CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Moment of Plot Twists and Promises
Em woke up with a jolt, gasping. Overhead, autumn leaves stared back at her. A peaceful forest surrounded her, and birds fluttered between the trees.
But she was covered in blood.
Something rough lodged beneath her shoulder blades, but she was unharmed. She winced and sat upright, pulse rushing to her head.
How did I get here? She massaged her temples. The last thing she could remember was Brolzross’ massive tail knocking the wind out of her before she passed out.
Beside her lay the golden Destiny’s Song. Its usual blue illumination glimmered against the embellished naked blade, being close to her.
Distant voices called out to her from across the woods, a mixture of panic and relief.
She turned—Polo, Roden, and Gair disrupting the peaceful forest around her in a rush of crushed dried leaves and flowing cloaks. The imp’s tail flicked with his panic from behind his overalls.
“Thank the Authors you’re alive, Em!” Gair dropped by her side. He grabbed her gory hands with his own gloved ones, creases of dimples and a pearly grin flashing across his freckled face. His ginger touch almost awoke a distant memory in her.
Have I experienced this scene before?
Yes, I tried to open the book here, but you didn’t like it. So here we are again.
“The princess is bleeding!” Polo exclaimed.
Dammit, what’s happened? Why does my head hurt so much? Em patted herself down for wounds, but besides her skinned palms, it didn’t appear that the blood covering her hands was her own. “I don’t think I’m the one bleeding.”
“Did Brolzross do this?” Roden growled, his tanned, muscular neck bulging with a restrained deep breath.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Her Highness looks so pale,” Polo said. “We should get her back to the Long Rest Inn to recharge.”
“Let me fetch you a healing potion.” Gair let go of her shaky hands and dug into his knapsack.
“She doesn’t recognize us,” Roden said, narrowing his eyes.
“Yes, I do,” Em snapped.
“Really?” He crossed his arms, biceps flexing beneath his leathery black armor, and raised an amused eyebrow. His icy eyes flashed with suspicion, framed with smudged eyeliner. “Then who’s that?” The half-elf pointed toward Polo, who’d begun whistling and skipping mindlessly in a circle.
“That’s Polo Took-Took,” she moaned. Em flinched as she shuffled to sit up, waving them away and annoyed at their hovering, “Seriously, I’m fine. Where’s Sasha?”
“You never cease to amaze me.” Gair chuckled, pulling a strange bottle from his knapsack. The potion glimmered like a sunset, sparkling pinks and oranges swirling like oil through a dark goo. It had been sealed with a red wax seal. He offered the bottle to her.
“Here, this will make you feel better.”
Em cautiously accepted the potion, regretting how the sticky blood on her fingers smeared across the bottle’s crystalline surface. But the small label on it is what really pricked her attention:
Em took the potion, regretting how the sticky blood on her fingers smeared across its beautiful crystalline surface. But the small label on it is what really pricked her attention:
MAIN CHARACTER HEALING POTION ONLY + 15 HEALTH
It tasted a lot like Mom’s caramel-taffy. She ached for home, trapped in a conundrum. Em could follow Stephanie’s wishes and complete the questline as her Not-So-Great Author intended, then get back home faster. Or she could locate the WALL and somehow get over it to steal her story from Stephanie.
“Where’s Sasha?” she asked again.
“She’s gone down to Tolk-Town to inspect the total amount of destruction Brolzross the Nocturnal caused,” Roden said thinly. A secret glance passed between her teammates, and Em’s suspicions flared. “She said she’ll be back before dark.”
“Where’s Faylorn?” Em pushed. “Is Sasha fetching him? What the hell are you three hiding from me?”
“Nothing!” Polo turned bright red. “Absolutely nothing!”
“We did it, Em.” Gair took her hand and squeezed it. He reeked of dragon. “You scared Brolzross right out of his lair, and I was able to shoot him from the sky. They’re still singing your praises down in the Fan-Fiction Realms!”
“You’re a genius, Highness!” Polo clapped.
“Gair’s officially the first human in this region of Novella to kill a dragon,” Roden announced.
“Dragon-mutant,” Gair corrected him, blushing.
“I knew you could do it.” Em shot her best friend a weak smile, blinking back the pain throbbing through her head. Being hit by a dragon’s tail across the chest was no joke. “And we have the relic, right?”
Polo held out a chunky, greenish jewel to her. The geometrical rock had been carved with a knotted, triangular pattern. Besides its pine-green color, there wasn’t anything special about it to make Em think of a weapon strong enough to kill a necromancer in a tower.
“The most powerful stone in all of Novella,” Polo dramatically sighed.
“Few have seen it,” Roden said. “The Wood Elves have waited a long time for the day the Chosen One would rescue this relic from Brolzross the Nocturnal.”
Em was too suspicious to enjoy the success of ruining part of her prophecy. The twitch in Gair’s cheek, the aversion of Roden’s gaze, and the lack of the imp’s bouncing all waved a series of red flags in the back of her mind. “And what aren’t you all telling me?”
“Let’s get back to the Long Rest Inn.” Roden offered her a hand to help her up.
Normally, Em would swat his hand away, but she took it. The exhaustion and aching throb rushed through her body again. Thankfully, the warm hum of the healing potion chewed away at the stinging pain throughout her ribcage, but it was working slower than she liked.
“Polo…” Em knew she had to pry the weakest link. “Tell me what happened.”
“From, like, when you woke up?” the imp squeaked.
“No, before that.”
“Oh, so all the way back when you were born? It might get a little weird talking about your conception and all…”
“Poooolo,” Em growled.
“He told me not to say anything!” Polo pointed at Roden then covered his face in his hands.
“You are so useless,” the half-elf grumbled. “Get out of here, imp. Go find us something to eat for dinner and meet us back at the Long Rest Tavern.”
Polo saluted and took off without another word. His long tail flicked anxiously behind him as he ran, leaving Em with her uneasy love interests.
“Well?” she asked the pair of brawny men.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Em…” Gair began, rubbing the back of his scaled neck uncomfortably.
“Faylorn’s dead,” Roden interrupted.
Em’s jaw dropped. She stared at them both, fighting to find an explanatory demand, but nothing came out. Instead, they all stared at one another, the harsh words hanging in the tension between them.
“As I said, princess,” Roden finally broke the silence. “You can’t change fate.”
“What the fuck happened?” Em reeled on Gair. She strangled her skirts, holding back the urge to lash out and hit something.
“I swear by the Great Authors, I took him to the halflings in Tolk-Town at the foot of the Doomed Mountain; just like you asked!” Gair spluttered, holding his hands out with innocence.
“Then I went back up the mountain and shot Brolzross the Nocturnal with an arrow straight down the throat. After the dragon collapsed in the valley, I checked on the local towns to make sure no one was injured.”
“How did he die?” Em turned on Roden, red blurring the edges of her vision. Fury warmed her knotted chest.
“That’s just it, princess,” Roden said. “We can’t tell.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It appears he died from old age. Maybe a heart attack,” he went on coolly. “Without the proper medical equipment in a fantasy realm, we literally cannot figure out what happened. The halflings in Tolk-Town said Faylorn just smiled, sat on a rocking chair for a nap, and never woke up.”
“No.” Em fought with herself. She had kept Faylorn away from the dragon encounter to keep him alive. She’d promised him over and over that she wasn’t going to let the shitty prophecy take him. “No. It can’t be.”
“It’s true, Em,” Gair whispered, wiping a tear from his eyes.
“But the mentor dying is fucking cliché,” Em burst. “I’d made sure he’d been safe! I wanted to save him from the damn tropes!”
“We can’t change fate, princess,” Roden said again.
Em slapped him. The tingling of her palm and the clap of her hand against his cheek were satisfying. A red welt formed along his sharp cheekbone, but the half-elf barely flinched.
Unsatisfied, she grabbed Destiny’s Song from the dirt and swung it into the ground. Hacking repeatedly, Em sliced at grass, earth, rocks, air—it didn’t matter. She raged and yelled and cursed her Great Author.
It wasn’t fair. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get a win. She couldn’t beat these damn tropes or change her shitty plotline. Stephanie just kept on writing without a care about what she tried to change.
“Fuck you, Stephanie!” Em screamed. “Fuck you!”
I’m sorry, Em.
After every muscle in her arms screamed, and when her fingers swelled from the weight of the prophecy blade, Em collapsed on her knees in the dirt. She choked on furious sobs and wept for Faylorn. Then she cried for herself and for the unfair cruelty she’d been enslaved to.
Nothing in this story was fucking fair.
Roden and Gair each laid a hand on either of her shoulders.
Em shrugged them off, smearing snot, blood, and tears across her face.
“Faylorn gave this to me,” Roden whispered, holding out a small scroll to her. “In case something like this happened.”
Em sniffed and took it. A small waxy seal held the parchment together, bearing a small symbol of a wizard’s hat.
Technically, a final death note from a Side Character was cliché, but she didn’t care about originality at that moment; Stephanie had sucked every ounce of hope from Em and twisted it into rage.
She opened the scroll up, devouring the cursive script inside.
To Em, the Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower,
If you’re reading this, by now you’re aware of my unfortunate fate. But have no fear, we must follow the prophecy, and this is my role to play as your mentor. I must pass so you can rise.
Sadness weighed Em’s heart like a rock. Tears streamed from her eyes, blurring her vision. “I wanted to find a way to save you,” she whispered, despite knowing Faylorn would never get to hear it.
I’ve known your war against clichés since the day we met, Polo Took-Took… but I couldn’t tell you or help you fight the plotline. After all, I’m just a mere Side Character in the grand adventure of Em Smith.
If I had helped or intervened or led you to more original settings in Novella, it would ruin the story you were prophesied for.
This story is for you.
Cliché as it may be, no one except you, as the Chosen One, could fulfill and fix this quest. You have fought hard for what you believe: that everyone deserves their stories to be written.
Those at the Rowling Institute of Magic and Glorious Musclewood Cover knew when writing out your prophecy that only the most determined of Main Characters could complete this war against Kriqir the Living—a stereotypical villain needs a stereotypical plot.
But the only one good enough to see this through and rescue us from ourselves was you.
A sob escaped Em.
All this damn time, he knew. Faylorn had played the role of the typical wizard mentor so she could be the original, heroic girl who didn’t allow a prophecy to ruin her.
So, she could just be herself.
The prophecy says I must pass. Although I appreciate you trying to intervene for me, we are bound to it until the end of this story. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be the Chosen One, and you couldn’t save the others from their cliché traits.
I’m sorry I never had the chance to share my own adventures with you from my younger days back when I too was a Main Character. I hope I served as a good enough mentor to set you up for the first half of your Hero’s Journey.
And anyway, a ghost can still read. I’ll likely find a house to haunt somewhere in the monster realms, so I look forward to finding your first book amongst the cobwebs.
As cliché as it may sound, you were born for this story.
Go live it,
Faylorn of Rowling, Institute of Magics, who was trained by Frank.
Swallowing back her last bit of grief for the old wizard, Em crumpled the scroll in her pocket next to her Main Character guidebook.
A spark of warmth comforted her at the fact that Faylorn recognized her potential and believed in her.
She wasn’t alone in hoping to transform the cliché quest into something original.
The wizard had known she had the potential and the grit needed to steal the story back.
Em just needed to get past the WALL.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Gair whispered.
“No.” Em wiped her face on her sleeve again, sucking her teeth steady herself. “I need you to fetch Polo. Roden, go find Sasha so we can regroup.”
“Are you sure you’re in the right headspace to go face Kriqir the Living?” Roden asked.
“No.” Em snorted, standing and brushing herself off. “But we aren’t going back to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower yet.”
“Oh?” Gair’s aquamarine eyes widened.
Roden growled, muttering something under his breath.
“Hold your damn judgment,” Em held out a hand in warning to the brooding half-elf.
“I need to see something through… for Faylorn. I had a vision, and I think it’s important to figure out what it meant.
Besides, I’m not ready to fight a necromancer.
I need to prepare and gather troops before we storm the tower. ”
“Okay, so where are you taking us?” Roden crossed his arms, eyebrows knitting together.
“I actually have no idea.” Em chewed on her lip. “Somewhere with a magical wall. Somewhere where we can get insight into a location I had a vision about.”
“I know a place,” Gair said, ears reddening.
“Oh?”
“You aren’t going to like it.”
“Why not?”
“The Veil of Maas,” Gair explained. “The Fae courts are full of seers and immortals. They would know every inch of Novella. Someone there could identify the wall from your dream.”
Fae. Em cringed at the cliché concept. Shit.