Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) by Niall Teasdale (best summer reads txt) 📕

‘They’ll be fine with it,’ Mitsuko replied. Neither she nor Nava were entirely sure that Kyle really was.

The Trenton Mansion, 236/8/14.

The sun was veritably hammering down on the patio. Nava had coated Mitsuko in enough sunblock that it was likely she could stand next to a leaky reactor without harm. Courtney and Melissa were doing their best not to roast and drinking a lot to avoid dehydration. Nava was… Nava. Rochester had gone back to school to be with Hoshi, but they were both coming out to the mansion in the next couple of days for a break. And Kyle…

He looked tired. There was a bit of sleep loss about Courtney too, but Kyle looked like he had slept very little the night before. Or the night before that, for that matter. There were shadows under his eyes. He tried to look relaxed and happy, but he was not really pulling it off that well. And because Kyle was not doing too well, Courtney was worried. And because she did not want to make Kyle worse, she was trying not to look or sound too worried…

‘I think we should go for a walk after lunch,’ Courtney said. ‘The woods around here are great when it’s this hot. More shade.’

‘Probably a good idea,’ Mitsuko said. ‘If I spend much longer here, I’ll turn into a cinder.’

‘Then why,’ Nava asked, ‘are you lying there?’

‘It’s summer. You’re supposed to sunbathe in summer.’

‘Not to the point where you need radiation treatment. Some shade is probably a good idea.’

~~~

Kyle’s eyes were on the ground as he walked through the dappled shade of one of the forested parts of the mansion’s grounds. His mind was occupied with thoughts of his home planet and what had been done to him there. He barely even noticed he had fallen a little behind until his eyes fell upon Nava’s feet clad in a pair of flat-heeled sandals.

‘Oh, uh, Nava. I… I didn’t notice you were all getting ahead of me.’

‘I gathered. I asked Courtney to let me come wake you up. She thinks I’m going to impart some piece of wisdom on you that’ll snap you out of your funk.’

‘Are you?’

Nava gave a small shrug. ‘I have no idea. It’s not easy. Getting over something like that takes time, a bit of a positive attitude, some luck… Being used to mistreatment helps, but you don’t have that.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ he asked, his tone holding some acid, ‘when have you been tortured?’

‘Well, it was called “interrogation resistance training,” but torture is as good a word as any for it. I was… eight. Eight-ish. In a way, it was worse because they weren’t trying to find out information or whatever. They just hurt us until we couldn’t take it any more. Took a while, because we were kind of used to being treated like objects by then. Took longer to stop having nightmares. One of the girls, Hana, was retired because she never did recover from it.’

‘Retired. Huh.’

‘She vanished one night, and we never saw her again. We were told she was weak. Actually, they were just bastards.’

‘Doesn’t give me much hope then. If someone like you can end up permanently crippled by something like this…’

‘Hana didn’t have a Courtney. We tried to help, but they didn’t exactly let us offer emotional support.’ Nava paused, considering. ‘You’ll never be totally over it. It’s not something you can totally get over. Not something you should get over. Not if you’re human.’

‘Did you manage it?’

‘Sort of.’ Nava turned, starting back toward the other girls. ‘I think I kind of recovered. After I slaughtered more or less everyone on the project. I’m sorry. I probably killed them for you, but maybe that can be enough. Eventually.’

Shinden Alliance School of Sorcery, 236/8/20.

Taryn closed the document she had been sent and leaned back in her chair. It was a report on the recent events on Beherbergen. Apparently, Befreit Beherbergen had been planning some sort of major operation against the House clan and had kidnapped a couple of ASF officers to get information out of them. That had been a mistake. One of the officers had been a Greyling.

The report had stated that a small team sent by the Greylings had rescued the officers and pretty much decimated the Befreit forces. The Firmin clan had managed to find out who was on the team the Greylings had sent and that Nava Greyling had done almost all the killing. She had, almost singlehanded, taken out a little under thirty percent of a force of four thousand. They were backwoods hicks with pretentions, but they had not even slowed her down.

‘Oh, Nava,’ Taryn said to her apartment ceiling, ‘you are a rival worth having.’ She grinned, the grin widening into an almost exultant smile. ‘This is going to be a challenge worth facing. This is going to be awesome!’

###

About the Author

I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.

Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East