Horatia, native to the Imperial Capital, was considered the brightest sorcerer of her era, ever since she was young. On the night of her twenty-fourth birthday, as she was returning home from drinking with friends, she was assaulted in an alley and strangled to death. As she died, she glimpsed that her assailant was her sister. The Office of Truth had paid a handsome fee to her sister when her body was handed over, and their family business managed to pay off its debts and thrive again. In the Circuit of Destiny, Horatia was number 134.
Sandur was a shadow actor in the peninsular country of Feredan in the southwest. He was impressively tall, and completely hairless from head to toe. A sorcerer of unprecedented talent in the history of Feredan, he used his magic only for the stage, just as he had been taught. He had easily surrendered to the Empire and lived for four years in a house too small for him before his death by suicide. In the Circuit of Destiny, Sandur was number 182.
Dalan was the Host of the city of Danras in Mersia, the last ina long line. Understanding his fate when the Empire came to his country, he walked into the Imperial Capital of his own accord, but a year later was held under investigation by the Office of Truth and executed. His whispers carried the smell of the wooden tower in Arienne’s mind. In the Circuit of Destiny, Dalan was number 314.
And the Grim King of Mersia, Eldred… She knew his story all too well. In the Circuit of Destiny, he was number 328.
The whispers dug into Arienne’s mind. Each of them a famed sorcerer at one time, and now Power generator of the Circuit of Destiny. Trapped in a death that wasn’t death, watching over the world, taking in all that had happened.
Everything they had seen, heard, and predicted for the Empire, the destinies they created—all of it poured into Arienne, through her eyes, ears, and pores.
Arienne witnessed the Thiopsian Famine, which lasted three years and ended with a million dead. She suffered the Calidian Purge, where the defiant followers of the One God were massacred by the thousands by Powered war machines. She ran from the hounds of the Tanvalian prefect, goaded into the jungle to live like an animal. And more. The torment felt endless.
The backs of her eyes were hot. Something like tears or blood kept welling up there. These low whispers must have been screams unbearable to the mortal ear, when they were first unleashed onto Mersia all those years ago.
“Arienne! Can you hear me?”
Noam’s shouts felt even farther away than before. Arienne tried to hold on to her consciousness through the flood of stories.
“Noam,” she gasped, barely managing to speak. “How… is Tychon?” she gritted out.
“Asleep!”
“Wake him.”
“He won’t wake up! The whole building is about to fly away, but he’s still sleeping!”
But it was because the storm was so turbulent that he was fast asleep. Her mind was collapsing. Which in this moment was better than her body collapsing, because she still needed to continue on.
Arienne fought to stand up and then began limping down the stairs. Each step was an agony like nothing she’d ever suffered, but she willed herself to walk, and soon, she was running through the pain. Her knees and ankles hurt and her eyes were burning and her head felt like it was about to burst, but she went down the steps three at a time, seeing nothing in front of her but relying completely on the intuition of her feet. She knew she might die here. But she had to meet her first. She had to find Yuma, the Chief Herder of Danras.
Her feet met something hard quicker than she’d expected and she stumbled forward onto her hands and knees as the whispers and the visions came to a sudden stop. There were no more steps now, just a level floor. Arienne, with much difficulty, got to her feet again. She had broken something, but what she noticed was not the pain of a fractured bone, but the quiet. The air wasn’t sticky anymore. The orb around her neck was brighter than ever, but her vision was too blurry to make out anything.
Something at her feet sparkled in the light. Not the black of obsidian but a yellow. Arienne picked it up. Only after peering at it closely with her nearly blind eyes and touching it all over did she realize it was a broken crown. Gold entangled with bone…
“Noam, how are things now?”
He sighed. “Better. I thought we were going to die. But the building is fine now.”
“Wake Tychon.”
“He looks really tired—”
“Wake him. Tell him his mother is coming to see him.”
36
YUMA
The Host’s send-off feast, the final meal he would prepare for them, was strangely peaceful. Everyone said they would miss the Host, who had overseen their funerals and weddings and festivals, who had cooked for them and protected their city and orox herds from the Grim King, but no one tried to stop him. No one threw themselves across his path, begging him not to leave. The Imperial delegation arrived before their army, and a few of its members wasted no time in taking the Host and leaving Danras.
After the farewell, Yuma went back to her room in the Feast Hall, troubled and worried for the Host. He had said that, without the Grim King, Danras had no need for him anymore. But if the Host was no longer needed, was the Feast Hall? The Spear of Hope? That was when she noticed that the spear was missing from her room.
Yuma went to the Host’s room, to find the spear’s leather wrappings among the discarded ceremonial garb. Old Vella wasthere gathering her own things, as she no longer had a Host to take care of. Yuma asked Vella about the Spear of Hope, and the old attendant explained to her that the Host had taken it with him.
After Vella left the room, Yuma stood there looking at the feathered garbs abandoned in the corner. Something new was coming to Merseh, just as promised. But she had never thought it would be like this.
Not long after, a meeting was held concerning the absence of the Host. Bruden spoke of dividing the land outside of the city walls. From that summer onward, Imperial machines much like Fractica would cut, dry, and transport the tall grass for a small price. There was no more need for oroxen to be herded across Merseh. Herders no longer needed to live over half a year out on the steppe. They only needed to go out to the “ranches” in the mornings and come home in the evenings. Experienced herders would be given a share of the city’s common herd to work these ranches.
