by Elise Kova
“She knows her place and acts within it.” Fiera reached out to touch her husband’s hand lightly. “It is something I have considered before. Furthermore, she’s right… this is not something either of us should do. We do not live for ourselves any longer. We live for our Empire—and for our unborn son.”
Fiera rested her hand on her stomach. Vi had never been so fixated on something that couldn’t be seen. One motion could say so much, but Vi didn’t know what language the message was in. Did this mean she was pregnant now? Or was Fiera merely referencing the prophecy Vi had given her months before? She narrowly resisted asking outright.
“You…” The Emperor seemed torn. Torn between his growing family and the peace a contented royal family would foster, and his thirst for conquest. His gaze volleyed among the sword, Vi, and Fiera. But ultimately his wife and unborn child won out. “You are right.”
“Then I will entrust the sword to you, Yullia.” Fiera’s mouth turned upward into an easy smile. She almost looked relieved. “Tell no one what you do with it.”
“I will take its secrets with me to my grave.”
Chapter Seventeen
She had the sword.
Vi had to replay the day’s events in her mind as she stared at the faintly glowing weapon in her bedroom that night to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. There had been the preparations, the wedding, the attack. She had summoned a carriage to take Zira and the royals back to the castle before slipping out a back door herself, the sword wrapped tightly so that not even a glimmer of its divine blue light could be seen. Her shoulders had been tense as she wove through the city, the grin she wore so wide that it hurt.
Her heart was still racing as she summoned Taavin.
The man looked from Vi to the sword on her bed. Like a moth to a flame, he slowly crossed to it, entranced. Taavin ran his fingertips along the blade. Yargen’s magic sought him out as it did Vi. It seemed to seep into him and, for a brief, breathtaking second, the thin lines of magic that hummed around the edges of him faded.
He was there, in the flesh. She crossed over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. He turned, startled. His eyes widened. He must have felt it too.
“Taavin, you’re…” He was solid underneath her fingertips. Vi snaked her arms around his waist, acting on instinct and awe. She could feel his heartbeat racing. Or perhaps the frantic beating was actually her own.
“Vi—” Taavin moved to embrace her and lifted his hand from the weapon. The shimmering magic returned to his form. The warmth and smell of him vanished.
“The sword,” she whispered. “It makes you… real.” If she could string it around his neck, she would.
“Yargen’s magic is a power unlike any other. It’s the embodiment of life itself,” he said thoughtfully, more to the sword than her. But Taavin brought his gaze back to Vi, his thumb caressing her cheek. “But I am always real, for you.”
Vi put on the bravest smile she could, unable and not trusting herself to say anything else.
“Now, tell me, how did you manage to procure it so quickly?”
Her arms tightened around him. “Don’t be cross with me,” Vi started, already searching his eyes for the edges of anger.
“How did you procure it?”
“I had a vision,” Vi began hesitantly.
“When?”
“About two weeks ago.”
Taavin released her and took a step back. “Two weeks, and you didn’t tell me? Where did you have it? What was your vision of?”
Vi finally told him of Zira’s request, looking into Raylynn’s future, and what it had ultimately led her to. She watched his expression darken more with every word. Her heart was now racing for an entirely different reason—the adrenaline of warring emotions.
When she finished, Taavin turned, putting his back to her.
“Taavin, I was only doing what I thought was best. What I thought would lead this world—”
“No, you were doing what you wanted to do,” he interrupted harshly. “You weren’t acting on behalf of this world. You put yourself in danger to strike against the Knights of Jadar. You didn’t even consult me.”
“You would’ve told me not to do it.”
“Of course I would’ve!” He spun, looking at her with rage-filled eyes. “You’re not thinking this through.”
“I am,” Vi insisted. “I played it safe. I did what you asked. And all it led to was the Knights of Jadar gaining enough time to strengthen and organize an attack. If I had been acting offensively sooner, then maybe I could’ve prevented the attack on the wedding from ever happening.” He was silent, glowering at her. “If I hadn’t acted, Zira would be dead.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Taavin whispered.
“What?” Vi was taken aback by his sudden quiet.
“This wasn’t about the sword, or the world. It wasn’t about dealing a blow to an organization that threatens your family. This was about her.”
“It was about the sword,” Vi insisted.
“No, you wanted to save Zira.” He took a step forward, raising a finger and pointing at her. “You wanted to save her, because you always want to save her.”
“And is that so terrible?” Vi met him step for step. “What’s so awful about not wanting to see a little girl grow up without her mother?”
“Because you can’t save Zira.” Taavin shook his head sadly. “And you can’t save Fiera, either.”
It was an arrow that fired straight and true, landing right through her heart. Vi staggered back. She grabbed her chest, clawing at the physical ache there.
“You don’t know that,” she whispered.
“Their deaths are stones in the river.”
Vi shook her head, as though she could shake off his words. She couldn’t—they’d burned her. His words singed her chest, making her feel hot all over, like her bones had become cinder. “No,” she said softly.
“Vi, listen to—”
“You listen.” She brought her eyes back to him. “I saved my father when the world presumed him dead. I saved him from Adela. I had a vision of Zira dying today, and she yet lives. I am the one who is to change fate and save this whole, damned world. Do not tell me I can’t save two women.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” The pity in his eyes was the worst part.
“Have I ever saved her before?” Vi volleyed back to him. He narrowed his eyes. “Has Zira ever survived the wedding before?”
“No,” Taavin reluctantly admitted.
“Then you don’t know.” Hope was a wave crashing down on her, extinguishing the blaze that had nearly consumed her. “You don’t know, because this is new.”
“I have ninety-two other histories that guide my wisdom.”
“But you don’t know.”
“I know there are some things that, no matter how hard you try, don’t change.”
“Then I will try harder,” Vi insisted.
“I grant you that you’ve kept Zira alive longer than ever before. But Yargen will come for her life, as she will Fiera’s. Perhaps the assassin that came in the night ten attempts ago will return once more, looking for the sword—”
“Then I will have guards posted at her door.”
“Two attempts ago she was involved in a skirmish with the Knights while patrolling the city and was cut down.”
“Then I will do the patrols,” Vi continued to counter. “Rather than tell me what I can’t do, help me accomplish what I can. Help me find all these avenues to spare her by telling me how she’s died before.”
“Or she dies at the hands of a thief who gets the jump on her while she’s sleeping along the road during one of her trips, long after you’ve left her side.” Vi narrowed her eyes slightly and balled her hands into fists. Before she could say anything again, Taavin continued. “And if you save Fiera from one death, she’s murdered in equally horrible ways. Or falls victim to an accident no one could prevent.”
She stared up at him, searching for a lie in his words
. But Taavin’s eyes were stony clones of their usual warm selves, cold and unfeeling. The backs of her eyes prickled, though Vi couldn’t quite explain why. She hadn’t felt like crying in months. Why now?
It wasn’t that she knew Fiera that well. Certainly, she’d come to love the Empress in an unexpected but not entirely surprising way. And the woman did have her undeniable aura that made people willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.
But this feeling was more than that.
This was her stomach flipping upside down until her throat knotted. It was her eyes burning and her breaths becoming shallow. This feeling was worse than staring down Adela, or Ulvarth… perhaps even worse than burning Taavin alive.
“Why?” Vi whispered. “Why would Yargen do this?”
“There is the greater cycle of fate, the one we are trapped within and trying to free ourselves from. But there are also smaller turns, turns within families. Cruel fathers who raise cruel men who become cruel fathers themselves. There are some things we cannot escape.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I am here to change it—to break those cycles. And I refuse to believe that a goddess who supposedly wishes to look after all her people would trap them in destructive cycles they can’t free themselves from. If anything, that is the work of Raspian, and I will give it no credence.”
“I know your pain,” Taavin said firmly and with a slightly pleading edge. “I understand your hurt. Watching the ones you care for suffer, over and over again. Being helpless to stop or change it, no matter how hard you try. Seeing someone you love more than anyone or anything else in this accursed world trapped in a loop for nearly a thousand years.
“Feeling every blow, pain, and betrayal as though it’s your own. Each one worse than the last. Yearning not to feel… but you—I can’t avoid feeling, because the moment I lay eyes on you, I feel everything.”
His hands were on her face. Vi blinked up at him, startled. She hardly remembered him crossing to her. His words were more entrancing than any of Yargen’s. The way he said them was like a prayer, or a Lightspinner’s chant.
Taavin’s thumbs smoothed over the curve of her cheeks and he held her there. In his eyes she saw all the wonder and pain the universe had ever held. It was enough to make her knees weak and heart ache.
“If you know this pain… then help me end it,” Vi whispered. “Help me break not just one cycle, but all of them. Then we’ll all be free.”
He smiled sadly and his eyes drifted from her lips to her forehead, where he placed a tender kiss. Vi pressed her eyes closed, a deep ache reverberating through her. She needed him. Her hands grabbed the back of his arms above his elbows.
“I’m trying to help you,” he murmured. “But you have to let me. You have to listen, and be careful. The best chance we have to end this is caution. But if we don’t end it, we have to see you reborn. Be careful until then.”
Taavin pulled away and when Vi opened her eyes again, he was gone. She spent a moment focusing on every long breath of air, but each one felt thinner than the last. When he left, he took all the oxygen with him.
Vi grabbed the sword as though she could somehow strike down the barriers that stood in their way. But all she did was sheathe and hide it. The currents of emotion she was wading through were her own. There was still work to be done—work that wouldn’t end just because she wanted and needed more time to sort through her own experiences.
The castle was alive now, even at night. Servants tended to duties they didn’t have a chance to get to during the day. Vi donned the skin of one random helper she’d seen most afternoons in Fiera’s chambers as she made her way to Deneya’s office.
Two raps on the door and it opened promptly. Deneya looked her up and down.
“I heard you needed help sorting your bookcases,” Vi said, keeping the masquerade even though no one was around.
“My bookcases are fine. Though I wouldn’t mind help with laundry. Folding is a pain.” Deneya gave a smirk, one Vi returned. “Come on in.” Vi entered and released her illusion. “It’s just durroe, right?”
“Yes, though it helps if you pick a real person. It’s harder to fabricate someone who doesn’t exist with enough detail to keep the illusion stable.”
“You speak from experience?” Deneya walked over to her desk, where there were two glasses set out alongside a half-empty decanter. Deneya had started without her.
“I do.” Vi adjusted the sword at her belt to sit in one of the chairs facing Deneya’s desk. “Though, I admit, it’s been a while since I first began using durroe this way. Maybe I would have more luck with a fabricated person now.”
“It seems to be working well, no point in pushing to change it.” Deneya glugged a heavy pour from the decanter into each glass.
“That’s precisely the reason to change it.” Vi wore a grin as she accepted her glass. “Given the reactions I’ve received from the people of Meru, it’s been far too long since someone re-imagined how the goddess’s words can be used.”
“Some would say re-imagining the words of the goddess is blasphemy.”
“Beware of the ones who do—they’re the real enemies of Meru. And, as the Champion of Yargen, I say it’s fine.”
Deneya chuckled and held out her glass. “I like you, Yullia. Cheers to saving a royal family today.”
“Cheers.” Vi tipped the edge of her glass against Deneya’s and took a long sip of the dark amber liquid in her glass. It tasted of spiced caramel, surprisingly sweet. “And it’s Vi. My name is Vi.”
“Vi,” Deneya repeated thoughtfully. “Why Yullia, then?”
“It didn’t feel right to use my name when I came here, for a whole host of reasons.” She watched the liquid swirl in the glass as she slowly rotated it.
“Then thank you for telling me.”
“I know your true name. It’s only fair,” Vi answered offhandedly. As though she hadn’t just allowed Deneya past a barrier.
Deneya took another sip of her drink and Vi did the same. She vaguely remembered the drink Erion Le’Dan had given her all those months ago. Was this the same? Or different? Better or worse?
She fought to dredge up the memories—the only proof that that time had existed at all. Vi set her glass down on the armrest of the chair.
“You said you saw who was the first to attack?”
“Yes.”
“What did he look like?”
“Western, tall, bushy mustache… you couldn’t see it in what he was wearing, but he has a scar on his forearm, too.”
“You know him then?” Vi asked hopefully.
“Know is a strong word. I’ve seen him before.” Deneya set her glass down and crossed her arms.
“Where?” Vi settled back into her chair, quickly adding, “No, let me guess. Heading in and out of Twintle’s estate?”
“Half right. One of Twintle’s warehouses down at the docks.”
“Idiots,” Vi half sighed, half mumbled. “They’re no longer meeting at the estate?”
“I’m not certain. They’ve become much better at hiding their tracks,” Deneya said with a note of frustration.
“Either way, Twintle is their ringleader.”
“It seems so, and that brings me to the other thing I had to tell you.” Deneya’s eyes sparked with knowing. “Twintle contacted Zira, offering to resume some of his old Knightly duties and assist overseeing security at the last minute. Said it would be his honor.”
Vi was sure she hadn’t heard of it because Twintle no doubt hated her after she suggested the soldiers be released in stages, resulting in them being imprisoned longer. He would’ve done everything possible to keep her out of the decision-making process. “Slimy snake,” she mumbled.
“He’s definitely the one leading. He has the means and the coin,” Deneya said with a note of agreement. “But I think Luke is helping organize. He’s a convenient mobilizer so Twintle can continue to fulfill his duties and keep suspicion off his family.”
“I see.” Vi sw
irled the drink in her glass, thinking back to her conversation with Taavin.
“So, who do we go after? Luke, Twintle, or neither? I doubt Taavin would approve,” Deneya said, not knowing how spot-on she was.
“No, he wouldn’t.” She took a long sip of her drink, savoring the burn while she thought about what Taavin had said. He’d claimed that, regardless of what she did, there were people she couldn’t save. But that wasn’t about to stop her from trying. She was in uncharted territory now, after all. At the very least, she’d make the lives of those who would harm the family of a future-Vi as miserable as possible. “We’re not going to go after Twintle or Luke.”
“Who, then?”
“All of them. Every Knight that would ever swing a sword against Zira or Fiera.” She had saved Zira once. Now, Vi had to keep her alive, and prove to Taavin that boldness was the key to ending this vicious cycle once and for all.
Chapter Eighteen
“Where has Twintle gone, exactly?” Vi asked as she and Deneya walked through the midday streets of Norin toward the port.
“He has a manor between here and the Crossroads, not too far from the latter. Last I heard he was taking a short leave of absence to return home and spend some time with family before summer is up.”
Houses in the city, houses in the Waste. The old noble families of Mhashan had more homes than Vi currently had pairs of trousers and seemed to change them with equal frequency.
“Family, or networking with the old lords and ladies who still harbor ill will toward the new Empress along the way.”
“My money would be on that.”
“Mine as well.” Though Vi also entertained the idea of him turning tail, embarrassed by his failure at Fiera’s wedding.
“Then this is a boring gamble.” Deneya chuckled lightly. Sometimes, like now, Vi deeply appreciated her casual disregard for the weight of the situation surrounding her. Perhaps it was because Deneya didn’t see herself as a part of the Dark Isle, and its trials were mere amusements to her. Or perhaps she’d genuinely been so bored for so long here that even the slightest activity was a genuine delight.