Crystal Crowned [ARC]

by Elise Kova

  “The lords tell me that there is not enough time, that you are not ready.” Vhalla held out her arms, beseeching. “Is this true? Are you not ready to reclaim your Empire?”

  They objected with a swift and powerful, “Nay!”

  “Good. Go now, and do what you must to ready yourselves. I only want the best at my side!”

  It was like she’d kicked an ants’ nest. The soldiers began running, quickly organizing themselves under their own ranks. Majors stepped forward to bark quick orders.

  Vhalla turned. Aldrik stood at her side, his mouth made a firm line.

  “Let us get into more fitting clothes for war,” he suggested.

  Their momentary escape from the growing madness was unquestioned, and they quickly ascended away from the chaos to what was now their chambers. The morning of preparations and nerves was gone. In its wake came renewed purpose.

  “Aldrik,” she started as soon as the door closed. “I know you likely do not approve.”

  “Vhalla—”

  “But we have lingered long enough.” She held out her hands. Vhalla wanted him to understand. “We are ready for this. Sehra is ready. Every moment we wait is another death.”

  “Vhalla—”

  “I know you can’t speak against me publically, but give me counsel here. I will not back down on this, but I want to know how you think we should go about it.”

  “Vhalla.” He took both her hands firmly and silenced her. “I support you.”

  She blinked. “You do?”

  “I wouldn’t have proclaimed it in the street. I may have pushed in private.” Aldrik shook his head. “But we have done things as I wanted. You are Empress now, and your word holds just as much weight as mine, publically. I will let you lead this war.”

  “We will,” Vhalla amended. “It is not I or you, it is now we. And even more than that, it is us, for our people.”

  “Don your armor,” he suggested as they broke apart to dress. “At least the chainmail. It will set the right mindset.”

  “Help me from this?” Vhalla asked as she was half sewn into her dress.

  Aldrik obliged, chuckling softly. “This was not why I imagined I’d get you out of your dress on our wedding day.”

  “My Emperor, there will be ample time for such things at a later date.” Vhalla rolled her eyes, hunting down clothes substantial enough to go under her chainmail. Vhalla paused, staring at the bangle Tim had given her.

  Take it. From him. Listen.

  Vhalla stilled, trying to logic through what Tim’s presence had really meant. Her emotions cooled, and her mind spun. She had clearly been trying to deliver the bracelet to Vhalla. Listen; that could mean that Tim wanted Vhalla to pay attention to her. Unless, it didn’t.

  She was a blur from the room, not even bothering to put on her shoes.

  “Vhalla!” Aldrik called after her, confused.

  Fritz had been at the wedding with Elecia, but the castle was now in utter chaos. Still, she had to start somewhere, and it seemed just as likely if she could find one of them she’d find the other.

  “Where’s Elecia Ci’Dan?” Vhalla demanded of a guard between panting breaths. “Have you seen her?”

  “My lady?”

  “Elecia Ci’Dan?” she repeated.

  “I’ve not seen her . . .”

  Vhalla muttered a curse under her breath and started for the Westerner’s room. They weren’t there, and they weren’t in Fritz’s either. Vhalla finally found them on the training grounds helping organize and prepare.

  “Fritz!” Vhalla practically tackled the man as she tried to pluck him out of a stream of people walking in the opposite direction.

  “Vhal? Vhal, what?” Fritz teetered and regained his feet. “Are you all right? I heard what happened and—”

  “We need to listen to it.” Vhalla held up the bracelet.

  “Is that?” Fritz recognized it instantly, but he didn’t believe it.

  “It is,” she insisted.

  “How can you be sure?” He looked skeptical still.

  “I know one way we can find out.” Vhalla pressed the bracelet into Fritz’s hands. “We need to listen to it again.”

  “Nothing will have changed.”

  “Fritz, please,” Vhalla pleaded.

  He finally obliged, and they went to the nearest vacant guest room, stealing the washbasin from within. Aldrik caught up with them along the way, and Vhalla offered a short explanation as to the importance of the token.

  “This may not be the best of ideas.” The Emperor was suddenly uneasy as Fritz placed the bangle into the water. “It may be from Victor. There could be magic within it that will activate when it is tampered with.”

  “No,” Vhalla insisted. “If Victor was going to attack me with it, he would have done so when my hand first came into contact with it. I know what crystals feel like, and that does not feel like crystal magic.”

  Though, if one of Vhalla’s two theories were correct, they might hear Victor’s voice.

  “It will be fine.” Fritz’s words were braver and more certain than he sounded. “Larel would never hurt me.”

  Before any further objection could be made, his fingers dipped into the bowl. The water rippled, and they all held their breath as Fritz drew the words out from the vessel. Listen—that had been Tim’s dying wish. Vhalla braced herself for what she was about to hear.

  First, a familiar voice filled the room. It was the same as Vhalla and Fritz had heard an eternity ago. Larel’s words of encouragement and hope, echoed through the room, and Aldrik’s fingers slipped between hers. He had never heard the message, and Vhalla watched from the corners of her eyes as Aldrik listened to the farewells of his first true friend.

  The last words faded and silence followed. Just as Fritz was about to pull his hands from the water, a new voice began to speak. Vhalla had braced herself for the mad voice of a man drunk on crystal magic. But what she heard instead was harder to handle.

  “Vhalla, if you are listening to this, then Tim made it.” Grahm’s voice echoed across the water. It was weak and thin, whispered as though his lips were brushing right across the bracelet itself when he recorded his hasty message. “Tim, she—they-they did things to her. Anyone with a wing meets such a fate, or worse. We tried to get her out, but she was lost, she volunteered. She wanted to get our message to you before you left Norin.

  “We’ve heard word that you will be our Empress. You and our Emperor rose from the dead; you’re the only one who can stop him now. You have defied him once; you can teach us all how to do it.”

  Guilt burdened her heart. Her perceived resurrection was giving the people in the South a false hope. She was not their savior. She had been the one who dammed them to begin with.

  “We’ve grown a Silver Wing network, there are many of us now. We will help, when the time comes. We could smuggle people out, but our routes have slowly been closed off. The best we can offer you would be a way in.” Grahm’s speech began to pick up pace. The man poured words frantically into the vessel. “When you come, carve a wing into the sky. We will know. We will lower the guard at any cost so you can enter. If—”

  Grahm’s voice broke, and he rasped heavily.

  “If there are any of us left.” He drew a long and quivering breath. “This place, is not what you remember. It is a city of taint, and death, and crystal. Be careful and-and . . .”

  There was one final pause. So long Vhalla worried that he had somehow been caught and was never able to finish his impassioned plea.

  “And if-if Fritz is still with you . . . If he’s there. Fritz, by the Mother. I am doing all I can. Tell me he is well. Tell me my dreams are not lies. Because I still, I can still dream.”

  The water stilled and mirrored the motionless trio standing around the dish. Fritz made a strangled noise and dropped his face into his wet palms. Vhalla was at his side in a rush, clutching him, supporting him as his knees went weak.
His sobs burned her eyes and ripped through the remaining shreds of her heart.

  “Vh-Vhal, we must go to him.”

  “We are,” she soothed, rubbing her friend’s back.

  “He-he sounds so scared!” Fritz buried his face where her neck met her shoulder.

  “I know.” Vhalla took a deep breath. “But he is also strong. Just as you are. We will stand with him on the other side of this.”

  Her words may have been lies. Vhalla knew she would live with that forever if they were. But as the truth had yet to unfurl its grand design upon the tapestry of time, Vhalla was content to make such a vow.

  She helped Fritz back to his room. Aldrik excused himself to handle other business, giving the two friends time with just each other. The sun was already setting, and, in a complete reversal of what he had once done before, Vhalla saw him bathed and tucked into bed before leaving. Reminding him that the sooner he slept, the sooner the dawn would come.

  The day had been one somber reminder after the next that death was at their doorstep. Their time of preparation and—for lack of more eloquent, nicer words—hiding was over. They were about to stand upon the precipice and greet true evil. And Vhalla only wanted people to join of their own free will.

  She found Jax and Elecia talking near a back storeroom in the training grounds. They were arguing over how many potions of this or that to bring when Vhalla interrupted them.

  “Jax, a moment.”

  “Ah, how I have longed for the moment you seek me out by your lonesome when the moon is in the heavens above,” he held out his arms dramatically, as though Vhalla would believe a word of what he said as sincerity.

  “It’s important.” Her words shifted Jax’s expression from the light-hearted and fun-loving major to the darker soldier that Vhalla had become more familiar with during her time in Norin. Elecia was keen enough to excuse herself.

  “What is it, Lady Solaris?” he asked as Vhalla shut the door behind him in a small side hall. “I don’t think either of us need to be reminded of, or want to repeat, the last time you pulled me off the training grounds for a private little chat.”

  “Why do you think I picked a hallway this time?” Vhalla motioned to the left and right. “Look, we can both pick a different escape route.”

  The Jax she plucked from the grounds would’ve laughed. This Jax remained solemn at her remark, assessing her warily. Vhalla clenched her fists, opening her Channel for good measure.

  “We march with the dawn.”

  “You didn’t pull me here to tell me that.”

  “Do you want to go?” Vhalla cut straight to the point.

  “I don’t know where else I would be. I have not been told to vacate my post as your guard. I realize it’s not been necessary here, but when we march again—”

  “Is that what you want to do?” she interrupted him. “Do you want that post?”

  “It is an order.” The panic she’d been expecting all along finally began to sneak up on him.

  “No, that’s what I’m telling you; it’s not.”

  He shook his head in horror. Vhalla could feel him willing her not to say the words, but she would say them anyway, for them both.

  “I pardon you.” Vhalla stood as tall as she could, trying to evoke the Empress that people expected to see. An Empress that Vhalla didn’t even know if she’d ever be. “Jax Wendyl, for your crimes—”

  “Don’t,” he breathed.

  “I hereby grant you an Imperial pardon. You are a free man and you can now go where you will.”

  “Your first Imperial pardon, on me?” His words were cut with laughter. “They will make a fool of you.”

  “Let them.” Vhalla shrugged. “You know how I care so deeply for the opinions of others. I will write my name and your pardon in the Western record. A record no one will ever see. It’s up to you from here.”

  “So I am your shameful act in a dark hall?” he sneered.

  “No.” Vhalla remained resolute. “If you want to tell the world, then tell them. I merely am respecting your choice as a free man.” Vhalla braved a step forward. “Jax, if you stand with me as my guard, I want you to stand with me of your own will. Not because you are ordered. Not as my slave. But as my friend and comrade—or I don’t want you there at all.”

  “You don’t understand . . . I’m the mad dog. I’m the fallen lord. I’m the one who the lords hide their daughters from and only feel safe around when I am on an imperial leash!” he snapped. “Do you think you can make me worth her? That you can absolve me and make me someone that she could look upon with fondness from the Father’s realms?”

  “No.” Vhalla kept her voice calm and level, realizing he was very close to lashing out as he had last time. “That’s something that is well beyond my power to give. Such a thing must come from you.”

  “What do you want from me?” he cried.

  “To be your friend.”

  “I don’t have friends, I have masters!”

  “What was Baldair, then?” Emotion betrayed her the second the younger prince’s name was mentioned. “Was he just a master? Is that all his memory is to you?”

  Jax stared at her at with complete loss for words. Vhalla took a step away and started down the hall to leave him to his thoughts. She went straight up to the library, hunted down a familiar tome, and found the page listing Jax’s sentence. Alone in the library, Vhalla penned her name as the Empress for the first time, and she freed a man.

  CHAPTER 25

  Come the dawn, Jax rode at her side. He remained at her left hand for the entire march to the Crossroads. It was as though their conversation had never happened. He didn’t bring it up again, and Vhalla honored his silent wish by doing the same. The only person she even told about the small confrontation was Aldrik.

  The Emperor supported her decree with Jax like he did with most of her other decisions. Vhalla demanded a hard pace through the West and regular training for all groups. Sehra had been right; many soldiers were green, and she was determined that, by the time they arrived at the Southern border, all soldiers would have a shot at surviving the upcoming battles.

  She intentionally kept her meetings short and restricted only to the mornings. Vhalla and Aldrik settled into a rotation where he focused on the appeasement of the lords and majors, and Vhalla spent her time among the soldiers. As much as possible, she wanted to lead by example. If she wanted them to perform three rounds of drills each day, she would perform them herself.

  Vhalla also made sure the men and women saw her learning. She split her time between training with sorcerers and training with the sword. One where she could be a teacher, the other where she was still much the student.

  Before leaving Norin, she’d commissioned a new blade. It was short and light, well balanced but sturdy. The pommel was wheat, in the shape of wings.

  Every time she felt the weight of the blade in her hand or on her hip, every time the wind soared through the skies at her command, she thought of Victor. Vhalla tried to envision what his face would look like when she killed him. There was no other alternative in Vhalla’s mind. She would be the one to do it. She had created him—she would be the one to destroy him.

  On the ride into the Crossroads, Vhalla tried—once again—to find the small curiosity shop where she’d met Vi. But between the crowds, the sun shades, and the tongues of fire celebrating their arrival, she couldn’t find it. It lingered on her mind for the rest of the day as Vhalla tried to recall exactly where it had been or what it had looked like. She began to wonder if the whole encounter was nothing more than a walking dream. Exhausted, Vhalla pushed it from her mind and fell into the arms of her lover in the first bed they’d had in weeks. If she was to meet Vi again, Vhalla was fairly confident that the woman would be the one to find her.

  The next morning Vhalla met with the high-ranking warriors in Sehra’s forces. She took careful note of the princess’s advice on what was likely to offend those from the No
rth and learned a few phrases of greeting in their native tongue. Despite her mouth struggling to form the words, the Northerners seemed to appreciate that an effort was made. It was one of the only things they appreciated about being faced with the Solaris family, who they still very obviously considered to be their Southern oppressors.

  Elecia was at her side, in place of Aldrik, for the greetings. The woman couldn’t speak the Northern tongue either, but she already knew a few key words and phrases and could make the sounds with ease. Vhalla made her now-cousin promise to teach her a few phrases when the war was over so she could be a better delegate to the Empire’s newest addition.

  Decisions became no easier to make with time. The day before they were intended to leave, they received a message that Hastan’s scouts had confirmed movement of Victor’s army further north. An attack on the Eastern capital was likely. Vhalla knew that if they pushed the army East, they may be able to make it to the capital in time to crush Victor’s offense. If they didn’t, Hastan had a fifty-fifty chance of enduring or falling.

  Vhalla’s hand shook as she quilled the response back to the Eastern senator. Aldrik had offered to do it, but Vhalla was insistent. These were her people, and she had always made sure they knew orders that put them in danger—the decision that they could sacrifice the East—came from her and why.

  Her world kept producing rainbows of conflict cast in deepening shades of gray. The only black and white was her ink on parchment informing Hastan that help would not be coming. That they would use Victor’s attack to strike when the Southern border was likely to be weaker.

  Rested and restocked, the army proceeded south from the Crossroads. Vhalla resumed her previous regimen of training among the soldiers. As much as possible, she made herself available to them. Fritz had been right: the day that they had escaped from Norin’s castle, these were her people.

  Her favorite Southerner was at her side one night when she took dinner with the swords she had trained with that day.

  “My lady,” one remarked during a lull in the prior conversation. “I was there when you stopped the sandstorm.”