by Elise Kova
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Silver Wing Press
Copyright © 2019 by Elise Kova
All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.
Cover Artwork illustration by Livia Prima
Editing by Rebecca Faith Editorial
eISBN: 978-1-949694-10-9
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-949694-11-6
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-949694-12-3
Contents
Map of the Solaris Empire
Detailed Map of Meru
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Also by Elise Kova
Appendix
Pronounciation
Common Terms
Elemental Affinities
Lightspinning
Map of Solaris
Sehra’s Map of the World
Detailed Map of Meru
The Story of Dia
About the Author: Elise Kova
for every dream that failed
to make room for the one that came true
The Solaris Empire
Detailed Map of Meru
Chapter One
Everything was a blur.
Each memory merged into the next, a hazy mess of color and sound and not-quite-consciousness.
She was on a ship of ice. Frost glittered through the dark memories, illuminating nothing but pain. An ocean of dark water enveloped her—nearly as cold as the vessel itself. She was lost in the vast sea, an invisible fragment among the waves, tossed between each swell, tumbled over reef and stone. There was the feeling of grit, rough against her…
Sand.
Breathing.
Just… breathing. Air sputtering between gasping lips. Heaving as her body expelled the water to make room for every life-giving breath it fought for.
Exhaustion.
More darkness.
Him.
Two hands hoisted her up and liberated her from the soggy grave she had consigned herself to. Arms covered in a delicately embroidered coat that her fingers would know anywhere wrapped around her, sure and warm.
A voice that resonated with her very soul.
Her hair was smoothed away from her face. She was still damp, and felt perhaps this would be her existence from now until forever. Air sucked the moisture from her, setting her body to shivering. Her brow couldn’t dry; it was constantly slick with sweat.
Fever raged through her. At least, she thought so. Maybe he told her so.
Cold, hot, cold.
Mumbled words, sparks of light, more darkness.
Time persisted like this. For how long, Vi couldn’t quite say. She was alive, but hanging by determined, ragged threads and a body too stubborn to give in.
She screamed herself hoarse as her wounds were ripped back open—something muttered about her clumsy healing needing to be “reset”. She gasped as agony ebbed and flowed and her tissue was mended anew. Salves were smeared on her and potions poured down her throat; she had no choice but to drink or drown.
Every time her eyes opened, they stayed that way a little longer. Slow blinking seconds connected in her reforming consciousness.
Wind rattled against the drawn shutters on the sole window of the hovel where he’d stashed her. There was a hearth at her right side, always burning. Too hot, or not warm enough, never right in the middle. But the flames were a familiar and welcome companion. They were the only thing that made sense to her.
At her left was Taavin. He would curl up, leaning with his back against the door, light always surrounding him even when he looked as though he were sleeping.
How was he here? And where exactly was here anyway?
If she stretched far enough, she might be able to touch him. But Vi had neither the strength nor the energy to try.
Sometimes, she would wake to find him fumbling around in a trunk, open like a clam against the wall opposite the fire. She would hear the sound of corks popping before bright herbaceous smells cut through the briny air.
Other times, she opened her eyes and he was hovered over her, lips moving fast and soft. Most of the words she could identify if she thought hard enough—and thinking was very difficult. But a good many she couldn’t. So Vi didn’t expend too much effort on identifying which was which. She’d forget the next time her eyes opened anyway.
Vi blinked into the twilight.
This time was different than the others.
Her mind was sharper—clearer. She was present in the moment and keenly aware of her own excruciating existence. Her thoughts were still jumbled, but now felt like pieces she could put her fingers on and begin to snap back together.
Vi turned her head toward a soft clinking sound.
“Taavin?” Her lips stretched painfully, and the iron taste of blood swelled where the delicate skin cracked.
“Vi.” He turned sharply, nearly spilling what was in the rough-hewn cup cradled in his hands. Their eyes met, and Taavin scrambled over to her in clumsy haste.
He was undeniably Taavin… Yet he looked so different than she remembered. Almost jarringly so. Enough that Vi had to blink, reminding herself that this was, indeed, the same man.
His hair was matted with dirt and grime. Dark circles she’d never seen before shadowed his eyes. The usual vibrancy of his coat was gone, replaced with gray twilight and accented by the dying embers of the fire casting long shadows over them. The only things that had any brilliance to him were his eyes—ever shining—and the small circle of light spinning around his left wrist. The glyph was drawn together so tightly that Vi couldn’t identify what it was for.
“How do you feel?”
“Like death, but slightly more animated.” Vi shifted onto her side, putting her weight on her left elbow and trying to push herself up. Every joint was stiff and aching. It felt like she hadn’t moved in years.
“Don’t get up too quickly. ‘Animated death’ may be an apt description given how I found you and what I’ve had to do to try to piece you back together properly.” But Vi was determined, so Taavin helped her upright, situating her against the wall behind her. Vi knew the space had been narrow, but she hadn’t realized that the top of her head was nearly touching one wall and her toes the one opposite while lying down. “Here, drink this—it’ll help your body wake up. I’ve been keeping you in a sort of stasis to let your body focus on healing.”
Vi accepted the cup from him, staring down at the muddy mixture within.
“I promise it looks worse than it tastes.”
&
nbsp; She took a timid sip. It was thick and grassy, but warm on the way down—almost like liquor, but without the strong burn. Vi took another sip, replacing the salt musk of the shack with the bright tang of the drink. This was the earthy note she’d smelled earlier and Vi found it almost pleasant.
“Do you remember everything? Remember me?” Taavin asked almost timidly. “Was your memory affected at all by the trauma?”
“Yes.” Vi stared into the cup once more. “I mean, yes I remember everything—and you. No, my memory wasn’t affected.” The cup rested in her lap, over the rough-hewn blanket that covered her legs. Vi wiggled her toes. They didn’t feel like her own… nothing felt like hers. It was as if her soul had been placed into a completely new body. “I think so, at least…”
Her voice faded to nothing. Memories stacked like building blocks around her, closing her in. Vi’s fingernails dug into the grooves of the clay cup; the craftsman’s mark still present in the indents of fingers fired into permanence. The dull ache in her chest assured Vi that this seemingly new body was, indeed, hers.
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 fille
d 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.
