Vortex Visions: Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles

by Kova, Elise

  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 is 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?”

  Her uncle had intended the questions to be rhetorical. Of that, Vi was certain. But he’d asked the right thing to give her an answer.

  She knew how her father was alive.

  “You said he died on the barrier islands?” Vi whispered. This time, it was not grief, but a delicate, quivering hope silencing her words.

  “Yes.”

  “On the way to the Crescent Continent, not back from? He never made it there?” she emphasized.

  “Yes. He was to make it to the Crescent Continent and send back word. There has been no word, and the Dawn Strider was sunk on the way.”

  Her whole body was trembling now. She knew her father was alive. For she had seen a vision of him on the Crescent Continent, kneeling before a queen in clothes similar to Taavin’s, in a city that mirrored what he’d described.

  If she’d seen the future with her sight, and saw her father there, that meant her father had somehow made it. Vi remembered her conversation with Taavin. Her visions were of things that would happen if the world remained unchanged. Had the world changed already? Changed enough, and in the specific ways that would have altered that scene?

  There was only way to be even remotely certain—she had to somehow trigger another vision of her father. If she could see him again, she could squelch the doubt that even now threatened to smother her. But the only places Vi had ever received her visions were the apexes of fate.

  In one frantic motion, Vi snatched up the sheet she’d been working on, turned, and ran.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Vi, wait!” Ellene called after her.

  Her father wasn’t dead.

  “What the—” Jayme and Andru were standing right outside of her main door, though Vi blew right past them.

  Her father wasn’t dead.

  “Jayme, Ellene, keep an eye on her,” her uncle called after sadly. Three sets of footsteps took up chase behind her.

  He couldn’t be. There was no way he was. Her father wasn’t dead!

  The words resounded in her, bouncing back and forth around her ribcage, puncturing her heart and healing it in the same action. The world could think he was dead. But she knew better. She’d seen it. She would be the one flame of belief protesting against their bleak darkness that could be a lighthouse to guide him home.

  All she needed now was proof.

  “Vi, wait!” Ellene tried again.

  Vi didn’t even slow down to respond. She sprinted down the curving passageways and bridges of the fortress. Her feet knew the way in and around the trees, down a pathway she’d run countless times in her life to greet Jayme, her mother, and her father at the stables.

  Rubbing her eyes with her palms, Vi forced her lungs to burn only from the exertion and not from sobs. She wouldn’t mourn her father until she knew he was dead. She would mourn when she had proof of that. Not before. Never before.

  At the hard-packed earth of the stables, Vi made a hard right toward the noru pen. Her hand met the top of the fence and Vi hoisted herself over, landed hard, and was off again. She brought her hands to her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.

  Gormon’s ears perked up and his head turned. On her command, he came plodding over.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Jayme shouted between labored breaths.

  “Let us help you, Vi!”

  “I have to go.” Vi hoisted herself up onto Gormon with giant fistfuls of fur. There wasn’t time for him to be saddled. If she asked for a saddle it would delay things, and someone would stop her.

  “Leave? And go where?” Andru asked.

  “There’s someone out there trying to kill you!” Jayme motioned to the road that led from the fortress. “Now isn’t the best time.”

  Vi looked down at them from Gormon’s back. Every moment she wasted was another moment she could be making headway to Lake Io. Another precious second that she could turn into finding information about her father before anyone else could reach her.

  “You guys can come
with me, or stay here. Andru can ride with me, Jayme behind Ellene on her noru. But I have to go now.” She gripped Gormon’s sleek fur tighter, trying to make sure she wasn’t hurting the beast. They all stood, staring at her in shock. Vi let out a curse under her breath and jumped the fence.

  “Wait!” Andru, of all of them, was the one to speak up. Vi didn’t know who looked more surprised by the fact—her or him. “I’m coming.”

  “Well if he’s going, I am,” Ellene declared, quickly summoning her own noru.

  “Jax told me to keep an eye on you, so it’s not like I have a choice!” Jayme mounted, somewhat awkwardly, behind Ellene. Though Vi only saw it for a moment. She was already turning forward, looking at the long road out of Soricum.

  Down the road, past the burnt outer ring, turn hard south, and ride into the dawn. The map spun in her head, confirming the path forward as Vi sprung Gormon into motion.

  * * *

  “Can you hold me less tightly?” Vi finally asked, slowing Gormon from an all-out run. She would continue bounding through the jungle if his sides weren’t heaving. They’d made enough headway… she hoped.

  “Is it over?” Andru slowly released his arms. Vi glanced over her shoulders to see his eyes slowly opening. “I feel sick.”

  “Mother, of course you do. Don’t ride with your eyes closed on a noru.” She shook her head and looked forward again, setting Gormon into a good trot.

  “I’ve never ridden one of these before,” Andru muttered as Ellene and Jayme came alongside them. Vi glanced over long enough to see Jayme’s face set in a scowl.

  “Just what is going on?” she half-seethed, half demanded.