Chosen Champion

by Elise Kova

  “It’s as though the world is rotting from the inside out.” Vi remembered her earlier lesson with Martis. Would the White Death have a chance to ravage the population, or would famine do the work of it on the dark god’s behalf?

  “An apt description.” Taavin took a small step closer. Their toes were nearly touching and Vi tilted her head to look up at him. His hands rested on her upper arms, holding them gently. “I don’t know if you will be in less danger, having Yargen’s full power. The White Death is only just beginning to appear on Meru. It is possible that since this land is still touched by Yargen’s unfractured magic, the White Death has been warded off… but even her magic is becoming too weak to stop it entirely. So it may have just prolonged the inevitable.”

  “Or it’s possible I’ll be in more danger—that I’ll somehow be targeted by Raspian’s power because I’m a shining beacon for Yargen.” Vi reached the logical conclusion of his thought. Taavin gave a small nod. “I don’t have a choice though.”

  “You can’t possibly find every Apex—”

  “It’s not just about the Apexes.” She gripped his forearms in a sudden burst of energy. Vi leaned forward slightly, beseeching him. Their noses nearly touched. “It’s about my father, too.” Taavin stilled. “There’s no word of him here—no word there, either?” He gave a small shake of his head. “Then I… What if fate changed from my first vision? What if he will not make it to Meru? What if he perished at sea?”

  Vi hung her head, taking a slow breath. She didn’t know if Taavin understood or not. He’d never said anything about his family.

  “If I go to the Apexes, maybe I’ll see him again.”

  Taavin released her. Vi continued to avoid his gaze, hastily working to compose herself. She didn’t like how quickly her emotions ran away from her when it came to the mere mention of her father.

  His index finger hooked under her jaw. A shiver shot straight down her spine as he gently tilted her face upward. The pad of Taavin’s thumb rested lightly on her chin. She’d never been so keenly aware of such a small touch.

  “I understand…” He swallowed, as if choking on the words. “This is our fate.”

  “Help me?” Vi whispered.

  “Anything.”

  “I need a new face to sneak out with.”

  His mouth tipped up into a small, sly smile. “I thought I told you not to worry about that crook in your nose from where it smashed into the tree.”

  Vi took a step away, her hand flying up to her face. She felt the ridge of her nose—reaffirming for the dozenth time that there was, indeed, no crook. Her eyes narrowed, and just like that, whatever trance they had been falling under was broken.

  “There is no crook. And it’s not about that,” she hastily continued before Taavin could get them off track again. “It’s about durroe.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been trying to make an illusion to mask myself… but I can’t seem to get it to sit right.”

  “Show me.”

  “Durroe watt ivin.” Vi held up her free hand, raising it to the top of her head. She closed her fingers as she chanted, imagining she was puling an invisible mask over her face. Light shone under her fingertips as they trailed over her eyes.

  The world was hazy, softly illuminated. Vi crossed the room to her dressing area, standing before the mirror. Sure enough, a face that wasn’t hers looked back at her. But it seemed to ripple and shift, like condensed smoke lit by candles, and it certainly wasn’t about to fool anyone.

  “See, it doesn’t sit right.”

  “How are you constructing it?” Taavin made a quick circle around her, inspecting the edges of her magic.

  “Trying to think of how my face could change and tweaking that—maybe like a mask of a modified version of myself.”

  He hummed at that. “I admit, I’ve never tried this before… It’s a curious application for durroe.”

  “Does that mean you can’t help?” Vi’s heart sunk. He always had an answer.

  “I will always help you,” Taavin said, mumbling through his thoughts. “Durroe watt ivin is much easier if you try to think of it as creating something new, rather than modifying something that’s there. I would try changing your whole appearance. Don’t even imagine yourself inside. You are vanishing, and the new form is appearing.”

  Vi let go of the magic and made a second attempt. “Durroe watt ivin.” A shifting outline overtook her, still not completely whole.

  “Who are you trying to replicate?”

  “No one, just reinventing some things.”

  “Well, that could be another part of the problem. Start with something simpler. Instead of trying to invent every last detail of someone who doesn’t exist, or tweak yourself in ways you have to struggle to imagine and keep straight in your mind. Start by turning yourself into someone who already exists. Someone you know well.”

  Vi looked to the mirror, seeing her own dark eyes reflected back. She hadn’t considered that… Who should she pick?

  It would have to be someone who wouldn’t raise suspicion going in or out of the fortress. Someone the warriors would open the gates for, but wouldn’t care about leaving. Someone whose every detail she knew as well as she knew herself.

  Sehra, Jax, or Ellene would be too noteworthy. Andru never left and never expressed any interest in doing so.

  “Durroe watt ivin.”

  Vi and Taavin both stared in the mirror for several seconds, looking at her handiwork. It was a near spitting image, down to every last brown wave of hair.

  “That’ll do, I think.” Taavin patted her on the shoulder. His hand went through the illusion, landing oddly underneath as though plummeting through a smoke screen.

  It reminded Vi of how Waterrunners could manipulate water vapor in the air to shift the light and make illusions. For the first time, she wondered just how the elemental magicks of the Solaris Empire were connected to the power of Yargen the rest of the world possessed. Taavin had said the sorcerers in the Empire possessed fractured magic…

  But that was a line of questioning for a different time.

  Right now, the moon was already up, and this was going to be her only chance to get the information she needed.

  Chapter Five

  Vi slipped out of her room and into the welcoming embrace of darkness.

  Patrols had increased throughout the fortress following the attack on her and the rise of the White Death. But they were still relatively scarce this high up—especially after the wall was erected. It seemed most still believed that if they stopped people from entering the fortress at the ground level, they didn’t have to worry too much about the upper levels.

  She kept her hood up and face down, taking an alternate route than the one she normally wound down. Vi paused in a shadowed stair, right before the final main bridge that led out of the section of the fortress that housed nobility. A guard was always positioned here now, and this would be her first test.

  “Durroe watt ivin,” she whispered under her breath. It was as if she were stepping into a second skin. The light wove around her, clinging to her as she pressed onward. Vi’s vision was hazy, illuminated by the shifting power at its edges. But she could see in her periphery that her hand had changed.

  Gone was the cloak, and in its place was a simple jerkin.

  Vi strode forward. The warrior glanced over her shoulder as she neared and Vi gave a small nod. She held her breath and prayed that the woman guarding the path had no interest in small talk. All remained silent, the warrior made no move to stop her, and Vi slipped further into the night.

  Her heart was racing, waiting for the guard to rush after her. Waiting for some kind of alarm to be called as her guise was up. But Taavin’s quick instruction held as firm as Vi’s white-knuckled grip around the glyph that surrounded her right fist.

  As Vi stepped out onto the barren earth of the stables, she raised her left hand to her lips. If she could make it through this, then she could masquerade as anyone.
r />   “Durroe sallvas.”

  Durroe, to deceive.

  Sallvas, create sound.

  Her lips tingled. Vi could practically taste the magic as it wrapped around her tongue. She could imagine with startling clarity the symbol that had taken residence over her voice box.

  “Open the gate,” Vi said in Jayme’s voice.

  “Ma’am?” One of the warriors asked.

  “Imperial business.” Less was more. She got away with that as the princess, could she do the same pretending to be Jayme acting on her behalf?

  The two guards shared a look and then one lifted his hand. A portion of the gate lowered in response to the magical command. Vi merely stared at the rocky ground that the stone had retreated into.

  Was it really going to be that easy?

  “Thank you. I will be back in—” Her voice cracked. Vi could hear the octave raise slightly, breaking into her natural cadence of speech. The magic unraveled.

  “Jayme, are you well?” One of the men stepped forward. Vi had never seen his face before and she had no idea who he was. But Jayme might, and that was something she wasn’t prepared to try to cover.

  Quickly raising her left hand to her lips, Vi made a show of coughing. In-between forced coughs, she hastened a mumbled, “Durroe sallvas.” The man made no indication of hearing.

  “Something in my throat,” Vi said softly, trying not to break the magic by speaking too quickly. Her right fist felt warm, as though her illusion was struggling to get away from her. Navigating both disguises at the same time without flaw was proving difficult. “I shall return.”

  With that, Vi hastened away.

  If the guard was suspicious, he wasn’t suspicious enough to run after her. Vi continued on the main road, forcing her pace to be as slow as she could bear, before dipping into a side alley between two large tree trunks. Glancing around and seeing no one, Vi let out a sigh and felt the magic unravel.

  Exhaustion soaked into her bones. Wearing someone else’s face was no easy task. But she’d pulled it off. Vi stared down at her hands in marvel and horror. To think, a few mere months ago she could barely make an orb of light with Sehra—could barely muster magic at all. Now she was deceiving people with light and sound.

  If she managed to truly gain mastery of the illusions and sound manipulation… If she could hold it—hold it! Hoolo! Vi smacked herself lightly in the forehead.

  “I’m an idiot.” She gave a soft laugh at herself, one that quickly vanished as she looked back to her hands.

  Hoolo. It was her personal word of power—to hold, to sustain—given to her by the goddess herself, through Taavin.

  Whenever Vi added the word hoolo to her spells, her magic wasn’t depleted. Vi didn’t know where the power was drawn from, perhaps the goddess herself… but the how didn’t matter so long as it worked. Vi made a note to see if the word had any limitations; if it worked the same with every combination of words, then the depth of hoolo’s power was unfathomable.

  Could she use hoolo on two spells at once? Or would it lose its effectiveness? It was something she’d have to try, and pick Taavin’s brain over.

  With hoolo and confidence in her Lightspinning abilities, she could be anyone. She could wear any face, have any voice. Her hand balled into a fist. That also meant anyone else gifted with Lightspinning likely could too, maybe just for a shorter period of time.

  She had to be careful. Enemies could be lurking in plain sight.

  Vi treaded lightly as she continued into the sleeping city. She glanced over her shoulder, making note of every other lone wanderer in the midnight hours. Even at this time, it seemed unnaturally quiet.

  A city overtaken by the shroud of death.

  It took her two wrong turns before she finally found Darrus’s family home. She’d only been there twice before with Ellene. So while her map-inclined memory of the city had not failed her, her recollection of where he lived had. The house was expectedly dark, not a soul stirring. Vi looped around the back, crouching below shuttered windows, glancing through the cracks.

  The first room she peered into at the front was what appeared to be a family area. The back half of the house was occupied by a larger room that had a wide bed with two sleeping figures in it. Off the main road, a stairway wound around the tree the home was built into—leading up to more homes stacked on top of each other in the hollowed out trunk.

  Setting her feet down softly, Vi made her way up the stair toward an upper window. She pulled it back slightly, hoping the hinges didn’t squeal. They didn’t. Inside the room was a single bed, and in it, Darrus asleep.

  This was the last moment she had to turn back. But Vi ignored it, instead whispering a hushed, “Darrus… Darrus!”

  It took four tries for him to stir, each louder than the last. She was at the point of crawling through the window when the man groaned. He twisted from one side of the bed to the other, and then finally sat upright, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Darrus,” Vi hissed again. She saw his eyes come into focus, landing on her. His hands dropped slowly to his lap as he blinked at her.

  “P-Princess?” He rubbed his eyes again quickly. “Am I dreaming?”

  “No, you’re not. Be quiet and come here,” Vi commanded sternly. The last thing she wanted was his surprise to rouse his sleeping parents below.

  Darrus slipped out of bed, looking uncertain, and crossed the room to her. Halfway, the air must’ve hit his bare chest and caught up to his sleep-hazy mind, because he looked down and hastened over to a short dresser. Vi resisted the urge to roll her eyes; it was hardly the first man’s chest she’d seen. But she allowed him his modesty as it only took him a second to pull on the knit sweater and make his way to her.

  “What’re you doing here?” He eased open the shutter the rest of the way and leaned out, looking around.

  “I’m alone.” Vi suspected he was looking for Ellene and Jayme.

  “Just what’re you getting up to in the city alone? Again.” While Darrus had never mentioned it to anyone, he clearly had not forgotten the first time they ran into each other.

  “I need to get to the clinic.” Vi didn’t mince words.

  “What?”

  “I need you to help me get into the clinic.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “I have to.”

  “If you want to get in there, seek out another cleric.” Darrus leaned away from the window, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m still an apprentice. They’d cut my lessons entirely if I took, of all people, the crown princess in there.”

  “Or I could command them to cut your lessons entirely if you don’t.” Vi lowered her voice, giving him a hard stare.

  His arms fell to his sides. “You wouldn’t.”

  “You have no idea what I will and won’t do.” Vi was still learning herself. “One is a possibility, if we get caught. The other is far more certain.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I know you can keep a secret.” That was an honest answer. “No one can know I was there.”

  “Why do you want to go?” The question was skeptical, uncertain, but wasn’t as firm as his first objection.

  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.”