by Elise Kova
The thought made her throat close up.
He had betrayed her. She had killed him. Perhaps it was better to destroy the hurt of those transgressions with the world she’d known.
Mother above, her head ached.
“What do we do now?” Vi forced herself to ask.
“We need to be careful going forward.” Taavin crossed to her side. “Very careful, for a number of years. Until you ensure Vhalla receives the watch, the birth of a new Vi—a new Champion—isn’t guaranteed. Which means if you die… it ends for good.”
“It will end for good.” Ninety-three times. That was ninety-two too many. “We will end it, this time.” Vi turned to him.
Taavin placed his hand at the small of her back, staring down with worried eyes. He wasn’t as warm, she realized. Little things kept adding up that made his presence here torture. He wasn’t really with her any longer. Not really.
“I told you once: I look back, you look forward. This is the curse you always felt, but never fully knew. You’re forced to see the end of the world encroaching, and you feel an obligation to try, futilely thus far, to prevent it. Whereas I…” He swallowed hard. “I remember the past. I exist to watch and be a living record of your every action. To serve as your aide in finding what will succeed by ensuring you don’t repeat what failed. I remember every time you’ve fallen and every hurt you’ve endured. And the only thing that enables me to carry on is the knowledge that someday, I will see you again.”
Or some version of me, Vi wanted to say, but couldn’t. The truth, even though they both knew it, was too cruel to speak aloud. If what he was saying was true, every Vi was a unique person that lived, fought, and ultimately perished underneath the wheel of time.
“So you must be careful, until Vhalla Solaris gives birth to a Vi Solaris in this age.” Vi gave a small nod. She was too tired to fight. Taavin must’ve sensed as much. “You should get some rest. Norin will fall soon, and you’ll want to be nimble to try to get close to Fiera and the sword when it does.”
Vi grabbed his bicep before he could pull away. Her grip tightened, trying to press through the thin barrier of magic that kept him from her. “I want you to stay,” she whispered. Pain flashed across his face.
“I wish I could. But you know how this works.” He leaned forward, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Now, rest.”
With that, he vanished; the glyphs above her watch dimmed and faded, and the room seemed darker and lonelier than ever before.
An explosion woke her.
Vi was on her feet in an instant as shock waves rattled the city. She heard shouts, and the clash of steel on steel. Her heart raced as she stared at the door.
Vi took a step forward, and one back, then two forward. Keep yourself safe, Taavin had said. Another rumble shook the city, and she was off. Running, Vi threw open the door and was down the ladder in a breath, steps ahead of Lucina.
“Yullia!” Lucina called after her, following close behind. “Where are you—”
“Lucina. Lucina!” The young woman’s grandmother was upright in her cot, calling out to her granddaughter. Vi paused at the top of the stairs, watching as her wrinkled hand reached out, grabbing at the air, milky eyes unseeing.
“Granny, I’m here.” Lucina rushed over to her kin, sitting on the edge of the bed as another shock wave rattled the city. The two huddled together tightly, holding each other.
“Lucina.” Vi summoned the girl’s attention with her name. “I’m going out. You’ll want to lock the door behind me.”
“Out? Yullia, there’s a war going on out there.”
“I know, and I have every intention of fighting in it. Lock the door behind me.” Vi didn’t know if that was entirely true. She still wasn’t sure if she could pick a side in this war—not when both sides were her family. Or at least… once upon a time, they had been family. Though the waters were murky, Vi couldn’t help wanting to jump in with both feet. Sink or swim.
She sprinted down the stairs, unbolted the door, and stepped out into the dusty street.
When she heard the bolt engage behind her, she started off in the direction of an orange haze. The fires of battle were already burning the city; what was once the greatest kingdom in the history of the Dark Isle would fall before the sun rose.
Chapter Three
Vi ran toward the carnage along the main street of Norin. Doubt nipped at her heels as she fell into step with men and women carrying various weapons—everything from forged steel to fishing spears. Her beacon was an orange haze glowing off smoke rising in the horizon. If Vi kept solely focused on that, maybe she wouldn’t question too much what, in the Mother’s name, she was doing.
She pushed against the masses who were fleeing as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Women carried wailing children tightly in their arms; those large enough to walk were half-dragged along the dusty ground.
At first, most of the people fleeing seemed unscathed, but the further she ran, the more Vi saw wounded and dying.
A man staggered through the street, soldiers and civilians alike parting to run around him. His clothes had been nearly burnt off; charred ribbons clung to blistered and reddened skin. He stared with a pleading expression and a gaping mouth that couldn’t seem to find the right words to beg for help.
Suppressing her instinct to gag at the putrid scent of burnt flesh and hair, Vi stopped right before the man, not daring to touch him on his reddened and bubbled side.
“Come this way.” His eyes swung to her when he realized someone was speaking to him. Someone had actually heard his soundless cries. “I can heal you,” Vi said softly. Somehow, little more than a whisper felt loud when the man’s crazed gaze was on her. It was louder than the sounds of fighting in the distance, or the crackle of flames that blazed at the far end of the main street. “Will you come with me?”
He made a choked noise, barely bobbing his head.
Vi took his left hand—the one that hadn’t been burned in whatever blaze he had been caught in. She led him out of the street, making sure no one bumped or jostled him in the process.
“This won’t hurt,” she whispered. She wasn’t good at halleth, but surely, anything was better than the pain he found himself in. Vi murmured under her breath, “Halleth ruta toff.”
She kept the glyph tiny and tightly wound right underneath her palm, holding it above the man’s burnt forearm in such a way that he would see nothing more than a faint glow. Vi focused only on mending his forearm, ignoring the rising sounds of battle and the countless others in just as bad a state as this man. Grow, mend, heal, she willed to the flesh through her magic. When his forearm was no longer blistered and red, Vi moved on.
Section by section, she mended the worst of the burns. She tried to focus on what seemed the most life threatening, but Vi was no cleric. Her healing was clumsy, scarred and knotted, just as Taavin had said it was when she washed up on the beaches of Meru. But it was better than dead. It had to be better than dead, she insisted to herself.
Vi lowered her hand, having finished with the side of the man’s face. His eyes were on her, much more focused than before. He swallowed once before rasping, “Thank you, your highness.”
He thought she was Fiera, just as Lucina had. Vi pursed her lips into a thin smile.
“You’re welcome.” Vi didn’t see the point in correcting him. No one was likely to believe him even if he remembered the details of their encounter come dawn. “Can you tell me what’s happening? Do you remember?”
He gave a nod. The scar tissue of his neck seemed to pull, causing him to wince slightly. “The wall finally fell. The Imperialists blasted through. They’re in the city.”
Vi looked in the direction she’d been heading. The fires burned brighter now, almost like an angry dawn on the horizon. She had read about the fall of Norin, but it wasn’t a breach in the wall that had brought the noble city to its knees after ten long years—it was by an attack on the sea.
The fighting at the
wall was a distraction to give the ships carrying the bulk of the Imperial army time to enter the port.
But what should she do with that information? If she did something, could she see Norin fall faster and potentially spare more from this man’s fate?
A hand closed around her watch and Vi briefly thought of summoning Taavin. But if she did, he’d know she’d run into the fray, putting herself in danger. Perhaps putting the future of the entire world in danger with her. Ninety-three times. She’d hurt him enough for one day.
“Thank you for the information.” Vi stepped away, leaving the man to hover, clearly still dazed. She’d done all she could for him. “Head for the northwest corner of the city. Avoid the port and the outer wall at all costs.”
Vi ran upstream through a river of people. Then, all at once, there was no one left for her to push against. She found herself among burning rubble, the crackle of magic blazing through the sky.
Men and women littered the ground around her. Some were burned to husks. Others still oozed crimson into the cracks of the road. Vi stared at the carnage, at those soldiers still fighting in the distance, flames glinting off their plate armor.
She had seen death, up close. But she had never seen war. Standing before it now, Vi felt frozen in place. She wondered if she should feel terrified, if she should weep.
There weren’t any feelings though. It was as if any single emotion was insufficient, and so they all left her. Everything was numb. She was presented with the embodiment of juth calt: the world had been shattered.
Without warning, a tiny jolt of magic broke the stasis Vi was unwittingly trapped in. Her heart began to race. The bodies around her were more than just corpses; they suddenly became men and women, people with lives, daughters and sons. Vi fought against the swelling sickness that threatened to overcome her.
Another crack of magic—one Vi would recognize anywhere.
When she turned, a wall of flame blocked her vision. The fire roared with unnatural power, connecting one blazing building to the next. It was no doubt a dividing line. The break in the wall must be on the other side and someone very, very powerful was trying to contain the flow of soldiers within.
Yet even a heavy curtain of fire couldn’t hide the pull of something greater—a god-like magic. Determined and drawn by an invisible tether, Vi marched forward toward the fire, allowing her own spark to swell within her.
You feel it in your marrow. Taavin’s words echoed inside her.
“Yes,” Vi whispered to no one. He had been speaking about the truth of her situation. But Vi felt something far greater in her bones. Within her was a power that recognized and sought out its own—the power of a goddess.
You will be free of the bonds of time because my magic is in you, Yargen had said.
Raising a hand, Vi used her magic to bore a hole through the flames that barred her path. It was surprisingly easy, given how impressive the fire was. Whatever Firebearer made it was weaker than Vi expected, for she gained control of the inferno as though it had been her own power all along.
A tunnel opened up before her and Vi charged through, quickly releasing her hold on the fire. On the other side, more carnage waited.
The chorus of battle she’d heard echo over the crackle of the blazes throughout the city was now reaching its crescendo. The large wall surrounding the city had been blown in, reducing nearby buildings to rubble. Debris scattered inward, men and women fighting around large chunks of stone. Those with crimson armbands and red plumes seemed to have the upper hand, pushing back the silver-plated soldiers in short capes of Solaris blue and white.
The same jolt of magic pulsed through her, stronger and closer this time. Vi’s eyes were drawn to a far corner, where a woman was locked in the heat of battle with a group of three. She wielded a sword that glowed with a blue haze; power crackled off of it as she alternated between swinging it and casting balls of fire off her free hand.
Vi watched in awe as Fiera Ci’Dan made quick work of three soldiers. She wondered if Fiera had even the slightest idea of how much the weapon was influencing her power.
“Push them back!” Fiera screamed to the soldiers fighting their way up the mound of debris where the wall once stood. “Don’t let them through! Show them the strength of Mhashan.” Fiera began running and Vi picked up her feet as well.
Their paths intersected near the center of the battlefield. Without missing a step, Fiera shifted her weight, bringing the sword across her body in a swing at Vi. Vi reacted instantly, dodging backward. Fiera held the sword out, keeping her at length, and met Vi’s eyes for the first time.
They stared at each other, panting, unmoving. Energy crackled underneath Vi’s skin—something more than her own power or Yargen’s. Vi knew it as the hair-raising sensation of fate playing its hand.
“Your face is… You…” Fiera struggled for words between heavy breaths.
“There’s no time to explain. But I am not your enemy.”
“Who are you?” Fiera said, as she looked Vi up and down, lowering the sword.
“I’m a traveler, and I’ve come a long way to tell you…” Vi trailed off. To tell her what? That she needed the sword? That she was the granddaughter of another Fiera from another world? Vi had been acting on instinct, pulled along by her gut, and now she wasn’t sure if it had landed her in a good spot.
“To tell me what?” Fiera pressed, with an expression that told Vi she’d seen right through her uncertainty. Another explosion rocked the city. Magic sloshed off the blade in her hand and Fiera cursed and turned, frantically scanning the wall. “Guards in the First Legion, go through the opening, find where they’re trying to breach the city a second time!” Men and women pushed farther up the rubble and Fiera started in their direction. Vi gripped her forearm, and Fiera’s eyes darted between the clearly offending touch and Vi’s face. “Unhand me.”
“It’s a distraction,” Vi blurted. “Tiberus Solaris is coming from the sea.”
“What? There’s no—”
“They split their forces, weeks ago, I think.” Vi struggled to remember her history. The fall of Mhashan had seemed like ancient history when she’d studied it with Martis. Now she was searching her brain for every last detail she could recall. “He’s coming from the sea.”
Fiera’s attention volleyed between Vi and the soldiers. She let out a string of curses before settling her gaze on Vi once more.
“Tell me why I should believe you.” The princess lifted her sword. Oddly, it didn’t feel threatening. It felt like a challenge.
“Because I know what fate has designed.” It was the only explanation Vi could think of, and she knew it wasn’t a very good one. Yet somehow, it was enough.
Fiera sheathed her sword, turning to the carnage. “Schnurr!” she shouted. A man who looked far too young to be on the battlefield came rushing over. “See to the troops here. I do not want the Imperials to take one more step into our city.”
“Yes, your highness.” The man gave a salute.
“Honor guard, to me!” Fiera commanded. Three men and two women ran over as Schnurr ran back into the fray. “We’re going to the docks.”
They all saluted. Not one questioned her. Not one uttered a word of dissent. These men and women were ready to follow their leader to the ends of the earth or the ends of their lives—whichever came first.
Vi wondered briefly if she’d ever commanded such loyalty from anyone.
“You’re sure?” Fiera turned to her once more. Vi nodded. “Onward, then!” Fiera swept out her arm and cut a tunnel into the flame, much as Vi had.
The princess and soldiers took two steps ahead as Vi stared in awe.
The magic had almost felt like hers… It had almost felt like hers in the same way Vi would know her father’s magic from anywhere. She might be from another version of the world, but something still connected her with the woman who would become the grandmother to a new Vi.
The group plunged through the tunnel of flame. Without stoppin
g, Fiera continued along the street. Their pace was a jog, which felt agonizingly slow to Vi. But she was in a simple tunic and trousers. The rest of them wore an array of plate and scale mail. She used the pace as an excuse to take sidelong looks at the princess.
The woman had a sharp nose and angular eyes set atop cheekbones even stronger than Vi’s own. Her hair had fallen free of whatever tie it had been in and was now knotting down her back. She was real, breathing, alive. But if the events of this world were transpiring along the same time frame as they had in Vi’s world… she wouldn’t be alive for more than a year.
Or would she?
In Vi’s world, Fiera had died in childbirth—no, her father had corrected that. She’d died protecting a crystal sword. Now Vi desperately wished he’d told her all the details. Though perhaps they didn’t matter.
Perhaps nothing from her world mattered now.
Her stomach knotted as they continued down the main street, turning off at the intersection Vi had walked with Jayme months ago. The docks weren’t far when cannon fire rattled the glass of the windows around them. All seven dropped, hands covering their heads as cannonballs ripped through the city.
“What was—” one of the soldiers began.
“The wall was a distraction,” Vi said, standing. “The Emperor is flanking you, coming from the sea.”
“You call the usurper Emperor?” The long-haired woman drew a dagger, placing it at Vi’s throat. “And just how do you know all this?”
“I—” Vi wasn’t prepared to explain, and luckily Fiera didn’t make her.
“I trust her,” Fiera interjected, rising to her feet as well. The woman holding the blade at Vi’s neck didn’t move. “I said I trust her. Put down your weapon.”
“What if she’s a spy? She speaks like an Imperialist. No red-blooded Westerner would call that destroyer of kingdoms ‘Emperor.’ She looks like she could get away with masquerading as you, even. What if they sent her to take us from the wall? What if the ship is the distraction meant to pull you away?”