Chương 77: Chapter 10: The Freedom of Choice

Finally, when they were alone, Selena, Fjora, and Samira remained suspended in the sudden silence of the room. The weight of the travel days, four weeks of constant rattling of landscapes unfolding like endless scrolls, of nights in anonymous inns where faces merged into a blurry memory, seemed to settle upon their shoulders all at once, like a leaden mantle that had been waiting for the precise moment to drop from the beams.

She walked toward the bed with the slowness of one dragging themselves through deep waters, longing to sink into her mattress and let the world vanish for a few hours. Her bare feet barely brushed the floorboards. Then, her gaze fell upon a thick parchment envelope, placed with an almost ceremonial precision upon the softest pillow, like an offering on an altar. The seal that closed it was exquisite.

It was a deep red sealing wax, and the crest stamped upon it —a feline of sharp features with a sword crossed in its muzzle, its claws extended over a background of stylized dunes— possessed a complexity and richness of detail that left no room for doubt. Each line of the animal was carved with the precision of a goldsmith, its eyes large and fierce, the sword so sharp it seemed able to cut the air.

It is that of the royal house, she thought, and a shiver of apprehension ran down her back like an icy caress, making every hair on the nape of her neck stand on end. With fingers that had suddenly forgotten their fatigue, trembling with curiosity as voracious as the one that had driven her to devour Corren's books in the cave, she broke the seal. The crunch of the paper as it yielded was a whisper of confidence in the silence of the room.

She unfolded the letter with care, her eyes scouring the lines with the greed of one seeking water in the desert. The calligraphy was firm, authoritative, traced by the hand of one accustomed to their words becoming law. But the message contained in those lines left her breathless. She read once, twice, three times, the words she would have never expected, each re-reading a new sting of incredulity that mingled with joy so vast it threatened to overflow from her chest.

"My second gift is that you shall have absolute freedom in the university and its surroundings; if you wish, you may even dispense with your maidservants. My third gift is a mystery to you; you must discover it. Without further ado, the great monarch of all the land of Erabergh bids you farewell." The letter fell from her hands, floating for an instant in the air before settling upon the linen sheets like a feather. Freedom.

The word resonated in her head with the strength of a bell toll, multiplying in echoes that chased one another, filling every corner of her consciousness. The king had given her the most precious gift. Freedom, and with that gift, he had also handed her two slaves. She sighed mentally with a resignation that tasted of iron in her mouth.

She noticed it instantly, with the cold clarity that the man of the earth had forged through years of reading between the lines, of deciphering hidden meanings in texts that said one thing and meant another. Both slaves would be the monarch's eyes without his bargain being broken. Generosity was never free on the chessboard of power. King Volgthar —the title echoed in her mind with a warning— had not managed to maintain his dynasty for millennia by being naive. But the letter was for her alone.

She knew it with a certainty that required no proof: it lacked the solemnity of a king's words, the formalisms that required witnesses and additional seals. It was intimate, almost personal, a message encrypted in the complicity of a power watching her from a distance. And because of that, the mystery of the third gift lodged in her mind like an enigma she could not decipher, a knot her mental fingers fumbled with without finding the loose thread. What could it be? An object? Knowledge?

Something I must discover for myself, like a riddle posed by a capricious god? she questioned herself immediately. A certainty crouched in her brain with the strength of a claw sinking into flesh: at least within everything she had lived through so far, a supervised freedom would be better than having none at all. It was an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, but it was the only life raft she could cling to in the midst of the shipwreck.

That day, following the revelation of the royal letter, physical and mental exhaustion overcame her completely. It was not a dream that claimed to her, but a collapse, a crumbling of all the springs that had kept her in tension for weeks.

She sank into the bed —into those sheets that smelled of sweet flowers and cleanliness, so different from the straw and dirt of the shelter— and slept, yes, through all that remained of the afternoon, letting herself fall into a deep and restorative sleep such as she had not experienced since her arrival in this world. It was a complete darkness, without the cracks where dreams of another life or nightmares of a foreign death used to seep in.

A comforting void, an absolute rest that she began to feel as a true gift of fate, a truce in the midst of the constant war of her existence. She woke with the first song of the birds nesting in the leafy trees just outside her window. It was a chorus of sharp trills and melodious warbles that filtered through the glass like a thread of clear water, a natural and serene awakening that required no bronze bells nor voices calling her to routine.

For an instant, only that sound existed, and the soft light of dawn painting the room in tons of gold and gray, drawing the profile of the branches swaying in the breeze upon the walls. Her gaze wandered toward the adjoining room, through the doorless stone arch that separated them like an invisible border. There, Fjora and Samira were still sleeping.

Or at least, Samira did: her breathing was a slow and regular rhythm, a soft whisper that barely disturbed the silence, her serene face partially hidden by the strands of her dark hair that had escaped her veil during the night. Fjora, however, even in repose, emanated an alert tension, a contained vibration perceived like the hum of a string tightened to its limit.

Her body, beneath the blankets, was not completely relaxed: her shoulders maintained a rigidity that did not belong to sleep, her fingers peeked from the edge of the fabric with a slight curve, as if they still held the weapon she did not have. When Selena, moved by an instinctive curiosity bordering on fascination, leaned in a little more, the warrior's blue eyes opened immediately. There was no drowsiness in them, no veil of dream-like confusion.

Only an instantaneous and piercing lucidity, that of a predator that never fully turns off its senses. She evaluated the room, Selena's position, the distance to the door, all in a sweeping so fast it was barely a blink. Then, with a deliberate slowness intended to simulate a sleep that did not exist, she closed her eyelids again. Selena, with a slight shiver running down her spine, returned to her bed.

She never sleeps, she thought, and the realization was a blow of reality, a reminder that the shadows accompanying her were not mere servants. Not much time had passed when the door opened softly, a barely perceptible creak announcing the arrival of Anne and Clara. They entered with the silent synchrony that characterized them, bringing with them the scent of clean soap and the expectation of routine.

In their hands they carried jars of warm water that steamed slightly, towels folded with precision, and a new selection of dresses whose colors and textures promised another day of masquerade. They advanced toward her with hands outstretched, ready to begin the daily ritual of dressing, to turn her once again into the porcelain doll that the court expected. But before their fingers could touch the first garment, before the silk could rest upon her skin again like a prison's caress, Selena raised a hand.

The gesture was minimal, barely a movement of the wrist, but it stopped both maidens in their tracks, as if an invisible wall had risen between them. —His Majesty has given me the freedom to dispense with maidservants —she announced. Her voice sounded clear and firm in the morning stillness, cutting the air like a glass knife. —Upon your return, communicate this to my uncle. The impact of her words was etched onto the faces of both maidens like a storm in a mirror of water.

Clara paled slightly, her perfect composure —that mask of impeccable efficiency she had used as a shield for years— cracked for an instant, letting slip confusion and a wound she did not manage to hide completely. Anne, in contrast, opened her honeyed eyes with incredulity, and in them shone a hint of something that could be panic or sadness, the awareness that their world had just been reconfigured without consulting them.

Without giving them time for a reply, without allowing the words already beginning to form on their lips to find an exit, Selena rose from the bed. Her bare feet touched the floor with a dry thud that resonated in the silence, and she headed to the light-wood desk by the window. She took a quill, dipped it into the crystal inkwell with a gesture that was already becoming familiar, and wrote a few concise lines on a white parchment.

Her handwriting, in that Erahari that Selena's body had remembered for her, traced the words with a coldness she did not feel but knew was necessary. She folded the letter with the precise folds she had seen in the one written by the king, sealed it with a bit of melted wax from a nearby candle, using the personal seal of House Solendra that the servants had left the day before on the desk, and handed it to Anne with an outstretched hand, without getting too close, maintaining the distance of authority.

—There I explain the reasons for your return to the mansion —she said determinedly. Her tone admitted no discussion; it was the echo of an irrevocable decision, of a door closing forever. —Furthermore, I have added the good work you have done on the journey. Anne took the letter with hands that trembled, as if the parchment weighed more than her fingers could hold.

Both maidens bowed in a silent farewell, a gesture so deep that their foreheads almost touched their knees, burdened with contained emotions they did not dare name. They left the room with steps that dragged a heaviness they had not possessed upon entering. The door closed behind them with a muffled click, a definitive sound, that of a chapter closing forever. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Selena remained standing in the middle of the room, breathing deeply, feeling how the air filled her lungs with a depth she did not remember. She was free. Free from the eyes of the maidens, from their silent questions, from their hands that dressed her like a doll. Free from the eyes of her uncle, at least in the distance.

From the eyes of the king, she could not bid farewell, she knew this with the certainty of one who has just received a poisoned gift: Fjora and Samira would remain there, two silent shadows that would record every one of her movements, every word she uttered, every book she opened. But she would find a way in the future. She would not let that take away her good mood of the morning.

With nothing else to do, and with a renewed determination that warmed her chest like a small but tenacious fire, she turned toward the light-wood wardrobes that lined the wall. She opened the doors with a decided gesture, and her fingers ran along the row of dresses hanging there: silks, velvets, laces, a palette of colors ranging from ivory white to jet black, passing through all the tones of jewels and flowers. Everything a duchess-heiress could need to dazzle anywhere, to fulfill the role she had been assigned.

She searched among them with the impatience of one seeking something specific, brushing aside the fabrics that swirled like waves of color. Until, at the bottom of the wardrobe, almost hidden by the dresses that preceded it, she found what she was looking for: a pair of trousers of practical cut, made of a resistant dark brown fabric, similar to those used by the young male students in the university courtyards.

Beside them, a simple white linen blouse, without ornaments, without lace, without the oppression of high collars, and a thick wool vest of a deep dark green, like the moss that covered the stones of the surrounding forest. Upon dressing, she felt a liberation that was almost physical, an awakening of all the senses that the ostentatious clothing had kept numb.

The rough but comfortable fabric of the trousers brushed her legs with an honesty that silk lacked; freedom of movement was a luxury she did not know she had been longing for. The absence of corsets and petticoats, of layers and folds that wrapped her like a cocoon, was a declaration of independence. For the first time since she woke in this body, since the man of the earth found himself trapped in the skin of the duchess, she wore something that was not a disguise.

She had stopped being a doll in the sideboard of the rich, to recover an agency that belonged only to her. When she stepped out of the bedroom, dressed completely in her unconventional attire, the gazes of Fjora and Samira pierced her like two darts of a different nature.

Fjora, now completely awake and standing by her bed —her arms crossed over her chest in a pose that was more vigilance than rest, her muscles defining themselves under the fabric of her clothes— could not hide a flash of surprise in her glacial eyes. It was barely a blink, an instant in which the ice cracked to let something akin to bewilderment peek through. A noblewoman, dressed as a common student.

It was a transgression whose training, her entire life of obedience to hierarchies, she did not know how to process. Samira, already up and straightening her bed with the meticulous parsimony of one who has learned that order is the first form of control, observed her with an open curiosity she did not try to hide.

Her honey eyes, bright with intelligence, scrutinized her from top to bottom, evaluating not only the attire but what it meant: the declaration of a noblewoman who chose to dispense with conventions, who stood before the world in her own skin, not in the one they had lent her. Their gazes betrayed, beyond any doubt, that the attire was years away from the wardrobe of a duchess-heiress.

It was the clothing of one who does not need to prove their rank, of one who has so much power they can afford to look insignificant. Selena smiled, satisfied with their reactions, with that small bewilderment she had sown in the established order. It was exactly what she wanted: the freedom to be her. She could not care less what anyone thought now, not the slaves, nor the maidservants, nor the university nobles, much less the teachers.

The king himself would attest that she was completely free of anything, and she did not intend to waste it from the very first moment. The cold air of the mountain morning caressed her face as she left the residence building, a clean and invigorating sensation that seemed to sweep away the last vestiges of sleep, reminding her that she was alive and awake in a world she had yet to fully know. The wind came down from the snowy peaks bringing with it the smell of ice and whitish pines.

With Fjora and Samira following her at a discreet distance, two silent shadows whose presence already began to feel as natural as it was uncomfortable, Selena headed with a determined step toward the imposing Atrium of Knowledge. Her objective was clear: to formalize her enrollment, the first tangible step in this new and forced academic life. Each stone of the path, each tree she left behind, was a declaration: she was not the same person who had arrived the night before.

However, the encounter with the clerk in the great entrance hall was a blast of reality that reminded her, with the rawness of a bucket of cold water, that her destiny was not entirely hers.

The man, an official well into his years and bureaucratic manners who seemed to have seen generations of students pass with the same indifference with which one watches the rain, after consulting a thick tome bound in leather with the parsimony of one who has all eternity ahead of them, informed her in a monotone voice that she had already been enrolled by the royal officials. There were no procedures to perform, nor choices to be made at that level.

Bureaucracy, Selena thought with a mixture of relief and frustration, moved faster than I did. The king had arranged every detail even before she set foot in the city. The only thing left, said the man lowering his voice in a gesture of respect that failed to hide a poorly disguised curiosity, was an audience with the rector of the university. And due to her rank, she would be attended immediately. There would be no lines, no waiting, nor the endless procedures suffered by common students.

Privilege, even in freedom, preceded her like a shadow she could not shake. Guided by the official through vaulted corridors that resonated with echoes of centuries of knowledge —the stones polished by the friction of generations of students, the marble floors worn in the center by the passage of innumerable feet— they arrived at a door of solid red wood with bronze fittings that shone with a warm glow, reflecting the lamps.

The man knocked softly, three knocks that sounded in the silence of the corridor like a secret code, waited for an inaudible response from within, and after a few minutes the door opened. An elderly secretary, with the whitish skin of one who has lived more among books than under the sun, peeked his wrinkled face out. His eyes, of pale gray, evaluated her with the speed of one who has learned to distinguish importance by the quality of the fabric.

With a barely perceptible gesture, a tilt of the head that was both reverence and permission, he indicated she could enter. Upon crossing the threshold, Selena found herself in the typical chamber of a rector but elevated to a superior power. It was a sanctuary of bureaucracy; a temple raised to the god of administration.

She was surrounded by walls of books that rose to the ceiling, tomes bound in skin with titles already beginning to fade with the passage of years, their leather spines creaking with the weight of treasured knowledge. Piles of documents and parchments accumulated in an apparently chaotic order upon a monumental desk of dark wood, where several quills rested beside a silver inkwell and a small bronze bell that waited in silence for the moment to be struck.

The aroma filling the chamber was an olfactory symphony: aged paper, black ink and sealing wax, polished wood and, in the background, a faint perfume of dried flowers that someone had placed in a vase by the window. It was the smell of bureaucracy, but also that of living history, of the decisions that had molded the destiny of countless students throughout the centuries. Behind the desk, a man of about seventy years stood up with an agility that belied his age.

His hair was an impeccable snowfall, combed with the precision of one who cannot bear a single hair out of place, and his eyes, of a deep navy blue, full of wrinkles at the edges, observed her with an intelligence that seemed to pierce her, reading her as if the pages of her life were open before him. Wearing a simple red robe but of an excellent fabric, he gave a precise bow.

It was not servile, there was not the slightest trace of submission in it; it was a gesture laden with an ancestral respect for her lineage, the recognition that before him was not just a student, but the representative of one of the most powerful houses in the kingdom. —My lady Isabella Elizabeth Selena de Solendra, Duchess Heiress of Solendra, Lady of Lumenburg, Protector of the Eastern Straits —he pronounced with solemnity.

Each title was spoken with a ceremonial clarity that resonated in the chamber, which seemed to make the very books on their shelves vibrate. —I give you a cordial welcome to my chambers. He straightened, and with a serene gesture that encompassed the room, indicated the chair before his desk. Selena sat, feeling the solidity of the carved wood beneath her, the maroon velvet that welcomed her with its softness of a trap. Is this the chair of the supplicants?

she thought, the same in which ambassadors and nobles, scholars and petitioners would have sat, all waiting for the verdict of the man who controlled the doors of knowledge. —His Majesty gave me absolute orders —the rector proceeded. He lowered his voice until it became a confidential whisper that barely reached beyond the limits of the desk. —To say the following only to you. It is for that reason that your slaves remained outside.

He took his seat again, interlacing his knobby fingers over the desk in a gesture that was at once of repose and containment. His gaze, grave, direct, fixed onto Selena's with the intensity of one sharing a secret that could cost a life. —As I was saying, His Majesty has given the order that you be included in the Way of the Resonants. The words fell in the silence of the office like stones in a deep pond, expanding ripples that seemed to touch every corner of the room. Way of the Resonants.

The name was an enigma in itself, a door half-open toward a meaning she was only beginning to glimpse. —It is the highest secret of State —continued the rector. Selena noticed how her own pulse accelerated, how her heart hammered against her ribs with an urgent rhythm. —Being you the first noble in the five thousand years that our kingdom has existed who possesses latent magic potential, His Majesty deems it necessary that I explain the procedure to you.

The old man took a glass filled with an aromatic juice that rested beside the files, and took a drink, moistening his dry lips before continuing. The liquid, of a pale golden color, gave off a citrus aroma that for a moment dissipated the smell of old paper, a breath of freshness in the midst of solemnity. —Its location is completely subterranean, beneath the Atrium of Knowledge —he proceeded.

His fingers traced an invisible map upon the wood of the desk, as if he could see through the layers of stone and earth to the depths where the secret awaited. —It is accessed via a concealed door at the base of the Central Hourglass, which only opens with a special wax key possessed by the "Tutors of the Echo". You will have five companions, and you, my lady, shall be the sixth. It is common for the King to only choose five students per year, but, as you see, you are a... rare case.

The word "rare" floated in the air like a whisper, laden with implications Selena was only beginning to untangle. Rare meant exceptional, unique, but also dangerous, unpredictable. Rare meant that the King was watching her more closely than she had imagined. He took another sip of his juice, and Selena noticed that the scent was close to an orange or a grapefruit, purely citrus in character. —Every student of the magic chair —he proceeded.

Now his voice had recovered part of its bureaucratic tone, as if returning to known ground after having navigated dangerous waters. —Must have an alternative path that serves to disguise the true one. In the university, the options are: Theology and Philosophy, Military Strategies and Logistics, History and Royal Law, Natural Sciences and Alchemy, Economy and International Trade, Arts and Royal Architecture, or... He made a brief pause, and his blue eyes shone with a glint that could be warning or curiosity.

—Advanced Medicine and Healing. You are free to decide. He remained in silence, granting her the space to choose, to breathe, so that the weight of the decision might settle upon her shoulders. Her future, once again, hung by a thread, but this time it was a thread that she, at least nominally, could take between her fingers.