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“They’ll call you a star. Your name means North Star, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t know that! I thought I was just a star.”
“You are a fool,” said Reason, spitting ash on the floor. Why is there ash in his mouth instead of spit? His black spit sealed the treasure-filled hiding place.
“What did you say?” Estella was offended when she heard the word “fool.” Who was he talking about?
“It’s all right, my dear, go ahead. We must get out of the throne room.”
“But my coronation is coming up!”
“It is no coronation for sure yet,” Reason glanced around. “You need to take me to the north tower. Come on!”
Estella felt like a coachman. It was as if the Reason were pulling her by the reins. And so they went. It guided her, showed her the way to her home castle. He was getting into her head. It’s cheeky of him, but convenient for someone who doesn’t want to think about anything herself. He thinks for her.
Reason’s claws were almost lusting over her curls.
“How beautiful you are, Princess.”
“What good would that do?”
“What do you mean? Don’t you value your beauty? Careful, it can be stolen by evil spirits.”
“Everyone laughs at me because I’m stupid.”
“What does a beautiful woman need a mind for?” He laughed suddenly. “It turns out that she does!”
Estella suspected something wrong when she looked at him in the wall mirror. Her mind pressed against her cheek like a gentle pussycat, but it looked like a demon.
“If you are my mind, why are you so ugly?”
“It is because beauty and intelligence are incompatible! Smart people are never beautiful.”
“But then you’re not my mind, you’re someone else’s. You were wrong about me.”
“You are fool,” he swung at her with his claws, but held himself back. “I am yours, you know!”
“And how do you know?”
“I can feel it.”
“You feel it? What do you mean?”
“Like you can feel your leg or arm, I can feel you.”
“But I can’t feel you unless you’re sitting on my shoulder.”
Estella grimaced. The small-sized Mind proved to be heavy. Her shoulder ached from the burden. She hesitated to ask it to step down. She hesitated to ask it to get off, or else it would be gone. Being left without a mind again was terrifying to her. And so she was teased for being a simpleton. Things must change when she had her mind.
“Thank you for showing up,” she thanked him. “It was too bad without you.”
“And you’re already beginning to get smart!” Mind clapped his hands cheerfully, and his claws squeaked. “Usually beauties are empty-headed, but you’re lucky, because you have me. With me you’ll be the greatest queen in the universe, just take my advice.”
Estella nodded obediently. Of course, it was unpleasant to know that your mind was as ugly as a demon. But there was nothing to be done. You have to put up with it. As he himself says, the mind is not meant to be beautiful.
“Aren’t you trying to get back inside my head?” Estella didn’t like the way he drove his sharp claws across the back of her head.
“No, just checking something,” his claws hooked the pendants of the crown. “If you only knew how hard it was for me to let go of my magical chains, to free myself and come back to you, you would have snuggled me now.”
“Was it hard for you, too, without me?” Estella rejoiced. It’s always nice to know you’re not the most deprived.
“Of course it is! As you’ve noticed, I’m very ugly, but a wise man. Together we’d make a great tandem. Just don’t tell anyone about me. Let them think I’m still enchanted. It’s a pity they took the magic out of your pretty little head, or I’d look so pretty. No one would ever have locked the doors of the ballroom or the feast room in front of me.”
“But you will be seen with me if you don’t get off your shoulder.”
“They won’t! As long as I sit on your shoulder I am invisible to others. And you can enjoy my wise counsel.”
“I already have one mentor.”
“Is it a stupid chaperone?”
“She’s smart. Don’t insult her!”
“You will be even smarter now.”
He whispered in her ear. His whisper was as hot as a dragon’s breath. Estella winced.
“Come, princess! With me you will be irresistible to court and invincible in war. Only listen to my advice!”
It’s a good thing Reason doesn’t have to be introduced as a tame monkey. No one really sees him.
There is some commotion among the courtiers. Reason has his black ears pricked up and listens.
“There will be no coronation!” He proclaimed. “This is no longer conjecture but fact.”
“Why should it be so?”
“War has been declared from Ravelin. The local king is convinced the girl must be removed from the throne.”
“Oh, he’s a scoundrel!” Estella clenched her fists.
“Don’t be so boisterous, mistress!” Reason cautioned. “You must behave yourself. Summon the army.”
“But Ravelin is the largest state north of us, famous for its torture chambers and dungeons.”
“And they are but men!” Mind clenched his black clawed fists. “And I…”
“Who are you?” said Estella, wary. “Aren’t you a non-human being? Oh, you mean a non-human mind?”
He chuckled softly, as if he were sprinkling ash around him.
“I am the mind of the wizard king’s daughter! I am above the human mind! You’ll see, with a mind like mine, no war is a serious threat to you!”
Magic in war
With Reason’s advice, raising an army was quick and easy. No one remembered that Ravelin was a mighty state. Everyone listened to the orders of a queen who had yet to be crowned. The coronation had to be postponed. War is out of order.
“I’m sure the scoundrel is plotting to take Aluar for himself by marrying the foolish heiress,” Reason snickered on the way. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Even without winning the war, he may propose to you and settle the dispute. Don’t agree to marry him.”
“I wasn’t going to! I didn’t think he was single,” she rode the white horse, which twitched its ears uneasily and winced at the presence of the beast on her shoulder.
“Horses don’t like us,” Reason complained.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean smart creatures,” he twisted away, though he was about to say something else. “Don’t pull on the reins so hard and loosen the girth.”
He climbed off her shoulder and finished the job for the groom. The horse had nearly had a heart attack at the touch of his claws. She relented, though, and Reason quickly returned to Estella’s shoulder.
“Keep ahead of the group!” He pointed and urged. “You lead the march!”
Estella panicked from afar at the sight of the countless army of the enemies. A forest of helmeted heads stretched as far north as the distant mountains.
“We need a dragon to win now!”
“Why didn’t you say so before! One is just sitting in your dungeons.”
“I thought you were my advisor, not the other way around.”
The princess’s guards looked at each other worriedly, seeing her muttering to herself. Estella belatedly remembered that they couldn’t see Reason, so she shrugged it off:
“I’m praying before the fight! Don’t mind me!”
The excuse about prayers bailed her out of the most ridiculous situations. The guards even respected the faithful princess.
Reason put his clawed little fingers in his mouth and whistled. The warriors murmured. The sound was like an omen of impending disaster.
“If the dragon doesn’t wake up and get here within the hour, he doesn’t hold me in high esteem,” Reason grumbled. “Then I’ll have to give him a sterner draft. He’s been so sleepy. Not long ago he was working for your father as a living furnace, burning prisoners and spies in his jaws. As soon as your father grew old and sick, the dragon became lazy.”
“I knew nothing of the dragon.”
“But you felt it. You have dragon’s blood, too,” Reason gently touched her chest with his claws, jabbing at the brooch, but his paw did not bleed. It appeared to be invulnerable. Estella gasped. This monster was about to become her hero.
He had not promised to win the war soon, either, as it turned out, for nothing. He didn’t need a dragon for his revenge, either.
Reason hissed a whisper, and the marching tents of the enemy’s troops went up in flames like matchsticks.
She opened her mouth in amazement.
“Don’t pursue your lips, or a moth will pop into them,” said Reason, chuckling, claws clawing at her shoulder.
“Aren’t you babbling witchcraft words?” Estella panicked when she heard the ominous words in his whisper.
“Why should you care how we win the war?” He grumbled angrily.
“No, I don’t. It’s all about winning it!”
“Bite your tongue while I work! I am working hard to help you. And you call me a sorcerer!”
“I’m sorry!” Estella watched in horror as a black storm rose from the ground on the battlefield, as if triggered by Reason’s hiss. Where it passed, enemy warriors pounced to fight each other, as if they had become blind and could not distinguish friend from foe. And Reason claims he’s no warlock! She finds that hard to believe.
“Don’t worry, I won’t send my Reason away just because it’s witchcraft,” Estella tried to reassure him, but Reason wouldn’t hear her. He hissed strange, incomprehensible words that caused the ground between the two armies to open up, and the bony arms of the dead began to stick out.
Estella cried out in horror, and her horse sprang to a halt.
“Enough is enough!” Reason clicked its black claws. It made the ground between the Ravelin’s and the Aluar’s armies smooth again. And a moment ago there was a pit in it.
“Who were they?”
“What do you mean?” Reason didn’t understand.
“They came out of the ground.”
“They were the skeletons of warriors who had fallen in a former battle.”
“What old battle? We haven’t even started the first one yet.”
“Do you think this is the first time kings have fought on this field?”
“I don’t know,” Estella frowned.
The damage inflicted on someone else’s army forced King of Ravelin to negotiate.
“We haven’t raised the white flag yet, but we’d like to negotiate peacefully,” the counselor, who had approached Estella with the royal delegation, ingratiated. He seemed to think she was a witch, for he trembled shakily as he addressed her. She ought to tell him she hadn’t been conjuring, but she would have to denounce Reason in front of everyone. It would be indelicate.
“You are, of course, the daughter of the Wizard King, and his spirit is clearly protecting you,” the Counselor said curtly. “But, think, what is it like for a woman to rule alone? You need a lively protector in the form of a royal consort.”
“What did I tell you?” Reason clawed at Estella’s hair and pulled the strands tight. “Don’t dare to agree! Do you understand?”
She couldn’t even nod, so hard he tugged at her curls.
The King of Ravelin looked at her with admiration. He was an attractive young man, but the silver half-mask on his face frightened her away. It was the kind worn by victims of alchemical experiments who mutilated themselves. Knights are usually proud of their battle scars.
“A dragon burned me,” the King said, catching her gaze perplexed as he removed the mask. He hadn’t done so in a long time, it seemed, because his counselor gasped in astonishment. Estella didn’t like the sight of the poisonous burn, either. It crossed the king’s eye and cheek, disfiguring the attractive face.
“The dragon was small, the size of an elephant. Not the size for a dragon. But he broke into the palace to rob my treasury, and I got in his way.”
“And now you wish to replenish your treasury at the expense of mine?” Estella merely repeated the words Reason whispered, but the King of Ravelin blushed to his ears.
