by Elise Kova
Every scar she now wore was like a map, showing how she’d finally made it to Meru.
“That’s good,” he breathed a small sigh of relief. “I’ve been worried I’d not done enough…”
“I’m fine.” It was a lie. A lie to save her from having to fight her way out of the deep hole the truth put her into. Vi was many things… but after fleeing her home, abandoning her Empire, fighting for her life, facing off against a pirate queen, and putting a traitor to death… “fine” was none of them.
“How are you here?” Vi flipped the focus on him. Talking about herself was the last thing she wanted to do. “Aren’t you trapped in Risen?”
“Clearly not.” Taavin sank back off the balls of his feet, drawing his knees up to his chest. Vi watched him and debated passing the mug back. He seemed as if he could use the soothing properties of its contents as much as she could. “I managed to escape.”
“How?” Vi looked around the shack. “How did you get here? And how did you know I would be here?”
Questions piled on questions. Nothing was adding up.
“Remember, I told you that you were not the only one who would be on a journey. I vowed to find a way out of my prison.” His hand, timidly, rested on hers. “No, I always knew there was a possible escape. I just needed to have the courage to take it.”
Vi stared at his hand, willing it to spark light into her chest as it had once before, but she still felt frustratingly little. Every emotion was dulled. Instead, she focused on that conversation they’d had forever ago on Erion’s balcony. “You said you were having dreams too… of storms, and death in the water, of me in dark waves.”
He gave a small nod.
“Taavin, you dream only of the past,” Vi whispered.
“I thought I did.” He looked away, lost in his own thoughts. “But the closer you got to me, the stranger my dreams became. Or perhaps it was merely the will of the Goddess that I would find you. Either way, the black sand beaches outside the Twilight Forest are unmistakable. When I had a brief but particularly violent vision of you on the sand, I knew I had to leave.”
A violent vision? She knew he’d spoken of having shakes and going comatose during his visions… Was she nothing but violence to those around her? Was that what she was becoming?
“Then, on my way, I heard word of the pirate Adela sailing along the eastern coasts. I knew you were aboard a vessel. I had these unrelenting visions. It all seemed to compel me to go in a way I simply couldn’t ignore; I feared for the worst.”
He finally dragged his gaze back to her. Vi stared back, holding his deep and sunken eyes. They seemed all the more harrowed when framed by the gauntness of his face—a sharper edge to his cheeks than she’d ever seen. When was the last time he’d had a good night sleep? Or a full stomach?
“I’m glad you came, whatever the reason.” Vi took another sip of the concoction he’d made for her. She didn’t know if it was serendipity, the will of the Goddess, or some other magic at play, but she would count her blessings rather than question them.
“Me too. I don’t know how long you were out on that beach, but I shudder to think what would have happened if I had been any later.”
Vi looked down at his hand, still lingering atop hers. It half-hovered, trembling, as though he was afraid to touch her. Vi finally released the mug and twisted her fingers with his. He shifted closer at the unspoken request.
Both of them stared at the contact for several long seconds. She heard a hitch, and a quiver in his breath. But neither moved. Vi’s gaze dragged upward to meet his.
Their shade of green was even more astounding in person. It was the only thing of brilliance in the dark world she now found herself in.
“You’re really here,” he whispered in wonder, despite the fact that he must have been taking care of her for days now.
“I am. Do I feel different to you in person?”
“Not really,” he confessed with a soft laugh. “I can’t tell if that makes me happy or sad.” His other hand lifted, cupping her cheek. Vi could feel the thin layer of grime on her skin that smeared under the pad of his thumb.
“Why sad?” she dared ask.
“Because you came all this way and endured so much…maybe you summoning me through the watch was just as good.”
“It wasn’t.” Vi placed the cup off to the side, shifting her hands so they covered his. One on her face, one in her lap. “I don’t need magic to see you now. Your presence isn’t governed by glyphs. Now you can be by my side whenever I need—every moment of the day.”
“Only if you permit it.”
“I’d permit nothing less.” Vi closed her eyes, tipping her head forward to press her forehead against his. Taavin stayed there, giving her comfort without needing to be asked. “Besides…” Her voice trailed off, sandpaper covering her throat, her soul.
“Besides?”
Vi shook her head slowly. She needed him to help hold her together. Far from home, he was all she had right now—the only familiar thing in a strange land.
But somehow, needing him felt like weakness. It felt terrifying for a reason Vi couldn’t describe.
“Besides,” Vi started again, clearing her throat and leaning away, distancing herself from the moment and the sensation of frailty. “My coming wasn’t purely social. We have work to do.” Vi slowly raised a hand to her watch.
“We do,” he said in solemn agreement.
“What do we need to do now?” she asked. There were two reasons she’d struggled and fought and killed to get to Meru, and this was one.
“I don’t know yet… May I?” Taavin held a hand right before the watch. Vi ignored his closeness. How soft she knew his lips were.
“Go ahead.” Vi rubbed the back of her neck, debating if she should just take it off.
The watch was the last connection she had to the world she’d been born into—to her family. It was perhaps the only thing that could prove she was, in fact, Vi Solaris. Even as her fingertips rolled over the screw-lock that held the chain fast, she couldn’t bring herself to undo it.
A different sensation distracted her—the feeling of shorter hair than she was used to. Vi remembered the start of her escape from Adela—smashing a flame bulb and using the remnants of the fire to try to burn off the gag they’d forced on her. Some of the hair had singed away, and now it was shorter at the back of her head than the rest. She fussed with the ends that now extended barely past her shoulders.
The hair the West had so loved… she’d need to cut it. Like everything else, the thought passed through her mind with a dull ache and little other feeling.
Ignorant to her various internal battles, Taavin’s fingers closed around the watch.
The moment the metal touched Taavin’s skin, magic sparked, exploding out like tiny fireworks from the contact point. Glistening specks sparkled through the air and clung to the barely visible outline of glyphs unknown. Noise filled her mind—so loud and instantaneous that Vi couldn’t tell if it was music or voices, singing or screams. Her breathing quickened. She may have even let out a small shout.
The colors and shapes overtook Taavin as well, encompassing them both for what felt like hours but surely must have only been seconds. His eyes flashed brightly right before the room returned to its dim light—though in the wake of such strange magic, it seemed darker than before.
Taavin’s breathing was heavy. Vi’s heart raced, and she was more alert than she’d felt since she’d woken. They both seemed to be waiting for something else to happen. Yet nothing did.
When Vi could no longer handle the silence, she dared to ask, “What was that?”
“I take it that hasn’t happened before?” The intense stare he’d been impaling the watch with was now turned to her. A sensation similar to the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her crawled up her spine and Vi subconsciously leaned slightly away.
“No… What… what was that?”
“I don’t—” A knock on the door interrupted him.
Taavin looked back to her, his eyes frantic. “My wards broke.” The words fell from his mouth, not an answer to her question but several times more horrifying.
“Your wards?” Vi breathed, trying to match how softly he was speaking. Her attention fell with his to his wrist—the glyph that had been there earlier was gone.
“Surrounding this place, keeping us hidden. Now they can sense me, and with that burst of magic—”
“Fallor,” Vi finished.
“Fallor?” Taavin looked to her. “Adela’s right-hand man?”
“He’s after me,” Vi answered hastily. “Wait… Who did you think it was?”
“The Swords.”
“The what?” As soon as the question left her lips, Vi remembered a brief conversation they’d had in her tent when she’d first begun to demand information from him. “The Swords of Light? The Faithful’s militia?”
“They’re after me.”
The door rattled again, preventing Vi from asking the thousand questions swirling in her mind about the Swords of Light.
“Get ready to run.” Taavin grabbed her hand. “Durroe sallvas tempre dupot. Durroe watt radia dupot.”
Light spiraled out from him. Vi recognized the chants to deceive ears and eyes. Radia, to hide. Tempre, to mask? Dupot… she’d never heard that word before. Had she? Her mind was in a haze, still sluggish from her injuries and whatever magic was still making her ears ring.
Glyphs surrounded Taavin, condensing onto his left wrist like bracelets. She knew what he was doing, and yet… Vi was struck with awe.
He commanded the magic with a deftness she’d never seen before—not from any sorcerer from any discipline. It put even the poetic nature by which her parents could command the elements to shame. It was more than sorcery, it was art—as breathtaking as a virtuoso musician or master dancer. The magic wasn’t just an extension of Taavin.
It was Taavin.
The door to the shack was kicked in. Two men stood framed at the threshold, ice crackling around them, reaching inside of the shack. The remnants of the dying fire were snuffled and Vi’s eyes worked to adjust to moonlight only.
One man was unknown to her, a nameless and bloodthirsty face. Her focus remained locked on the other: Fallor. The red of his hair and shimmering dots that lined his brow were unmistakable to her now. She’d know them by daylight, moonlight, and nightmare.
His eyes narrowed slightly, sweeping across the shack and past where Vi and Taavin were hidden.
“Search it,” Fallor commanded. The nameless man stepped forward into the small space as Fallor remained in the doorway.
Vi bit back a shout of pain as she was tugged into motion. Taavin seized the opportunity, sprinting past Fallor in the doorway. Unfortunately, he misjudged the distance.
Taavin twisted to slip through, but Vi was caught-off balance. She tripped over her own feet; there was still a disconnect between her body’s movements and her brain. Taavin pulled at her arm as Vi tried to convince her limbs to move properly.
Barely, just barely, her side brushed against Fallor’s giant arm.
The man turned his head, moving on instinct—there could be no other description for how fast he lashed out. She’d touched him, and that meant the magic that had extended from Taavin to her, now extended to Fallor. He could see them.
Fallor’s arm slammed against her middle, knocking the air from her lungs. It pressed further into Vi’s abdomen as he pulled with bone-crushing might.
Vi looked to Taavin, watching his eyes widen slightly as she was ripped from his grasp. He was still moving in the other direction, hand around her wrist. But Fallor was too strong. She felt weightless as she was hoisted into the air. Taavin’s fingers slipped from Vi’s and she watched as he disappeared, the magic now concealing him from her without their contact.
“Found you,” Fallor growled into her ear, a stomach-churning glee making the words all the more terrifying.
Chapter Two
“Juth—” A large hand clamped around Vi’s mouth before she could finish the chant.
“I think not.” Fallor turned to his comrade. “There’s another, get him.”
“Adela only wanted her.”
“She’ll want this one,” Fallor assured him with a confidence that shook Vi to her core.
They knew who Taavin was. That was the only explanation. Otherwise Fallor would’ve focused only on her.
Vi stared out into the rainy field surrounding the shack, looking for any sign of Taavin. Her stomach and jaw ached from Fallor’s unrelenting hold. She hoped Taavin was still running as fast and far as he could get. She’d tangled with the pirates once and survived—she could do it again. She would never forgive herself if he was taken captive, too.
Yet for all she wanted Taavin to look after himself, Vi knew he wouldn’t.
She was Yargen’s Champion, and if the elfin’ra got their hands on her they would use her blood to summon their dark god Raspian. But even if that weren’t the case… This was the man who had dared to escape his captivity, come to her, and nursed her back to health—he wasn’t going to leave her behind. Which left Vi with one option before he would do something reckless and expose himself again.
Magic was magic, he’d said once. Every discipline was merely a way to manipulate and channel it. So Fallor could stop her as a Lightspinner by silencing her, but without Adela’s terrible shackles, he’d never stop her as a Firebearer.
Closing her eyes, Vi sought out the spark within her. She imagined it springing forth, just as the light did. The only difference was that this power needed no words.
Heat shimmered against the rain, turning it instantly to mist. Fallor must’ve felt it, but he didn’t react fast enough. Tiny sparks ignited in a blink, forming a wall of flame that hovered a few inches off Vi’s skin and clothes. It pulsed out from her, forcing Fallor away.
She hit the ground. One hand slid out as Vi sought balance, slipping in the mud. It coated her side and she rolled with it. The taste of earth filled her mouth as she shouted, “Juth starys hoolo.”
A glyph formed around the men and the shack as she spoke. Vi squinted at Fallor, rubbing the mud from where it was running in her eyes with her other hand. There was a different shimmer of light surrounding the pirate, but she couldn’t make out what it was before the fire she’d unleashed caught the glyph she wrought, erupting in a white-hot blaze.
Screams from the bloodthirsty man who had been investigating the shack filled the air, solo. There wasn’t a chorus of cries as she’d expected—but then again, had she ever expected Fallor to go down quietly? Vi stared into the blaze, searching for his outline. The flames burned even brighter, and he was nowhere to be found.
Already ash, she hoped.
The cry of a bird of prey echoed off the cliffside as it rose higher on the updraft created by her flames.
“Vi!” Taavin’s voice broke her concentration in tandem with his hand clamping once more around hers. “We have to go.”
Vi remained still, staring at the burning hut with the pirate still inside. The screams were quieting. It was a terrible way to go, yet killing the man didn’t yield even the slightest bit of remorse or guilt, and that fact made her feel terrible.
All around her was darkness—outside, in the stormy night, and in the hollow of her chest, a chasm opened by betrayal. Dawn would come with the morning—but would light ever breach the inky depths that threatened to drown her?
“Fallor is coming.” Taavin yanked at her arm. “We have to go!”
“Fallor? I—”
An eagle’s screech interrupted her. The bird she’d seen take to the skies was in full dive, wings tucked. An odd shimmer of light surrounded it. At first, Vi thought the distortion was merely the firelight catching on the rain, but it was more than that. Reality itself rippled, as if nothing more than a reflection in a shimmering pool.
With a magic Vi had never even imagined, the bird was gone and Fallor was there—as if one had disappeared beneath the shifting w
aves of reality and the other had surfaced. Momentum propelled him through the air as he plunged both of his feet into Taavin’s chest, using the other man’s body like a springboard. As he pushed away, the same ripple was already beginning to surround him, but Vi didn’t watch this time as bird was substituted for man.
Her eyes were on Taavin. Agony singed through her, a silent cry caught in her mouth, left agape in shock.
Taavin wheezed, rolling in the mud, coughing and sputtering.
“Taavin!” Vi fell to her knees, sliding to his side.
“We have to go, on foot… They killed the horse.” He barely forced out the words. “More… come.”
Vi looked skyward. She searched the darkness and rain for any sign of the eagle, but there was none. With his strange magic, Fallor could be anywhere. In her mind, he was suddenly everywhere.
At any moment they would be attacked. If Fallor’s magic could transform him into a bird, she shuddered to think what else it could do. She had to fight back, had to think of a glyph combination that could thwart whatever power he was using. But facing a magic so foreign to her, Vi was armed with little but panic.
“Durroe sallvas tempre dupot. Durroe watt radia dupot.” Taavin repeated his earlier words and Vi felt the glyphs slip around them both, cocooning them in his magic. “We have to make it to the trees.”
“The trees,” Vi repeated, forcing her mind to continue to function. She couldn’t freeze up. Not now. Not after all she’d done to get here.
“Over there.” He pointed with his free arm as Vi lifted his other and placed it around her shoulders. “We have to get to the Twilight Forest.”
Twilight Forest. Her mental atlas flipped through its archives but came up empty. Not because she was panicked, but because she was now in a land she knew almost nothing about, running blindly into the night.
“Let’s go.” Vi pushed off from the ground.
Taavin was heavier than he looked and Vi hadn’t felt so weak in a long time. She ignored the signs of fatigue, pushing her feet into a run over the tall grasses that covered the cliffside.
