and the little writing station she made in the corner, where floor to ceiling windows showed off an excellent view of her back yard.

  Her home, small compared to most in these mountains, felt perfect to her. The two bedrooms A-frame stayed warm in the winter, and let in fresh air during the summer months. She rarely, if ever, entertained.

  Soaring foxtail, low mountain hemlock, clusters of lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, among so many others, took up her backyard and blended into the wilderness beyond. She would not put up fences or barriers of any kind. Maeve believed part of the beauty of living in the mountains meant embracing all that Mother Nature offered.

  Once, in a moment she would never forget, she witnessed a lone mountain lion pick its way along the edge of her property. It stopped, panting and looking around, fifty feet from where she sat at her writing table. Then it moved away.

  More often, she observed small black bears—some of them with their cubs trailing behind. The creatures, accustomed to humans, became opportunistic eaters. She owned special trash barrels outside with locking lids so that the bears couldn’t come through and steal food instead of foraging for it.

  She watched the animals one could find in most cities and suburbs: foxes, raccoons, ravens, squirrels, blue jays, and others. Maeve spent many an hour on her balcony with a pair of binoculars watching one creature or another making its way through her yard.

  At her table, Maeve blew off the steam coming up from her mug and propped her feet up on the desk. Outside, birds called to one another, swooping in and out of the tree branches like acrobats at a circus. She smiled to herself and took a sip of her tea.

  She loved her life. The peace. The solitude. Here, at long last, no one tried to hurt her.

  She shuddered at the brush of memories. The Realms were dangerous, but the worst experiences of her life fell in the lap of the people from her own world. Shunted from person to person, foster home to foster home, for the majority of her young life, she grew used to the abuses endured by the most vulnerable segment of the populace. Maeve considered herself lucky, to have made it through her childhood alive. If not for the Realms, she did not believe she would.

  A familiar ache blossomed in her chest. A wish that things could be different. That Sebastian came for her after his coronation. That she spent the last fifteen years in the Realms, instead of here.

  Maeve had made a comfortable life for herself, all things considered, but she paid for it with the pains of the past.

  What Jen told her the day before flitted through her mind.

  “You need to get out more,” her agent said. “You
have a lot to offer people. You would be an amazing friend. I hope you see us as friends. Even if you don’t, I do. But I’m in Los Angeles, and you’re all the way up in the Sierras. You need to find some people you can talk to, connect with. Then you’d be able to shake off this writer’s block.”

  Maeve made some noncommittal comment in response, but what Jen said hit home. There weren’t many friends in her life. Acquaintances, sure, and she waved to most of her neighbors, but when was the last time she went out with someone? Had someone over? Not since she bought her house and moved out into the wilderness. Not since the books started taking off.

  Part of her wondered if someone she met now would foster a friendship based off a genuine feeling, or if they would want an association with her because she was a well-known author. Life taught her not to trust the intentions of others.

  Buried in thought, Maeve did not hear the first knock.

  It wasn’t until the knock rang out again that she started, setting down her mug of tea and dropping her feet back to the floor. She frowned as she checked behind her, glancing at the front door. Am I expecting a package? she wondered. I don’t think I ordered anything recently.

  Jen sent her things sometimes. Mementos from the convention circuit. Fan mail.

  Maeve checked that she wore proper clothes and padded barefoot to the reclaimed barn wood door. No window or peephole helped her see who was out there, so she cracked the door open to check.

  She hesitated, and the hesitation cost her. Instead of being able to slam the door in his face, the man on the front porch placed a gloved hand on the door and swung it open, pushing her backward. He walked with purpose, brushing past her and trailing a scent of smoke and sandalwood that brought on a barrage of memories.

  “Leave Sebastian,” the King said, grasping her shoulders. “He will never be loyal to you.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “He’s a criminal and a traitor. He has no honor. Join me, and I will give you everything you desire.”

  Heart pounding, Maeve whirled, back pressed against the door, which closed at the pressure. The sound of the slamming brought his head up, and mismatched eyes pierced her where she stood.

  “Maeve,” he said. “It’s been a long time. How many years, for you?”

  “Time moves differently between your world and mine,” Sebastian said, flashing a grin. “I suppose we’ll always be trying to play catch-up.”

  “Y-you,” Maeve stammered. “What are you doing here?” It can’t be him, she thought, he had a mortal wound. He died.

  “I’m here to find you,” he said in a smooth, rich baritone. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  She shook her head. “You’re not King Rodan.”

  “I am,” he countered. “Though I am no longer a king. You saw to that.”

  “You’re insane. You’re some crazed fan.”

  “Am I?” He arched his eyebrows and reached for the clasps on his leather vest. “Then why do I have this?”

  Maeve stared, horrified and fascinated, as he unhooked half of his vest and then pulled the loose shirt beneath aside, exposing a terrible scar where his heart would rest.

  “It takes more than one sword strike to kill a Fae, especially a Fae as old as I. Did you think me dead?” He laughed, and the sound sent chills down her back. “After I healed, I began to walk through the worlds, hoping to find yours. And here you are. At last.”

  Maeve trembled, and could not seem to stop.

  “So. Mortal. How long has it been?” He took a step forward, his gaze darkening. “You didn’t forget me, did you?”

  How could I have forgotten him? she thought. Such a thing couldn’t be possible. She stood in the shadowed entryway and watched him, her heart skipping a rhythm that sang. Run, run, run! “F-fifteen years,” she said.

  “Ah. Time has been kind to you. For me, it has been almost fifty. Fifty years of exile. Do you know how that felt, Maeve Almeida?” His other foot slid forward, closing the gap between them down to less than ten feet. “Then again, you know what it’s like to not have a home, don’t you?”

  A flash of heat washed through her, and she took a step forward of her own, her fists clenched at her sides. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve read the books, of course. Poor Jessica Lambert.” His tone, light and mocking, lit a fire from the base of her spine. “A pathetic creature, unloved and unmoored. All too eager to drink up the lies of a clever man wanting what he never deserved. How does it feel, to be so thoroughly duped? What lies have you told yourself, to rationalize why Sebastian never came for you?”

  The heat growing in her turned to ice, and her trembling worsened. How did he guess? Am I that easy to read? She lifted her chin, “What do you want?”

  He moved closer, and his voice lowered to a seductive purr. “I want to take everything from you. To rip you from this life you have built and show you what it means to have everything you ever wanted torn from your grasp. I want you to feel the pain that I have felt, watching my Realms turn to chaos. I want to wrap my hands around Sebastian’s neck and watch the life fade from his eyes.” He took a deep breath. “But what I need is for you to come with me, back to the Realms, to help save my world from the destruction you wrought.”

  Maeve’s breath hitched. “The Realms are safe. We made them safe, Sebastian and me.”

  Rodan gave a short, fierce shake of his head. “No. No, you put a madman on my throne. If you thought I was evil, you never truly understood the man you slept beside. Do you have no concept of what he is capable of?”

  “No,” she said. “It was you. You were the one the people feared. You were cruel.” She could no longer see him and deny what stood in front of her. The living, breathing Rodan, the King of the Five Realms who she helped depose. The man who made parts of her childhood into a living hell.

  “You confuse justice with cruelty,” he argued. “And might with madness. I ruled my people with severity, but not with chaos.” He glided forward another step, and she could see his chest fall, could feel the breath of his voice, and could touch him if she just reached out a hand. A part of her wanted to. A slim part of her wanted to assure herself that he existed. A portion of the Realms. A walking memory.

  She shook her head. “You’re lying. You never saw what I saw. You never met the people I met, who had been hurt and torn apart by your rule. What I did was true justice. I put a man of the people on the throne. Someone who would rule with impartiality and compassion.”

  He gazed down at her, his black and green eyes hooded and shadowed. “A liar, am I?”

  Maeve realized, a moment too late, her mistake.

  She stood too close. Close enough that when Rodan’s arm moved with the speed of a striking snake, she could not react in time. One long, gloved hand closed on her upper arm, and she fell forward, flush against his chest. Closer than ever before, every instinct in her, save one, screamed to get away. To fight. To run.

  Maeve tried to pull back, but his other arm locked around her, pinning her in place.

  His voice, more a growl now, seemed to reverberate through her chest. “Sebastian was the liar. Sebastian steered the Realms toward a fate worse than death.”

  She struggled, throwing her weight backward, but Rodan held on, implacable as stone. “You executed children,” she hissed, pounding on his chest with her fists.

  “Creatures that may have appeared to be children, yes, but I never would have touched the young,” Rodan said. “Unlike your precious Sebastian.”

  She went still. “What?”

  His breath fanned her face. “How many ways can I tell you? It seems you must see for yourself.”

  She could not say anything more, the breath stolen from her lungs.

  The world tipped to the side, like a ship in a storm, and then she fell, her fists clutched in his shirt and her vision turning to black.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Maeve

  SMELL CAME BACK FIRST. Smoke and pine, crisp air and rotting underbrush. Sh
e bought a home in the high Sierras for a reason. It, more than any other place she visited, reminded her of the Five Realms. Reminded her of the place she called home so many times during her teenage years.

  Her vision swam back into focus just as her ears began to pick up the sounds of the forest: the calling of magnificent birds, the rhythmic humming cry of insects, and the rushing water of a nearby creek. Her eyes took in the brilliant blue sky and the twin suns, one much smaller than the other.

  And then her position came into sharp focus. Her fingers tangled in soft fabric against a hard, warm chest, and a mismatched pair of eyes watching her with an emotion she could not recognize.

  Maeve ripped herself out of his arms, stumbling backward and landing on her rump in the small mountain clearing.

  Rodan laughed—the first time she ever heard the sound from him—crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her with an imperious expression that she wanted to slap from his face. Her cheeks warming, she picked herself up off the ground and dusted off her clothes. “Are you quite finished?”

  “You give yourself such dignified airs,” he said with a smile. “Tell me. Are you pleased to be back?”

  “Switch your allegiance to me, and I will set a crown of silver and moonstones upon your brow. You will be my queen, my consort, equal to me in everything. Rule by my side, and I promise that your every wish will be granted.”

  She blinked at him and checked around the clearing. Colorful birds, almost like the birds of paradise found in remote jungles of her world, flitted amongst the tree branches and swooped through the sky. The breeze felt cool and perfect on her skin. No hint of smog or car exhaust.

  Just as she remembered, and so much more.

  Yet, the company left something to be desired. Maeve took a few steps back from Rodan, wary now that she knew how fast he could strike. Her bare feet sunk in the suns-warmed and spongy earth.” You brought me here, but you can’t make me help you.”