_A project I've been writing, called Path of Honor, recently had a character separate from the main plot. I decided to write here what is going on to the character in the meantime, even though it won't be covered in the main story._

_Starting from Act II, chapter I_

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Liriel could hardly remember the journey from Lei'ca. She could just remember Torquil falling, falling. How many times had she wished the gnome dead? So many times had she said to his face that he deserved to die.

And yet her hand had hesitated and trembled when he'd asked her to do it.

The short sword had fallen away with Torquil. His body had fallen only metres away from the boy Kerran.

And Liriel left. Away she went, borne by the cruel goddess that had enacted this fate.

She could see Aric staring up at the goddess with his good eye, calling out in fury.

But then, after that, she only remembered a haze. Darkness and cold and fever.

She slept, and her dreams were dark.

**Liriel's Dream**

She saw again the walls of her city. Beige and brown and tall.

She saw the library, old Aani, the librarian.

She knew what would happen. She had not escaped this moment in all the months that had passed.

Against her will she turned out of the library.

She tried to run. _Run_. But her muscles wouldn't respond. She knew it was coming.

The thundering sound began. Louder and louder and it wouldn't stop. She couldn't move.

She knew what was just beyond that wall. The strange man, who would hold off the dragon's breath with magic and save as many as he dared. The beginning of everything that led her to this point.

The thundering continued to grow louder. Crashing. Screaming. Her heart was pounding more and more. Her muscles didn't respond as she pushed them, trying to run, run away.

She didn't see the dragon. She knew she'd seen the dragon when it had really happened, but she couldn't quite remember it, her dreams never let her see it. Somehow that was worse.

Instead she saw the gnome, Torquil. And he became a snake, and pounced at her, over and over again, biting her with his fangs. She screamed and wildly fought back. Until he fell over, dead, a little gnome in the snow of the forest, the sword he had given her buried in his heart.

She realised she was asleep, and awoke to darkness. Her heart pounding. Her eyes didn't open, her muscles didn't move, and she fell right back into fevered sleep.

Time passed her only in glancing blows.

**Meeting the Frostmaiden**

"You've put me in quite the dilemma."

Liriel didn't deign this a response. She was mostly focused on wrapping the blanket around herself.

"You killed Ahktos," the goddess with the owl face did not seem particularly angry, but Liriel's mind seized on the name, she had forgotten Torquil had never been his real name, that she had never really known him. The goddess continued, "you've upset four years of planning. A simple mistake in my wording of the spell, Ahktos could not bear the blade that killed him, so he let you bear the burden. That is my fault, I apologise. Such a young creature should not bear such a burden."

Liriel did not look at her captor. It was cold. The blanket was more important. And disrespect may be the only rebellion she could get, at the moment. The Frostmaiden could not make her care.

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen." She answered almost reflexively.

The goddess sucked in a sharp breath of surprise. Liriel knew it was affected. The goddess did not need a humanoid form, nor did she need air, it was all calculated and performed, but all that knowledge did nothing for her as she reflexively looked up at the goddess.

"Fourteen truly is young." The goddess said at last, "I was not much older, when I first killed a being, but my own first kill was an evil being that fled from my people to the abyss, and not a being I had known as a friend, like Ahktos."

"I didn't know him." Words came more easily.

"He was one of your travelling companions," she said, "you knew his mannerisms and words and wit. You knew he was a coward and a liar, but had a good heart at the end of the day. You knew he believed he had to die, and in the end marched nobly to his death. You knew him, just not his past."

"I killed him."

She hadn't been disarmed but it didn't matter. She wouldn't use the dagger. She had thought she'd be lucky enough to live her whole life without killing. She'd have liked it to stay that way. If she could help it, she'd never kill again.

"Little one. I will not take your pain away. In your place, most would have done the same, and many who saw what you did believe you did the right thing."

"That doesn't matter."

"No. Fresh grief cannot be consoled except through time. The words are for later."

Silence reigned for a few seconds, or a few centuries, Liriel could not have told which.

Finally, she told her captor, "You are kind."

"Did you expect me not to be?"

And when Liriel didn't answer, the goddess laughed.

"Do not believe the tales your friends told you about me. You have surely seen by now they are all liars."

"No, they..."

"Who were your companions? Naras, who saved only five, after giving false hope to thirty more? Who would not spare resources when little Kerran lay ill in Hreghalk? Who preached about honour and nobility but fled in the face of the Silven Crown?"

"Or Talor, with his love of killing and his cowardice? Who neither stood up to Naras, nor did he stand with Naras. Talor, who fled every responsibility set before him, and dealt with every problem using his sword and strength?"

"Or Ahktos. Who called himself Torquil. The liar and trickster, who betrayed your companions the moment he was in danger?"

Liriel did not respond for a moment. "They did not lie when they said you had little regard for mortal lives."

"That I do not deny. Mortal lives are too fleeting. I save one one century, and it does by the next. If I kill a mortal, they oft lie forgotten in their graves only few decades hence. They can be useful allies, but I do not intend to empathise with them. I wish them no evil, and I wish them no good either. I have not the patience to devote to their fleeting lives.

"Then why bother capture me?"

"You haven't figured this out by now?"

She shook her head.

"The Codex."

***

The Frostmaiden did not mention the codex again for several days, and Liriel was hungry for information. They talked of other things. Of stars and rivers and paintings.

But the book was all Liriel thought about. She wanted to see it again. To touch it again. To feel its power coursing through her.

For moments, she wished to give herself to Auril. To let the goddess win as long as she got the codex.

She argued against herself. The goddess is evil. The book is evil. She should stay away from both, as much as she could.

At last, a week in, the goddess brought it up again.

"You bore the Codex. The Voice of Secrets gave it to you, showed you it's truths and hidden meanings."

"Yes." Liriel would not bother to keep secret something the goddess already knew.

The goddess put the small book in front of Liriel, and she burned again with yearning.

The book! Her mind screamed. The book could take away her pain. The book would let her escape. The book would make everything alright.

Lies, she knew. But her eyes didn't leave the book.

She wished for the comforting safety and power of the book. Her hands fidgeted, almost reaching out to touch it.

"You could teach me how to read it." The frostmaiden's voice was soft. "You don't have to, I could figure it out myself. It would take time, but I could. But you could teach me."

"No." The words slipped out before she could say a thing. Barely slipping past her beating heart and out of her mouth.

"No?" The goddess's voice was low and quiet, but strangely sharp. She tilted her owl head.

"No." She was strangely certain of this.

"I won't."

The goddess stared at her. "It would change nothing. I will figure it out myself."

"Good luck," Liriel began to shout, "that's what you kept me around for, isn't it? You cannot read it!" She paused for breath. She stared at the book. The beautiful dancing text. Another shout burgeoned up as her lungs drew more air. "Well, I refuse! So you can kill me now, and we can have this whole charade over with!"

The Frostmaiden laughed. "So determined to stop me."

And in a flash Liriel was alone with the book.

***

She refused to touch it, at first. Simply on principle. The book had consumed her heart and soul before. She had vowed to be careful.

But the codex followed her into her dreams.

She dreamt of the library again.

She could see the old bird-woman, old Aani. Black feathers and dark spectacles, beak buried into a book.

She knew what was coming. The dragon. And she willed herself to shout a warning, to get Aani out of the city, but no words came.

"_You need anything_?" Aani was looking at Liriel from the top of her spectacles.

Liriel nodded, against her will. "_Needed a book about Xyrdakul._" For school. For a project that would never come.

Aani hummed, tilting her head as she pushed her spectacles further up her beak. She shuffled towards the nearest shelf with the careful, deliberate movements of someone who had spent centuries among books.

Liriel's hear was pumping. She was filled with terror.

It's only a memory. Only a memory.

"_You need a book about Xyrdakul, do you? Curious thing, that. Why the interest, little scholar_?"

Against her will, Liriel opened her mouth to answer, to recite the same answer she had given that day in the waking world.

Instead, she turned.

The door. She had to get to the door. If she could just_ move._

The walls groaned. The bookshelves trembled. The sound began. The sound of the forest breaking. The sound that followed the dragon rushing past. A loud boom and a ever-growing thundering.

This hadn't been how it went down. She'd already left the library.

Her heart pounded against her ribs, and still, she could not move.

Aani turned, her old, clouded eyes peering over her spectacles at Liriel with something unreadable.

"_Here._"

Liriel took the book.

The bookshelves shook harder. The ink of the pages bled into the air, curling like smoke.

The walls cracked. Liriel turned away and ran out into the street, ran and ran and ran.

She was afraid.

She tripped and fell.

Instinctively, she looked for the book that old Aani had given her. It wouldn't do for the book to be lost. Aani would be disappointed.

The familiar leather binding and flickering text.

She felt safe with it in her hands. She held the Codex tight.

Around her the city faded away and only the Codex remained in her mind.

She wasn't sure when she crossed the line from dreaming to waking, but she woke up in her cell, the book clutched in her hands.