Page 50 of I Ran Away to Evil #3
Who Do You Think I Am?
Gerda
“You summoned me?” I politely greeted everyone with a short curtsy.
Julian stood in front of three seated council members.
Wizard Lorthar wore black wizard robes open to reveal a cardigan knit sweater over black leather pants. His striking eyebrows were impressive, and he had swept-back, pointy, shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair revealing one ear covered in piercings with three dangling earrings.
The infamous Witch Agatha of Winter’s End was relaxing in her chair and fiddling with a crystal pendant around her neck.
The woman wore a blue dress with embroidery around the corset front and around the skirt hem.
It was stamped with softer blue ice diamond patterns that shimmered when she moved.
Her hair was piled into a tight bun on the top of her head, and she had added three small silver gemstones under each eye.
Master Thomas of Servalt was upset, the young mage frowning up at my duke.
His light brown hair was long, and his green eyes were bright as the bottom of an alder’s leaf in spring.
I knew from experience that he usually wore reading glasses but took them off for important meetings like today.
Tucked under his tunic was a magical amulet of antiscrying, and the ring on his right pinkie was a storage ring.
“Thank you for coming, Miss Gerda.” Duke Julian waved at the last seat. “Would you join us?”
I wanted to make some quip reply … but we weren’t alone. This wasn’t going to be as fun as my usual back-and-forth with the duke. “Okay, but I do have some matters to attend to after this. Will you be keeping me long?”
“You may leave at any time,” Duke Julian assured me.
“I’ve heard you say that a few times in place of an affirmative,” Witch Agatha stated. “ Okay … What does it actually mean?”
This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked this question, though it was the first time I was going to give my carefully crafted explanation in front of anyone powerful enough to see through a lie. “The origin is still debated by my people of whether it came from all correct or oh yes .”
“We didn’t bring her here to discuss the etymology of troll slang,” Master Thomas interrupted, his voice laced with disapproval. “Get on with it.”
Witch Agatha frowned while Duke Julian waved my attention to a wall. “We’ve turned off scrying, but Guild Mistress Alice is being questioned in the next room. She’s said something we would ask your opinion on.”
My curiosity getting the better of me, I focused all of my perception on the wall between us and the next room—and heard nothing.
Which was impressive. Grand Duchess Calisto should be resting off her mana burn to complete an eight-hour rest cycle before tomorrow’s afternoon tea, so the room was likely a permanent pocket dimension prison. “How can I help?”
“I will share with you two riddles by two gods.” Duke Julian cleared his throat. “The first was from the god of Shadow: ‘ We have known the traveler and watched her ways. But I will not claim the realm to Shadow, and the weave is being woven as we walk .’”
I waited to hear more, but that was it. I tapped my chin as I considered, then asked, “What was the question?”
“Their Royal Highness wanted to know what would happen if they defied Fate and continued to live.”
“As a note,” Wizard Lorthar spoke from his seat, eyeing me with an air of interest, “we do not know what the exact question was, since they only provided us with a recording of Shadow’s reply.”
“Hm.” I closed my eyes, drawing breath. Other’s might assume that Shadow was speaking about Alice as the ‘traveler’. My ego was apparently as big as Thomas’s because I knew Shadow was talking about none other than myself.
A traveler between worlds.
I opened my eyes. “I have heard many riddles, and this sounds pretty clear. Shadow says that the weave is being woven as we walk, and it doesn’t matter if we change things because Fate will just weave whatever choices we make into her plan.”
“That was my conclusion as well,” Julian said with relief.
“And it might have been sufficient , but we are not talking about one fate and one riddle,” Master Thomas pointed out. He turned angry eyes on me and accused, “These riddles will affect more than just Their Royal Highness of Peldeep.”
The mage held up a scroll and unrolled it with a dramatic flick of his wrist. It was a list of names, starting with Madame Potts. “All sixty-three fates that you’ve touched will need to be addressed—”
I cut him off with a laugh.
“Sixty-three? Who do you think I am ?” I could see that Master Thomas had no idea about my accomplishments as Madame Potts, and so I decided to tell him.
“I’ve saved hundreds if not thousands . Dungeon breaks that wiped out entire villages?
I prevented. Pirate attacks that sunk whole merchant fleets?
I foiled. Assassins, bandits, stampedes, kidnappings, fires, floods—this list is an insult. ”
“Well said.” Julian put a hand on the back of my chair in support.
I changed my mind; I took back everything. This was fun.
Master Thomas made to reply, but Julian continued. “It looks like this Alice doesn’t know as much as she claimed, or this would be a much longer list.”
“So it would seem,” Thomas ground out, magically rolling the parchment closed with a snap. “But what about the second riddle? Let us hear what Madame Potts has to say when faced with a riddle from Fate herself.”
He looked ready to see me fail, and I rolled my eyes. If he only knew how many times I’d had to listen to Fate go off in some convoluted message …
“I’m ready when you are.”