Chapter Nineteen

  The Paladin

  The hour had grown terribly late and Freya still couldn’t find Anodos. It certainly didn’t help that she had to hide under that nasty curtain for another hour while her friends worked out the new terms of their relationship.

  She had been interested in what was going on between them. After all this though, she would be happy if she never saw them in the same room again. The whole girlfriend, boyfriend thing always struck Freya as odd. How did people manage having that intimate of a relationship with someone? It seemed exhausting.

  The Commons had a surprising number of people scattered amongst a few dozen tables. Most of them were involved in spirited debates that she struggled not to let herself get pulled into.

  The Stormlight Archives, new classic? Or bound to be forgotten in a few decades? Freya shook her head at that. People can have their opinions on whether the work is to their taste, but nobody was forgetting Sanderson in a few decades. Especially considering he will probably still be churning out nineteen books a year.

  Another group was getting pretty heated about the release of The Winds of Winter. One particularly aggravated man was railing about how after so many years George Martin should have just released A Dream of Spring right away too. Because ‘everyone knows he has had the series done for years.’ Freya shook her head, that was a crackpot theory straight off of 4Chan. That guy needed to get out some more.

  After working up the courage to break into one of these conversations, Freya got a description of Anodos. A man of average height, with curly long black hair and a mustache fit for an old western gunslinger. He was usually dressed something like a pirate from the 1600s.

  Upon her third lap of the Commons she was certain he wasn’t in here. With a groan she left the hall. That familiar lead blanket fell over her, the sign of morning in the Source. She needed to find somewhere to lay down lest she collapse in the middle of the hall. Thankfully her mother probably wouldn’t be waking her up early given all Freya’s progress in restarting her life.

  Thoughts of her other life came to her. How strange was all this? On one hand she was just a twenty-something trying to figure her place in the world. While in the Harbor, she was planning the overthrow of an empire.

  Freya always wondered if she would have been a hero if she were thrust into one of her stories. Would she use a power destined to destroy her for the greater good like Rand ‘Al Thor? Would she stand toe to toe with her own doom like Fingolfin? Things hadn’t grown that dire yet, but she was willing to face down an empire for her friends. For her, that was heroic enough.

  Freya braved the elements one more time for the night. The wind battered the rope bridges something terrible, by the time she reached the halfway point to the first tower exhaustion nearly drove her back. Her skin was raw from the wind and sea mist, a chill had taken her to her core.

  But Freya had no plans on just collapsing out in the rain. Zora and Roman were likely already asleep, and she would not be able to wake them. Anodos was nowhere to be found. In fact, it seemed most of the faculty had disappeared for some unknown purpose. So she was alone, and she needed somewhere relatively safe to sleep.

  The Poet’s Tower loomed like a haphazard stack of blocks in the too-dark night. It looked something like a Jenga tower ready to collapse at a breath. Was it the night and wind that made it feel so unstable?

  She felt that it was something she would have noticed before. While Freya crossed the third rope bridge out to the tower, another gust of wind shook her. She slipped on a wet bit of wood and nearly collapsed entirely. Spikes of pain sprouted from her palms where she gripped the ropes so tightly she began bleeding.

  Whoever was responsible for the rope bridges should be thrown off of one. Esselem was flush with magic, a floating bridge shouldn’t be hard to maintain. Freya stepped out onto the rough surface of the last stone spire. It was the skinniest and shortest of all the spires Esselem was built atop. Yet the tower was taller than every other by a wide margin. It certainly was an oddity.

  As Freya looked up at the tower she got a terribly uneasy feeling. The kind that defies all logic. This place should be safe.

  A flash of lightning revealed the cloaked figure standing atop the swaying rope bridge. It didn’t bother to grab hold of anything. Light faded and the figure went with it.

  Ear shattering thunder followed, making Freya jump so badly she nearly lost her footing and plummeted into the sea below. Another flash. It was closer now, scythe in hand.

  “Are you trying to get blown off the tower? Why are you out here in this mess?”

  Freya ripped her sword free, leveling it at the speaker’s throat. Much to her surprise, and embarrassment, it was Lorin wearing all the same armor he had in their meeting. Did he ever take it off?

  She looked over her shoulder at where the figure had stood on the bridge. There was nothing. It had come and gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if it was just the fatigue getting at her. But it couldn’t be just her seeing things. Never in her life had she had a hallucination that real.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Looking for somewhere to sleep,” Freya said, one eye still on the bridge.

  “Come, let’s get you out of this horrid wind.” Lorin offered a hand to step over the crags in the spire’s surface.

  Freya hesitated, then took it. His hand was smooth yet hard, like her father’s well used leather wallet. Warmth spread from her hand and up her arm, he was the kind of warm that was almost suffocating. After leading her in and shutting the large double doors into the tower, he let go of her hand. She found herself wanting to take it up again.

  “The Minister likes to mess with new students. Always forgetting to get them a room or connect a door to their room at the Mind’s Mirror.”

  “That’s obnoxious.”

  “I didn’t have a bed for a week. Whenever I asked the faculty about it, I was told the Minister is solely responsible for the assignment of bedrooms. He hid from me for a while after I cornered him in a hallway.” Lorin pulled a towel out of a bag far too small to fit it. He blew on it, a blast of hot air fluffed it up.

  Rather than pat herself dry, she simply wrapped the towel around herself, basking in the warmth. After a few glorious seconds the warmth faded. “Why would the Chancellor of the Institute handle mundane bedroom assignments?”

  Lorin looked at the towel probably registering that she was simply wearing it like a shawl. Then he smiled at her. Freya’s chest tightened, her breathing shallowed. She tried to avoid his gaze. Shit. When exactly had she turned into a middle school girl fixating on if a boy liked her or not?

  “He’s an odd man. Here, let me,” He took a step toward her.

  Freya wanted to turn and leave, or rather, she knew she should leave. But she desperately wanted to stay. He rubbed his hands together, then blew through them again. Another blast of hot air consumed her, driving away any lingering chill from crossing the bridges.

  “You aren’t as smooth as you think you are.” Freya returned the towel, feigning nonchalance.

  “How I wish that was so,” Another one of his smiles came on, though this one was of the arrogant man she met at the top of the tower. The temptation to slap it off his face wormed into the back of her skull. “Why would you come out here to sleep? There are plenty of quiet places in the castle.”

  “I wanted to be somewhere quiet, preferably where nobody would bother me.” Freya let that last part hang in the air for a minute. “Your little meeting place was probably set there for a reason, I figured that would be a good spot.”

  “It’s Roman’s group.”

  “The distinction means little.”

  “Roman’s training hall is just a few floors up, there’s plenty of space and a comfortable bed, he usually uses the lodgings provided in the castle.”

  “I met you literally today.”

  “I understand you went with Roman and Zora on your ill-fated adventure just minutes after meeting them.”

  How the hell did he know that? Roman probably. “They seemed like nice, genuine people. You’re not nice, you’re not genuine, and I’m pretty sure you don’t classify as people.”

  “What is it you have against me Freya?”

  Did she really have something against him? Hearing her name in this realm felt wrong, uncomfortably wrong. Like showing up to a black tie party in flip flops and a graphic t-shirt with a picture of GIR from Invader Zim that read ‘Free Hugs’.

  “That’s for me to know. Fill me in on some of my blind spots and maybe I’ll tell.”

  “Deal. Ask what you need.”

  “Are there other groups working against Sulivar?”

  Lorin cocked his head. “None that are much more than glorified social clubs.”

  “Then the Unbound is potentially the key to stopping his wholesale slaughter of his enemies. The group is far too small, if you just dropped the name requirement-”

  “Molly would never go for it.”

  “Molly is another problem, you should probably put her in a cage for those meetings. Maybe give her a nice meaty bone to chew on while the more civilized company speaks.”

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on her. She’s abrasive at first, but she really cares.”

  “It would be nice if she cared about being nice to other people.”

  Lightning flashed through the slits in the walls, the crash of thunder followed a few seconds later. Lorin didn’t say anything, he just twisted up his face as if he wasn’t sure how to feel.

  He started up the staircase, beckoning her to follow. They passed several floors, some were nothing but a series of doors in the walls, others were storage for all manner of items. There was no real organization to it. Navigating any of this had to be an enormous pain in the neck. Why would they even store things in this manner if pocket dimensions were a thing? Why not just have a labeled door that led to some warm and dry warehouse? There was something she was missing here, it was a feeling that had become annoyingly common.

  They stopped on the sixth floor, which was another series of doors in different styles. Just beside the staircase was Roman’s door. It was the same style as was found in the Mind’s Mirror, a metal plate read ‘The Firebrand’. Was he even listening to her? She said she was not going to spend the night with him. Probably far too used to getting what he wanted. Freya would disabuse him of that notion.

  “Take the room, I’ll spend the night at the top of the crown,” Lorin said.

  That was much worse than him just ignoring her. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m going to sleep up there either way. So if you want to avoid sleeping next to me-” Lorin knocked on the door, the doorknob took on a dull glow. “This will be the way to do it.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  But he had already started up the stairs.

  “Lorin!” Her shout escaped through the small windows and was consumed by the wind. He was out of sight before she thought to call after him again.

  Freya sighed, then smiled to herself. She opened the door. Like he said it was enormous inside. The room was reminiscent of a basketball court, large shiny floors with a small separate room in the back. The walls were lined with weapons of all kinds. Crossbows, bows, swords, spears. There were armor racks and a smattering of other goodies sealed in chests lining the walls. At the center of the court was the sigil of The Mind’s Mirror with a broken chain circling it.

  Freya backed away from the incredible warmth of the room and looked up the steps. “God damnit.”

  She shut the door, then started up the stairs after Lorin.

  Lorin lay on a burlap sack with that smug grin on his face. Freya threw another smaller bag at him. “Go downstairs you moron.”

  He tossed the bag to his side, then wiggled into a more comfortable spot on the sack. “Nope.”

  This obnoxious man. Freya pulled up another large sack and laid on it.

  “You understand I’m not leaving right?”

  “Neither am I.” Freya crossed her arms. If there was one thing she had learned from her mother, it was how to plant herself like a rock.

  Lorin pulled a thick blanket from his bag and tossed it at her. “Care for a bedtime story?”

  Freya glared at him, then flipped over, wrapping herself in the blanket. She got surprisingly comfortable on the sack, which she assumed was filled with some kind of grain. The exhaustion she had been ignoring had come to claim her in one grand wave. As she drifted off, she found herself wishing for that bedtime story.