Chapter 29
ARIENNE
Aron, despite the donkey’s long occupancy in Arienne’s mind, seemed not in the least surprised by the dramatic change in scenery as he stepped outside for the first time in a long while. He simply brayed once and clomped about Arienne for a bit.
The sky was as gray and the earth as red as when Arienne had first arrived in Danras.
With Fractica now unmoving, the wind was the only thing that could be heard.
To her, this was no longer a field of warped ruins where a monster roamed.
With the poor Power generator laid to rest, the ruins in Arienne’s eyes settled into what they truly were—a devastated landscape where many people had once lived.
A desiccated leather sign for a shop swayed in the wind, its letters long rotted away.
She imagined what it must’ve been like before, now that she could give herself a moment to do so.
“That was a butcher shop where they sold orox meat,” Noam said.
“A long time ago, I mean longer than when I was alive, herders spent months outside of the city making sure the oroxen grazed all summer and autumn. When I lived here, the oroxen were in fenced ranches, and there were much fewer than there used to be.”
Noam’s voice, as he explained from the room in her mind, was tinged with longing.
When she had dreamed on her journey to Danras, the hooves of countless oroxen had reverberated in the air.
A woman with braided hair, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, had ridden a tall horse and opened that year’s herding season.
In Fractica’s dream, Arienne had now met that woman—Yuma, the last Chief Herder of Danras.
“Let’s go,” she suddenly said.
“Where?”
“Where do you think? Eldred’s castle. She told us the real Yuma would be there. Do you know the way?”
“Northward … But it was turned into a legion fort. Not that it’d be anything at all now.”
Arienne took a firm grip on Aron’s reins. “Good. Then there’s no one to stand in our way.”
They had to leave the city and step out into the wasteland once more, so Arienne wrapped her head and lowered her hood. She slowly walked north down the wide street. Aron placidly followed, and she heard Noam softly singing the Ebrian lullaby to the baby.
The northern gates were so wide open that Arienne rolled her eyes at herself for not having entered this way when she first arrived. But outside of the gates was the devastated steppe again. How was she to feed Aron? They had arrived in Danras only days ago, but he already seemed a bit gaunt.
They were not close enough to see Eldred’s castle, but true to Imperial standards, the likely presence of a military outpost was indicated by the traces of a relatively well-paved road. Surely at the end of it was the fortress.
“How far do we have to walk?” she asked Noam.
“I don’t know. Several days? Mersia is a big country.”
She would have to spend several nights in the wasteland before her then.
When she had spent her first night here, the fear had been paralyzing.
But she didn’t feel that way anymore. This was once a great grassland after all, where Yuma and her fellow herders had once fed their vast orox herd.
Just the thought of that past dispelled her fear.
“Let’s make haste, then. Tell me more about this country on the way. About Mersia after the annexation.”
“Okay, but you know I don’t remember too well,” said Noam.
She scoffed, “Oh, I doubt you could ever forget the equinox feasts at the Sun Mound. All that dancing and singing! That tradition had survived, hadn’t it?”
Staring at Arienne, Noam replied, “Actually, yes, I do remember that. I hadn’t realized I did, until you mentioned it. But you say it like you’ve been there.”
Hadn’t she? But of course she hadn’t been to the feasts. She wasn’t there. She hadn’t even been born yet. But then why was she remembering? Perhaps the ghosts had left bits and pieces of their earthly lives inside her mind. Was that possible?
Arienne left Danras through the gates, heading back into the wasteland of burnt red.
She walked until Danras was no longer visible, swapping memories with Noam all the way.
Time flew by as she talked about Mersia and a Danras she somehow remembered with fondness.
She loved the Mersia before the Empire, and she loved the one after.
Recollecting her false memories, she found herself longing for this country’s past as if it were her homeland.
The wind was calming down. When she sat to rest, Arienne undid the cloth that covered her face and took a deep breath.
The air was dusty and dry, but she knew now that it had once been fragrant with the smell of grass.
She took out a piece of hard bread from the packs on Aron’s back.
Feeling Aron’s stare like a sting, she shared the bread and what little water she had left with him.
She was on her feet before even swallowing her last bite, walking again.
Noam sang as she walked, and listening carefully, she could just about hear Tychon’s soft breathing. Her mood lifted.
Evening came. Arienne could see nothing but wasteland in every direction.
It was like being in the middle of the ocean where there was nothing to orient oneself.
There were only the remains of the road the Empire had paved.
She walked a little farther by the light of her lantern, and stopped once she found a small outcropping to tie Aron’s reins to.
She unloaded the donkey, and as she spread out her bedding, Noam said, “You’re going to sleep here, where there’s nothing? ”
“There’s nothing everywhere here.” Arienne shrugged.
“Come inside the room.”
She would’ve if Tychon were the only inhabitant. Her body outside might shiver, but the room in her mind had a soft, warm bed. But there was a man she barely knew in that room now.
She laid herself down on the bedding, feeling the hard ground underneath. “I don’t think so,” she grumbled. “If you weren’t a ghost, I would’ve kicked you out to sleep out here while I slept peacefully in there.”
“If I’m what’s bothering you, why don’t you make another room?”
This made her sit up. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She crossed her legs and warned, “There might be a bit of shaking. Let me know right away if anything seems wrong.”
Of course she could make another room. But why stop there? What if she made something bigger? Like a house? Or a large building, like the prefect’s residence or the Imperial Academy?
Then she thought of a large wooden building made of logs.
Where had she seen this before? Every aspect appeared in perfect detail in her mind.
She captured it all. The smell of slightly damp wood, the wall decorations made of animal horn, the staircase that wrapped around the outside of the building, the intricate dovetailing of the steps …
A smell of steamed buns and flowers. Tychon’s babbling.
Power glowed with warmth through her whole body.
Floor by floor, Arienne constructed this building that she had never seen in her life but somehow recalled with perfect clarity.
On the eaves of each floor, she hung countless wind chimes of colored glass bells and beads on leather strings.
She’d always liked them. Or had she? Arienne couldn’t remember the last time she’d noticed them anywhere.
Her head ached slightly, but she concentrated hard.
It was a beautiful, tall building. Focusing on the smell of unfamiliar wood, Arienne made walls, fitted corridors, and furnished rooms.
“How does it look?” Arienne asked.
They were standing on the roof of the building. The sky in her mind was as gray as the one over the real Mersia, and Noam stood with the baby Tychon in his arms. Arienne went to the ledge and peered down.
Noam stared around them. “What is this building?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you create a whole building you don’t know?”
“I … don’t know.”
It was extraordinary. She kept recalling the details within, but the one thing she could not recall was ever having seen the place.
“Noam, you don’t know of this place either?”
Noam glanced around and answered, “No, not from the rooftop, anyway. But a building this size, and with native, non-Imperial architecture, and those wind chimes … could be the Feast Hall from before the Empire. I heard they took it down and replaced it with the prefect’s office, some years into the annexation. ”
The ghosts of Mersia. This building came from another memory they had left behind.
“There should be a sounding horn here,” she murmured.
A large horn appeared where she pointed, an instrument she had never seen in her life.
She couldn’t even tell what animal the horn had come from.
But the engravings of stars and curlicues of wind were as familiar to her as if she’d played with the horn since she was a child.
She walked up to the horn as if enchanted, touching the mouthpiece.
She turned to Noam. He could only stare at her.
Arienne put her lips to the mouthpiece and blew.
A loud, clear sound. As if a veil had been lifted, the sky turned blue-black and thousands of stars appeared.
A gust of wind rustled her hair. She heard chimes, ringing and rattling in the wind, from the eaves below.
The stars were moving quickly toward somewhere, flowing like the rush of a waterfall.
Arienne could not take her eyes off the sight.
Soon, the stars had all flowed away save for one—the polestar that pointed north. Then other stars returned, first a handful, then a whole river of them, swirling around the polestar. Arienne looked at Noam, who was gaping at the sky. He caught her eye.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. I’ve never heard of anything like this. What kind of a sorcerer are you?”
“… I really don’t know.”
Maybe the inside of this Feast Hall would offer more insight.
She took her eyes off the sky and made her way to the staircase that coiled along the outside of the building.
The stars were the only light, but she knew where each stair was supposed to be.
Noam followed, still carrying Tychon. They got to a landing, where she pointed to a door and said, “You can go in here. There’s a bed inside. Get some rest.”
Noam said nothing as he opened the door. As he stepped inside, Arienne grabbed his shoulder.
“I’ll take Tychon.”
She lifted him from Noam’s arms, and the baby nuzzled into her embrace. The air did seem a little chilly. She continued farther down until there was another door. She knew what was inside—a spacious room, a comfortable bed, a closet, pegs to hang hats, a stove, and a saddle rest.
Also, a rocking cradle.
Arienne stepped inside. The stove cozily lit the room, and she felt its warmth. Arienne carefully laid the baby down in the cradle, which was just a few steps away from the stove. Then, she read aloud the roughly engraved words on the head of the cradle.
“‘Tychon, firstborn of Lysandros and Yuma.’”