by Elise Kova
“Something romantic,” Ellene eagerly chirped. Vi didn’t know if returning her mind to romance was the best course.
“Something happy,” Vi suggested hastily.
“Something romantic and happy…” Renna leaned back in her chair. “How about the creation of the reservoir?”
The reservoir was a large freshwater lake to the south east of Soricium. It was said that its underground tunnels fed most of the springs throughout the jungles. And, if that were true, it made it not only the largest source of freshwater on the continent, but also the primary water source for the people of Shaldan.
“The one with Dia and Holin?” Ellene asked eagerly. “Yes, that one, tell that one!”
Renna chuckled. “Very well, if my little chieftain-to-be commands it…
“Long ago, as Shaldan and its people grew under the care of Dia, so too did their needs. No longer could they collect water from when the skies opened, or rely on small trickles through the jungles. Something far more substantial was needed.
“‘Cut a layer beneath the earth,’ a young man suggest—”
“Holin!” Ellene said through a particularly large bite of her sweet roll.
“Yes, Holin.” Renna smiled brightly at Ellene’s ever improving mood. “He suggested such to Dia—that if she could use her axe to cut not just the earth above the ground as trees, and plants, but the earth below, that water would gather there in a mighty basin for all to utilize…”
Vi hadn’t heard the tale in some time, and she found herself as entranced as her friends by Renna’s storytelling. Andru seemed to be getting particularly into the way the weathered woman spun the tale as he inched forward, hanging on every word, nut roll forgotten.
It was a story of love being enough of a reason to master a power none had seen before, a story of triumph, full of such fantastical embellishments that even though Renna presented it all as fact, Vi was certain very little was actually true.
“… and while it was aptly called the reservoir, even then, a new name was eventually given—Lake Io, named after Dia and Holin’s first daughter. Some even still call it that name, in honor of our first chieftain.”
“What?” Vi sat straighter. “What did you just say it was called?”
“You’ve heard it before.” Ellene tilted her head, clearly not understanding what had Vi so worked up.
“I know, I must’ve… But on all my maps… It’s just ‘the reservoir’…”
“Perhaps because your maps have been made by the South.” There was a cool edge to Renna’s tone. One Vi chose to ignore. “Lake Io is how most of the old folk will refer to it.”
“How is it spelled?”
“I-O.”
Vi had seen it before on her maps.
But she had always thought it was intended to be some kind of acronym, one she’d never understood—one she’d always assumed meant reservoir in the old language of the North. If she had tried to pronounce it as a word, it was always I-ooh in her mind, nothing like how Renna or Ellene said it.
Io.
Pronounced eye-owe.
Just as Taavin had said—Lake Io was an apex of fate.
Vi shot upright. She had to tell him she’d pieced together his clues. “I have to go.”
“What’s wrong?” Jayme asked.
“Have I done something to offend?” Renna was visibly nervous as Vi passed.
“No, no,” Vi said hastily. She gave the woman a small nod—a huge sign of Imperial deference, as far as etiquette was concerned. “You’ve done me a great service. I need to consult my maps. They’re not marked properly and I must go fix that.”
“Don’t try to think through it,” Ellene said through a mouth of food to Renna. She’d cleaned her plate, so Vi could only assume she was starting in on her half-finished roll. At least someone would eat it. “She gets like this about her maps sometimes. I’m sure she needs to correctly label every one.”
Vi let them think what they wanted; all she needed was to get back to her room.
Her uncle appeared in the doorway, stopping her in her tracks. He had a serious look about him, the look that usually heralded a scolding. But he said nothing, simply stared.
“Excuse me, uncle, I need to go do something.” Vi stepped around him, and he just watched her go, shoulders sagging. There was a glint to his eyes, a shining wetness that was strange to see. He wasn’t one for emotion, but after helping Sehra with the outbreak, Vi couldn’t blame him for reaching a deeper-than-usual level of physical and mental exhaustion. Her heart had contorted as well for those suffering.
“I need to speak with you, Vi.” He cleared his throat, forcing out the words.
“Not now, uncle.” Vi was starting up the stairs, taking them with her long legs two at a time.
“Vi…”
“This is important,” she called over her shoulder. He still hadn’t moved from that partly hunched, limp-armed position. “Tell me tomorrow morning!”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and Vi rushed off. She wondered briefly just what he needed to say, and what had him in such a state. But whatever it was could keep.
Right now, she had to get back to her room, chart the best course to get to Lake Io, and tell Taavin of her discovery.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vi was breathless by the time she ran into her chambers.
“Okay, Lake Io…” Vi mumbled as her fingers traced her shelves. She knew she had an atlas exclusively for maps of the North. One book that would be perfect for… “There you are.”
Lifting it from the shelf, Vi placed the over-sized tome on her drafting table and began flipping through it. She looked over to one of the unlit candles on the wall and lit it with a thought.
By candlelight, Vi selected a map detailing Soricium and the surrounding area. The edge of the map bled over onto the next page, where the topmost corner of Lake Io could be seen at the edge of the vast and mostly uninhabited jungle. Reaching into her drawer, Vi resisted the urge to grab for her pen and add “Lake Io” under “Reservoir.” Instead, she grabbed her trusty caliper—a metal tool composed of two straight edges screwed together at the top to precisely tune the width between their points.
She rested the tool on the page over the scale marker, reducing the width to match. She began to chart out her course. No map was perfect… but Vi needed to know about how long this trip might take, so she could formulate an appropriate story to secure permission to go on it. That particular logistical nightmare was one she’d reckon with in short order.
Pulling out a spare sheet of paper and a pen, Vi began to jot down notes on distance, time, and terrain. She couldn’t have been working too long, because there wasn’t that much to do, but a knock on her door frame jostled her from her thoughts.
“Ellene, hello, what…” Vi tried to shuffle the paper without looking suspicious, which was utterly futile and only succeeded in smearing ink across her hand. “What’re you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you, Vi,” she said gently. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks.
Vi looked down at her maps, then back to her friend. She’d promised Ellene she’d try to be present in their final weeks together. But this was an apex of fate! Their world depended on Vi’s “distraction” more than Ellene understood.
“Give me ten—twenty more minutes and then you’ll have my undivided attention.”
“Vi… you, you really should talk to me now. I want to… I’m trying to help, as your friend.”
“I’ll be done in just a moment, I promise.” Vi forced a smile. “If you tell me now, I’m just going to be distracted with my maps anyway. Wait a just a minute or two and—”
“This is more important,” Ellene insisted.
Vi bit back a sigh and looked to the girl again, ready with a retort. She hadn’t known what she was going to say next, but whatever dismissal she’d have attempted died on her lips. Ellene stood with her hands knotted in her shirt, balled so tightly they were trembling. Her
eyes continued to overflow with tears, spilling onto an expression of absolute torture.
“Is it Darrus?” she asked softly. There was no way he’d contracted the disease that fast. Even knowing nothing about the White Death, Vi knew that was impossible.
Ellene shook her head. “I—I wanted to tell you, but I…” Ellene sniffled loudly. She looked off to the right, just beyond the door frame. “I can’t,” she whispered weakly. “I’m sorry, I tried. I thought I could.”
In stepped Jax.
“What’s going on?” The weight of the situation was finally beginning to catch up with her. The whole atmosphere had gone heavy. Ellene continued to hang in limbo and her uncle’s expression had darkened further from the last time she’d seen it. “What is this?”
Vi closed her maps, slowly sliding the paper she was working on into one of her drawers. They were acting like she was about to bolt, or do something uncharacteristic, like attack them.
“I—” Jax’s words choked in his throat, escaping as a croak. He swallowed hard and Vi watched the knot in his neck bob once, twice, three times. “There were messengers from the West. They arrived this morning, right as the festivities were beginning. That’s why it took so long for their missive to get here. We weren’t in the fortress, so it took time, then with another outbreak, things were chaotic…”
“Is everything all right with Aunt Elecia?” Vi asked hastily. Messengers from the West, her uncle’s state—that was the only thing Vi could think of that would have him so distraught. Elecia and Jax had never been anything official, yet everyone with eyes knew there was more than a little bit of something there. Since Norin, the city Elecia ruled, was the first city outside the South with the White Death… “Is she sick?”
“No.”
“Oh, thank the Mother.” Vi gave a huge sigh of relief. “Then what is it?”
The relief she felt quickly abandoned her. Her uncle’s face twisted further. She could almost feel the tension in his muscles, as though he was forcibly trying to hold himself together.
“Uncle… if it’s a message… I can read it myself,” Vi offered in the hopes that would alleviate some of his struggle. Still, Jax persisted with another shake of his head. “Then I could—”
“Your father is dead.”
What?
She hadn’t heard him right.
Vi’s ears rang. There was a buzzing, like bees had begun to occupy them. She couldn’t hear anything correctly anymore. She certainly didn’t hear those four words said so plainly… so heartlessly… that her own heart fractured instantly, trying to break apart, to fill the void between each word with emotion.
“What?” It was barely a word. More of a blurt of sound that was half a laugh of disbelief and half the start of tears.
“We received word with the messengers.” He sniffled loudly. “Emperor Aldrik Solaris has perished at sea.”
“W-what?” Vi stuttered. That was the only word that would make sense, because nothing else did. The words her ears were telling her she heard, and the truth Vi felt within herself, were diametrically opposed.
Her father couldn’t be dead. He was coming with her family to finally, finally retrieve her. He had promised he would be back from the Crescent Continent in time. He had promised.
“The Imperial Vessel, the Dawn Strider, was to send back word when she docked at the Crescent Continent. Nothing was heard for some time… longer than it should have taken them to reach their destination.”
How long ago had her father left? Vi tried to run the math in her head. She’d received his letter when Jayme arrived months ago—two months? It was the end of fall. It must’ve been two, almost three months. It was already almost the new year. It was impossible for Vi to add anything up—nothing was adding up.
He’d said he was leaving then. He must’ve left around the same time as Jayme, or just before, to escape the passages freezing over.
That meant he had to go north to the Crossroads, then west out to Norin. From Norin he would’ve boarded the ship… how long did it take to prepare a ship? Vi’s head was swimming in questions that came so fast she would drown in them.
Nothing made sense.
This wasn’t real.
Her toes had gone numb.
“They sent out search parties throughout the barrier islands,” Jax continued, as if trying to preempt her likely questions. “There has been talk of increased pirate activity lately—stories of ghost ships and mysteriously vanishing vessels.” Jax stopped again, swallowing, collecting his thoughts. The seconds he took to do it were both too long and too short. Long enough that Vi’s mind ran wild with possibilities of what he’d say next. But short enough that by the time he continued, she wasn’t ready for it. “Those search parties found debris, along with the bodies of the crew of the Dawn Strider in the waters, washed ashore on the beaches of Diamond Sand Island.”
“My father?” Vi whispered in a voice so tiny she couldn’t believe it came from her.
“They have yet to recover his body… The search efforts will continue, however. At least for a time.”
“If they didn’t find his body, then—”
“Aldrik was not a Waterrunner.” Jax hung his head. “He was strong and powerful. But against whatever storm or pirates befell the Dawn Strider, his magic wouldn’t have been enough. There have been no survivors.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Vi—”
“He could be out there, still! If we haven’t found his body, then, then…”
“Then it could be at the bottom of the ocean or torn apart or turned to dust!” Jax snapped. Hurt raised the volume of his voice, making his words sting her ears. They stung worse than the tears prickling her eyes. “You don’t think I thought of all that? Elecia thought?”
“I… But…” Her chest heaved with soundless sobs. A pain so agonizing ripped through her that all she could do was breathe.
He couldn’t be dead. Her father couldn’t be dead. Everything she’d done had been for her family—a complete family—for her father. Vi’s mind was beginning to fracture, her thoughts not quite adding up.
“Elecia has been scouring the seas for weeks now. She, nor the Senate, no one, wanted to declare your father dead, especially prematurely. She’s seen vessels going as far as they are allowed in the waters beyond the Main Continent before the armadas of the Crescent Continent strike them down as part of their mad travel and trade restrictions… the bunch of brutes.”
“One of them could’ve found him,” Vi thought aloud, hopefully. She moved for her uncle, grabbing his hands. She didn’t know if she was trying to support him, or seek support for herself. Either way, it felt right. “He’s the Emperor Solaris, you said it yourself, and my father was powerful. He could be on one of the Crescent Continent ships and they took him back and—”
“Do you think if your father was alive he would not return home? He would not even write?”
“Perhaps they’re holding him hostage?” Vi countered frantically. She felt like she was the Dawn Strider, holes being punched through the hull of her arguments. She was sinking further into that rising tide that had been taking the air from her lungs and reducing her to frantic whispers and thin words since the start.
“They invited him to begin with. And if their plan from the start was to take an Imperial hostage, why would they be silent about it now?”
“I…” She didn’t know, and was running out of counter-arguments. Her arms went slack, falling limply at her sides. Her eyes were burning now, and not from her spark but from the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I know he’s alive. I just know it. He—he promised me! He would be home. He would come with Romulin and Mother. He would be here and we would be a family—together—once and for all. He promised me and this is the one thing I have ever wanted. He won’t deny me it!”
She’d hunched in on herself as she spoke, holding her chest, trying to breathe. When had breathing become so difficult?
“I’m so sorry,
Vi…” Her uncle shook his head, pulling her to him. Vi’s eyes pressed closed and the tears spilled over uncontrollably. She didn’t want to give into them, or the tremors in her shoulders. But the grief was too much. The world she’d always been promised was no more, before she could even step foot in it. Everything she had lived for and waited for was suddenly pulled out from under her feet.
“He—He’s not dead,” she insisted again through tears. Jax held her tighter. Vi shook her head, her nose grinding lines of snot across his shirt. “He can’t be dead.”
“He’s—”
“Don’t say it again.” She tried to pull herself away enough to look the man in his eyes. The moment there was a gap, Vi instantly missed their embrace. She wasn’t even sure if she could stand on her own right now without him. Yet she also didn’t want him to touch her. Everything had been disconnected all at once in her now fragile form. “Don’t say he’s dead. He’s not dead! He can’t be dead!”
“Vi—” Ellene started weakly. Vi had forgotten entirely she’d been standing in the doorway. The girl ran over in a sprint the moment Vi’s eyes landed on her. She wrapped her arms awkwardly around Vi’s waist, so she was now held in two places by two people. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be here. And you still have us, you still have your mother and—”
“Stop, stop!” Vi practically screamed, forcing them both away. She bumped against her desk, nearly falling on top of it. She’d jump on top of the thing to get away from them and the horrible words they were trying to pass off as truth. “He’s not dead. My father is alive.”
“I know this is hard for you… Take your time.”
“Don’t speak to me like a child!” Vi shouted at her uncle. “I know he’s alive.”
“How?” His voice had hardened once more. She knew he was bracing himself for the tough love he thought she needed. Good, he should brace himself; Vi wasn’t going to give up this fight easily. The spark lived in her and she’d unleash it on them all if she had to, if that’s what it took to get them to stop saying her father was dead. “How do you know, sitting here in the North, far from everything, what has happened in the barrier islands? How do you know more than Elecia and her search parties?”