by Kova, Elise
Vi took a deep breath, enjoying feeling her lungs fully expand without Andru’s death grip. She looked forward as she spoke, making sure they kept their headway. Not once had she checked the paper in her pocket.
“My father isn’t dead.” They may never believe her. But she needed their help now, more than ever, regardless of what they believed. They’d elected to come this far with her and she couldn’t let them turn back now and give away her plan.
“What?” Andru asked from behind her.
“Denial won’t help. I learned that with my own father,” Jayme lamented bitterly. “Denying the truth is only going to lead you down the path toward even more hardship later… Especially after this stunt.”
“It’s not denial.”
“Vi… Jayme’s right,” Ellene said softly. “Take your time processing, but pretending it isn’t real isn’t going to help.”
Where did Vi begin when it came to telling them the truth? How much truth could she tell them? After keeping her magic secret for so long, Vi wasn’t even sure if she knew the way to honesty.
“I have future sight, and have had a vision of my father on the Crescent Continent,” she said succinctly. Ripping off the bandage seemed like the most efficient approach.
“What?” Ellene gasped. Jayme was silent.
“There’s no record of you having future sight,” Andru said cautiously.
“Are you shocked that it would be kept off the record, given how the South feels about sorcerers?” Vi looked over her shoulder at him. He shook his head and glanced away. “More than that… it only just happened, the morning you arrived, actually.”
“Of your father?” Jayme asked slowly, no doubt piecing it all together.
“Not… that time.” Vi hadn’t given the vision with Taavin much thought since it first happened. There had been so much since to focus on. But now, knowing who he was, that he was on the Crescent Continent… She would find a way there. Her father must be there. Unless Taavin would come to her… All the possibilities of future sight made her head hurt. “But I did see my father in a later vision.”
“What did you see?” Ellene whispered in awe.
“I saw my father, before the Queen of Mer—the Crescent Continent,” Vi corrected quickly. “Which means he must make it to the Crescent Continent. If I saw him there, he’s alive, he didn’t go down with his ship. He survived, somehow.”
Jayme and Ellene shared a long look with each other. It was as if they were having a silent conversation that ended in a debate of who would speak first.
“Are you sure these are visions of the future?” Jayme challenged. “Not just dreams or wishes?”
“I know what I saw,” Vi insisted.
“But what if you were wrong?” her friend persisted.
What if she was… That was the solitary wound that had been struck deep within her, a gaping hole she refused to acknowledge. What if her father was actually dead and this was all false hope? What if the events that needed to come to pass to see him on the Crescent Continent hadn’t happened or wouldn’t happen?
There was still only one way to find out. Vi kept her eyes forward. The trees blurred around them and Vi cast her doubts aside, letting them fall under Gormon’s large paws and be left behind.
“I’m not,” Vi lied to them and herself. “I know it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” Vi shook her head. Tears stung her eyes again and she swallowed them down, setting her mouth into a hard line. She struggled to keep her composure. “You’re right, I don’t know. But I can find out. The answer is at Lake Io.”
“Lake Io?” Ellene repeated with surprise.
“I can only have my visions at certain places… and the next one is at Lake Io.”
“Is this why you’re so obsessed with maps?” Andru asked. It wasn’t. But by the Mother was that a convenient excuse. So Vi ran with it and gave him a small nod over her shoulder. “Why not just ask Jax for permission if he knows all this?”
Because he doesn’t know all this. “With the assassin still out there, and the outbreak, there’s no way he’d let me go. All my life, I have played by their rules. I’ve done what they wanted of me. I’ve sat and prepared and repeated and studied unquestioningly. I did it because that was the deal—if I played my part, I would someday be reunited with my family.
“Now, fate is trying to take that from me, and I’m not going to let it.” Vi stared ahead, waiting for the break in the trees that would show the water she’d hung her hopes on. “I’m not going to sit quietly by. I’m not going to be the perfect princess if breaking the rules will help me save my father. My family is the one thing I’ve wanted, the one thing I’ve been working toward. I can’t give up on it now.”
The conversation died with that.
Vi didn’t know if they believed her or not, but they’d stopped objecting, and that was the best she could hope for. At the end of it all, they didn’t need to believe her. She merely had to save her father.
“I think it’s admirable,” Andru whispered softly from behind her. Vi could barely hear him over the rustle of trees and snapping of foliage underneath Gormon’s paws. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping Ellene and Jayme hadn’t noticed. “Looking out for your family with such fervor when you don’t even know them.”
Vi swallowed. “My parents have come and visited me, when they were able. I exchanged letters.”
There was a long pause.
“I’m in love with your brother… and he’s in love with me.”
Vi’s hands tightened around Gormon’s fur. She didn’t look at the man behind her—the man who had been sent to assess her. She thought of his nerves around her, nerves she’d misread. She thought about how he mentioned her brother with such reverence at every possible turn. Andru’s slip-ups in saying Romulin’s name without “prince” before it. The letter about Andru’s importance written in Romulin’s own hand.
“I know,” Vi whispered. And her brother—her twin!—hadn’t trusted her with the fact.
“Don’t be upset with—”
“I’m not,” Vi interrupted sharply. Then, much more softly. “I’m not upset with him… Or you. I’m sure you both had your reasons to keep it from me—from everyone. But I don’t want to discuss this now. If I’m going to know, I want him to tell me on his own. He deserves that… I love Romulin, too. He’s my twin. Of my essence. The one I’ve known longer than any other. And I want him to tell me. It’s his truth to say.”
Andru was silent for a long moment and for once Vi felt as awkward as him. Vi released Gormon’s fur and patted the back of his hand lightly where it rested around her waist. She hoped he understood.
“Please don’t misunderstand me. Romulin can love who he loves,” she whispered. “I couldn’t be happier for both of you… But I want him to tell me all his secrets, in person, when we’re together for the first time—with both our parents— come spring.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
They’d made good time.
The sun was setting over Lake Io when they first laid eyes on it.
Out of nowhere, a lake larger than any Vi had ever seen—so large she couldn’t even see the other side—appeared like magic in the center of the jungle. Trees ran right up to the water’s edge, their gnarled roots draped lazily over giant rocks to lap up the deep blue waters. Even in the fading light, the foliage was bright and verdant. The greens were more vivid—almost neon—the flowers boasted full rainbows of color in nearly iridescent petals. Vines created extensive spider-like webs, folding over each other, curled anchors holding them together.
“It’s beautiful,” Jayme whispered softly.
“Isn’t it?” Ellene said proudly. “I don’t come here enough…”
“Why don’t others?” Jayme asked, dismounting. “Surely, there would be more buildings, towns, along the water?”
“Sometimes there are… some of the traveling clans will set up camps here. But this is a sacred place. It was made by Di
a herself and said to give us all life-sustaining, fresh water. It’s more of a place of pilgrimage than of residence or industry.”
“Is it all right that we’re here?” Andru asked, dismounting stiffly.
“If anyone is permitted, I would think it’s the future Chieftain, future Empress Solaris, and their sworn guard,” Ellene said with a note of pride. Then, hastily added, “And a future Senator, son of a Senator, Southern Court… man.”
“I think my title was somewhere in there.” Andru gave her a sly grin.
“Even still… we don’t exactly have time to linger.” Jayme reminded them. “I’m surprised they didn’t send a search party immediately after us.”
“For all we know, they did, and we’re just ahead of them,” Vi admitted. “I was hoping I’d get enough of a head start to throw them off our trail…”
“But mother has trackers too good for that,” Ellene finished Vi’s thought. She gave her friend a nod.
“Which is why we need to get you your vision and return.” Jayme folded her arms over her chest.
“Do you need something special?” Ellene asked, turning to Vi. “Is here good enough?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “One way to find out.”
Vi took a few steps back from the water. They’d been surveying the lake on one of the large boulders protruding from the earth. It was a good vantage to see from. But not the best place for a vision—just in case she collapsed in shock, or fear, or exhaustion after. The last thing Vi wanted was to go into the water head first and unconscious.
Holding out her hand, Vi summoned her flame, stared at it, waited…
And waited.
“What do you see?” Ellene asked with a whisper. Her face was alight with awe, as though she was witnessing something mysterious and sacred. Vi hated to be the one to burst her bubble.
“Nothing.” She closed her fist, looking across the lake.
“Could we be in the wrong place?” Ellene looked back the way they’d came.
“Perhaps it wasn’t Lake Io?” Jayme mused.
Vi shook her head. “No, it’s here… But Ellene may be right. This spot, right here, may not be the right place.”
“How so?” Andru asked.
“All the other places I’ve received my visions were remnants from the start of Shaldan. There were the underground ruins, the ruins at the edge of the city…” Ruins. That’s what it was, Vi realized. Taavin had said something about a temple of the sacred family.
“So you’re saying we need to find ruins?” Jayme followed Vi’s logic. “Or some other remnant of old Shaldan?”
“There must be some near the lake, somewhere.” Vi looked to Ellene. “Do you know of any? Specifically related to Dia and her family?”
Ellene shook her head.
“That’s a lot of ground to cover.” Jayme looked out over the water.
“Perhaps there’s a faster way,” Ellene mused, wiggling her toes.
“What’re you thinking?” Andru glanced between Ellene and her feet.
“I could feel out the earth. If there are ruins underground, or an odd shape of stone, it should feel different to me than normal earth.”
“If this is really supplying the water for all of Shaldan, there must be countless passages underground…” Vi murmured, trying not to dash their hopes.
“I can try,” Ellene insisted. “I’ll try to feel for smooth rock, something finished.”
“It can’t hurt if you can do it while we walk.” Jayme was already moving around the lake’s outer edge, starting off an a somewhat arbitrary direction.
“I should be able to.”
“If it goes too slowly, we can always jump back on the noru,” Andru suggested.
Vi gave him a nod and they started along the water.
She felt small pulses emitting from underneath Ellene’s feet with every step. The girl’s eyes closed from time to time, but she never ran into a single tree or bush. Even with her eyes closed, her magic mapped the forest for her into a sight beyond sight. Once in a while, she’d touch a tree, and Vi felt the same pulses vanish into the bark, down into the roots, and then fade past the realm of her perception.
“Wait, stop.” Ellene turned, looking to their right. She lifted a hand, pointing. “There’s something over there.”
“You’re sure?” Yet even as Jayme was asking, Vi could make out the outline of a shadow in-between the trees that she would’ve missed if not for Ellene.
“One way to find out.” Vi led the charge, away from the lake itself and back into the jungle.
Sure enough, not far from the water, stood a ruin. It was completely unmarked on any of her maps—like most were, but Vi couldn’t believe no one knew of its existence. It seemed too magnificent to leave lost to time.
“It looks almost like another fortress,” Ellene whispered.
“It does,” Vi agreed, her voice falling to a hush as well.
Large archways supported crumbling stone pathways between trees, draped with vines and moss. The skeletons of long-dead trees rotted in the shadow of the ruins, feeding newer life that would someday grow tall enough that their mighty roots would crack even more of the crumbling foundation.
It wasn’t as pristine as the first ruins Vi had discovered. But it was far more intact than those around Soricium. Perhaps this site was more removed, protected from anyone bothering it throughout the ages. Or perhaps it had once been so large, that even what was left after time had taken its toll still maintained breathtaking grandeur.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Vi asked Ellene.
She shook her head. “Not outside of Soricium. It… I can’t describe it. It doesn’t look like the other cities in Shaldan.” She must’ve been truly confused, because she returned to her earlier sentiment. “It looks like the fortress—or an early version of it.”
“It’s incredible, whatever it is,” Andru whispered in awe. “This must be the place, right?”
“I think so.” Perhaps there were hundreds of ruins dotting the shore of the massive lake. But Vi didn’t think there were any that would look so grand. If any place was going to be an apex of fate, this would be it. “Let’s go in.”
“In?” Jayme caught her hand. “That’s a crumbling death trap.”
“Everywhere else, I’ve had to go in. I’ve had to stand right at the heart of it. There’s no time to waste debating this. You can wait out here if you’d like.”
“If you’re going in, then so are we,” Ellene declared. “We’ve come this far together. Besides, you have a Groundbreaker on your side. I’ll fix any cracking bits and keep us safe.”
“We won’t abandon you now,” Andru agreed.
“Fine. Even if I’m not completely thrilled by the idea…” Jayme looked uneasily up at the ruins.
Vi stared at her friends in wonder. Standing in front of ancient ruins that could well lead to their deaths, she felt the first cornerstone of something she could call “home” fall into place.
“Let’s go, then. Fate is waiting.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
They scrambled over large stones and other rubble as they neared the heart of the ruins.
Half perched in a tree, half supported by the stone that extended unnaturally from the earth, was a structure that looked more like the cathedrals to the Mother Vi had seen in her architecture books than anything Northern. It had pointed spires and more soaring archways to support its large columns.
“Where to from here?” Jayme asked as they climbed up a broken stairway to a wide platform.
“In there, I think.” Vi pointed across a crumbling bridge. “That looks like the center of it all.”
“Leave it to me.” Ellene stepped forward ahead of them. She swept her palm out and across her chest. Before their eyes, old cracks were smoothed, large chunks of stone settled back into place, and the vines tightened, lending further natural supports.
Yet, despite all this, Jayme and Andru seemed skeptical.
&n
bsp; “Are you sure it’s safe?” Jayme asked.
“We’re pretty high up…” Andru glanced over his shoulder, panting softly at the exertion of their climb.
“I may not be a builder, but I know how to use my magic to manipulate the earth enough to make a secure path,” Ellene insisted.
“I have faith in Ellene.” Vi started forward.
“As if I don’t.” Jayme rolled her eyes, taking a wide step, determined to be the second on the bridge.
Once across, the four stepped into the smothering darkness of the heart of the ruins. The shifting moonlight of the jungle already hadn’t been enough to see by. The small flame that magically hovered over Vi’s shoulder, guiding them, had provided just barely enough light.
Here, however, the darkness seemed to have that same impenetrable quality as the first set of ruins Vi had stumbled on. It clung to every corner of the cavernous inner space, darkening relief sculptures and collapsed columns alike. Her friends huddled closer, staying in the halo of light from her flame.
“This feels like the right place,” Vi whispered.
“How so?” Jayme’s voice had dropped to a whisper as well. Something about the atmosphere was making them all tense. Perhaps it was they couldn’t see the far walls or ceiling. The only source of pale moonlight was the archway they’d entered from.
“I can’t describe it…” Vi shook her head. “A place with purpose? Something important happened here.” Vi wondered if she truly felt that way, or if Taavin’s words were merely inspiring the feeling.
“I can only imagine.” Ellene’s voice echoed off the high ceiling. Whatever the girl could imagine, it wasn’t the need that Vi felt to remain as quiet as possible. “What’s over there?”
With a flick of her fingers, Vi sent the small flame ahead of them. They hustled to keep up, none seeming to want to linger in the darkness for too long. The pale outline of two figures were highlighted in orange, slick with damp that dripped softly from the tall ceiling. One figure held an axe and knelt before the other. It was almost an exact replica of the statue in the Mother Tree… save for a few key differences.