by Elise Kova
Before her was a world unlike anything Vi had ever seen. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a person she’d never met before. There was the great crescent-shaped body of land that she’d always known as the Crescent Continent. But it had never appeared in any of the Empire’s maps as more than a speck creeping in on the northernmost tip of the Main Continent, so Vi had always been left to believe it was relatively insignificant.
Yet on this map, the Crescent Continent—Meru, as it was labeled—was over four times the size of the Main Continent.
It was so large that there was a smaller island nestled in its watery eye. The barrier isles—called the Shattered Isles on this map—were far more detailed and expansive than she’d ever seen them. Trailing up farther northwest was a large body of land, almost the size of the Main Continent. To the southeast was yet another continent, with more islands surrounding it. More islands stretched out southwest from the Crescent Continent, or perhaps they were continents in their own right, with land in the bottom left corner only peeking on the map.
“Is this to scale?” she whispered. By her count, if it was, there were at least five continents, if the Main Continent was still even considered one.
“Roughly.” Sehra nodded; her tone had become more serious, heavy even. “Close enough for what you’re asking.”
Vi ran her fingers over the map, her eyes scanning the names and her nails brushing over the ink strokes that designated islands and mountains, forests and valleys, that she’d never known existed.
“The Dark Isle—Solaris?” That was how the Main Continent was marked. The man had said something about the Dark Isle as well. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“The Dark Isle is what the rest of the world calls us.”
How could a man from off the continent be communicating with her? Nothing was adding up and all Vi wanted to do was curl back up in her library where things made sense.
“I don’t understand… If this is real, why have I never seen it? Why have I never heard of it before?” Questions swirled in her mind, all beginning with why.
“Only those of royal blood, and the lords or ladies that oversee each of the Empire’s parts, know this truth. You would have found out eventually, before you took your throne, but it is now relevant to everything you must learn.”
“Not why haven’t I learned of it…” Vi shook her head, trying to rephrase her question. “Why is this not taught to everyone? Why isn’t it common knowledge?”
“Many reasons, but two reign among them. The first is that Meru seeks to keep us cut off from the world. They govern trade and travel with an iron fist, and should any vessels from our lands stray too close to them without proper approval, they’re immediately sunk without question. Some say they even employ the pirates that terrorize the Shattered—Barrier—Isles.”
“And the other reason?” Vi barely glanced up from the map, already trying to memorize it.
Now that the initial shock, and irrational feelings of betrayal toward an inanimate object, had begun to fade, fascination was taking over. She needed a distraction, and her mood could rarely stay sour around a new map. Every curve of the cartographer’s brush left Vi wondering. Wondering what was there, what stories were out there to unfold… and why she felt like even though this was certainly the first time she’d learned of the greater world, she could already count every island in the Shattered Isles with her eyes closed.
“Power.” How many times in history had that been the reason for doing or not doing something? “As far as the people of the Solaris Empire know, the ‘Main Continent’ is the world—the only one that matters, at least. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that the Crescent Continent is filled with nothing but dangerous and barbaric peoples and things?”
“But it’s not… is it?” Vi whispered, her vision coming back to her of the queen draped in silks, and the courtyard that looked like it belonged in her dreamscape of the Southern castle, not on a land declared by the Empire to lack civilization. Of course there was more to it. Her father had set out to meet with their leaders about a cure. That didn’t seem like something he would do if the Crescent Continent was nothing more than roving bands of disorganized peoples.
“It’s not. As you can see, we are a very, very small portion of the world. But by giving the people of the Solaris Empire pride—pride in seeing themselves as the pinnacle of the world—they strive to fight harder, to follow the rules, and to oblige their Empire.”
“Doesn’t it seem… dishonest?” Vi frowned, looking up from the map. All her life she’d been complicit in the greatest lie of them all without even knowing it.
“Perhaps, but then we return to reason one—the world is, overall, hostile toward us. Keeping the people here is for their own safety as well.”
Passing judgment that would affect people she’d never met, but declaring her actions were for their best interest. If that wasn’t the burden of royalty, Vi didn’t know what was. It’s what her parents had done with her, wasn’t it? Made a decision that impacted Vi’s whole life before she was even born and declaring it in her best interest.
“Why are they so dangerous?” Vi chose to ignore, for now, the reasons behind the rest of the world’s dislike for them. She found hatred rarely had good reasons.
“Because of the magic they possess… The same magic you and I possess—the magic of Yargen.”
“What is the magic of Yargen?” Vi finally asked. “All I’ve seen is… light? Light that you seem to be able to do almost anything with.”
“It’s a fairly apt description, in all honesty.” Sehra sat in the chair across from Vi, the small table between them. “The rest of the world has a magic far more complete than ours. What we know as magic being elemental affinities, is merely a mutilated fraction of the true power—the power the goddess herself bestowed on mortals that we here on the Dark Isle have lost control of.”
“You’re saying that sorcerers on the Crescent Continent—Meru—all have the power of Yargen?” That could certainly be an explanation for her mysterious visitor.
“That is what I have been led to believe,” Sehra affirmed. “Naturally, I have not stepped foot off this continent… nor have I met with anyone from Meru.”
“The traveler you met… she wasn’t from Meru?”
Sehra paused at that question for what felt like a long time. The silence stretched and Vi leaned forward, the anticipation helping the earlier frustrations fade away. She hung on Sehra’s next words, but Vi didn’t know why. Perhaps she just wanted to hunt the woman down and find justice for what she’d done to her.
“I could not tell. She truly seemed a woman of the world—ageless, nameless, one who had seen many things.”
That was utterly unhelpful. Vi relinquished herself to the fact that finding information about a woman who approached Sehra mysteriously years before her birth would be hard to track down. “If you’ve never met anyone from Meru, how do you know all this?”
“Because of this.” Sehra rested her hand on the book she’d retrieved. “It has been passed down in my family for generations and is the only primer I have on Yargen’s magic from the rest of the world.”
“It came from Meru?”
“I don’t know where it came from, but I assume so.”
Vi bit back asking what Sehra did know. Little and less, it seemed, the more questions she asked.
“All right, let’s go back to the power of Yargen itself,” Vi suggested. Asking about the history of it was getting them nowhere. “It’s a magic not based on elements?”
“Indeed. Think of it as all the elements combined—a pure form of power that can be manipulated by the will of those who wield it.”
“I don’t understand…” Vi shook her head, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Sorcery wasn’t overly common in the Empire. One in ten people, likely less, possessed some kind of magic. And those magics were directly linked to a single element. Firebearers could do nothing but manipulate fire—even the affinity of the self r
equired fire to stare into to see the future.
“It will become clearer as you learn, as you master these powers for yourself. We will begin tomorrow afternoon, following your regular lessons.” Sehra stood and Vi followed suit, deeming the conversation finished. “For now, you’ve had a long day. So rest, recover, and we shall start tomorrow.”
“I take it these lessons will be a regular occurrence for us henceforth?”
“Yes, we have already lost enough time. From now until the time you leave, you will spend the hours you would have been training with Jax—those hours, and then some—with me, learning the magic of Yargen.” Sehra paused, looking down at the book that still sat out between the two chairs. “We have lost enough time, indeed,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Then, as she lifted the small tome, handing it to Vi: “I shall lend this copy to you. Perhaps you can get a head start tonight reading what you can of the magic.”
Vi accepted the book mutely, running her fingers along the spine. She was forced to admit that there was something reassuring about having a book involved. For now, she could trust that all her answers were somewhere between the front and back cover. They stepped out onto Sehra’s balcony and the accordion entry to her study folded back in place, melding seamlessly with the wood of the trunk.
“I shall see you tomorrow, princess.” Sehra raised a hand and the doors of the throne room opened.
“Until then.” Vi gave a bow of her head and departed.
She should apologize for her outbursts; her feet almost faltered as she considered doing just that. But they carried her out of the room, and the closing of the heavy doors marked the end of her window of opportunity—for now.
Vi wandered back to her room. She was exhausted and worn down to the bone. So tired that she couldn’t tell if the exhaustion in her eyes was from the strain of keeping them open for so many hours in a row, or if it was the raw emotions still were churning through her, mingling with her spark.
The fatigue kept her silent as the servants attended her. Faceless hands placed themselves on her body, scrubbing everywhere, checking on her leg. Vi allowed herself to be moved along mindlessly until they left her alone in the dark room.
She should sleep.
But her eyes were wide open.
Vi stared at the ceiling, frozen in place, as if the whole day had perched itself on her chest. The visions… her magic… the noru. She squeezed her eyes closed to block them out, but the darkness there was no more forgiving.
No, if she could focus on all of that instead, it would be a blessing. What was really keeping her awake was the lingering feeling of betrayal. When had Sehra told her mother the truth? How long had they kept her here needlessly? Mother above—did Romulin know?
The questions swirled in her mind until Vi was forced to scare them away by lighting the candle at her bedside.
Vi looked to her letter box, slowly opening the top. The book Sehra had given her just barely fit within. She stared at it, competing feelings of contempt, anger, hurt, and… admittedly, curiosity.
“I should hate you,” she whispered. She should hate it for all it represented. It was what had kept her from her family, from her home.
Yet she reached out and took the book into her lap, opening it to the first page.
“‘Words of the Goddess…’” Vi softly read aloud. Her eyes devoured the forward at the beginning of the book. It spoke of the basic principles of words of power. That the goddess—Yargen—had bestowed magic on man through giving the words of divinity to mortals.
By invoking these words, by her holy light, a mortal hand can do her will.
Vi’s eyes lingered on the last line of the page. The whole thing read more like a religious text than a magical one. Sehra had said it was from Meru; perhaps there they had different opinions on magic. Vastly different… given magic in Solaris was feared by the average person.
She flipped the page and let out a soft gasp.
At the top was a glyph.
It was the same sensation Vi had felt when she had first witnessed the shining symbol above her watch during her first vision. Then, it had been a litany of noises she could hear but barely make sense of. This time, the chorus of sound sang in perfect harmony.
She heard the word, felt it in her bones. It was not a language Vi had ever seen—if it was a language at all. The symbol imbued her with a deep understanding that surpassed reading and made sense of the sounds it invoked within her.
“Durroe,” Vi whispered. The word tingled across her skin, as though she was sinking into a warm bath, or lying underneath a hot sun after spending an hour rummaging through the ice house.
She quickly flipped the pages. More symbols were scribed in the chapter for durroe and more sounds filled her mind as she skimmed the glyphs. Her hands stopped at the next chapter.
The symbol here was carefully drawn in red ink. Circles within circles, lines connecting between them, carefully drawn symbols encased among them. The moment her eyes lingered, she was met with the same sensation and then, clarity.
Halleth, to heal.
The lines on the page almost seemed to move, to come to life. It was as if they were begging for her to recreate them—though Vi didn’t know how.
No… that wasn’t quite true. Her breath was loud as she remembered being in her study after her first vision. She’d meant to write down what she’d seen in the flames, but she had drawn one of these symbols instead.
“Which one was it?” The pages slipped through her fingers as she searched, almost frantically.
The symbol above her watch during the first vision was the same that had appeared after the second. It was the same symbol she had sketched on the paper in her study, perfectly from memory—the very same glyph she’d seen swirl around that man.
Her fingers stopped.
“Narro, acts of the mind.” She stared at the glyph for several long breaths. No, she’d been wrong. It wasn’t identical… there was another layer to it. Something wasn’t quite right. Vi flipped the page. “Haath, communication.”
Vi flipped back and forth several times. The two symbols blurred together, overlapping until something audibly clicked in her mind.
“Narro haath,” Vi whispered aloud again.
The spark surged up her throat to form the words. Magic radiated out from her flesh—not as fire, but as thin, shimmering strands of light. They swirled before her, not quite taking shape.
Warmth rippled across her with the vibration of a voice that she felt as much as heard.
“You again?”
Chapter Thirteen
“What?” Vi looked around quickly, trying to locate the source of the voice. Aptly, the disembodied words were undoubtedly from the same man who had called himself “the voice.”
“How…” He started a question but quickly abandoned it, as if trying to cover his own confusion. “This is different than before.” There was a heavy note to the statement, one Vi couldn’t read. “What magic is this?”
“Wouldn’t I love to know!” Vi wrapped her arms around herself. Every time he spoke it sent tiny ripples across her skin, prickling it into gooseflesh. “You told me to seek you out. Well, I did.” Apparently. She hadn’t exactly planned on this. “So, give me some answers.”
Vi hoped that, whatever connection this was, he couldn’t feel her emotions. Then he’d know that the demand was said with far more confidence than she felt. Outside, she could present all the confidence of the Crown Princess. Inside… Vi felt like a very tired and confused seventeen-year-old girl. But she really did not need anyone else to know that.
“You are not at an apex of fate?”
“I don’t think so. Not unless my bed has become one.”
“Unlikely…” There was a long stretch of silence and Vi seized the opportunity.
“What are the apexes of fate?”
“Places the world changed, or places where it still could be changed. They’re locations where fate was malleable and the future was—is—yet u
ndecided.” His matter-of-factness surprised her. She’d been made aware of so many secrets in the past day, that to find someone willing to tell her the simple, unvarnished truth felt oddly foreign.
“Yes, my bed definitely isn’t one,” Vi muttered. She hadn’t intended him to hear, but a chuckle radiated through to her. So he could hear everything, no matter how softly she said it—a good mental note. Vi cleared her throat, trying to ignore the fact that she was still radiating light and talking to a man in her head. “Why can I only see you at the apexes of fate?”
“Since I am the voice, and you the champion, we are intrinsically linked with the fate of this world. In those places, the distance between us is greatly shortened.”
“Then why can I talk to you here?”
“That same link between us, I would assume,” he said simply.
Vi resisted calling him out on the fact that he sounded as unsure as she felt. She also ignored the voice and champion bit, for now. He hadn’t really answered when she asked in the ruins. So, instead, she asked, “What is your name?”
“My name?”
“Yes, your name. You know mine from the last time we spoke… and, well, seeing as I’m talking to you from my personal quarters in the middle of the night, I think it’s owed.”
He scoffed. “I owe you nothing.”
“Just tell me.” Vi sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Taavin.”
Taavin. It was certainly a name she’d never heard before. Vi swallowed hard, looking down at her hands and watching the light trailing off her skin and disappearing into the darkness like the streaks of fireflies.
This was impossible to comprehend. Less than a week ago, Vi didn’t think she had any magic at all—or at least very little. Now, she wanted a whole lot less magic in her life.
“Do I dare ask if you’re real?”
“I am quite obviously real.” The offense in his voice brought a small smile to her lips. “I should be the one asking you that,” he murmured.