by Kova, Elise
“How do you feel?” That was the most important thing in Vi’s mind.
“I don’t feel much of anything,” Fiera said lightly, resting her fingertips on the back of Vi’s hand and drawing their attention to the glyph around her wrist. “Likely because of these. Are they difficult to make and maintain?”
“Not really, not when you get used to them. I imagine it’s much like the wall of flame you kept to protect the sword.” The mere mention of the sword soured and silenced her. If only she’d done something more. She should’ve taken it herself and left Fiera to fate. Her staying had done no one good.
As Vi silently admonished herself, the tent went up and the three huddled in the shade.
“You should rest,” Deneya said to Fiera.
“We all should.” Fiera laid back, trying to make room. Neither Vi nor Deneya moved to take it. Within moments, she was out.
“Relax your halleth,” Deneya instructed Vi. “You should recover some of your magic as well.”
“So should you.”
“Once I know she’s deeply asleep, I will.”
Vi did as she was told and they both watched Fiera. The woman didn’t even stir. Deneya relaxed one of her glyphs as well. Fiera groaned slightly in her sleep, but otherwise, no change.
“I can keep this one.” Deneya held up her arm. “Let her get some good rest. I healed most of her tissue… so what’s taxing her should only be the physical and mental exhaustion.”
Vi looked at Fiera for a long moment and then turned back to Deneya. She didn’t want to see the once strong woman so frail. “Thanks for healing her. I’m apparently shite with mending skin.”
Deneya chuckled. “It’s more of an art, that’s for sure.”
Vi drew her knees up to her chest, pulling them close and resting her chin on them. She stared out at the desert. In the middle of the day, the Waste was blindingly bright.
“I shouldn’t have let her come,” Vi murmured, thinking back to her conversation with Fiera on the birthing bed.
“Why did you? I didn’t question before, but now I’d like to know.”
“She’s studied the crystals, more than I have, with books I didn’t even think to search for.” If there was a next time… She dared think the words. She would be sure to tell Taavin to tell the next Champion to seek out tomes from the Burning Times. Perhaps her instincts to manipulate the crystals were right. She just needed to go in a different direction. “She can make a barrier that I’m hoping will be enough to keep the Knights of Jadar and anyone else out of the Caverns. If no one gets into Raspian’s tomb, no one meddles with it and he’s never set free.”
“She doesn’t look like she’s in a position to do much of anything.” Deneya sighed. “I hope she’ll make it.”
“Me too.” Vi still couldn’t look back at the woman and mother she still felt like she’d condemned to death. Raylynn would grow up without a mother because of her. Now… if Vi wasn’t careful, this world’s Aldrik would as well. Her hand had struck the chords of fate and there was dissonance all around.
“I’ll take first watch and give the horses some water.” Deneya stood. “You should get some sleep.”
Vi didn’t object. She laid back, wiggling as close as she could to Fiera in the small tent without disturbing the woman. They were face to face, and Vi reached out. With just the side of her pinky, she touched Fiera’s open palm. The woman slept on.
I’m sorry, Vi mouthed the words, not daring to say them aloud. She was sorry for so much that Fiera had and would endure. Sorry for what, regardless of what Taavin said was fated, she felt like she was taking from the world—taking from Aldrik.
But if this worked… Perhaps it would all be worth it.
Perhaps Fiera could yet be right.
* * *
Before the dawn of the second day, they crossed into the South. Shrub trees grew up from the Waste. Stubborn grasses became pine-carpeted forests as the canopy stretched higher and higher above them.
Vi still felt a rush tingling through her as the first blustery wind caught her cape, sending it flapping behind her.
“Lyndum,” she whispered.
“Pardon?” Deneya asked quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping woman leaned against her. The horses were moving slower now, due to exhaustion and the new terrain. Snowbanks were in the distance, their vast, blinding whiteness as fascinating as it was unnerving to Vi.
They were out of the harshness of the desert, but stepping into a frosty world Vi had never known.
“This was supposed to be my home in another world,” Vi confessed. “But I’ve never come here before.”
“Just who were you in this other world?”
Vi looked to Fiera. The woman’s head was tipped back and her jaw hung open. She slept more than she was awake. But every time she woke she seemed stronger than the last.
“Her granddaughter,” Vi admitted. “Well, the grandmother of a woman very much like her. I know that’s likely impossible to believe but—”
“I don’t really think so,” Deneya interrupted. “You have the same face.”
Vi chuckled softly. “Everyone told me so. Now I got to see it for myself and… I don’t know, we seem different enough. She’s stronger than I am.”
“Self-doubt doesn’t suit you.”
“Maybe it’s not so much doubt as it is finally being honest with myself about my own limitations?”
Deneya clicked her tongue. “Humility, reasonableness, they’re good traits. Can’t argue, won’t argue. But… I’ve seen a shift in you these past few days. You were so self-assured. Now you seem like you’re doubting each step you take.”
“Failure has a high price, and I’m paying it.” She had some hesitations now, what was the harm in it? “Taavin was right this whole time and I didn’t listen. I might not be able to make up for it now… nonetheless, I’m trying to be more careful.”
“Take care in deciding where to step, so when you do, you’re certain of your path,” Deneya advised. “You keep looking back. Those decisions have been made and the ink in the history books is already dry. Keep your eyes forward.”
Vi nodded, twisting the reins in her fingers. Deneya was right: forward was the only path for them now. Forward into the snowdrifts that stretched across the forest floors from the last vestiges of winter. Forward to the place where every line of fate collided.
“Now, how much longer until we’re at this town you mentioned?”
“Mossant? If we push, we might get there before the day is done.”
“Good, I’d like a bed.”
There wasn’t much conversation for the rest of the day. Each of them was dead tired. The inside of Vi’s thighs ached and her fingers had gone numb. They’d prepared for the Waste, but Vi hadn’t packed appropriately for snow and cold.
In Mossant they restocked and slept at an inn for a night. The horses had time to rest and be fed properly. They were warm and safe. It was the best possible thing for them right before their final push to the Caverns.
The main road in and out of Mossant lead to the Great Imperial Way. That was the road they had come in from. But the road they left on was far less maintained.
It was more of a hunting path. Branches reached out for them, trying to snag on their packs and clothes. The overgrowth was annoying and, to Vi, oddly comforting. Had a group of Knights come trudging through, they would’ve left their mark on the frail branches. The absence of any such tracks meant they were still ahead of the Knights—for now.
That night, they laid eyes on the entrance to the Crystal Caverns. They came to a stop at the edge of a ridge. Switchbacks led down to a valley where Vi could see they curved up and around once more to a narrow cliff.
“So, that’s it, then,” Deneya spoke first. Her breath appeared as a cloud in the fading light of day.
“That’s been the cause of my family’s shame…” Fiera murmured. The birth hadn’t been too hard on her—or Lightspinning was far superior to Waterrunners and clerics
of the Dark Isle—and the Empress was far more alert after staying at the inn than she had been in days.
Set into the mountain face was a large, pointed archway carved directly into the stone. It was a gaping hole that Vi suspected was positively massive up close. Carvings of wyrms and men surrounded the archway.
Raspian.
A shiver ripped through her. She could almost feel his presence curdling in her stomach like cream mixed with vinegar. She felt the edge of his magic in the air like red electricity right before it collected into a bolt of lightning.
“How could anyone see this as something to tamper with?” Vi mused aloud.
“Men are ambitious fools,” Fiera said dryly.
“Judging from the snow, we’re still ahead of them,” Deneya observed. She sounded as uncomfortable as Vi. “Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The moon had just risen when they arrived at the entrance on foot. Their horses were tied off down the mountain, behind some large rocks and out of sight. Vi used kot to hide their footprints once more.
Deneya went in first, followed by Fiera. Vi approached the entrance but stopped, hovering where the snowdrift met the stone pathway within. An invisible force pushed outward like the dying sigh of a dragon. She stared up at the icicles that lined the top of the archway, imagining they were teeth. Imagining they might come crashing down on her at any moment.
“Yullia?” Deneya called back. “Is everything all right?”
Nothing was right about this place. “I’m fine.”
Vi crossed the threshold. The moment her boot met the crystal-dusted floor of the Caverns, turquoise magic pulsed outward like a ripple in water. She felt magic ebb and flow from her as ripples reverberated all over the stones, bouncing off each other, reaching every corner. They illuminated the magical veins in the walls, columns of crystal becoming sources of light.
“What did you do?” Deneya asked.
“I don’t know.” Vi shook her head and took another step forward. This time, there were no other pulses of magic.
“Well, now we have some light, at least.” Fiera gave a slow turn. “It’s large enough to fit a palace in here…”
Now that she could see properly, Vi assessed the Caverns. A pathway had been cut through the center—perhaps it had been made that way from the beginning—leading to another smaller archway. The ceiling was so high above them that it was merely a hazy blue, motes of Yargen’s magic falling toward them like snowflakes.
“A palace of death,” Deneya muttered.
“What?”
“Don’t you feel it?” Deneya asked Fiera. Vi could. “This place… it’s wrong.”
“Wrong or right… let’s set up this barrier.” Vi turned to Fiera. The faster they could get out of here, the better. Perhaps, if they moved quickly enough, they could get out of sight before the Knights arrived and there would be time yet to return Fiera to the West. Vi’s heart skipped a beat, nearly tripping her on hope.
“Let’s go farther in.” Fiera pointed to the inner archway. “I need a smaller opening to attach the barrier to. I can’t just make it in the air and the main entrance is too large.”
“All right,” Vi agreed, solely to buy herself time to think. She needed to protect the Caverns—to prevent people from entering entirely. If Fiera needed something to attach the barrier to, then perhaps she could use juth calt to collapse the archway? If she did that, then—
“What’s that?” Deneya asked, taking a few hasty steps forward.
They’d crossed into another antechamber, smaller, but the crystals were larger here. They felt older. Their power ran even deeper below the earth, to a realm beyond Vi’s perceptions.
Deneya squeezed through the center of two massive stone doors, barely pulled open.
“What’s in there?” Vi called.
“I don’t know,” Deneya’s voice echoed back.
Vi and Fiera shared a look before they proceeded up a few stone stairs and into the final chamber of the Crystal Caverns.
Here, crystals spiraled outward from a center point. They were embedded into the stone and glowed faintly, a dull thrum of power brightening and dulling with every step Vi took around the perimeter. The stones at the edge of the area were three times the size of her, brought to wickedly sharp tips.
She walked to the center of the room, crouching down and running her fingertips over the ground where all the magic seemed to pool together. Deep below the stone, encased in a place that was only partly anchored in this world, was an evil she knew by name. Vi slowly stood, backing away from that deep and rumbling pulse that made her tremble.
“The doors will do,” she declared. “This is the source of it all. This is where the true power lies.” She looked to Deneya. “This is where Raspian is trapped and where no man must reach.”
“Raspian?” Fiera repeated, understandably confused.
“A dark god,” Vi answered, starting for the doors once more. She didn’t want to linger longer than necessary. It felt as if any moment the ground would crack and Raspian would reach through the mantle of the earth to consume her and all of Yargen’s power whole. “The one thing we must ensure is never set free.”
Fiera narrowed her eyes slightly at her. Out of everything, this was what made her skeptical. Vi finally found the limits of what Fiera’s mind was willing to accept.
“Let’s close the doors to this room and seal them.” Vi wondered if the doors had been sealed once before. Perhaps King Jadar had been the one to find a way to open them with his captive Windwalkers. “Denja, help me?”
“What about the other crystals? Those out here?”
“I think… the Crystal Caverns were originally just this room and, over time, the magic spread to take over the whole cave,” Vi mused. “The crystals are older and older the further we go back. But the crux of it all is here. This is what we have to protect.”
Back in the second antechamber, Vi and Deneya faced the doors.
“Kot, at the same time, then?” Deneya asked.
Vi nodded.
Together, they uttered, “Kot sidee.” It felt as though someone pulled a rope through her chest as the magic came toward her. Vi took a step backward, watching her glyph crash against the other side of the door in tandem with Deneya’s. The heavy stone groaned loudly, and closed with a heavy thud.
“Will this work for your barrier?” Vi asked Fiera.
The woman was in a daze, staring blankly at the room they’d just been in. She took a step forward and, for one second, Vi thought she was about to ask them to open it once more. Vi saw the same hunger in her eyes that she’d seen in Tiberus: hunger for power.
“Can you make a barrier over the doors?” Vi asked again, gently resting her hand on Fiera’s shoulder.
“Wh—oh, yes, I think I can.” Fiera blinked several times, as though the world was coming back into focus.
“Show me how to do it.”
“I usually have the sword for it…” Fiera started uncertainly. After they’d sprinted across half of the continent, now was not the time to hesitate.
“There are a lot of crystals here. Perhaps you can show me the motions using the magic of those instead.” Vi encouraged her to continue.
“With the sword, I imagined the power imbuing the stone the Groundbreakers had built. It knotted with their magic and reinforced it. As though the sword was the pin holding every magical chain together.”
Vi could imagine it. But imagining something and putting it to practice were two very different things. And there were obvious gaps in Fiera’s summary.
“How did you do it?” Vi pressed.
“It’s hard to explain. Magic… appeared in my mind. Something I can’t make sense of—like a Crone speaking in tongues. But the sword was what helped me make sense of it all.”
Crossing over, Vi took the woman’s hand in hers, giving it a squeeze.
“The sword isn’t here now. But I am, and I will help you,” Vi vowed. “I kn
ow this magic, too. In a different way from you. But together, we can do this.”
Fiera opened her mouth in hesitation, then gave a small nod, abandoning any protest.
Together, they strode up to the door, standing at its right side. Fiera timidly rested her hand on one of the large crystals. Vi mirrored the motion, closing her eyes, and allowing herself to feel the magic within.
“Come to me,” Fiera whispered, her voice thin and almost afraid. “Mother, come to me.”
Vi tried to feel the magic seeping up from her marrow as she’d practiced, meeting the crystal under her palm. She drew on the crystal, allowing it to fill her, allowing it to be a catalyst. Yargen was within her. If Fiera had faith in the goddess, then so would Vi. She would entrust her mind and her actions into Yargen’s hands.
The stone drew her closer and Vi breathed, “Thrumsana,” her lips nearly touching the smooth crystal as though she had been subconsciously about to kiss it.
Magic flooded her. It swelled up from the crystal and ripped through her. Vi was helpless to the currents and allowed herself to be pulled along them. There was sound, but not of the same sort the first time she’d used the word. This was not the chaos that had assaulted Taavin.
A thrumming disturbed her thoughts. Vi opened her eyes once more to find Fiera drawing lines of flame along the door. But rather than burning orange, they burned blue.
“Fiera…” Vi whispered in awe.
The woman held out her left pinkie, swirling it through the air, as though she were a spinner drawing magic onto the spool. With the index finger of her right hand, she drew across the door. Lines and circles, interconnecting. The flames burned low and bright, lingering long after she finished them.
Vi quickly stepped around to Fiera’s other side. She grabbed one crystal with her left hand and took Fiera’s magic spinning hand with her right. Fiera looked at her a moment, her trance-like state startled.
“Keep going,” Vi encouraged. “Let me be a catalyst for you.”
Fiera nodded and then turned back to the door as though she was facing off against a great opponent. She took a deep breath, and threw herself back into her countless lines of flame. Vi drew out the crystal’s powers just as she had practiced all those nights with the sword. But when Vi had extracted the crystal’s magic before, she hadn’t known what to do with it. Fiera did. So she funneled the magic through her and into Fiera.
