Page 77 of The Champion
His disappointed outburst made me feel even luckier that I was the man Freya loved.
“Argh, give it time, Bastian. The French don’t stay with one woman for long. She’ll soon be single again,” the blond man said and raised his chin to me. “Isn’t that right?”
I grinned. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I know how special Freya is.”
Bastian gave me another glance over before he warned me, “As I see it, a woman is fair game as long as she isn’t married. If I meet her, you better be sure that I’ll be introducing myself and turning on my charm. I would be surprised if she doesn’t come to her senses then.”
I didn’t respond to his comment, but I thought about it all the way to the parliament building, where we found Thor, Solomon, Mason, and Magni inside talking with three members of the Motlander Council.
“Well done, lads,” Mason praised the soldiers when they brought me to him. “That was fast work.”
“Thank you, sir. We retrieved him without any violent episodes.”
“Good. Let’s hope everything else goes as smoothly.” Mason stepped forward to shake my hand. “You look like shit, Victor. What the hell happened to you?”
“It’s been some rough months.”
Thor and I had never liked each other much and the last time we met was at his wedding when I was accused of raping Freya. He stepped closer and spoke in a low, gruff voice. “Are you ready to admit that the French system sucks?”
I met his hard glance. “I’ll admit that there’s room for improvement. That’s why Freya and I are planning to do things differently in Wisdomia.”
Thor looked satisfied with my answer and reached out to shake my hand. “You’d better not fuck around on my sister. I’ll break your neck if you do.”
“I don’t doubt it. Not after the way I was treated at your wedding.”
Councilman Jonah placed a hand on my shoulder. In the four months since we last met, he seemed to have aged five years. There were deep wrinkles on his forehead, dark circles under his eyes, and a solemn expression on his face. “Victor, how are you holding up?”
“I’ve been better.”
“We’ve heard about the horrendous things they put you through. You must have felt abandoned by your friends abroad, but we couldn’t in good conscience invade a country without exploring every diplomatic avenue first.”
“How did you find out?”
“We have our sources. In general, we members of the Council have been deeply troubled for years by the isolation and exploitation of French citizens. There are several issues with basic human rights. To deny you the right to travel and punish and demean you so severely for falling in love was wrong.”
“Thank you.” It felt good to have Jonah’s sympathy and support.
“Right now, we’re gathering all members of your parliament and then we’ll have a hard talk with them.”
Thor, who stood next to us, snorted a little. “Motlanders don’t do hard talks. We all know that I’ll be the one doing that part and you’ll be soothing them.”
Jonah scanned the room and cleared his throat. “Either way, we’re determined to make your government see reason. With the chaos that France is in at the moment, we can’t allow our English teachers to stay. We could have accepted Khan’s offer to have his Northlander Explorers bring our citizens home. But then we would have been letting down the brave people who are fighting for their freedom and rights in the streets. It’s time they see that they have international support.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” My words sounded a bit formal and didn’t reflect how grateful I felt to them all, so I followed up with a short “Truly.”
As we talked, members of parliament came into the room and gathered in small groups, speaking in hissing whispers with side glares at the intruders. Some were still in their sleepwear with wild morning hair pointing in all directions. Zola stood with Frédéric Nattier, who was red in the face with anger. When I looked over, she yawned and rubbed her eyes while nodding in agreement with what he was saying.
“Victor, we understand that this is a difficult situation for you, but we would like you to be present as we tell all the members of the parliament what is going to happen. You don’t have to say anything,” Jonah assured me.
It took another forty minutes before everyone was gathered. The new prime minister Joseph Faubert and a few of the parliament members had bruises, which told me that they had resisted coming.
As expected, Jonah and Thor had different approaches when they talked to the members of parliament. Jonah kept to a formal but empathetic tone of voice while Thor’s temper got heated at times.
“You should have fucking believed us when we warned you this would happen. Did you think we Northlanders were the kind to make empty threats?”
For a split second, I felt my old loyalty to France come up with counterarguments like I had done at summits for more than a decade. I couldn’t even count how many times Mason, Indiana, Aubri, and Thor had threatened me in some way. Thor claimed that Northlanders didn’t make empty threats, but luckily that wasn’t true, or my head would have been ripped off and shoved up my ass years ago.
Joseph stood up from his seat and pointed an accusing finger at the three Council members. “We knew that the Northlanders were aggressive, but we never imagined that you would allow them to invade our country this way. We trusted you Motlanders to be peaceful neighbors.”
