But there were no crystal grasses here, or shrews or orox or grapes. No herders to sprinkle grain, no children to marinate the grapes in honey. Arienne kept walking. She stumbled and leaned on Aron and, unable to sustain her weight, both of them fell. Arienne stroked Aron’s flank. The donkey’s once plump fat was gone, and she could feel his ribs underneath.
She unloaded her bedding and her other clothes, as well as what few provisions she had left, tossing them on the ground. Then, she drew Aron back up on to his feet and continued to walk. The sun was setting. But she didn’t care whether it was night or day anymore. She knew, now, there was nothing in Mersia that would hurt her.
She stopped. This was a spot where the sounds of the insects would’ve been like music. Where the blades of the grass would’ve gently scratched her, leaving white streaks on her tanned skin.
“Chief Herder, this is the place, right?”
“Yes,” said a voice inside the tower in her mind. “This is the place.” Her voice was clearer than it had been back in the castle of the Grim King.
“Noam, let me know if there is anything strange.”
“I shall!” He sounded nervous but hopeful at the same time.
Arienne adjusted Yuma’s hat on her head and thought of when she had built the wooden tower—the Feast Hall—in her mind,when she had gone up to the roof and blown the horn. Tychon opened his eyes. Into her sick and exhausted body, Power of overwhelming magnitude entered. She looked up at the sky. The gray clouds were the same as when she had first arrived here.
Arienne, with what strength she had left, shouted her cutting spell at the clouded sky. Power exploded from her mouth and pressed her from all sides as it spread out all around her. The cloth covering her face was ripped to pieces. A fearsome wind blew in all directions, and the clouds that covered the sky parted like a sleeper’s eyelids opening. She could hear the crystal ringing of the wind chimes of the Feast Hall in her mind. A clear black sky appeared above her, as did countless stars. And there in the northern sky was the shining polestar.
The stars moved. They swirled around the polestar and fell, like a waterfall, over her. Starlight filled the world around Arienne, lighting up the space around her like day.
Arienne closed her eyes and imagined the fields of crystal grass, the paths of the shrews, the shrubs and vines, the insects… Her mind opened its eyes and soared toward Danras. Grass that grew as tall as children. The sound of orox hooves. Herders on horseback, returning to Danras. A large carriage pulled by oroxen, smoke issuing from its chimney. And there were the log city walls, unmelted, straight and beautiful and high, with the gates of Danras in the middle of them. People in the streets greeted the herders, surrounded by houses with leather awnings and leather roofs.
Far away from Danras but as clear as everything else in Arienne’s mind, Lansis and Iorca, the sister cities of Danras, were there too. Every cool droplet splashing from the Lansisi Gate of Water that nourished all who passed through it, and every pluckof the whispering lutes that carried the greatest of Iorcan poetry for miles—Arienne remembered it all for the first time in her life.
The ghosts that lingered were coming home. All the souls that could not bear to part with their land, be that the cities of Merseh or the Imperial province of Mersia, rediscovered their shapes in Arienne’s mind. For the first time in a hundred years or more, they lived again.
Arienne was on a horse, galloping through the Mersian steppe in her mind. Yuma, in a wide-brimmed hat and leather chaps, rode next to her on a horse as red as a blaze. Aston. In the front of Yuma’s saddle hung a small basket secured with leather straps, and inside the basket was Tychon. One of his little hands popped out of the basket. Arienne looked back. Noam was riding on the carriage, looking around him in wonder. He saw Arienne looking and waved and clapped. Arienne’s mind’s eye floated up again, taking in the whole of Danras, engraving it into her memory so she would never forget it.
Her mind filled with not a room or a building but a whole country. So as not to be overwhelmed by the incredible scale of it, she leaned on all the Power being given to her by Tychon and by the starlight, willing herself not to lose consciousness, straining to capture every rock in the mountains and blade of grass on the steppe. The memories given to her by the ghosts of Mersia, by the Host in the Circuit of Destiny, even by the Grim King Eldred, she must not forget a shred of it…
“Lady Arienne.”
She was outside of her mind once more. The clouds had returned, the starlight gone back into the sky. Her head felt stuffy, as if Yuma’s hat had suddenly become heavier.
“Lady Arienne.”
Yuma’s voice. She was calling to her from her mind. Arienne entered it, arriving in the place on the steppe filled with crystal grass, where the starlight had fallen as if poured from the sky. This was what the place Arienne was standing in now had once looked like. The insects softly chirped in the grass. The stars were slowly returning to the sky. Yuma stood there, hugging the basket with Tychon in it. She tipped her hat and spoke, her voice brimming with joy.
“Merseh thanks you, Lady Arienne, for restoring it… restoring us.”
“But this Merseh exists only in my mind.”
Yuma smiled at her.
“Lady Arienne. Do you know whose crown it is on your belt?”
“It belonged to Eldred, the Grim King.”
“Yes. But it is now yours. You are the king of this new Merseh. You have saved this country from the destruction wrought by the Empire and the Grim King. Even if this country exists only in you… the people here, their thoughts, and the history, are as real as the blighted wasteland outside.”
The prophecy was fulfilled. Arienne found herself suddenly weeping, perhaps from the sheer weight of the moment, or perhaps from the incredible headache that now plagued her. Arienne took the crown from her belt, handed it to Yuma, and bowed her head. Yuma placed the crown on Arienne, on top of her wide-brimmed hat.
“Our people who have been stuck wandering the wastelands and ruins are coming back. One by one, they shall live again in the country in your mind… Your Majesty.”
Arienne pressed the crown farther onto her head and nodded.
Yuma became solemn. “Before the starlight disappears, swear to us. That as long as you shall live, as the King of Merseh, you will protect the country and these people in your mind.”
“I swear,” said Arienne, also solemn.
