Arienne looked back at him intently. “What prophecy?”
“That the apprentice of the Grim King would become King of Mersia.”
“Eldred had an apprentice?”
Noam gasped and covered his mouth. “You can’t justsay his namelike that… People hate that. I said it at an eatery once and the owner chased me out into the street and screamed at me.”
Arienne scoffed, unable to keep it in. “Don’t worry about that. The only person who can banish you here is me. And I killed Eldred. I can say his name whenever I want.”
“What are you talking about? It was the Grand Inquisitor who killed El… the Grim King.”
She grinned. “Only the first time.” Her grin faded as she thought of how no sorcerer who fell into the hands of the Empire would ever be allowed to die properly. “So, Engineer Noam,” she continued, “tell me more about this prophecy. Who is the apprentice of the Grim King?”
Noam’s eyes grew wide. “Isn’t it you?”
Outside the room, sitting by Noam’s remains in the crumbling corridor to the Power generator chamber, Arienne felt her heart beat faster.
“Me? What made you think that?”
“The tattoos around your neck, aren’t they the mark of the Grim King or something?”
Her hand reflexively reached for her neck. “These aret’laran. They’re Arlander clan markings.”
Noam tilted his head. “Arland… That’s the small country in the northwest, right? In Lontaria. Not yet part of the Empire.”
Arienne didn’t like him using the word “yet,” but history had shown him to be correct after all.
“It’s only been a little over twenty years since we’ve been annexed.”
Noam looked confused. “Then you should be at the Imperial Academy, or serving as a sorcerer-engineer. What are you doing in this place?”
“Arland may still be under Imperial rule, but I’m not.”
Noam took a step back. “Wait, whoareyou?Whatare you? What do you have to do with the Grim King?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I just knew him, briefly. That’s all.”
“Don’t lie. This room was made with his sorcery. It’s exactly as I heard it from Grand Inquisitor Lysandros.”
He wasn’t wrong. Eldredhadtaught Arienne how to create a room in her mind, mostly so she could use it to smuggle him out of the Imperial Academy. In this sense, perhaps she was his apprentice.
But Mersia was no longer a country; it was a wasteland. There would be no king where there were no people. As it often was with prophecies, this one had not come to pass. In her beloved adventure books, prophecies were realized no matter the obstacle, but reality was often less reliable than stories.
Whether he was aware of her thoughts or not, Noam said, “I don’t know what the prophecy really means either.” He made a circle over his head with his hand. “But the smell of the Grim King is in this room…”
Eldred had been defeated by the Empire 170 years ago, and the Star of Mersia had laid waste to the country seventy years after that. Arienne smiled. “How could you know how he smelled? You were born long after his time.”
Noam blanched. “All of the dead of Mersia know. We have feared the Grim King’s smell from time immemorial. The catacombs, there was… Ah!”
He bolted upright, making Arienne step back in surprise.
“I remember why I was going to the catacombs!”
Tychon, who had been nodding off, started to cry once more.
18
YUMA
