Sometimes you move from story to story. Sometimes you ponder for hours over the smallest details, and sometimes a place you visit becomes the starting point for a whole universe—where you understand for the first time that all those stories, all those characters, and all those creatures were all part of one world. Where you understand at last that all those many hours and all those many ideas became a world. A vast world, large enough to contain countless tales, exciting adventures, riddles, and unknown places to discover; a world of established regions with many peoples and rich histories. A world that feels lived-in, one that has been deeply explored and yet still has so much new to offer.
This place of mine that helped me connect the pieces is called Brahehus, in Sweden. It was once a grand, symmetrical Renaissance manor, but now it is a haunting shell of weathered grey stone—a ruin perched high above a massive, shimmering Lake Vättern. I really don’t know what it was that gave me the shivers upon arriving. The roof has long since vanished, leaving the interior open to the elements. Hollow, arched window frames pierce the thick stone ramparts, acting like empty picture frames that capture the shifting clouds and the drama of the horizon. And when I looked from the cliffside windows, the world dropped away. Looking outside, you are met with a dizzying, panoramic view of a deep blue lake, and miles of endless, rolling green fields and forests below. Yet, there I was standing on the rocky, uneven ground, the wind howling through the open stone doorways, feeling entirely cut off from the modern world. Its heavy, melancholic beauty transformed my vision. I was in the castle, looking out of those windows, seeing hundreds of swordsmen fighting their way up, while the old master of this house looked down on them, stoically awaiting his doom. He kept repeating to his steward: ‚Let them come.‘
