by Shelby Hild
Prince Ethan called for one of the nearby guards to grab a couple more practice blades.
“If you’re so certain that you’ll win,” Brayleigh said, looking innocently at the nails on her left hand. “Let’s make this a bit more interesting.”
“How so?” Prince Ethan asked.
“Let’s make a bet,” she said.
“What do you want?” the younger prince clenched his teeth when he asked.
“If Brayleigh and I win, we each get to sit with you at the first official dinner with the royal family,” Serinta said as a guard came running with two covered swords.
“And an archery range is set up somewhere around here,” Brayleigh added.
“And if we somehow manage to win?” Prince Aiden lifted an eyebrow as the guard gave the two women swords.
“Then we are entirely at your mercy,” Brayleigh said as she curtseyed exaggeratedly.
“We’ll think of something,” Prince Ethan said. Aiden rolled his eyes as the four of them bowed to each other and removed their swords.
The entire thing was over before Vivilyn was even aware it had begun. Serinta had Prince Aiden down within seconds and after clashing blades only three times, Brayleigh had Prince Ethan on the ground surrendering.
“That was too easy,” Brayleigh said. Her voice seemed tense with frustration. “I didn’t want to be given the win.” She grumbled something that Vivilyn couldn’t hear. For someone who just bested the princes, she looked remarkably upset about it.
“You heard the terms?” Prince Aiden asked the guard that brought the swords out. When the man nodded, he continued, “Then get to work creating the archery range. I’ll let my parents know we will have extra guests at the next royal feast.”
Chapter 14
The fresh air was warm around Vivilyn as she sat on grass in the shadow of the palace walls later that day. Darissa, Jolene, and Louise, along with a few of the other women, ran around the grassy area between the back of the building and the forest in a game of tag. It appeared as though they were using the Grand Tree at this side of the estate, the one currently representing autumn, as the safe zone.
With her sketchpad on her knees in front of her, Vivilyn let herself be soothed by the light scratching sound of her pencil against the paper as she worked on a picture of Iza in her Founder’s Day costume. Any time she closed her eyes and thought about Iza, the little girl forgetting her lines on stage entered her mind.
Marisol read on a picnic blanket nearby, sprawled on her stomach with her feet moving lazily in the air. Louise squealed in the distance as Macy tagged her. At the sound, Marisol lifted her head away from her book to look at the other women.
“I’ve never understood the appeal of that game,” Marisol said. “I mean, you just chase people around endlessly. There’s no goal, no end point until someone decides they don’t want to play anymore. Give me a good book and a little sun and I’m content.”
Vivilyn couldn’t determine if Marisol was speaking to her or just speaking in general.
“It’s more fun when you can hide behind trees,” Vivilyn said when Marisol looked over at her. “We would play in the orchards all the time, back home.”
The laughter from the women playing shifted as she recalled to Marisol the last time she’d played tag. The scene formed in front of her eyes.
Either it was a vision of the past or just a very vivid memory. Vivilyn couldn’t be sure. Not with the way her visions had been acting recently.
She had been playing with Duncan, Maia, Ryso, Cleo, two of Cleo’s older brothers and three other girls. They all ran around, all trying to avoid getting too muddy since it had recently rained. Vivilyn could smell the rich scent of wet soil and apples in the air. Pain shot up her ankle as she tripped over a root, barely able to stretch herself to reach base before Maia could tag her. Ryso had made the mistake of thinking Maia was distracted and ran to the other side of base, only to be tagged and become the next victim to be it.
As Ryso started counting down from fifty, everyone dispersed. Vivilyn took a step and another sharp pain shot from her ankle. Each step caused her to limp which meant she couldn’t run easily. That would make her an easy target.
If she couldn’t run, then when she got tagged, she’d be stuck being it until either people got bored and decided to end the game or took pity on her and let her tag them.
Or she could quit.
The thought of quitting only crossed her mind for a split second. She was not a quitter. She had never been one and refused to use that moment as an excuse to change that.
Instead, she clambered into the closest tree.
“You climbed a tree to avoid getting tagged?” Marisol said through contained laughter. “With a hurt ankle?”
“Yeah,” Vivilyn said, sheepishly. “It wasn’t my brightest idea. I got stuck in the tree and Duncan had to help me out.”
“Duncan,” Marisol repeated. She put a thin yellow ribbon in her book before closing it. “That’s your brother, right? The one we met near the maze after the Hosts’ Choosing Ceremony? The guy that the king allowed to visit?”
“Mm-hmm,” Vivilyn replied. Her mouth quirked up slightly in a quick smile. “That’s my brother.”
After sliding her book to the corner of the blanket, Marisol rolled onto her back and sat up.
“I don’t think I’ve ever climbed a tree,” Marisol said. “There aren’t too many near Savrille, and we refuse to import a bunch of wood like Shrevillle. It’s a waste of resources.”
“I’ve climbed trees my whole life,” Vivilyn said. “Growing up helping my family in the orchards made it second nature.”
“Can you climb anything else?” Marisol asked, as she looked at one of the towers rising high in the sky from the roof of the palace. “Like a wall or a fence? Or are trees your limitations?”
“I’ve never really tried climbing anything else,” Vivilyn admitted. “Trees have always been readily available, so I’ve never really wanted to try climbing anything else.”
They continued to chat as the game of tag across the field began to come to an end. The women slowly walked over to Vivilyn and Marisol as they tried to catch their breath. Darissa plopped down next to Vivilyn and rested her head against the wall.
“That was fun,” Macy said, as she sat next to Marisol. “You both should join us next time.”
“Mm. No thanks,” Marisol said, nonchalantly. “Thank you for the invite, though.”
They sat there, talking and laughing for a short while longer before they each started going inside to find other things to do. Before she knew it, Vivilyn was the only one still outside. She finished the sketch of Iza before standing up to find somewhere else to sit.
She couldn’t get the idea of climbing something other than a tree out of her mind. As she walked towards the closest door into the palace, she noticed a tall arched trellis over a wide window. It was thickly covered in an ivy.
If I could get to the top of that, I could pull myself onto that ledge there. The ledge in question appeared to wrap around the entire building, and from where she stood it looked wide enough for her to walk along.
She paused only to slide her sketchpad into a small bag she’d brought with her to the picnic and set it over her shoulder.
As she pulled herself up the trellis, it creaked but didn’t break. Her face broke into a smile as she ascended. It was different than climbing a tree, because she couldn’t get as clean of a grasp as she would have been able to on branches, but it wasn’t impossibly difficult. It wasn’t comfortable, but she managed.
The ledge was not as large as Vivilyn thought it would be, but she could sidle along. Vivilyn looked forward. If she fell, it would be painful, but she’d fallen from a higher distance before and been fine. For the second time since she’d been at the palace, she didn’t seem worried about anything.
Her shoes scraped against the ledge as she moved. Part of her knew she should stop and think about what she was doing, but she ignored it. He
r heart hammered in her chest and she felt more awake than she had since arriving at the palace. She couldn’t explain why she felt such exhilaration to be moving along the ledge.
She came to the end of the wall and carefully stepped around the corner, keeping herself so close to the building the corner lightly scratched through her clothes. She was thankful her back seemed to have fully healed from the incident with the stone door.
The ledge there was larger. She didn’t have to hold herself against the side so close. Movement on the ground caught her eyes.
Walking along the lawn with a bow and arrow, Brayleigh moved directly to a clearing where someone had set up different kinds of targets. It must have been the archery range part of the bet they’d made with the princes. As Brayleigh closely examined the bow she held, Vivilyn continued along the ledge until she was as close to behind the woman as possible. Brayleigh didn’t look up. Instead she pulled an arrow out of the quiver on her back.
With Brayleigh on the ground and Vivilyn on the ledge against the building, she figured Brayleigh wouldn’t even notice she was there. She sat. Her legs dangled against the stone below her.
Carefully, she pulled her sketchpad back out and began to sketch Brayleigh practicing below. In her mind, she could almost see the woman riding into battle with red paint on her cheeks.
The moment her mind conjured up the image, she was pulled into a vision.
Brayleigh sat on a large white stallion, her blonde hair and pale face so dirty they seemed multiple shades darker. She wore light armor and held a helmet against her left side.
“This is suicide,” Vivilyn heard herself saying. “There’s no way we can win.” She rubbed the upper half of her face in frustration. “We’ve already lost so many. We can’t lose you too. Not until we figure out how to defeat the darkness. Until then…”
“Until then we need a distraction,” Prince Aiden said from Vivilyn’s other side. “We have to keep them from harming any more of my people.”
“If we can’t eliminate the darkness,” Vivilyn argued, “then nothing we do will hurt them. There is no chance.”
Brayleigh smiled wryly, “Those are my favorite kind of odds.” She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin high. “You’d better go figure out how to stop it.” She put her helmet on and turned her horse away from the prince and Vivilyn. “Archers with me!” she called as she rode away.
The darkness is gone. Vivilyn thought firmly as the Brayleigh in her vision faded from view. Even if it could come back, I’m not the one to stop it.
Her mind brough on another vision of Brayleigh. She was just a child. Her hair was so light it was white. A young man who had a similar nose smiled down at the young child. There was no doubt in Vivilyn’s mind the man was her brother.
“You have to focus more, Bray,” he said. His voice was calm as he knelt next to her. “Try again.”
The young Brayleigh, no older than six, lifted a child-sized bow up. As she aimed, her brother gently adjusted Brayleigh’s grip and the angle of her arms.
“You have to picture exactly what you want the arrow to do,” he said. “Every aspect of it. From where it is now to where you want it to go. The speed, the angle of its impact, if it has to cut through the air against a breeze. Everything. Focus. I know you can do this.”
“I don’t know why you keep trying to teach her that,” another voice entered from a doorway behind the duo.
Brayleigh loosed the arrow and it fell to the dirt ground about two feet in front of her with a soft clunk.
“It’s okay, Bray. You’ll get it next time.”
“She’ll never get it. You’re wasting your time. We both were making more than missing by the time we were her age,” another boy said as he stormed out to the other two. “She’s not like us, Mavric. And if I were in charge here, then she’d already be sent to Court. The only good she can do for us is figure out how to be chosen when the time comes.”
“There are reasons she’s different, Theodoric,” Mavric said. He looked down to Brayleigh. “Keep practicing. You’ll get there.”
Theodoric’s nostrils flared as Mavric sent Brayleigh away.
“If it were m—”
“It’s not,” Mavric said through bared teeth. “She’s different than us, but she’s going to do great things. It’s not up to you. It never will be. I am heir to Libros, not you. And I will not treat our sister as though she’s nothing but a tool to be used to get us more power.”
“You’re an even bigger fool than Father thinks you are.” Theodoric shook his head as Mavric clenched his fists. “I won’t let you bring ruin to our family.”
“Everyone in Libros learns how to fight,” Mavric said as he moved to follow where Brayleigh had run to. “That includes Brayleigh.”
Something loud crashed into the wall just to the left side of Vivilyn’s head, pulling her immediately out of the vision.
As she looked to the ground underneath where her legs dangled, another arrow hit loudly on the wall to the right of her head, close enough that if she had moved at all, her ear would have been caught. It was so close to her face she felt the displaced air against her cheek as it moved by. The arrow clattered against the ledge she sat on before it bounced to the ground below.
“Why are you spying on me?” Brayleigh yelled. Her shoulders were pulled back and Vivilyn could almost see steam rising off her as she stomped closer.
“You shot at me,” Vivilyn shouted back. “You could have hit me!”
“That didn’t answer my question.” Brayleigh notched another arrow and pointed it at Vivilyn. “Why are you hiding up on the side of the building like a rat?”
“I wasn’t spying on you!” Her voice cracked, as Brayleigh continued to aim at her. “I was sketching. Just because we happen to be in the same general area doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sketching?” Brayleigh forced a laugh. “Because that’s normal to do on the side of a building.”
“It’s true!” Vivilyn turned the sketchpad to Brayleigh, despite knowing she wouldn’t be able to see the picture from where she stood.
Brayleigh loosed the arrow and it hit directly above Vivilyn’s head. It fell on her before clattering to the ground below with the others.
Vivilyn’s heart beat frantically. Heat flushed through her face and neck.
“You’re trying to kill me!” Vivilyn stood up.
“If I was trying to kill you,” Brayleigh said, “you wouldn’t be talking right now. I don’t miss.”
Chapter 15
Vivilyn struggled to fall asleep that night. Despite all that had happened that day, she was unsure whether she was excited or nervous for the next day. The last ceremony remained permanently lodged in her mind.
The warmth of the explosions.
The pain as the stone door collapsed.
The look of fear on Prince Aiden’s face as everything else around her went dark.
Her back pulsed slightly as the memory brought back a phantom pain.
When she did fall asleep, her dreams didn’t feel like normal dreams.
A man stood on a cliff looking over a mountain. Lightning flashed in the distance, followed rapidly by a vibrating rumble of thunder. His silvering hair was pulled back in a wild tail and it flung over his shoulder as he turned to face the young man approaching him.
The young man looked exactly like him, only younger. His hair was darker than the deep blue night sky on their side of the mountains.
“Grandfather, we brought the girls, just like you asked.”
In his arms he held two toddlers. Following behind him was a woman who looked similar in age to the first man. She also held tightly to a little one. The three girls were set on three stones in a line beside their great grandfather.
“Why do we need all of them?” the younger man asked.
“Because, Victorium,” the old man said as he hugged the woman, “the three are my legacy. And their souls are needed whole for the future.”
“Vic,” t
he woman said as she held on to his hand, “you don’t have to do this.” Her eyes were filled with tears. “Someone else can figure it out. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Adelina,” he said, “I have seen what becomes of this world if I don’t.”
He shook his head and turned to the little girls in front of him, “I have seen what becomes of our family.” He barely managed to suppress a shiver. “This storm would just be the beginning. I am the last of the current Etilidean wizards, but I must also be the last for many generations. The souls of these girls will be what can fight the coming darkness. But their souls are still too young. If I do nothing, they will shatter into nothingness and humanity will have no chance.”
He knelt slowly in front of the girls. One giggled and reached her hand out to touch his nose Another waved her hand and caused the keys jangling on his belt to vanish and then reappear in her hands. She chewed on the keys, drool dripping from her mouth. The last just tilted her head. If she could speak, Vic was sure she’d agree with him.
This was their only chance.
“I still don’t understand why Daphinia has to be here. She has no magic.” Victorium knelt next to them and tickled the girl who still had her hand on his grandfather’s nose.
“Without the heart, the world doesn’t live. The heart is the warmth. The heart is the growth. The heart is the stability. Without the heart, the head and the hand will never be strong enough. They’d never be able to properly ground their skills.”
In Vic’s hand a necklace with a delicate black chain appeared. Silver and gold interlaced all around it until they reached a deep red garnet with swirls of white piercing through it. He set the necklace around the little girl’s neck and it fell almost to the rock because it was so big on her.
“The heart creates balance,” Vic said.
He turned to the calm child on Daphinia’s left. “The head follows logic, the head sees what the heart can’t and the head remembers what the hands can’t find.” In his hands a simple, silver diadem appeared. It was plain circlet that had a hanging green stone. The stone would have fallen on the girl’s third eye once she reached adulthood. If only the situation were different. When he set it on the child, she kept her head as still as she could gazing at him as if she understood the gravity of the moment.