Introduction to the world of the Portal to Sérannie

Short book synopsis
The Kingdom of Sérannie was threatened by a Dark Lord and his forbidden illusion magic. As a last resort, the Séranniens opened an interworld portal and got someone from our world—and so immune to magical illusions—to help them fight this threat. This proved to be a successful strategy. The Dark Lord has now been beaten, and the foreigner pushed out of the way and sent back to our world. Isabelle Lafontaine, the foreigner in question, is not happy about this, and she is determined to go back by whatever means necessary. Of course, this will have far more dangerous consequences than she ever imagined.

Meta

Genre

Portal and high fantasy with a romance subplot.

Location

France and the Kingdom of Sérannie, which is located in a parallel world to ours that can be accessed through portals. To our eyes, it appears very similar to the society of the Roman Empire, both through its aesthetic and its society, although it is also a world filled with magic.

Unique selling point

Explore what happens after the heroic quest has been successful and the Dark Lord defeated, and how one of the heroes reacts after having been pushed aside once she outlived her usefulness.

Tone

Bleakcore

During the quest to defeat the Dark Lord, some of the societal problems were already obvious to Isabelle, especially the nobles' belief in their own superiority over commoners. Nevertheless, the whole heroic quest to defeat an evil Dark Lord still made her believe that the kingdom of Sérannie was good and acting in the interests of its citizens. After the royal family betrayed her, she quickly became disillusioned with them and started to see the darker side of their society. This makes her questions her own choice and the meaning of good and evil in a world filled with flawed people, leading her to making some dubious choices herself.

Magical portal between worlds by Stefan Keller on Pixabay

Setting the scene

The world

The kingdom of Sérannie is a constitutional monarchy. The power is shared between a monarch and the senate, with the senators being the heads of hereditary noble families. The monarch's powers are limited by the senate, but by how much can change at any time with just one vote. Sérannian society is extremely hierarchical, and respect has to be shown to one's superiors or there will be consequences—potentially deadly ones. This hierarchy also takes the form of client-patron relationships, with the clients visiting their patrons almost daily and offering compliments and information in exchange for work and services.

Sérannian society—the inner garden of the library by Enrico Nardi (Scena dell'antica Roma, 1894)

Magic

Magic is practised through the mental visualisation of extremely complex runic diagrams. Those diagrams are used to force one's magic to take the forms required for a specific application. Magic is accessible to everyone, however in practise it is important to start training young to develop the right neuronal connections. This gives a big advantage to rich families able to afford the best education for their children. It is considered impossible to reach the same level of proficiency without that early training.
Illusion magic is completely taboo. Since it has been forbidden centuries ago, it has become almost completely forgotten. The Dark Lord caused a lot of shocked when Séranniens realised he had rediscovered how to use it and was not hesitating to do so for his own nefarious means.

Illusion magic by Stefan Keller on Pixabay

Main character

Isabelle Lafontaine is a young French woman. When she was 18 years old, she was transported through a portal to Sérannie and asked to help the kingdom defeat the Dark Lord. Despite the rudeness and snobbery of some members of their Questing Party, she found her place among them and made friends. She was especially close to Romain, a commoner and orphan who had recently been revealed to be the Chosen One, and to Prince Calendre with whom she had started a romantic relationship. She proved the Sérannian mages wrong by managing to master their magic despite her "advanced" age. She was even essential to the Questing Party's defeat of the Dark Lord, and she paid herself a substantial price when she was captured and tortured. And just when she thought all the prizes were at hand and she would marry Calendre and live happily ever after, she was ruthlessly betrayed.
Back in the normal world and in her teenage body, just as if nothing had ever happened, Isabelle is forced to fit in again among her high school classmates. To compound the pleasure of having to suddenly remember courses she studied years ago and the final high school exam being only a few months away, her family is breaking apart under her eyes. Isabelle wants to escape this world and those people she had finished mourning years ago and return to her world. Sérannie. To regain the warmth of magic coursing through her veins and the might it brought her. To take the place at court and at the Academy of Mages that is due to her. And if no one is going to gift them to her, then she is more than ready to seize them herself. Whatever the price.

Isabelle Lafontaine

When her boyfriend pushed her once again through the interworld portal, Isabelle fell out of her bed, waking up with a start and bumping her head against her bedside table. Her left side seized with fantom pain, as if the Dark Lord's fire was still slowly spread through her organs, melting them cell by cell. She instinctively reached for the comfort of her magic, only to be met with the dark void of its absence.

She rolled in a foetal position on the ground and cried with her head in her hands. The sobbing, of course, did nothing to help her headache or the pain.

It seemed as if she barely had time to calm down before her alarm went off, startling her. The noise made her head throb. Moaning, she forced herself to stand and turn the alarm off. With mechanical motions, she went to the bathroom and washed and got dressed. When she went down for breakfast, both of her parents were already there.

"Hurry up a bit there, or we'll be late again," her mother snapped. "Good morning to you too," she added when Isabelle went to seat down before kissing her parents. 

Isabelle had to repress a sigh and any comment she wanted to make. She went to her parents' side and kissing both of their cheeks. "Good morning," she forced herself to say in an even tone, before finally taking her seat and serving herself some bread with strawberry jam and a kiwi. She tried to eat as quickly as possible to avoid drawing anymore of her mother's ire. Of course, it was useless.

"Don't eat so fast," her mother snapped. "I hope you have actually studied this time instead of spending all your evening reading."

Isabelle gave her a strained smile. "Of course."

Her father snorted. "Of course. Well, if you don't get correct marks on your next tests, we'll take your computer and all your books out of your room until the bac and we'll see how you do then."

Conflicts

The Dark Lord

The Dark Lord was an important threat over the kingdom for years. He raised dissent in the population, and trained and armed many would-be rebels who then led attacks against the population. Most of those individuals have managed to escape the royal army and are still threatening the kingdom. Even a year afterwards, it is hard to believe that the Dark Lord has really been defeated...

Politics

There is a bitter fight going on between senators for the control of the senate. The winner will get to dictate the politics of the empire and the relationship of the senate with the royal family. The king and his family are also attempting to use the situation and the prestige they have gained from the defeat of the Dark Lord to acquire more power.

Classes

The nobility, and especially the senators and the royal family, see themselves as superior to everyone else and defend what they see as their territory from any commoners' incursion. As one of those commoners, Isabelle resents this bitterly.

The Dark Lord's army by AmélieIS

The senate by Cesare Maccari (Cicero Denounces Catiline)

What to read next

Main character

Past events and politics

Society