Catching Pathways Read online

  Catching Pathways

  The Five Realms, Book One

  DANIELLE BERGGREN

  CATCHING PATHWAYS - BOOK ONE OF THE FIVE REALMS

  Copyright © 2019 by Danielle Berggren.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  www.danielleberggren.com/contact/

  Book Formatting by Derek Murphy @Creativindie

  Cover artwork by Andra Maria Moisescu

  Cover design by Danielle Berggren

  ISBN: 9781696309158

  First Edition: October 2019

  This book is dedicated to my husband.

  Without you, the Realms would likely never have taken hold.

  Thank you forever, my love.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  To Be Continued

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  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.

  “Do you not remember me?” the man asked, ignoring the other person and his questions.

  The fan still recorded, swinging his phone between Maeve and the man before her.

  Maeve swallowed on a dry throat and pulled her hand back from the book, her movements slow and careful. “I’m sorry, I—no. No, I don’t know you.”

  Those thin lips tilted up in a sardonic smile. “I think you lie.”

  Maeve blinked and opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Then she jumped and shrieked as a hand came down on her shoulder, breaking the spell.

  Jen jumped as well, her hand flying to hover over her heart. “My goodness, Maeve, you scared me! What’s wrong with you?”

  Maeve jerked her gaze back to the man insinuating himself as Rodan, but he disappeared, a dark head of hair bobbing away from her through the crowd of convention-goers. Touching a hand to her throat, her pulse fluttering and jumping under her fingers, Maeve struggled to catch her breath and speak.

  “Are you okay?” the fan with the camera asked, finally putting it away and stepping up to the booth. “Did you know that guy? Is he who you based King Rodan on?”

  Maeve shook her head but offered a slight smile to the man. “No. I’m sorry, I just—never mind. Did you have a book you wanted me to sign?”

  Jen patted her shoulder. “Ten more minutes.”

  Maeve gave a numb nod while taking the book—The Whispering Grass—from the fan with the camera. He chatted, and she tuned him out as she scribbled a few words in his book and signed her name with its standard flourish.

  That being the last of them, Maeve stood to grab her light jacket to leave the booth, her legs shaking so bad that she almost stumbled. She pressed a hand against the wall and tried to regulate her breathing.

  Jen frowned at her. “Is something wrong? You’re pale.”

  Maeve shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I need to catch my breath.”

  “Catch your breath? From what?” Jen put the back of her hand to Maeve’s forehead. “You’re not warm. We have an hour before your next panel. Do you want to get a coffee?”

  She forced a smile. “Yeah. That’d be lovely.”

  She followed Jen out of the convention center floor to the bright L.A. sunshine, slinging her jacket over her arm. As she walked, she tried to push the Rodan lookalike from her mind. It was a cosplayer, she reassured herself, someone, a little too into the books. You can get contacts to make your eyes like that.

  But they hadn’t seemed like the artificial colors of contacts. They appeared real. As real as the last time Maeve gazed upon eyes like that.

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

  She shuddered despite the warm spring air and clutched her purse and jacket tighter.

  Forget it, she chided herself. He won’t be back.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rodan

  FOR TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS, Rodan walked Maeve’s world.

  It felt familiar now, finding his way around new worlds and strange cities. He moved from world to world, place to place, for decades. Ever since Sebastian took the throne. Ever since Maeve helped him.

  Rodan went back to The Five Realms on occasion, for quick reconnaissance missions. He kept tabs on his old empire, for he pledged to himself that the day would soon come when he would run the trials and battle Sebastian once more for the position of the High Seat.

  He needed the right companion.

  Maeve Almeida.

  Seeing her again jolted his system in a way that he did not expect. The girl he remembered—the plucky teenage heroine who worked alongside his greatest nemesis—was a shadow compared to the woman she had become. Maeve’s copper brown hair fell past her shoulders now, and citrine colored eyes flashed behind her bangs. The figure glimpsed behind her tight leggings and long tunic was shapely yet athletic. More curves dominated her body, and she possessed a sharp, penetrating gaze that he could not ignore.

  When last they met, Maeve had only just blossomed into womanhood. She intrigued him, but not just her body. Rarely could a human wield power with the finesse and flair she exhibited. He wanted that power on his side. Then as much as now.

  Now, he must stay focused on the trials. The rules of his land—the rules that he set into the very bones of the earth—dictated that any challenger possess at least one companion. A second, to take the challengers place if they fell along the way.

  Maeve proved herself a formidable adversary, even at such a young age, and powers only grew with time. What could she do now?

  Rodan needed Maeve back in the Realms. If she could see what happened in her absence, she would accept the companionship bond and work with him.

  Unless he misread her.

  Rodan sat in an outdoor café, a paper cup of coffee before him. Other convention-goers, businessmen and women, and the flowing traffic of this world sat there, too, or moved by him, some eyes straying to where he sat.

  Here, because of the other fantasy lovers, he wore the same garb he did in the Realms, not bothering to try and blend in with the jeans and buttons downs he had worn over the previous weeks. It was a pleasant feeling, to be in clothes of his own design and reminiscent of his years as king. A girl, one of the serving women at the establishment, cleared the table near his and
darted glances at him, her eyelashes fluttering when he caught her eyes. He smiled but turned his head away. There was no time for such things.

  He pulled one of their paper monies out of the slim leather wallet he’d bought at the gold changers house and set it on the table under the half-full coffee cup. Standing, he gave a quick smile to the waitress and headed to the corner crosswalk.

  “Wow,” someone said to his left. He glanced down and noticed a woman in an outfit similar to what might be seen in one of the brothels of the Five Realms, “Who are you cosplaying as? You did great work.”

  “Thank you,” Rodan murmured, and gave a polite smile. “King Rodan from the Five Realms.”

  “Oh! You did so much better than that dumb movie. Awesome job!” She gave a little wave and walked off, away from the convention center.

  Rodan lifted his gaze to the grand glass and stone building which housed the convention. By eyeballing the position of their single sun, he understood it to be close to when Maeve would make another appearance before her fans.

  He went to every panel Maeve sat on. After discovering their communication devices also accessed a fantastic database of knowledge known as the ‘internet,’ he discovered all the information he needed to ensure his presence at each of Maeve’s appearances. Entire websites were devoted to her and her books.

  He read all those books in the first week of being in her world. Then reread them.

  Rodan had to admit to himself, as he crossed through the doors into the convention center and showed his badge to one of the attendants, that he enjoyed the recognition this place offered him.

  “Dude!” someone said, a man coming to a standstill in front of him, “Excellent costume! King Rodan, right?”

  Rodan smiled, “Yes.”

  “I have got to get a selfie with you.” The man, dressed in the robes of a wizard, pulled out his camera and snapped a quick photograph with Rodan. Flipping the camera around to check out the result, he grinned and showed him, “Looking good, my man. This is going up on my Instagram. Can I tag you?”