“Councillor! You must be careful of how you speak from this moment on.”
A man’s voice. Emere turned and saw Cain standing there. Loran’s head also whipped toward his direction.
“Sleeping King, your turn is past. Do not interfere.”
Cain ignored Loran and spoke directly to Emere. “You must not set off the Star of Mersia again, Councillor. We cannot let monsters decide human destiny.”
How odd that sounded in this moment.Human destiny.A most Imperial choice of words. The Circuit of Destiny was made of humans, and made by humans. Wasn’t it a fine enough thing that it would be used by humans?
“Cain, I believe I am different from you. You told me you killed the man who tried to cause the Star of Mersia in the Imperial heartland. But I am already dying, and you are trapped inside here. You can’t stop me.”
“So you will really destroy the Imperial Capital, and with it millions of people who live in and around it?” Cain bristled with hostility.
Emere shook his head.
“Didn’t you hear me saying no to that already? One city turning into ash will not bring down the Empire, nor will it bring peace, even if that city is the Imperial Capital.” Emere paused. “No, I want to set off the Star of Mersia all over the world.”
“What?” Cain’s eyes widened behind his spectacles.
“Ludvik wanted to destroy Arland to set an example, but that would mean Mersia’s destruction a hundred years ago only led them back to the same place. Ludvik’s peace is one that eats countless lives every hundred years. Such peace is worse than war. I’ve seen enough of the world to know that much is true. The Empire has created the burden, but the whole world needs to carry it together.”
“Have you lost your mind? I can’t listen to this anymore. I will—”
Cain vanished without a chance to finish. Loran’s voice was heard.
“Prince Emere. You don’t have much life left. You must make a decision now.”
She was nowhere to be seen. “What’s happened to Cain?”
“We’ve banished him to a corner of our mind, for now. Do not worry, Prince Emere. Now is the time for you to be king.”
Emere smiled. The Circuit of Destiny, when it had first taken Loran’s form in his dream, had told Emere to become king. It had told him to reach out to the star. That was what he was going to do.
“You must know what I want now.”
“We do.”
Ludvik had wanted to destroy Arland and control the world through fear. But if the suffering and fury pent up in this place could be spread thinly throughout the world, the Empire’s rule would become precarious everywhere. Provinces would then join forces to resist the Empire. He had discovered this possibility—a glimmer of hope—when Loran and the Ebrians had come together to fight the Zero Legion.
Loran continued, “As you have decided, the future is clearer to us now. It will not be as quick and thorough as what happened to Mersia. The poison will take a million forms, each twisted figure filled with resentment and malice. Like earthquakes or hurricanes, they will come at unexpected times to unexpected places. The world will die slowly by a thousand pricks of our diluted pain, and suffering will be long. King Loran truly shall bring about the future Ludvik witnessed, as the spearhead of the world’s revenge upon itself.”
Emere managed to smile through the pain of his battered body. “The world will not die. No matter how great your history of pain and sorrow, it can’t be infinite. It is caused by man, so there must be an end to it. And I believe in King Loran.”
Loran, who had fallen from the sky like a blue comet. TheEbrians, who had charged fearlessly into a legion fortress of the Empire. And Rakel.
“I believe in the world.”
Emere was seized by a constriction in his body, and he fell to the ground. He tried to take up his staff to stand again, but his hands refused to move. His vision darkened. And soon, he could hear nothing. His last thoughts were of hope and of faith. And of Rakel.
41
ARIENNE
She left the Grim King’s castle and walked through the dusty red winds of the Mersian wasteland. Her sight had mostly returned, but she was too weak to walk without leaning heavily on Aron. But she now knew the way as well as anyone who had been born and raised in Mersia.
This was where the tall crystal grass grew. Shrews the size of two fingers made paths here with their little hands and snouts, running through the grass to eat the transparent grains that fell, as well as the insects. Those paths would be crushed when the orox herds passed, so herders would sprinkle grains for the shrews as a small penance.
Arienne guided Aron through a path trodden in the dirt. She needed to go westward. The road was not paved. As it had been for the past two hundred years, there was no one who had passed this way. The grass here had once been especially thick, with many shrubs as well. The shrubs did not have beautiful flowers or notablefruit, but they hosted vines of wild grape, the grapes themselves only a little larger than beans. The red grapes, which were unripe, led to stomach trouble. The ripe purple ones had been preserved in honey by the ancient Mersian children to spread on meat or to stuff in buns. Arienne reached out with her hands in the dimming light. Two centuries ago, her hands would’ve touched the grapevines.
