Startled by his reaction, as Emere hadn’t meant too much by it, he hesitantly answered, “The… Her Majesty, Loran, the King of Arland called you that, in a dream of mine. Or I believe it was you she meant by it. Did I say something wrong?”
Cain swallowed. “Councillor Emere. That was likely not the real Loran. ‘The Sleeping King’ is what the Circuit of Destiny calls me.”
20
ARIENNE
Power generator chambers usually glowed a soft violet. But there was only ruin here, and no light aside from what came from the glass orb around Arienne’s neck. A metal dais reflected back that light. There had once been a Power generator, Fractica, on that dais.
“It’s not here,” she muttered in relief.
As she had hoped, Fractica was still flailing through the ruins above, driven by madness. Three years ago, Arienne would not have believed such things were possible. A Power generator was nothing more than a Power source made from the corpse of a sorcerer. It operated only according to the spells engraved into its chains, and there were double, triple layers of safety measures. At least, that was what she had been taught in school.
The Power generator Eldred had already proved that wasn’t true. Eldred had tricked Arienne into stealing his body away fromwhere it was hidden underneath the Imperial Academy. He had tried to use Arienne for his own revenge but instead died, a second time, by her hand.
“I suppose Eldred had gone insane, too,” she thought out loud, and she was surprised by the compassion in her own voice. She couldn’t help but imagine her own body and mind trapped inside a lead coffin, surging with Power that was no longer hers to command. Wouldn’t she go mad too, in that violet darkness that had swallowed her whole being?
According to what Noam had told her, Danras had a sorcerer they called “the Host” whose position was passed on across generations. The Hosts had enchanted the catacombs in order to protect Danras’s ancestral remains from Eldred, keeping the enchantment alive for hundreds of years. When the Star of Mersia destroyed Danras, Noam had tried to escape into the catacombs and thus into the protection of the spell. He had ended up dying right before he reached it.
Looking around the Power generator chamber, Arienne saw that there was a spiral staircase of stone. It probably rose up all the way to the surface, making a perfect escape route—but it was collapsed in places. As Arienne continued looking around the room, she became confused. If a monster as large as Fractica had nested here, there should be traces of it, but there were none. The room was filled only with the debris of devices that had been used to control and maintain the generator. Devices she had learned about as a student at the Academy.
She remembered her escape from the Academy. How she used to jump like a scared rabbit whenever she saw an errant shadow! Now she was in the ruins of a faraway city, tackling a danger mostpeople wouldn’t dream of in their lifetimes. Looking up at the broken stairs and imagining what was waiting for her up there, she knew this was a better life.
A sudden thought made her open the room in her mind and enter. Aron, perhaps restless from being trapped inside, was pacing around the room. Noam, sitting by Tychon’s crib, raised his head. Arienne strode up to him.
“What made you think that the Host’s enchantment could save you? It’s to protect against Eldred, not anything and everything,” said Arienne, remembering how the catacomb had rejected her when she first tried to step through the arch leading to the catacomb.
“I don’t remember. I must’ve seen something that suggested it?”
“Also, there wouldn’t have been any sorcerers in Mersia since the annexation a hundred and seventy years ago. That means, by the time you were alive, no one had been feeding it for seventy years, right?”
And another hundred years had passed since then, which led her to wonder if the enchantment would still be there now.
Noam couldn’t give her a straight answer. As he tried to remember, his outline began to fade, and Arienne hastily interjected, “Look, take care of Tychon for now. There’s lots of time. You can take things slow.”
Noam nodded. Arienne took a look at Tychon in his crib, gave Aron a pat, and was about to leave the room when Noam said, “Actually…”
Arienne, her hand still on the doorknob, turned her head to him. Noam’s face was a mixture of fear and curiosity.
“Actually what?”
“I was wondering what kind of sorcery you learned from the Grim King.”
Arienne sighed. Clearly, he seemed to be convinced she was Eldred’s apprentice.
“Well, making a room inside my mind is the big one. And putting things inside it. And crushing it.”
“What about bringing back corpses from the dead?”
Eldred had indeed been infamous for his necromancy. “I didn’t learn any of that.”
“But you’re… the apprentice of the Grim King?”
“Enough of that!” she snapped, her patience finally worn thin. “I said I am not his apprentice! I did learn a killing spell from him, though. Should we see if it works on ghosts?” She was only half joking.
Noam cowered, but his outlines grew stronger.
“Eldred was not my teacher. He just taught me a few things, as payment for my help. And I’ve developed some spells myself.”
