“Give back my body!Now!”
She threw a punch in Eldred’s face. It felt like desiccated barkagainst her knuckles. Dry leathery particles dropped off his cheek. Outside, Arienne’s mouth stopped talking in midsentence. Inside the room, Eldred stood from the bed, pushing himself up with his arms.
“You little—!”
Lysandros took a stride forward. As he came within an arm’s reach, Arienne tried to back away, but Eldred still controlled her body. Something whirred in Lysandros’s machine arms, and his toneless voice spoke over the noise.
“Why, Grim King, do you have nothing more to say?”
In the mind’s room, Eldred gripped Arienne’s shoulders as he hissed, “Do not regard me as a mere cadaver, I am Eldred. I am the Grim King! Not one the likes of you can place their hands on!”
“Decrepitcorpse!”
She pushed him with all her might, but Eldred’s bone-thin hands only gripped her shoulders tighter.
Lysandros’s voice came through from the outside.
“I am sorry for you, student girl, but we are now out of time. I sentence you to death for running away and stealing a Power generator. This is a risk you were aware of when you left the school. We shall lose Eldred as well, but perhaps we have gone past the point where he could be reclaimed.”
With lightning speed, he extended his machine hand and grabbed Arienne’s throat.
In her mind’s room, Eldred’s hands were now gripping Arienne’s throat as well.
“I may not have my legs, but once you’re gone… You useless waste of a failed sorcerer, you don’t deserve to crawl this earth. Iwill take your body. I will kill your mind first and then that inquisitor.” His hands squeezed harder. “You shall become the vessel of the great king’s rebirth.”
The view outside the window vanished, replaced with Lysandros’s face. His expression was impossible to read, as half of it was metal. There was something of an expression on the withered visage of Eldred, but she didn’t know what it meant either. Whether her neck broke in life or in this room, she was going to die. Her mind was a rush of what would be her final thoughts.
She remembered her parents back home. There was not a shred of longing in this memory. Ever since entering the Academy, she had not written a single letter to them, nor received one from them. The room in her mind was probably gone in the real world. Perhaps they had had a new child since and were raising them in it.
She thought of her friends in the Academy, especially Magnus, who had offered to tutor her, and her boyfriend Felix, and the professors. The custodian Duff. Their lives must be upside down by now. She felt nothing about this. She had fled the school without a single look back.
Cain. Who hid her only because she was from his homeland, who risked danger and used his own money to help her escape. But Arienne knew she would never see him again.
Arienne realized she was completely alone in the world. No one cared if she lived or died. She had left everything behind, severed all her ties. Except with Eldred and Lysandros. Who ironically were both trying to kill her.
The breath was leaving her body. In the room and in Finvera Square, her tears were welling. How silly her school robe shouldcome to mind in this moment. The sorcery she used then… the thread that didn’t exist, how she cut it to unravel herself from Duff’s grip and escape… Eldred hadn’t taught her that.
That’s it.What she had done all along, what she was best at. Arienne imagined the Princess of Arland whom Cain had told her about. She is on the back of the dragon of the mountain, wearing a shining suit of armor. She has the graceful dragon markings surrounding her neck, signifying her royal heritage. She holds a flaming sword in her hand. The princess in her imagination solemnly hands Arienne the sword. Its hilt feels hot in her grip.
A word slipped past her lips. The word she had forgotten since that day in the market with her robe. Her mouth filled with strength—and she swung the flaming sword through the four arms that strangled her.
In the room of her mind, Eldred’s arms—and outside on the Finvera Pass, Lysandros’s arms—fell to the ground. Breath rushed back into her body.
Eldred screamed, a sound almost as injurious as the suffering it protested against. He fell onto the bed as violet smoke flowed from the stumps of his forearms. Arienne, sword in hand, left the room.
Lysandros was looking down at his sliced-off arms, seemingly unable to comprehend what had just occurred. Arienne gave him no pause as she concentrated on the cord of Power that secured the generator to his back, a cord made from thousands of knots. There was no such cord, of course, and even if there were, it would not be visible. But the imaginary sword easily slashed the imaginary cord.
The machine sounds ceased as the gears and pistons in his body stopped. He stood motionless. The human half of his faceshowed panic. He moved his lips, but no words came out. It was not only his limbs but his lungs that relied on Power.
With all her might, Arienne kicked Lysandros in his stomach. The metal body fell backward. The wooden coffin on his back smashed open, and a small sarcophagus of lead rolled out.
30LORAN
Loran sat in a large chair, listening to the others talk of whether to defend the fortress or Kingsworth, how they would gather more troops, and how they would procure the necessary provisions. Among the dozen people, there were none that Loran had picked herself. Either they were representatives of their villages or the guilds of Kingsworth or they had experience serving in the legions, and Loran had only assented to their presence. There was also a man who had worked for a long time as a low-ranking clerk at the prefect’s office who seemed to know everything about the city.
She eyed thet’laranon the necks of the people debating in front of her. She had forgotten many details about the traditional meanings in the intertwined patterns that showed which clans they had come from. But she still remembered the dragon design that had adorned the necks and banners of the old kings. Two of the councillors showed parts of that design, being perhaps a generation or three away from the royal house. Loran herself had none, but there was nochallenge to her about it. It amused her that she hadn’t expected any, and that she was only reminded of her common birth by the vestiges of royal markings on others.
The task at hand was more difficult than laying siege to the fortress. Wilfrid, who stood by Loran’s side but had only listened so far, finally leaned toward Loran and whispered, “Princess, I think making a decision is the only way to end this long prattle.”
