Vortex Chronicles: The Complete Series (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles)

by Elise Kova

  Vi had anticipated the query, and thought of a number of angles from which to answer it. There was doubling down on her threat. Commanding him outright. Telling him some part of the truth of her visions. Or… a lie that may hit a little too close to home after what Ellene had told her.

  “It’s…” She forced her voice to go soft, looking away from him. The guilt for the lie wasn’t as overwhelming then as when she looked him in the eye. “It’s personal.”

  “What is it, princess?” He leaned forward once more. Oh, Darrus did love a good damsel to save. She’d seen Ellene tap into the fact countless times.

  “There’s a woman there—she came with one of the caravans. I was talking with my uncle and he said that she… that she may be related to my father’s family, through my grandmother.” Vi buried her face in her hands. “I never knew my family, and now my father, he’s—” She didn’t have to fabricate the choke in her throat. “—he’s gone. I feel like I’m losing everyone before I even knew them.”

  She pulled her face away from her palms and looked up to him. Darrus sighed, his whole demeanor softening. Guilt began to rise; Vi hastened to close her mental floodgates, blocking it from pouring out.

  This was for the best. What she was doing was for everyone—for the whole world. She’d do whatever it took to find the apexes. Every action she took toward that goal steeled her further.

  “I understand.” Darrus rested a hand on her shoulder.

  “You do?” she asked, making her voice thin and frail, as if she teetered on the edge of tears.

  “I do.”

  “I just want a few moments alone with the woman… Can you help me? No one else will. You’re the only chance I have.”

  He sighed, and Vi knew what he’d say before he said it. “All right. But we’re in and out quickly. If anyone finds I took you there, I’ll be in a kind of trouble I don’t even want to imagine.”

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Vi reassured him. “We’ll be fast, and I’ll stay hidden under one of the plague masks.”

  He nodded, starting back in his room. Vi watched as he went and gathered his own heavy clothes, gloves, and mask, which he settled on the top of his head. Darrus crossed back over and Vi straightened from her crouch, taking a few steps down the stairs so he could crawl through the window. She suspected this was not the first time he’d snuck out in the night; she wondered if Ellene had ever been involved.

  Giving him a nod, Vi started down the stairs. But she paused when she didn’t hear him following her. Darrus stared down at her, unmoving, and for a brief moment she was worried he’d reconsider.

  “Princess,” he whispered. “The clinic… it’s a hard place to be. Once you go there, well, you’ll see things that you can never unsee.”

  Vi fought a bitter smile. She knew he meant well, just as she knew there was no way he knew of all the things she’d already borne witness to that she couldn’t unsee. Her dreams were becoming more torturous as the weeks and months progressed, the remnants of seeing the end of the world impossible to escape.

  How much worse could it get?

  Chapter Six

  She followed Darrus through the back alleyways and suspended bridges of the city, crossing into the still-lit parts of town. No one paid them any mind. No one expected to see the crown princess walking in their midst, and certainly not toward the clinic.

  Moreover, the plague mask, even propped on her forehead, covered and shadowed the majority of her face.

  Finally, they ended up on a single road stretching away from the city. Vi could see the mark of Groundbreaker’s work, practically feel the magic still lingering in the air. There were no more houses here; even the trees seemed shrunken without all the additions of living quarters, walkways, and balconies. She’d thought the city had been quiet, but it was nothing compared to the heavy stillness of the first few steps into the vacant space between the city’s edge and the clinic.

  Then, she heard the first shouts of the diseased.

  It was a soft rumbling, a litany of moans and groans, punctuated by shrill screams and cries. Vi drew her cloak more tightly around her, staring up at the dark shadow of the stone building before her. The trees around it had been stripped back and the moon stared down, as if watching. She looked up at the celestial body.

  Perhaps the dark god himself was watching.

  “Here.” Darrus tapped the mask on her head. “Put it on now.”

  “What about you?” Vi grabbed for it, her hand lingering.

  “I’ll say I lost mine and get another when we get inside. But we can’t have them noticing you before then.” He gave a nod toward the entrance and it was then that Vi noticed two people positioned on either side. “And you should have the protection from here out.”

  Two more warriors were at the front corners of the building, and she’d bet two more were at the back. They were bulky, tall, and wielded bows, spears, and swords. Vi had no doubt they were Sehra’s best. Just as she had no doubt that their guard was not to keep people away from the clinic—no one in their right mind would enter here willingly, Vi excluded.

  No… These warriors were to keep people in. To ensure that the only way someone left the clinic, other than the clerics, was as ashes.

  “Are you sure?” Vi asked softly, still holding the mask. What she wanted to ask was if he was certain he wanted to take the risk of going in unprotected. Luckily, it seems he heard the unspoken question.

  “They still don’t know how it spreads. The masks may not help at all.” He shrugged. Vi knew the bravery was a front. “I’ll get one in short order, so don’t worry about me.”

  “I do, because Ellene will slay me if anything happens to you because of me.”

  “Not that she’d know,” he muttered. “Come dawn, we weren’t here at all.”

  He stepped into the moonlight, and Vi wondered when he’d become so brave. Staring down your own mortality daily could do that—change a person fundamentally. Hadn’t it done the same to her? If she had never seen the visions she’d witnessed, would she have the ability to be here now, risking his life and hers?

  Pushing the thoughts from her mind, Vi stepped into the moonlight and followed closely behind toward the boxy stone building.

  “Halt,” one of the guards said, stepping forward. “No one without a mask is permitted within.” He paused, his head turned to Darrus, moonlight flashing on the glassy orbs of the mask that covered the warrior’s eyes. “You shouldn’t even risk being this close without a mask.”

  “Mine broke,” Darrus lied. “I need to get another.”

  “I see,” the guard said, somewhat skeptical.

  “Come on, I’m doing a double tomorrow starting at dawn and Romou will kill me if I’m late for it.” Darrus put his hand on his hip.

  “What happened?”

  “I was putting my mask away and it fell, shattered the eyes. I didn’t want to deal with this in the morning so I came now.” Darrus motioned to her. “I brought a friend so I don’t even have to go in without a mask. She can go in and grab me one and bring it back. Does that work?”

  The warrior turned to Vi. She stared at him through the haze of the glass that covered her eyes. Her breath was hot on her face, nerves turning the inside of her mask into a sauna. Thankfully, her cloak hid her swiftly rising and falling chest just as the mask hid her face.

  “Yeah, fine.” The warrior shrugged and returned to his post. “Do what you need to.”

  Darrus turned to her. “Get me one of the flatter ones—I don’t want one of the beaked ones,” he instructed slowly. “I’ll need a larger one. They keep that style on the top shelf of the storeroom to the right.”

  Storeroom to the right.

  “Flat one, got it,” Vi mumbled. Her voice was utterly unrecognizable when muffled by the long beak of Darrus’s mask and all the filters it contained, no magic required.

  Trying to seem as though she’d entered the clinic a hundred times, Vi pushed open the doors. Neither of th
e warriors so much as glanced at her as she slipped into the building.

  The immediate entry was a wide room with absolutely nothing in it. Stone walls, stone ceiling, no windows. Only a few flame bulbs positioned in the corners illuminated the ominously dark room. The rock was so thick that the sounds of wailing had vanished and a heavy silence settled on her.

  “To the right…” There were two doors on the right wall. Vi walked over to the closer one first. She had a fifty-fifty shot.

  Opening the heavy door, Vi was greeted by a room filled with various tools. Shackles and chains hung on the wall at her left. A wide, flat, disturbingly stained table sat in the center. A wall of shelves contained jars with all manner of grotesquely severed parts suspended in a clear liquid.

  What was this place?

  She stepped into the room, uncomfortably curious. It was a question she didn’t think she wanted the answer to, yet wondered all the same. Scalpels and saws were hung along the back wall. A table underneath had all manner of wickedly gleaming instruments.

  Vi turned away from them, to the second door at her right. Behind that heavy door was a small closet-like room. Shelves lined every wall, filled with heavy gloves, thick coats, and masks. Luckily, she was tall and only had to step up using the bottom shelf. If she’d been shorter like Ellene, she would’ve had to scale half the shelves to reach what Darrus needed.

  Quickly closing the doors behind her, Vi returned to the main entrance.

  “Thanks,” Darrus said, stepping forward to take the mask. Without another word from the warriors on either side, he followed her within.

  “What are these rooms?” Vi whispered, though she didn’t know why. There was no one around and the guard certainly couldn’t hear them through the heavy doors.

  “Triage… more or less,” Darrus answered grimly. “We keep it empty so the diseased have nothing to attack us with.”

  “Do they attack you?”

  “Often… either they don’t have their wits about them any longer, they’re more animal than human.” As he spoke, Vi remembered the crazed man from the winter solstice, and the man in the cage from her vision of her father on Meru. “Or… they are still in denial. Some, I think, truly want to fight for their freedom. They see this for the death sentence that it is. Others are hoping that maybe one of us will make a mistake and kill them as we try to subdue them.”

  “Have you killed anyone?” Vi whispered.

  “Not personally.” He took a step forward, pointing at the doors as he walked. There was a mechanical quality to him now. Vi couldn’t tell if it was a wall, guarding the more tender man she’d seen with Ellene, or a complete switch in personality—a new side of him born of necessity. She wished she could see his face, the mask only further added to the unnerving quality of his current nature.

  “That door—” he pointed to the one she’d found the storeroom through “—is for those already dead, or one breath away, when they’re brought here. The master clerics dissect them, trying to find out a root cause for the disease.” He pointed to the left. “That one is for those still in the early stages. Ahead is for those who are far along, but not quite dead yet.”

  “And this one?” she asked as his hand landed on the second door to the right.

  “Clerics only,” he answered as they stepped into a small sitting area.

  There were two tables, some low benches in a corner, what could only be described as a small kitchen on either side of a hearth—though Vi couldn’t imagine who found their appetite in a place like this. Two clerics lifted their masked faces toward them. They raised a hand by way of greeting, and Darrus did the same—but that was all the attention they paid them, as they quickly returned to their hushed conversation.

  Vi strained to listen as she followed Darrus behind them. But the words were impossible to make out underneath the heavy mask that covered her head. Neither of the clerics said anything as her and Darrus slipped out a back door and into a narrow hall.

  “We’re going up to the walk,” he said softly, glancing over his shoulder. “Mentally ready yourself.”

  Vi didn’t dare ask what he meant. Her heart inched up her throat with every beat, a rising apprehension at the sheer unknown she’d find at the top of the stairwell. There was a landing, another door, and then on the other side, death.

  They stepped onto a narrow walkway, guarded by stone bars on their left, that overlooked a great pit to their right. It was then that Vi figured out the layout of the clinic. The front third were the rooms Darrus had talked about—the ones she’d walked through. The back two thirds were split like two rectangles set long-ways against each other. The far rectangle was covered—Vi could only assume more rooms and better accommodations for those less progressed. The final third that she now laid eyes on was open to the sky, and packed to the brim with people.

  This was where the wailing she’d heard originated from.

  Vi watched as men and women in tattered clothing, some completely naked, drifted from place to place. Some howled and wailed. Some had enough sense to weep white, sticky tears across bulging red veins from milky eyes. Vi watched in horror as one man ran into the wall, head first, again and again. She didn’t know how long she watched… but it was long enough that he fell a final time and did not get up.

  “Vi.” Darrus rested his hand lightly on her arm and her head jerked toward his. How she wished she could see his face in that moment—see another human’s face, not diseased. It was the first time he had referred to her without the title of “princess” and Vi didn’t even remark on it. In fact, it was welcome.

  Standing before one’s own mortality, titles meant nothing.

  “Can we do anything more for them?” she asked weakly, clearing her throat, trying to find strength and authority. But there was none.

  “We do all we can. We’re not prepared for an outbreak of this size… But at least, by the time we lead them here, they can’t seem to feel pain.”

  Vi looked back to the pit. They were doing their best. This was their best. It was horrific and inhumane—Vi could see that. What she couldn’t see was another solution. Her mind had gone as blank as the milky eyes of the nearly deceased.

  “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “I know.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not upset.” It sounded like a lie. She didn’t rightly know what it was. She didn’t even know how she felt.

  “Well, I brought you here first to see if you saw your kin… if she’s already in the pit, there’s no way we can get to her,” he said solemnly.

  I have a job to do. Vi put the words on repeat in her mind. She couldn’t balk now. She balled her hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

  “Let me look.” Vi began to walk the length of the pit, looking at the men and women of all shapes and sizes. Luckily, it was a full moon, so she could make out most of them. The majority were Northern, making the few Westerners and one or two Easterners easier to pick out. Finally, Vi shook her head. “I don’t see her.”

  “Then you may be in luck. If she’s not out here, she has some of her mind left.” Darrus started back toward the door.

  Vi reached out, grabbing his sleeve at the elbow. “Can nothing more truly be done for them?”

  “Do you have an idea? Because the clerics have come up with nothing.” The question sounded genuine, as though he’d take any answer she could offer. When she said nothing, he spoke again. “Some have suggested mercy kills… But we’re clerics. We want to heal. Not slay. And if there’s a chance to find a cure—a chance for just one person to be saved—we want them alive to see the next dawn.”

  Vi gave a small nod. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.” The lie was said with confidence. She said it because she knew that he needed to hear it. But in truth, she had no idea what her stance was on the matter. “You’re doing all you can… and I thank you for it. So let’s move on.”

  They retraced their steps to the entry, then across and through
the door that had been on her left when she entered. The two clerics she’d seen were busy mixing some salve in a large vat in the corner of a completely new room. Vi could smell their potions through the filters of her mask. Both looked up as they entered.

  “We’ll do a round,” Darrus announced. The two gave nods, then ignored them as Darrus led her into a secondary hall.

  The echoes of soft moans and groans filled her ears. Unlike the guttural, almost beast-like noises of the pit, these sounds still seemed distinctly human. They were aware of pain still, Vi realized, thinking back to what Darrus had told her.

  “Go ahead and look,” Darrus instructed quietly. “I’ll stand guard by the door and stall if those two get suspicious. Be as quick as you can.”

  “Thank you.”

  Vi slipped off down the hall, looking at the cells on either side. At first, they all contained multiple people who looked relatively normal; they raised their heads, weak and listless, as she passed. But the further she walked, the fewer people were housed together, until ultimately the sickest among them were contained in isolation.

  It was there, almost all the way in the back, that Vi found the spice seller Grendla.

  She was slumped in the back corner, a curtain of black hair covering her face. Her hands were at her sides, upturned, legs straight out, as though she was bearing the ravages of the disease on her body for all to see. She looked as limp and lifeless as a doll.

  Vi crouched and then, as if sensing her, Grendla’s face jerked up.

  “Who?” she hissed slowly, her all-white eyes unseeing.

  “The crown princess, Vi Solaris,” Vi announced softly. Let the woman tell the clerics the princess came to visit. Vi doubted she’d be believed.

  The woman smiled. It stretched between two gnarly red veins on either side of her cheeks. For a brief second, Vi was reminded of the crescent scar that ran along Taavin’s face.

  “You came. I knew you’d come.”

  “I have to ask—”

  “But you’re too late… too late. I don’t have it.”

  “The key?”