The carriage pushed forward along the granite road while I remained pressed close to the window, staring at the countryside in open wonder.
Some part of me wanted to jump up and announce that I had written all of this, although that probably would not have been the wisest thing to do with Ressa sitting directly across from me.
She was already watching me strangely, most likely wondering why I had spent the better part of an hour grinning like a maniac at fields and roads Yun had seen countless times before.
"I did not know you would be so devoted as to visit the temple, young master."
I turned to look at her.
"You have never once shown any interest in it before."
"I have never been this close to a Soul Trial before either."
Ressa looked at me quietly, her eyes wavering slightly as if she was trying to decide whether I was joking or simply losing whatever little sense Yun had supposedly possessed.
"Might as well get on his good side while I still have the chance," I added.
Her brows furrowed, and a small smile found its way onto my face.
Not that any prayer would help me. The god I was supposedly travelling to worship had been dead longer than House Claiom had been standing, and the whole arrangement felt a little backwards when Somnir would not even have existed, as far as I understood it, if I had not written him.
Ressa probably thought I was frightened of the coming Trial, and perhaps some part of me was, but the Trial was only one problem among far too many.
I was an Earthling through and through, perfectly satisfied with every comfort that world had provided, while this one had death and destruction waiting around every corner. I wanted no part of any of it, which was why my plan still depended almost entirely on finding the protagonist and moulding him from somewhere safely in the background.
He could do the fighting, suffering, and general saving of humanity. I would point him in the right direction and try very hard not to stand anywhere near whatever attempted to kill him next.
His original life had already been decided. He was supposed to lose his family to the Hollows pouring from the Rift that consumed his village, survive by the narrowest margin, then enter Reliqua Academy with a broken Aspect and claw his way through its ranks.
Yet even after everything I had put him through, I had never found a believable way for him to stop what was coming. That was why I abandoned the novel.
Now I had to make him capable of doing what I had never managed to write, and I still had no idea how.
We had been travelling through the Domain of Dream for most of the day, the countryside shifting gradually as Lucidia disappeared behind us. The capital stood closer to the Domain’s centre, while Mors lay far towards its edge, with the Temple of Dream only a short distance beyond it.
Every Domain had temples devoted to its god, although Dream was the least followed of the six faiths and had almost faded from the continent entirely. The only reason it still held a place beside the others was because House Claiom made certain that it did.
As the road grew quieter, a high spire emerged in the distance and stretched its shadow across the granite ahead of us. Apart from our guards and a few travellers, the secluded road leading towards it was almost empty.
"We are here," Ressa muttered.
"Have you come here before?" I asked, curious despite myself.
Her eyes drifted towards the temple in the distance.
"I did, a while back, young master. But it has been years."
"What brought you then?"
She was quiet for a moment, probably measuring her words before deciding whether she wanted to give them to me.
"Your mother," she said at last. "She never took to Somnir either. But she came anyway, when it mattered."
She did not say anything after that.
Neither did I.
There was more than one Temple of Dream scattered across and beyond the continent, but this had been the first.
The carriage stopped, drawing several looks when the people nearby noticed the Claiom sigil etched into its side. I followed Ressa outside and looked up at the structure waiting before us.
It resembled a castle assembled from a half-remembered dream, countless towers rising at uneven angles, each capped by a spire that twisted or leaned as though the builder had forgotten its shape halfway through. The stone held the pale colour of moonlight, close to the silver hair worn by nearly every Claiom.
Following Ressa and the escorts, I stepped inside a place entirely foreign to me. I had never described this temple, and even Yun’s memories had nothing to offer, which meant the world had filled in everything my words had left empty.
The thought made it harder to keep calling this place a novel. Whatever it might once have been to me, it had continued far beyond anything I wrote, filling itself with places, histories, and people I had never imagined.
The people crossing the temple grounds were real. Ressa walking beside me was real.
Knowing that should have been obvious, but understanding it and feeling it were proving to be two very different things. Some part of me still looked at everything around me and saw words on a page, even when the world kept giving me proof that it had never needed my permission to become more than them.
The heavy doors opened before us, and the temperature dropped the moment the walls closed around me. A high arched ceiling stretched overhead, painted like the night sky and scattered with points of light that cast a faint radiance across the darkness below.
Worn benches lined both sides of the hall, leaving an open aisle leading towards the statue at its end.
Somnir stood there as a lean, almost gaunt man, a long cloak falling behind him while one raised hand held an ivory horn whose wide end had darkened almost to black. His features were sharp, his hair unkempt, and his stone eyes seemed fixed on everyone who entered.
The God of Dream.
The world still worshipped him as though he were alive, but I knew he had died years ago alongside the others. I had never written exactly how it happened, only enough to know that he was gone.
A short, humourless laugh escaped me.
Ressa stopped before the statue and touched the back of her hand against her forehead, the gesture this faith had chosen for prayer. I followed her example, playing the role I had travelled all this way to perform.
Yet standing before a dead god made the plan waiting beyond these walls feel thinner than it had inside the carriage. The world was moving towards an ending I had never solved, and my only answer was to find one boy, point him towards the disaster, and hope he could survive everything I had once designed to break him.
For all the authority I supposedly held as this world’s creator, it was not much of a plan.
I lowered my hand and turned away from the statue.
"Shall we return now, young master?" she asked when she caught up.
I looked at her, still half lost somewhere inside my own thoughts.
"I was thinking we rest at Mors for the night. We can depart for the capital tomorrow."
I turned slightly towards the sun setting in the distance.
Ressa seemed to think it over, probably reaching the same conclusion I had, that it was only rational after a full day on the road.
"I will let the guards know," she said, already stepping away from me and moving towards them.
I remained where I was, looking out beyond the temple grounds.
Tomorrow, I would finally meet him.