CHAPTER ONE
Maeve
“THIS QUESTION IS FOR MAEVE ALMEIDA. What, in your opinion, makes a great villain?”
Maeve straightened in her folding chair, hands clasped in front of her as she leaned into the microphone. “Excellent question,” she said with a smile, trying to peer past the bright stage lights to glimpse the shadowed figure who asked. “What is most important in creating a villain is to remember that you’re creating a human being—a person. Even if your villain is a swarm of supercomputer nanobots, three-dimensional characteristics are necessary for them to be a believable evil. If your audience doesn’t, at some point, sympathize with the bad guy, then you aren’t doing it right.”
A smattering of laughter followed that, and Maeve tossed her head, looking down the panel at her fellow fantasy authors. “Do you agree?”
Many nodded, but then Patrick Griffon, author of the Warrior Maidens series, threw up a rebuttal. “A villain is a villain because they are pure evil,” he said. “When you can sympathize with pure evil, there is something wrong with you.”
Maeve shook her head as the crowd gave a few murmurs. “I don’t believe that anyone or anything is absolute evil,” she responded. “Any villain worth their salt is capable of redemption.”
Griffon continued to disagree, but Maeve only held half an ear to the conversation. This point was a popular one and, when her time came to speak again, she said only, “I guess we’ll agree to disagree.”
The panel continued on, and the five authors gave their different perspectives on a myriad of questions posed by the audience. Titled ‘Fantasy: A Dying Genre?’ the group held a lively discussion of the Golden Age of Fantasy compared to the overwhelming tide of dystopian science-fiction books. They discussed self-publishing and the role it now played in the marketplace, and how they imagined the genre would fare in a society that seemed to be rushing headlong into future tech. Then they opened the floor to questions.
Maeve checked her smartwatch and noticed that they ran ten minutes over time. She raised her eyebrows at the moderator and tapped the little device. The older woman nodded and turned behind her podium to address the crowd. “I’m afraid that’s our time. Join us in another half hour—I’m sorry, twenty minutes—for our next panel: Urban Fantasy and the Modern Woman.”
Maeve rose and shook hands with her fellow authors, even Griffon who offered a sniff and a limp, clammy hand. She grinned at him and walked back off stage, closing the curtains behind her and grasping one of the sweating bottles of cold water left on a small folding table. She cracked the seal and downed half of it in one go. They were given water on stage, but the hot lights still got to her in the end.
Fanning herself, she glanced around for Jen and spotted her talking to another of the fantasy author panelists. As Maeve approached, her agent passed the author her card and gave her a wink. “Call me.”
“For work or for pleasure?” Maeve asked as soon as the author walked out of sight.
Jen peered up at her with her cornflower blue eyes, “Can’t it be both?”
Maeve laughed and took another swig from the water bottle. “Signing time?”
“Signing time,” her agent agreed. “Come on, let’s get you to your booth.”
Usually, Jen did not take such a direct hand in Maeve’s appearances. While her book series, The Five Realms, achieved moderate to high success, the release of the last book happened two years previous. Maeve produced nothing new since, yet the popularity of the books stayed high enough to merit invitations to fantasy and author conventions all over the world.
This convention, held in Los Angeles, also happened to be the home for both Jen and the offices of Gramm Sterling the publishing company. So, her agent took it upon herself to set up a few meetings between Maeve and her publisher, to talk over ideas for future books.
Jen chaperoned her because Maeve, unable to hide her annoyance, would have taken any excuse to slip out of the meetings.
Maeve wanted to write more. Joy could be found in writing. A sense of connection bloomed between her and her readers. Yet, the thought of coming up with new material made her hesitate.
To the people of her world, The Five Realms books spoke of fantasy. To Maeve, they were true.
They happened to her.
Fifteen years ago was the last time she stepped foot in the Realms, and not a day went by that she didn’t think of her time there. What young girl didn’t dream of belonging to a world where she could wield magic and help friends overcome monumental obstacles? She crowned a king and slew a dragon. She cured a city of plague and created potions that felled their enemies. Traded with goblins and raced on horseback against centaurs. Walked under twin suns and stared up at the light of a foreign moon, and she missed it. A part of her ached to be back.
“Here we are,” Jen chirped, motioning Maeve to her padded seat behind a U-shaped table crowded with copies of her books. She leaned down and whispered, “Smile.”
Maeve smiled and nodded at the first person in the small line, waiting patiently with their book.
After over an hour, Maeve’s cheeks hurt, and her hand seized with cramps. She checked her watch and noted another half hour left before her allotted time would be over. She stretched her arms over her head and closed her eyes, her back popping and a sigh escaping her lips.
Maeve wanted to be home, but two more panels, another signing, plus the meeting with Gramm Sterling prevented her from returning to her mountain retreat.
Maeve stretched her neck side to side and took the book handed to her with mechanical absent-mindedness. “Who do I make it out to?”
“Rodan,” a voice rumbled from far, far above her. “This one was my favorite.”
Maeve’s heart began to pound. Long fingers, clad in leather gloves, tapped the cover of the book. The Restless King. The last book of the series, and the hardest to write.
“Though I have the distinct impression you—how would you say it?—pulled your punches,” the voice continued. “That there was more to the story.”
Maeve froze with pen in one hand and her fingertips touching the edge of the book, inches from the palm pressed down to keep the tome in place. She forced herself to raise her eyes, her neck creaking as she squinted against the fluorescent lights to make out the face of the man standing before her.
Her heart gave a lurch, seemed to stop for a moment, and then began to run a marathon.
“Woah, dude,” a different man said—a fan dressed in a Dark Crystal t-shirt and cargo shorts. He held up a phone, his eyes all for the man standing in front of Maeve. “That is excellent cosplay. Did you make the costume yourself?”
Maeve blinked and squinted at the figure before her. It can’t be him, she thought, it’s been fifteen years.
Rodan, High King of the Five Realms, stood before her. Or, at least, his spitting image. The man appeared nothing like the actor cast to play Rodan in the movie adaptations of her books—part of the reason why the movies received such awful reviews. Instead, the man looked like he materialized straight out of the books.
Or straight out of my memories.
Tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders yet a lean physique, the man’s straight hair the color of spilled ink fell to his waist. He wore a loose poet shirt, leather vest, tight trousers, and knee-high boots, all in the black and gold imperial colors of Rodan’s house. A crowned golden rose embroidered over his heart, he stared at her with eyes of two different colors: one the black of the space between the stars, the other a pure green like springtime grass. His aquiline nose and sharp features made him seem like a carving, yet the creature before her breathed, his pulse jumping in his throat.