by Elise Kova
Flanking the queen were men and women, all dressed in finery with badges pinned over their left breasts. They each stared down a few short steps to the center of the square. There, kneeling before them, was a man Vi recognized.
“Father!” she called out. Her voice was muffled, smothered by the whole atmosphere of this strange place. It was then that she noticed there was no sound at all. She could hear nothing, despite seeing it with nearly perfect clarity.
Aldrik wore clothing she’d never seen him in before. It was embellished in patterns from his heels up to the long panels of the coat fastened with silver closures up to the neck. The sleeves were tucked into gloves, billowing at his elbows. She couldn’t recognize where such a cut would hail from.
Where was he? And who would the Emperor Solaris kneel to? He alone was the ruler of all civilization.
The queen spoke, her words silent, and waved her hand. Aldrik stood, looking behind him at double doors pulled open by men posted to either side. Vi squinted; the vision was growing hazy.
A burly man—no, a monster—emerged. While he walked on two legs, and had two thick arms attached to broad shoulders with a single head between them, the similarities with “human” ended there.
He had a snout much like a lizard, and his skin was armored with plate-like scales that seemed to grow naturally underneath his flesh. They extended up in small horns along his snout, running along his brow. They also extended in the opposite direction, down his long tail. When he spoke, two rows of razor-sharp teeth glinted in the light.
Vi could not hear the words, the silence suddenly suffocating.
He pushed forward a cage and within it was an even more horrifying sight. A man was slamming his head against the bars, white oozing from the splits in his skin. His eyes had gone milky, streaked with pulsating red veins of unnatural magic that bulged from his skin and ran down his cheeks like tears.
She could not hear every sickening thud of the diseased man’s body as he slammed it against the bars, but she could see her father’s wince. She could see his hands clench at his side as he no doubt fought to stand rigidly still. The vision continued to fade, the details blurring, slowly blotting out as though it were overexposed—burned away.
In a blink, Vi was back in her body.
She landed hard on her knees, hands digging into the slightly moist stones beneath her. Vi gasped for air. Her equilibrium reeled. What was real? What was that?
“It’s you.” The words were smooth and rich, and colored by a soft lilt. The voice’s timbre was deeper than the lowest string of a cello, more resonant than a war drum.
Vi slowly rose her head toward the sound of the voice.
When she had fallen, her flame had extinguished—thankfully. But the room was now lit up by the man himself standing before her. Concentric circles of light spun slowly around his feet, raising up to his knees before fading into the darkness; every few moments a new one repeated the cycle. He gave off his own illumination, and every movement seemed to trail sparks of magic through the dark air.
She recognized him from the first vision—dark purple hair, nearly black; his green eyes, the overall litheness about him. The Vi of the future had been on some clandestine meeting with this strange man who now stood before her.
“It’s you,” Vi whispered back, certain now that she’d hit her head and this must be a dream.
The man moved slowly. Every wisp of light caught along his hair and trailed off of him as he knelt before her. Eyes at her level, he stared at her, through her, with irises that glowed with their own strikingly green inner light. He looked at something in her that Vi wasn’t sure if she’d ever even seen.
“You… you are the champion?” He continued to stare at her. Vi slid back slightly, trying to put more distance between them. Her elbow ached from the fall, but the only thing she paid attention to was the man before her.
“Champion?” Vi shook her head. “I’m the Crown Princess of the Solaris Empire.” She’d look a lot more the part if she picked herself off the ground. But her muscles wouldn’t obey her commands. She felt frozen under his gaze.
“Solaris…” He scrunched his nose with what Vi would dare say was disgust. He looked her up and down one final time. Vi knew when she was being sized up, and this was certainly one of those times. She also knew when she didn’t measure up. “Why would she choose one of the Dark Isle as her champion?”
“I have no idea who you are or what you’re talking about. I’m not the person you think I am. What I’d like to know is—”
“I know who you are,” he said quickly, sharply. His accent had a harshness when whispered that silenced her immediately. “You are the one who has tortured me, year over year.”
“You have the wrong girl.” Vi stressed every word, as if that would somehow get it through his thick skull. “Who are you?”
“I am the voice.” A frown crossed over his lips. “You do not know who I am. You don’t know who you are. Do you even know you stand at an apex?”
“Do I dare ask a question or are you just going to berate me and not answer it anyway?” Vi asked with a frown. Frustration and anger were beginning to win out over the wonder and fear at the mysterious visitor. He wasn’t answering her questions. She doubted he was even listening to them.
Vi thought she saw a small smirk cross his lips, but she couldn’t be sure, for it was gone as quickly as it came.
“You’re useless to me as you are now and time is running short.” He stood, taking a step backward.
“Useless? Excuse me?” Vi tried to push herself off the ground. Her whole body felt heavy. “How da—”
He lifted a hand. Magic spiraled out from his palm, a swirling glyph similar to the one around his feet—similar to what had glowed before her watch. “Samasha,” he whispered.
The word struck her like a punch to the gut. It knocked the wind from her, leaving Vi gasping and doubled over once more. She squinted up at the man, fighting for words. But behind her eyes were explosions of light that rippled across her skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
“Wh-what did you do to me?” she forced out the words. Her whole body rattled, her flesh searing hot against the ice-cold air of the underground.
She was going to be incinerated from the inside out. Her magic was going to break free of its tethers and, somehow, she would be burned by it. Firebearers could only be burned by the flames of stronger Firebearers, levied with the intent to harm. It should be impossible, but every searing nerve ending screaming in pain told her otherwise.
“Find the apexes. Seek me out.” The man vanished, taking his unnatural light with him, leaving Vi gasping, struggling for consciousness against the bone-rattling tremors that shook through her, alone in the darkness of what she hoped would not be her tomb.
Chapter Nine
It could’ve been seconds, or hours.
But eventually, the shakes faded. Her jaw had been locked, preventing her from making any noise greater than a whimper in the darkness—forcing her to suffer quietly. Yet when those bolts of agony finally vanished, Vi felt better. Great, almost.
She pushed herself away from the ground, straightening. Behind her, the hall stretched onward, but she’d had enough exploring for one day and didn’t exactly feel like going for a swim in the dark. She wanted to put it all behind her, for now, and return to the world above where things made sense. Where she knew what was up, and down, and most importantly… what was real.
“… maybe five minutes now?” Ellene’s voice echoed back to Vi as she emerged from the collapsed archway.
Five minutes? Had it really just been five minutes? She felt as though she’d lived an entire lifetime, died, and been reborn in that cavern.
“That’s it, I’m going down there,” Jayme declared.
“There’s no need for that.” Vi stepped back into the circle of sunlight, looking up at her friends. “I’m right here.”
“What happened to you?” Jayme gasped.
Well, if
that wasn’t a question with an answer worthy of a thousand gold. Vi didn’t really know where to begin. But she knew Jayme was focused on the bruises, scrapes, and blood still rolling down her knees from where the wounds had been ripped open again.
“I fell into a hole.” Vi shrugged. Her friends wouldn’t understand—or believe her—if she’d told them what she’d seen. Frankly, Vi didn’t believe herself. Standing in the sunlight, it all truly felt like a dream… more like a nightmare. “I got banged up a bit, but I’m fine. Ellene, can you help me out of here?”
“Gladly.”
A vine slithered down into the hole, bending itself unnaturally into a U shape. Vi grabbed her bow and sat on it like she would a swing. Holding on to both sides, the vine lifted her up and out, depositing her on solid ground next to both of her friends before falling limply behind her.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jayme asked, looking her up and down.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s all superficial—bruises and cuts—nothing serious,” Vi assured them. “I just may be a little slow getting back.”
“I can still carry your pack,” Jayme said, even though it was already slung across her back.
“I can manage.” Vi held out her hand. “I’m certainly not going to be attempting to hunt anymore.”
Jayme just shrugged, starting into the forest, Vi’s pack still over her shoulder. Ellene and Vi shared a look, a non-verbal agreement that sometimes it was best not to even attempt argument when Jayme had made up her mind. Ellene started first behind their friend, and Vi followed.
“At least now we have a good excuse for why we’re taking the whole four days,” Ellene mused, clearly trying to gild the tension with a silver lining.
“I’m sure they expected us to take the whole time regardless.” Jayme glanced over her shoulder, as if making sure they were still following. “You two will always run to the end of whatever leash you’re given.”
“I think I should take offense to that.” Ellene’s tone clearly conveyed she didn’t.
The two continued on talking, but Vi stayed focused on her feet and the ground below her.
What had happened in those ruins?
Small tremors still shook her hands, and she wished Jayme had let her carry her pack so she’d have something to hold on to. Instead, she balled them into fists, trying to use the tension to still the shaking. The embers within her were now an outright blaze.
She stared down at her fists as if waiting for them to ignite with the raw power that was steadily filling her. Fists. It reminded her of her father’s motion in her vision.
“What is it, Ellene?” Jayme had stopped walking. Vi had been so lost in her thoughts that she almost went face-first into Ellene’s back, who had also stopped dead in her tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Vi rested her hand on Ellene’s shoulder to jolt her from her thoughts.
Ellene gazed eastward, the same direction the bird had when it’d been initially spooked. The movement was so similar, so instinctual, that Vi knew instantly the correlation was not by chance. Whatever the animal had sensed then, Ellene sensed now.
“What is it?”
“Something big.” Ellene crouched down, digging her fingers into the earth. She closed her eyes. There was a quiet pulsing of magic rippling out from her. “It’s odd…”
“What is?”
She seemed startled, as if she’d somehow not realized she’d spoken aloud. “There’s an odd feeling in the trees around us, all of them.”
“Odd how?”
“As though the earth itself is shuddering.”
“How can the earth shudder?” Jayme asked
“I don’t know.” Ellene’s tone matched Vi’s thoughts. A flight of birds took to the skies in the distance, punching through the canopy of trees with chaotic squawking. The branches of the trees swayed and Vi wondered if the rumbling she felt was only in her mind, brought on by Ellene’s words.
“What do you think it is?” Vi was almost afraid to ask.
“Nothing good.” Ellene went from perfect stillness to motion. She sprinted past them, calling over her shoulder. “We need to go, now!”
They didn’t question, running immediately behind her.
A rustling in the distance grew to a cacophony of snapping tree branches and crunching undergrowth. With a roar, a hulking noru cat burst into view. Vi turned, and froze with a mixture of fear, fascination, and stomach-churning recognition.
The beast oozed white globs from open sores that plopped sickly to the ground. It was as if every drop of blood in its veins had been replaced by the grotesque liquid. Its eyes were glossed over and pale, with familiar red streaks bulging in them. In fact, the magic-filled veins pulsed upward from its fur across its body, casting an ominous glow on the tree bark around it.
“The White Death,” Jayme uttered from behind her.
It suddenly made sense. What Vi had seen in her vision, what she was confronted with now. They’d said the plague was in the North. But it hadn’t seemed real until the moment she stared it in its unnatural, white eyes.
“Grandmother,” Ellene whimpered, her voice nearly as frozen with fear as Vi’s feet.
The beast slammed into a tree, as though it were drunk. A new wound burst open in the center of its head, as though its skin had gone brittle; chunks fell off like chips from a sculptor’s chisel. It shook its head, swayed, and picked itself back up slowly.
“Ellene,” Jayme whispered. “Can you take us up to the treetops? It hasn’t seen us yet, maybe we can avoid it entirely.”
Its hulking head turned slowly. Two orbs, like polished stone, stared right at Vi. A shot of energy ran straight up her spine.
“It saw me,” she breathed, panic flooding her.
“How do you—” Jayme never finished her thought. The beast turned, charging right for them. “Ellene, we have to go!”
Jayme lunged for Ellene in an attempt to get her moving. Vi watched as the girl buried her hands in her hair. She knew what was coming next—Ellene’s magic would act on instinct to protect her. A stone shell, like a turtle’s carapace, shot up from the ground around her. Jayme was close enough that she was encased in it as well.
But Vi… she’d been two steps too far away, and now she was alone with the charging Noru.
“Let me out!” Jayme’s muffled shouts could be heard.
“Mother, mother,” Ellene cried. If it were possible, the rock seemed to thicken. The voices vanished entirely.
Vi’s eyes turned back to the still charging Noru.
This was how she was going to die. That was the prevailing thought that ran through Vi’s brain, muffling everything else except for her heartbeat. Why was her heartbeat so loud? She couldn’t hear the snapping of wood or the snarls of the beast. All she could hear was the sound of her own vital signs. Well, at least as long as she heard that, she knew she was alive.
And if she was alive, she’d do everything in her power to stay that way.
Turning, Vi began to run. There was no way she could outpace a noru, so she’d have to try to outsmart it. Vi slid, gripping a tree root to swing into a shaded alcove at the base of the tree. She pressed her back into it, hoping to confuse the maddened animal and hide from it.
The tree rumbled, bark snapping, as the beast ran head-first into its trunk. Vi bit back a scream. The noru roared. Vi curled her legs, digging the balls of her feet into the earth, seeking some purchase underneath the thick covering of leaves. Her toes slammed into a root and her thighs wrapped under her chest, exploding with power as she began running again.
Fire. She had to make fire. Surely they were close enough now for the watchers to see a warning.
Her side burned from her heavy breathing; her knees ached. The only thing keeping her moving was the knowledge that if she stopped she would be a snack for the giant cat trying to kill her. Darting between the trees, trying to out-nimble the large beast, Vi swung in a wide arc, trying to dredge up her spark in the process.
A paw, twice her size, came out of nowhere. Vi dodged inward, narrowly avoiding the claws, but was batted across the jungle like a toy. Her body slammed into another tree and stars exploded behind her eyes for the second time in one day. Vi fell limply to the ground, trying to push herself up as the creature stalked closer.
Get up. She had to get up. She was the daughter of Aldrik and Vhalla Solaris—cut from a cloth that couldn’t be sheared so easily. Even if the giant saber-sized claws were about to prove her wrong.
“Get up!” Vi cried. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She would die before ever having the chance to live with her family—without ever finding her true home.
The noru’s breath was hot on her face as it leaned down. A row of razor-sharp teeth glinted. The cat reared back, and dove in to eat her whole.
Vi screamed, and fire exploded from her.
Like a sailor watching a lifeline slip over the deck-rail, Vi watched as her control over the magic escaped her hands. Just as Ellene’s magic had sprung forth to craft a shell to protect her, so did Vi’s. Except hers was an inferno. Flames spread across the ground, fed by her magic and uncontrolled.
Too much. She had to get control of it. Her mind was frozen, unable to do anything but look on in horror as her magic took over.
She felt like she could burn the world down if she wasn’t careful.
Vi continued to fight to stand, the ground beneath her ash and barren already. Her clothes had burned off entirely, as they had the last time, and the only thing she saw was white-hot flames.
Withdraw, withdraw, her mind urged in panic, mirroring her uncle’s words. She would hurt her friends if she didn’t. But the fire was too big. It had spread too far, too fast, and was beyond her control now. There was too much magic.
There were screams—distinctly animal. Hopefully Ellene’s rocky shield protected her from the blaze. Vi curled into a ball, holding herself, trying to make herself as small as possible.