Arienne stopped waiting.
“I killed the real Lysandros,” she declared.
Eldred finally turned his head and looked at her quizzically.
“And what little girl dares speak such nonsense in the presence of a king taking back his kingdom?”
Arienne laughed. “And I killed therealEldred as well. You’re just a shadow of a dead man.”
In the black rain, Eldred’s face twisted. Arienne stared directly into it. In the corner of her eye, Noam sat by the portal into Arienne’s mind, looking in her direction with fearful eyes. He must have wanted to flee, to escape into the room, but he also knew thatif anything should happen to Arienne, that room would implode with him in it.
“More nonsense. My death was foretold. And there is no path to the prophecy coming to fulfillment.”
The prophecy. Noam had told her about it, that the Grim King’s apprentice would succeed him. Arienne knew there was no point in denying what she was.
“I am the apprentice of the Grim King.”
Noam gasped.
Arienne grinned. “And you are merely a memory of him. A memory who entered this place before the real Eldred met me.”
Eldred wailed with fury and charged at her with his sword.This is only the shadow of an enemy I have beaten before,thought Arienne.No matter how real he looks, I am what’s real and he is merely a memory.His sword came down on Arienne’s shoulder but it simply shattered into a prismatic powder on impact.
Power flowed inside her. Arienne summoned the memory of herself slicing off Eldred’s arms—and at the same time, Lysandros’s arms—at Finvera Pass. The wintry wind of the mountains. The snow crunching underneath her feet. The bony hands of Eldred trying to strangle her in her mind, the metal hand of Lysandros doing the same in the real world. Without hesitation, she chanted the cutting spell and her Power slashed out.
The black rain ceased in a blink. Eldred’s body stood for a moment without its head, then spasmed as if sneezing. Then, like Lysandros before him, he turned to dust. The sky was clear. Stars came out.
“Much ado for a mere memory.”
Arienne turned to Noam, who had stood up and was dustinghimself off. Noam, without looking up at her, said, “You reallyarehis apprentice!.”
“I just said it in the moment. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“You also said you killed the Grand Inquisitor. Is it true?”
She realized she’d never told him that. Looking carefully at his face, she nodded.
“Why did you do that? He was a great man…”
It was a long story, and it would only upset Noam. She gazed at his sad and pathetic stance. Then, a ringing in her head—Arienne staggered. The door to her mind, which was still open with its swirling violet light, undulated. Noam jumped away from it.
The donkey Aron popped his head out. Then, he carefully stepped forward, one hoof at a time. On his back was Tychon.
“Noam, did you put Tychon on Aron’s back?” Arienne asked, puzzled.
Noam shook his head as Aron went straight up to the hazy woman on the bed. She stood up, reached out with her vague arms, and picked up Tychon. She cradled him against her, and Tychon opened his eyes wide and stretched his little hands to her face.
Her form began to fill in, just like Noam had when he had entered Arienne’s mind for the first time. Color returned to the woman’s hair. Her skin had the rugged texture of a healthy outdoorswoman. Her hands were strong. Her eyes were full of joy, the look of someone who had found what they had lost long ago. The woman stroked Tychon’s forehead a few times and gently laid the baby down on the bedding.
She then turned toward Arienne.
“I am a memory of Yuma, the Chief Herder of Danras. But you must meet the real Yuma. Go to the castle of the Grim King. There, you will learn what you came here for.”
And just like Eldred and Lysandros before her, she turned to dust. Tychon began to cry.
27
YUMA
