by Elise Kova
“He’s as bad as he seems?” Ellene asked.
Jayme sighed heavily. Her brow softened and she shook her head—a slight reversal on her earlier position. “I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve been unfair to him. He’s just so uncomfortable to be around, with that shifting gaze and those fidgeting hands. I assumed—”
“Don’t go sympathizing with him,” Vi cautioned. “You’re my ally.” Romulin had said Andru was more important than she could realize. Vi needed her friends on her side to help navigate whatever that meant.
Jayme just shrugged. She was never one for hesitating when it came to contesting Vi, at least in private. Vi appreciated the woman all the more for it.
“Either way, he’s not a love interest. Certainly not for me.”
“Then maybe we’ll both find love when we get back to the capital?” Vi suggested.
Jayme just shrugged, seizing the opportunity to shift the topic. “Speaking of Solarin… Can you really leave all this? For the capital and all its snow and ice? It seems like paradise here.”
“Everywhere is paradise, just a different kind.” Her maps told her that much. The world was wide and diverse; there were highlands and lowlands, frigid mountains and tropical jungles. Who was to say which was better than the other?
“Spoken like an Empress,” Jayme groaned.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Because it’s such a cliché answer.”
Vi shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“I don’t even want to leave this spot right now.” Jayme looked out over the waves, toward the horizon. “Everything seems so… simple here. Being with you two, like this. It’s almost like I can believe the three of us are just girls relaxing. Nothing more complex than that. I can almost tell myself that time may not come for us, and we could be forever this way.”
Vi studied Jayme’s face. There was something distant and sad about it. It was almost the same expression Jayme got whenever she spoke of her family—her father specifically. But before Vi could really put her finger on it, Jayme stood and shook the emotion from her with the sand clinging to her legs.
“Speaking of leaving, though. We likely should. If we’re going to lie about how far we went we need to make sure we’re back in four days.”
“Our guard hath spoken,” Ellene said to Vi.
“Right!” Vi jumped up, giving Jayme a salute.
“Don’t mock me.” The soldier rolled her eyes. “Some of us have to work for our positions in life, you know, we’re not just born with them.”
“We’re not mocking you, we’re very proud of you for your hard work,” Vi said with genuine sincerity that she hoped shined through. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had half the connection with my family I did.”
Jayme glanced askance, clearly uncertain about the praise. True to form, she pushed past it. “We should also likely hunt something. It’ll be even more believable we were on a hunt if we come back with a kill.”
“Don’t look at me, that’s Vi’s area of expertise.” Ellene tugged on her tunic and the shorts she wore underneath. The girl often went barefoot, claiming it was a Groundbreaker tactic to feel the earth better.
“Do you mind? Seeing as I doubt I’ll be killing anything in this jungle with a sword.” Jayme strapped the weapon in question back to her waist.
“No, I can hunt something on the way, I’m sure.” Vi detached her bow and quiver from her pack, handing the pack itself to Ellene. The girl already had a system for managing both. But before she could sling it on her back, Jayme took it and had it over her shoulder.
“If I can’t help with the hunt, the least I can do is carry supplies,” Jayme insisted.
“But—”
“Let her, Ellene. You may be able to help me with your magic like you did the last time,” Vi thought aloud.
They were a good twenty paces into the forest when Jayme dared to ask the question Vi could only assume had been burning her up since the mere mention of magic. “What about your magic, Vi? The Chieftain said—”
“I’ve no idea what Sehra was talking about. The last thing any of us want, myself included, is for me to use my magic,” she said quickly, sternly. Her friends shared a startled look at Vi’s tone. “Sorry… It’s been… strange lately, is all.”
“Strange how?” Ellene asked.
“I think I’m Awoken now,” Vi confessed.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner? That’s excellent news!” Her friend hopped from foot to foot. She’d never really understood Vi’s plight. Ellene had manifested early, was Awoken quickly, and moreover had an ancient power in her that was said to have descended right from the Goddess herself. The Northerners called her a Child of Yargen.
“Like I said, it’s been weird and I’d rather not test it,” Vi said firmly. But, unsurprisingly, Ellene missed it.
“Why? You should—”
“If you think it’s for the best,” Jayme interrupted Ellene.
“The best would be for us to move more quietly so we don’t scare away any jungle fowl.”
At the suggestion, they moved through the forest silently and Vi appreciated that her play for a reprieve from the conversation worked.
Ellene made almost no noise, the ground curling around her feet with pulses of power to muffle her steps. Vi was the next most quiet, her steps in the jungle confident from a lifetime of venturing through it. Jayme… she tried her best. But she clearly wasn’t accustomed to the shrub brushes, dangling vines, or gnarled roots that reached up to trip an unwary traveler.
The first day yielded nothing. They broke for camp, and all agreed that the next morning they’d find their luck. After a few hours of walking, their optimism was rewarded. Vi held up her hand, stopping her companions.
Movement in the distance caught her eye. Vi squinted, looking through the shifting shafts of light that were determined to make their path through the thick canopy. She crouched low, hearing the others following her lead.
There was another flash of green, the light hitting a rainbow of colored feathers. Vi slowly pointed, making sure they both saw it. She brought her finger to each of them, pointed at the ground, and then mouthed the words, “You stay here.”
Ellene and Jayme nodded. Ellene soundlessly ascended into the trees above and Vi began her slow crawl through the brush. She pushed aside large fronds, using them to half-keep her concealed as she approached the unsuspecting beast. Vi ignored the branches sticking to the messy braids of her hair as she found a good vantage.
Slowly, she slid an arrow from her quiver, notching it and drawing back. Sweat cut through the grime that coated her like a second skin after spending days in the jungle, raining into her eyes off her brow. It stung, but she ignored the haze of dirt and salt just as she ignored the ache in her legs from pressing into the roots and rock underneath her.
There was nothing in the world beyond the sound of her heart, and the tall-necked and long-legged bird that pecked the ground before her.
Vi took in a deep breath through her nose, holding it as she stretched every last bit of tension from her bow. The creature raised its head suddenly, looking through the forest. Whatever had startled it, Vi couldn’t sense.
This was it. One clean shot.
The bird swiveled its head back around. The feathers of its flightless wings puffed outward. Vi could see it squat slightly, loading power in its nimble legs before it would bolt once more into the dense underbelly of the jungle. Her eyes widened slightly and fingers relaxed.
Vi’s arrow shot straight, narrowly missing its mark. It whizzed past the head of the bird, her prediction of its movements off by a mere hair.
“Ellene!” Vi leapt from her vantage, sliding down the leafy forest floor. She would give chase, wouldn’t let this one go.
Above her, trees groaned and shifted. Their canopies arced and swayed in unnatural ways. She heard the crackling and groaning of wood as branches and vines alike came to life at the behest of her magical friend sprinting a
cross them.
“Head left!” Ellene shouted above.
Just as she finished speaking, a wall of stone jutted from the earth, causing the sprinting bird to track left. Vi notched another arrow, drew, took a breath, loosed. Once more, it whizzed past, missing by the smallest of margins.
“Again!” Vi shouted, pumping her legs against the forest floor, struggling to keep her balance and keep up with the creature. She was determined. This wouldn’t get the best of her. She wouldn’t let it win.
“Right!” Another curved wall of stone; the bird course corrected.
With flaps of its tiny wings, it launched itself up in a long leap onto a low branch. Every feather stood on end, tail upright and fanned like a rainbow as the bird gave an indignant squawk at her.
Vi was breathless, but from running, not from fear. If it tried to attack her with its long claws, it’d be dead. Either by her arrow, or Ellene’s magic dropping a tree branch or rock on it. She was hunting for sport. But all sport would be gone if it actually became a threat to her.
She watched its motions, calming her breathing as much as possible as her legs continued to propel her forward. Her arm strained from holding her bow drawn as she made her calculations. It would try to use the height to its advantage and leap to attack. But that also made its movements relatively predictable, as its options were severely limited.
Wanting to keep her advantage, Vi dashed forward, forcing the creature to act. She tracked the tip of her arrow over the face of the animal as she watched its eyes—almost in slow motion—shifting to the left. There, it would go there, everything in Vi’s body screamed.
Pushing her heels into the ground, Vi skidded, leaning back to get a better angle and bracing herself to come to a stop as her feet would eventually catch rock or root. The bird leaped just as she’d predicted. Her heart raced right before the kill.
“Vi, look out!” Ellene’s shrill cry barely registered.
Where she’d expected her feet to meet something solid, there was only air. Her stomach shot up and out through her mouth in a scream, as the world was plunged into darkness.
Chapter Eight
She was falling.
The arrow she’d notched flew in a strange arc as she let it go in surprise. Vi watched it whiz past the jungle fowl harmlessly, missing by a large margin, and the creature continued its escape. That was the last thing she saw as the light of the jungle quickly faded.
Ditching her bow, Vi’s hands moved on instinct to try to brace her. Vi saw only stars as her body struck against a tall, wide stone. Her bow clattered, finally hitting the ground. She tried to calculate how far down it must be, but there was just pain and tension as her body rolled down the stone. When her body met the ground, Vi flopped onto her back and wheezed.
She could breathe. That much was good, at least.
But she couldn’t use the word “good” for the rest of her situation. Vi stared up, blinking at the circle of light above her. It was a green oculus to the jungle she’d fallen from. Vines swayed down into the cavern she now found herself in, dirt padded the ground under her, and the creeping plants that had masked the hole she’d fallen into were torn to leafy bits and cast about like confetti.
Groaning, Vi wiggled her fingers and toes, then moved her elbows and knees. She stretched her arms above her head, slowly, feeling the muscles in her chest expand over her ribs. Nearly every corner of her body hurt, but the stone pillar that stretched at a diagonal through the cavern had broken her fall enough that nothing seemed worse than bruises.
Pillar.
Vi rolled onto her side and pushed herself up from her elbow. Blood trickled across her skin, and she felt the same warmth rolling down her temple. Bruises and scrapes weren’t so bad, all things considered, and Vi had more important things to focus on—like where she was.
The cavern was dark, the only source of light from the hole she’d fallen through. It cast long shadows on the ominous, gray underground she now sat in. But what fascinated her the most was how those shadows clung to sculptures carved into the far walls, barely filling their cracks and carvings enough for her to make them out. Her eyes darted from pillar to pillar, to the domed ceiling above her.
It was a ceiling. Not a naturally formed cave someone had decorated—which would still be incredible—but a man-made structure.
There were stretches of stone beam with small, black, shining bits of glass or stone placed between them, like dark stars glittering on a gray sky. There were supports around the edge of the room. And an archway, half collapsed, that led further into the mysterious darkness.
She tried to force her mind to ignore the pain and think. Had she seen ruins on her maps in this area? Vi couldn’t recall, but likely not. She trusted her memory of her maps more than their accuracy, especially when it came to Northern ruins. No one seemed to think them important enough to mark. Or, if they were known, they were taboo—either too sacred or too cursed to traverse. The two facts combined resulted in precious little information on them.
“Vi!” Ellene’s face appeared in the hole above. “Oh thank Yargen.” Worry melted instantly into relief. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Vi finally stood, fighting a small wince. Her left elbow ached the worst. It was her non-dominant arm, but also the one she used to hold her bow. “Bruised and scraped is all.”
“I’m sending down a vine.”
“No, wait.” Vi took a step forward. “This is some kind of ruin.”
“So?”
“None of my maps have ruins anywhere near this area.”
“Vi, really?” Ellene groaned. “Forget about your maps this one time and come back up.”
“Don’t you want to know what this is?” Vi looked up at the girl. “It looks like it’s from the early days of Shaldan.”
“I’m sure it’s old if it’s completely buried and unmarked. Do you ever consider that maybe there’s a reason for that? Some things are best left uncharted and undisturbed.”
“I don’t know if that’s true…” Vi turned her eyes back toward the archway, peering into the darkness beyond. It was utterly impenetrable from where she stood. There would be only one way to know what lurked in that blackness. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Vi, no, please,” Ellene whined softly. “Don’t go exploring, come back up. We need to get going.”
“I’m sure Jayme isn’t far behind.” Holding all the packs likely slowed her down. “I’ll only be a minute and I’ll be back before she gets here. It won’t slow us down and then I can mark my maps.”
“It looks dangerous,” Ellene said, even though she could barely see the whole of it.
“It’s been standing for a while like this. I think it can stand a little longer.” Vi took a step forward, toward the edge of the circle of light the hole cast on the floor.
“Vi—”
“I’ll only be a minute,” Vi said firmly, looking back up at her friend. “Just wait there.”
Ignoring the soft whimper from above that was equal parts worry and frustration, Vi stepped into the shadow.
Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light as she stepped over rubble, heading first toward the carvings on the walls. There were men and women, standing among trees, carving the land and building civilization. Always among them was the single figure of a woman, an axe in hand.
She paused at the threshold of the arch, taking Ellene’s concerns to heart. Half of it had collapsed, a giant tree root stretching through the holes it’d punched in the stone. But that same tree root seemed to be helping support the ceiling of the narrow tunnel that led farther underground.
Even with her eyes continuing to fight to adjust to the dim light, it became harder and harder to see. The room opened up again; Vi felt it more than saw it. For now there were only the ghosts of light catching on the outlines of stone before her. The still, dank air felt expansive around her and Vi had the sensation as though she’d stepped into the mouth of a slumbering beast.
Taking a breath, and raising a slightly quivering hand, Vi carefully brought her spark to the surface. It shot up her forearm, running along the tendons under her skin. Vi focused on condensing the sparks into a single flame as they arced between her fingers and palm like tiny bolts of lightning. It was barely more than a candle, yet against the darkness that had rested undisturbed for countless years, it may as well have been a torch.
Before her was an expansive hall. Rows of columns at least three stories tall sloped down and away from her. Vi couldn’t tell if the room had always sloped, or if it was the weight of the jungle above it, pressing down for years on this forgotten place.
The damp aroma of water filled the air. But it wasn’t stale or moldy smelling. Instead, it was bright, fresh, as if fed by an underground spring. She’d heard of such underground channels feeding the jungles of the North from a great reservoir, but Vi had never seen one with her own eyes.
Vi moved her hand to get a better look at one of the carvings on the walls and her eyes were drawn to the flame. Suddenly, it was as if invisible fingers had grabbed her face and were stretching her lids upward and downward at the same time, holding her head in place. She felt the spark creeping up her neck, magic rattling in her skull. The flame brightened, going white hot.
No! Vi struggled against the sensation. She didn’t want a vision here and now. But all her muscles were rigid and locked, her mental resistance quickly thwarted. The fire was all she saw as it quickly consumed her senses.
All at once, Vi was no longer standing in that dark underground ruin, but in a city she’d never seen before.
The day felt sickly hot, and the aroma of death clung to the square where she stood. Her eyes darted from the sun-shades that looked more like sails extending up from the white-washed stones of the walls. Orange and red roof tiles dipped into gutters made of steel, embellished with faces that had wide open mouths to pour rain from.
To her left was a row of chairs, a throne in its center. A woman, dressed in whole bolts of draped silk, sat with an ornate crown of gold on her head. At its peak was a sunburst, pillars supporting it. Vi squinted, trying to make out the face hidden underneath the long veil attached to the base of the crown. It looked almost like the sun crown of the Empire, yet not… Vi was certain it wasn’t her mother sitting before her.