Vardaesia

by Lynette Noni

  In a bright flash, Saefii and the rest of the immortals disappeared, with Calivere remaining long enough to arrive on the dais and collect their golden cuffs before vanishing as well.

  Left with only her friends, Alex wished they had been parroned away with the others. She was too raw after all she had just experienced. She needed time to think, time to heal from her open wounds, aware that once her friends worked through their own tumultuous feelings, they would have questions for her—about the memory they had seen, and about the future vision. Right now, she couldn’t handle how they might react. It had been hard enough hearing the judgement from their fake selves; she wouldn’t survive another round of accusations should they choose to repeat them—for real, this time. Even if it had felt real before.

  “Alex,” Kaiden called softly.

  Just as she had done with Jordan, Alex flinched and stepped away, her burning eyes trained on her feet.

  Before any of her friends could call out to her again, with another bright flash, they all disappeared. She, however, remained on the dais. But she wasn’t alone, for in front of her stood Zaylin, a glowing, golden sword held between her hands.

  “You can thank me for this later,” the Tia Auran said.

  And in a blur of immortal speed, she lunged forward with her blade, aiming straight for Alex.

  Twenty-Two

  Reacting on instinct, Alex summoned A’enara, meeting Zaylin’s attack with a screech of metal.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, adrenaline flooding her body as she pushed the Tia Auran back.

  “So it’s true,” Zaylin said, eyeing the weapon Alex held. “You wield the Sword of the Stars, just like your memory showed.”

  She lunged at Alex again, and again Alex blocked her. A third, fourth, fifth time Zaylin struck, the Tia Auran’s strength and speed increasing with each attack.

  Alex hadn’t held a weapon in a week; hadn’t so much as touched A’enara in that time. And yet, it was like not a second had passed since the battle at Graevale, her training with Niyx automatically kicking in as survival mode took hold.

  The power and skill Zaylin had at her disposal was unlike that of any opponent Alex had faced—aside, perhaps, from Aven himself—her natural strength and ability pushing Alex to her limits. Past her limits.

  When a slash of the immortal’s golden blade came so close that it sliced open a cut on Alex’s neck just beneath her ear, the Tia Auran didn’t so much as pause in her attack.

  “Are you trying to kill me?” Alex screeched.

  “Perhaps I’m merely trying to see how easy it would be,” Zaylin returned, swinging at her again.

  Over and over she continued to lunge, each time with increased speed and strength.

  “It’s bad enough that you hold sway over Soraya de lah Torra and can summon the eiden paths,” Zaylin said as she stabbed her golden blade left and right, high and low. “It’s even worse that you’ve accepted a vaeliana bond with the Lord of the Sky Kingdom. But to command the Blade of Glory—” She eased back and shook her head. “By the stars, Alexandra Jennings. Who are you?”

  Zaylin was barely winded, but Alex was panting too hard to answer, especially when the Tia Auran came at her again.

  Strike.

  Parry.

  Lunge.

  Block.

  Alex struggled to hold up against the intensity of Zaylin’s attack, with it taking all her focus to maintain a weak, almost pathetic defence. Her skills were nowhere near enough to hold out against the Tia Auran’s prowess—or so she thought, until Zaylin jabbed an accusing finger at her and yelled, “You’re not even trying, Alex! How are you going to save your friends—your world—if you’ve already given up?”

  As their weapons met again in one crushing blow, Alex was brought to her knees, all her strength being used to keep Zaylin’s blade from inching close enough to split her in half.

  Reaching her free hand forward to grab hold of Alex while her other kept pressure against their joined swords, Zaylin leaned in and said, “I know that Gate was hard on you, Alex—I know. But you have to move past it, because you’re stronger than this.” Her silver eyes held Alex’s as she whispered, “Don’t doubt in darkness what you believed in times of light.”

  Alex closed her eyes as the words washed over her, flooding the aching emptiness of her bleeding heart.

  “You are stronger than this, Alex,” Zaylin repeated, giving her a rough shake, and Alex knew she didn’t just mean physically. “So get over what happened with the Gate, move on from the false accusations you faced, and show me what you’re really capable of.” Releasing her, Zaylin finished, “Now, stand up and fight me properly.”

  Zaylin was right—Alex had given up. After what she had endured in the Gate, after what she had endured for months, she had lost the strength, the will, to keep fighting. Not just physically, but with every part of her. She was tired—so incredibly tired. And she wasn’t sure if she could take anymore.

  ‘We’re all going to die because of you.’

  The words Kaiden had thrown at her echoed in her mind, her fear of them coming true bringing a metallic taste to her mouth. She knew it hadn’t really been him, that he would never say anything like that to her, but that didn’t ease her terror that he would be proved correct.

  Everything that had happened in the Gate might have been fake, but it had still felt real, since the accusations hurled at her had come from deep within Alex’s own subconscious. The blame, the condemnation… all of it was what she lived with, day in, day out. Hearing the words come from those she loved wasn’t an indication of what they believed—it was of what she believed.

  The Gate of Judgement hadn’t been about her facing the judgement of others.

  It had been about Alex judging herself.

  Just as she had been for too long.

  Her guilt of the past, her fear of the future, it was crippling, enough that part of her did want to give up, just as Zaylin had accused.

  But Zaylin had also said more than that.

  ‘Don’t doubt in darkness what you believed in times of light.’

  Everything Alex had done up until this moment was with the belief that she stood a chance. That the mortals of Medora stood a chance. And as she stared at the Tia Auran’s fierce gaze, she realised that she’d be damned if she was going to lose sight of that. Hope was all she had left, but it was enough. Because in a future filled with uncertainty, hope was everything.

  Her past might have been shadowed by guilt and shame, but it didn’t define her. It never had. She had fallen and she had failed, but she had never given up—and she wasn’t going to now.

  Aven had chosen his path, just as Alex had chosen hers.

  Now she just had to keep fighting for it.

  … Starting with Zaylin.

  Steely resolve swept over Alex as she rose to her feet and straightened her spine.

  Seeing the determination in her eyes, Zaylin’s lips stretched into an eager smile. And when she lunged again, it was she who staggered backwards at the force of Alex’s intercept.

  And again, a second time.

  When a third lunge left Zaylin open for Alex to retaliate with her own sequence of attacks, the Tia Auran scrambled to defend herself, backing up across the dais as her golden blade met A’enara’s fiery length over and over.

  Soon enough, Zaylin began cheating, parroning with blinding flashes in between surprise attacks. But Alex had fought Shadow Walkers with similar fighting techniques, and she was undaunted by the immortal’s supernatural display. If anything, it gave her the upper hand, since Zaylin had clearly been expecting her moves to be disorienting. That left her vulnerable when Alex jumped forward with immortal speed the next time she parroned, grasping hold of the Tia Auran and flash-transporting with her, just as she had once done with Trell during their vatali targo match in Graevale. Alex then took advantage of Zaylin’s shock to kick out her legs and slam her to the ground, pointing A’enara at her throat, its blue flames barely
a whisper away from searing her skin.

  Panting underneath her, Zaylin’s ebony face stretched into a smug grin despite the fact that she had lost. “Ready to thank me now?”

  Knowing the Tia Auran had returned full circle to her initial warning upon instigating their fight, Alex sent her a rueful smile and offered her a hand, hoisting her back up to her feet.

  “I don’t usually thank people who try to kill me,” Alex said as she pressed her fingers to the cut on her neck, smearing the blood that dribbled down past her collar.

  “You needed to get that out of your system,” Zaylin replied unapologetically, dusting off her leathery black outfit. “But more importantly, you needed to surrender your doubt, shame and guilt once and for all. It’s the only way you’ll have the strength to face all that is to come.”

  More grateful than she could say, Alex had to resist the urge to throw her arms around the other woman, certain the act wouldn’t be received well, nor would any gushing words of appreciation. Instead, she cleared her throat and said, “No offence, but I kind of presumed your race would be better at fighting. I mean, you’re great and all, but you seem to be on a similar level to the Meyarins.”

  “Our fighting skills are equal to theirs, depending on how much training we have undergone,” Zaylin said, sheathing her golden sword. “And as I’ve already told you, it has been many ages since my people have had to be battle-ready. Our skills are… sloppy.”

  Alex removed her hand from her neck and wiggled her bloodied fingers. “You don’t seem sloppy.”

  “I’ve kept in better shape than most,” Zaylin admitted. “However, even I’m not at the prime that I once was—as evidenced by your victory.”

  Knowing she hadn’t meant it as an insult, but merely a comparison between their two races—one mortal, one immortal—Alex said, “Prime or not, I only beat you because you expected me to be more surprised than I was.”

  “And that’s a perfect example of what I meant by ‘sloppy’,” Zaylin returned. “There was once a time when I never would have made any presumptions, nor taken an opponent’s reaction for granted. Had the two of us been in a real fight, my overconfidence today would have resulted in my death.”

  Alex winced, since Zaylin was right. As it was, Alex wasn’t the only one of them who was injured; the Tia Auran also had small cuts peppering her flesh from minor slices of A’enara that Alex had caused. Interestingly, Zaylin’s blood was gold— something that was hardly surprising given that everything about the otherworldly race seemed to be inspired by the colour.

  Banishing A’enara, Alex said, “So… now that we’ve established that I need to let go of the past and move forward, I guess this is the part where you return me to my room and I face my friends?”

  While she was still raw from what had happened inside the Gate and was unsure how the others might respond to all they had seen—to the memory and the future vision, but also to how Alex had mentally depicted their judgement of her— something had settled within her enough that she felt ready for the confrontation. Much of that was because of Zaylin, even if Alex had yet to decide if she was blessed or cursed by the tenacious Tia Auran who considered violence the best means by which to cure emotional fallout. Regardless, her intervention had brought clarity to Alex, silencing her doubts and renewing her hope. It had also—perhaps unintentionally—reminded Alex of the one thing she knew for certain: that her friends loved her as much as she loved them, and because of that, they would get through whatever came next together, just as they always had.

  Despite Alex’s restored determination, Zaylin didn’t parron her away. Instead, her eyes were focused on the spot where A’enara had disappeared as she asked, “How did the Weapon of the Ages come to be bound to you?”

  Alex called A’enara back and held the ice-coloured blade carefully in her hands, the blue flames dancing over her skin. She quickly shared how Aven had used it to Claim her, but how she’d later broken free of his bond, then how he had thrown the blade at D.C. only for Alex to jump in its path. She then admitted that she didn’t know why the weapon had stayed in her possession afterwards—not that she was complaining.

  “It found you worthy,” Zaylin said.

  Alex’s brow furrowed. “It… what?”

  “A’enara—it found you worthy when you sacrificed yourself for your friend. That’s why it chose to bind itself to you.”

  “I don’t know about that. Everything about it is just… well, weird,” Alex said. That was especially true when the time paradox was taken into consideration—because she’d been bound to it in the past before the future, but she’d only experienced the past after the future. “I mean, it’s a weapon. It’s not like it’s capable of rational thought or decision making.”

  “You’re wrong,” Zaylin said, shaking her head. “A’enara is much more than a weapon.”

  Alex felt goose bumps rise on her skin as she heard the memory of Aven once saying something similar: ‘A’enara isn’t a name, you foolish girl. It’s an identity.’

  “I’m not surprised you don’t know more about the Bringer of Light,” Zaylin continued. “Even my people don’t fully understand it.”

  Intrigued, Alex said, “I thought it was forged by the Tia Aurans?”

  Zaylin loosed a startled laugh. “Hardly. That’s like saying we spoke the stars into being.”

  Bewildered, Alex said, “If you didn’t make it, then who did?”

  “Instead, let me ask you this,” Zaylin said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “Have you ever wondered why your weapon can cut anything but doesn’t slice straight through other blades during battle?”

  Alex was dismayed to realise that she had never considered it, not even after having witnessed A’enara cut through Myrox, Moxyreel and the supposedly impenetrable traesos like melted butter.

  “Have you ever wondered why or how it can increase and decrease in length, depending on if you wish to use it as a dagger or as a sword?” Zaylin continued. “Or how you can summon and banish it at will? How it knows to arrive and depart at your command?”

  Those, at least, Alex had wondered about, not that she’d received any answers.

  Zaylin went on, “Have you ever wondered about the colour of the blade; what kind of substance could have created it? Why it flares with star fire at your touch—something I presume began only after you were bound to your draekon, a creature with origins beyond the stars?”

  Alex ran her hand down the length of the blade as she looked at Zaylin and said, “Any chance you want to fill me in?”

  The Tia Auran held her gaze for a moment as if considering, but then she opened her mouth and shared, “I can’t tell you where A’enara came from or by whose hands it was created, since not even the elders of my race know the answer to that. But I can tell you that legend claims it was breathed into being and is made of liquid starlight, and for those two reasons, it retains a sense of sentience—an intelligence left by its creator that allows it to bond to another, to change length, to be summoned and dismissed at will. It’s also that intelligence that makes it, for lack of a better word, honourable. It knows when it’s in a battle against another weapon and it respects both the opponent and their blade enough to not, essentially, cheat.”

  A sentient, honourable blade that was breathed into being. That was up there amongst some of the most ridiculous things Alex had ever heard. And yet, all of it fit—except for one thing.

  She may have been home-schooled for most of her Freyan life as she travelled around the globe with her parents, moving with them from dig-site to dig-site, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t learned anything. She’d been a particularly keen science student, so she was confident enough to say, “There’s no such thing as liquid starlight.”

  Ignoring Zaylin’s raised eyebrows, Alex continued, “Stars are made of gases—mostly hydrogen and helium—and their core temperature is too hot for them to be converted into a liquid. Maybe if cold fusion were a real thing, but that only exists in s
cience fiction books and movies, and—” Alex broke off, realising she was tangenting. “Look, all I’m saying is, stars can’t be turned from a gas into a liquid. It’s a physical impossibility.”

  Then again, A’enara was enveloped with star fire, at least when held in Alex’s hands. Was it that huge of a leap to consider whoever had created the blade—breathed intelligent life into the blade—had been advanced enough to liquefy the light from a star and forge it into a weapon?

  “Physical impossibility or not,” Zaylin said dryly, “there are two blades in all the worlds that prove your statement false.”

  Alex jerked, knowing exactly which other blade Zaylin was referring to. “Vae’varka is made of starlight as well?”

  Zaylin’s jerk was much more violent than Alex’s.

  “How do you know of the Bearer of Darkness?”

  Pulling a face, Alex said, “Why do both these blades have so many different names? Harbinger of Death, Sword of the Shadows, Bearer of Darkness—this is becoming absurd.”

  “It’s also referred to as the Bane of Life, if you want to add a final one to your list,” Zaylin said, though her lips were thin and pale. “Now, answer my question.”

  Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the Tia Auran’s demanding tone, Alex answered, “I know about Vae’varka because Aven has the blade in his possession. And judging by the fact that it was flaming with black fire in his hands, I’m guessing he’s bound to it as well.”

  Zaylin reared back as if she’d been slapped. “You’re sure of this?”

  Alex was surprised Zaylin didn’t know, especially given the return of the Medoran draekons to Tia Auras after Aven had slaughtered so many of their kin with his dark blade. She hadn’t witnessed the massacre, but she had seen Aven use his fiery weapon to kill many others, including both Lady Mystique and Niyx. The memories flashed across her vision: the fall of the ancient woman; A’enara and Vae’varka meeting in powerful, jarring blows; the blade spearing Niyx’s chest in a lethal wound that refused to heal.