by Elise Kova
A hand grabbed the bag as she began to hurl it forward.
“No!” The word burst from her like fire, hot, singeing, painful.
The canvas ripped and its contents exploded. Vi twisted, off-balance. She stepped hastily, trying to recover. Her eyes landed on the gold-plated crown that now sat lonely on the mostly empty column of stone. Yargen’s magic called out to her longingly.
Vi’s arm rose. It was there, so close—she’d almost had it.
Her vision shifted. Jax was reaching for her—he was still going to try to save her. Even after she’d knowingly begun to try to push him away. The tiniest smile crossed her lips as Vi tipped backward.
Jax’s compassion was the only thing she could find joy in, given her failure. Cursing herself and her arrogant greed as she fell, Vi took a deep breath right before she plunged into the icy water below, and allowed the currents to carry her out to the sea.
Chapter Sixteen
Vi rolled on the stone and sand for the second time in the span of a day. Gold coins clanked and scraped against the rocks around her. Treasure glittered across the beach in the early morning light.
Dragging herself far enough out of the icy water that she could breathe without sputtering, Vi brought the spark under her skin. The water evaporated in shimmering waves of heat. She gulped in air by heaving lungful, staring up at the bloody sky. Spending years on boats and ships had turned her into a strong swimmer—strong enough to navigate the currents through the short passage out to the beach beyond.
She waited until her breathing slowed and her chest stopped burning, murmuring curses on the exhales. Failure felt like a noru on her chest, keeping her pinned. The crown had slipped through her fingers and who knew what the young men would do with it now.
Eventually, Vi pried herself up, left the gold behind for now, and began the long walk back to the hovel.
She didn’t even knock on arrival, allowing herself in. The room was empty and Vi helped herself to the bed, inhaling the familiar scent of the blankets as she collapsed and fell into a dreamless, exhausted, sleep.
“Vi,” Taavin said, shaking her shoulder. “Vi,” he repeated. She cracked open her eyes. “Oh thank Yargen.”
“You worried us,” Deneya said from over his shoulder.
“Sorry, things happened quickly.” Vi sat and Taavin helped her up. His fingers laced around hers as Vi rubbed her eyes with her other hand.
“You’re being reckless again,” he murmured.
“I had no choice.” Vi shook her head, her hand falling. “The prince and his group were going after the crown. I was trying to get to it before they did. I knew once it was found, taking it would be nearly impossible.”
“We know they found the treasure.” Deneya sat on her bed across from them. “The whole town is abuzz with it.”
“That was fast.”
“Word moves fast when it comes to ghostly prizes.” Deneya grinned. “What happened?”
“Jax, Erion, and Baldair showed up at the Lady Black…” Vi started, telling them the events of the past day that had ultimately led to her failure. “… but I didn’t manage to get the crown.”
“So they have it, then,” Taavin said faintly.
“I can only assume.”
“Years…” Deneya trailed off, staring at nothing. But she didn’t have to finish her sentence; they all felt the shared sentiment. They’d spent years hunting for the crown. Now, all that time meant nothing.
“They had a map. Someone else was searching the caves,” Vi said.
“We had no idea.” Taavin shook his head. “But perhaps all will be well. In all other worlds, the crown has come to light after the War in the North began, at the earliest. We can find out what they did with it later.”
“In all other times, we hadn’t been meddling as much with the crystal weapons.” Vi folded her arms.
“What if we steal it back?” Deneya said, suddenly eager once more. “You studied the Imperial estate here. You know the manor. You just said there were secret tunnels connecting to it—hence why the blueprints you showed me ages ago were so strange. We could sneak in.”
“We could,” Vi said uncertainly. Deneya was right, Vi knew the manor. And now that she’d seen the prince’s map, she knew how the caves connected to it. “But I think they’ll have tighter security now that they have the lost treasure—or at least a small portion of it.”
“Nothing we can’t handle.”
“I appreciate your confidence,” Vi chuckled softly.
“We can’t take it.” Taavin put the notion to rest. “You’re right, we’ve been meddling. If the crown goes completely missing at this point, it’s impossible to say what would happen. We can’t risk the birth of a new Champion.”
“I grow weary of your obsession with Vhalla Yarl’s womb,” Deneya shot the curt remark at Taavin.
“He’s right though,” Vi said. “If it went missing now, they’d hunt for it.”
“They didn’t care to hunt for it for decades,” Deneya countered.
“But now they know it exists. They’ll know someone stole it. Getting the crown only worked so long as its location was a mystery.”
“We can handle them if they come after us; it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve fallen off the pages of history.” Deneya was making it difficult for Vi to think rationally. All she wanted to do was go after the crown right now. But rushing in with Jax hadn’t yielded results.
Patience, she reminded herself. Time and again, patience was the best way forward.
“What if I made another crown and you illusioned it again?” Deneya suggested.
“No,” Vi said immediately and firmly. “That didn’t work last time.” She rubbed her midsection, remembering the price she’d paid for it. “If Victor sees it—”
“And we have every reason to believe he will,” Taavin interjected, “if past worlds are any indication of how Victor might act now.”
“Victor will see right through any illusion.”
“How did he see through it the first time?” Deneya asked.
“A shift in the light,” Vi said, recalling that fateful encounter.
“Well, you’re more powerful now. I think—”
“Wait,” Vi whispered. “Shift…” Vi stood and began to pace. Her mind was racing. Her gut was laying a new path before her. “This could work.”
“What could work?” Taavin asked hesitantly.
“We have to go to the Twilight Kingdom to get the scythe. We also need to keep the crystal weapons in their places to ensure the birth of a new Champion.” She looked to Taavin as she spoke.
“Yes, that’s our top priority.”
Not saving the world? Vi wanted to ask. She knew where his priorities lay and she’d indulge him right up until the moment she couldn’t any longer—a moment Vi could now see on the distant horizon.
“We go to the Twilight Kingdom and collect the scythe. There, we have them use the powers of the shift to make a crown that looks like the crystals. Something real, tangible, not an illusion for Victor to see through.”
Then, while they were there, Vi would use Fallor to get to Adela. They needed passage to Risen to get the flame and, ultimately, someone crazy enough to take them to the island of the elfin’ra.
“That… might work,” Taavin relented.
“There’s just the one small problem of the Twilight Kingdom being a sea away.”
“I already planned for that.” Vi looked to Deneya with a grin. “We now have enough old Solaris gold to buy a ship. All we need to do is collect it.”
“Then we should do that,” Deneya said with a nod.
“You look tired. Why don’t you rest? Taavin and I can go and collect it.” Vi grabbed two packs and handed Taavin two more.
“All right, I can tell when I’m not wanted. Go and have your alone time.” Deneya was already nestling herself into bed.
“We’ll be back soon,” Vi said with a grin.
She and Taavin slipped out the door
and into the dark town. There seemed to be fewer people about, likely because they were all clamoring somewhere else over Adela’s treasure finally being found.
Vi opened her mouth, surprised when Taavin spoke first.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I said, I’m sorry.” Their eyes met. “The other night, I was harsh.”
Vi gripped the strap of one of her packs tighter. “You’re only trying to do the right thing.”
“Yes, but doesn’t excuse me when I act an ass.”
“I snapped at you first,” Vi said tenderly. “I’m sorry, too.” Their shoulders brushed as they walked down a staircase that would lead to the beach by the cliffs.
“We’re both trying to do what’s right, and that’s never an easy thing to do.” He took her hand and Vi didn’t hesitate to lace her fingers with his. The squeeze of his hand pushed forgiveness into her, a sentiment she tried to push back.
“There’s something I want to ask you about,” she said, pausing as their feet met the sand.
“Yes?”
“Jax, his life…” and death, she couldn’t bring herself to say aloud. “Is it a stone in the river?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she pressed, “Have there been worlds in which he died here and now?”
She almost told him not to say anything. She had her answer by the look on his face alone.
“I can’t decide what his fate is,” Taavin said, finally. “Some worlds he lives, and some worlds he dies. His life seems to be a variable, not a stone.”
Memories flooded her, rushing like the seawater around their ankles as she started walking again, rounding the cliffside. Vi watched the little rocks being carried out by the tides, the larger ones stuck in place. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s not an excuse.” The words could’ve been sharp and angry, but they weren’t. She wasn’t about to risk their restored peace. “You could’ve told me at any time. But you didn’t want to because you didn’t want to hurt me.”
“Am I that transparent?” Taavin blinked into the morning’s early light and Vi appreciated his profile. There might never be an hour of her life where the sight of all his sharp angles didn’t fill her with a mixture of sorrow, joy, and longing.
“I know every corner of you, inside and out.”
“I suppose if anyone would, it’s you.”
“Tell me about everyone else. Who does the goddess demand? Who can live? I won’t fight Yargen’s fate,” she added hastily. “But if I can save someone, I will.”
Taavin searched her face and sighed. “Regardless of the path we walk, Tiberus, Twintle Junior, Schnurr—”
“Schnurr?” Vi interjected.
“You met him, briefly.” The words brought back a fleeting memory of a young boy in a war zone.
“He was with Fiera the night Mhashan fell—the young man with the moustache, who she directed to keep fighting at the break in the wall.”
“And he becomes a leading member of the Knights of Jadar. He’ll be one to watch as the years go on.”
Vi groaned. “I should’ve killed all the Knights when I had the chance.”
“They’re a necessary counterweight. Without their presence, people wouldn’t be driven to actions we need them to take.”
“In any case…” Vi didn’t want to speak about the Knights a moment longer. They made her blood boil. “Tiberus, Luke, Schnurr. Who else dies regardless?”
“Of the people you may be familiar with, Craig and Baldair.”
She kept her face passive. Vi had never met her Uncle Baldair in her own world. He’d died years before her birth, before the war in the North had even ended. It was a wound on her father’s soul deeper than she could comprehend. Though Vi had tried to, conjuring thoughts of Romulin passing until her heart couldn’t bear it a moment longer and then multiplying that feeling by several hundred.
Baldair. His death was one she found herself longing to postpone.
“Very well.” They were nearing the outlet of roaring water now littered with pieces of ancient Solaris gold. “The rest of them I still want to save, if I’m able.”
She looked to Taavin and he held her attention. Don’t deny me this, she wanted to beg. Saving the world was a large, unimaginable task. Saving the people her heart still loved was a more reasonable goal.
“You know our purpose, right?”
“I do.” She knew his. She knew hers. And Vi knew a moment would come when only one of their desires persisted.
“Then yes, I’ll help you save them if you’re able… and if it doesn’t alter fate too dramatically,” Taavin said. It almost sounded like agreement.
It had been six months since they arrived in the West.
The desert heat felt like the embrace of an old friend. The people, the smells, the food, all carried a surprising nostalgia for her. But she hadn’t come here looking for an opportunity to reminisce. She’d come because the Crossroads was the one place they could turn pilfered, ancient, Solaris coins into usable Imperial gold on the black market.
They took every opportunity to exchange their coins. Even still, they sat on two plump bags of un-traded pirate gold and knew where more was, should they ever need it.
It was enough money to buy a wedge of property nestled within the busy market of the Crossroads—one with an iron gate for a door that Vi fashioned Fiera’s roses onto, exactly like the property Vi had stolen the key to from the spice seller in Shaldan a world ago.
They had enough money to enjoy themselves from time to time. Much like tonight, when they had decided to visit the sparring pits at Taavin’s suggestion. Vi found out why he’d made the out-of-character proposal the moment they arrived.
“He’s grown up a lot,” Taavin observed from her side, taking a sip from his flagon as his eyes remained on Baldair.
“Has he?” Vi wondered. She still saw very much the young man that had been in Oparium the year prior. Seeing him here with Jax and Erion had been a surprise. “He still looks like a foolish child.”
“You speak like an old woman.” Taavin grinned at her.
“I can’t be old if I’m ageless.” She grinned back at him then returned her attention to the men on the far side of the sparring ring. They carried on, jesting, betting on the fighters, drinking their brew, and remaining willfully ignorant to the battle that had begun to rage in the North—a battle Vi couldn’t yet bring herself to see. “We should leave here, soon.”
“I thought you wanted to change a bit more coin first.”
“I don’t want to saturate the market with old Solaris gold, especially not now that the prince is here. If he sees some, he may get suspicious. We have enough to get passage to Meru, and we already bought the shop.” Vi rubbed the familiar key in her trouser pocket. She’d carried its otherworldly twin a long time ago.
“You should stay on this continent a little longer.”
“Why?” Vi glanced at Taavin, suspecting what he’d say next would have something to do with why he was so insistent on coming out tonight.
“They’re going to need you. Specifically, the prince and… her.” Taavin motioned to the ring where two fighters entered.
The room went quiet for Vi. She could see the men and women still cheering on the fighters. The announcer called out the names of those about to spar. Swords rang out against scabbards as they were drawn.
But it was all a distant hum as her eyes fell on the adult Raylynn Westwind.
“I can’t,” Vi whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
“In the last world… she and the prince died in the coming weeks.” Taavin’s words were a dagger to her gut.
“I got her mother killed. I can’t have anything to do with her.” The words were like ash coating her mouth. I got her mother killed and I left her body in a puddle of its own blood like the foolish child I was.
“She doesn’t know that and she could use your help.”
Vi swallowed her fea
r and guilt. He was right. Raylynn didn’t know what she had done—that her mother was just another in a long list of casualties in the fight for a new world.
“I thought you didn’t want me to meddle too much?”
“I told you Raylynn’s life was variable, didn’t I? And you told me you wanted to save the people you could,” Taavin said gently. After their tense moments in Oparium, the gesture was not lost on her, and Vi’s heart warmed at his words. Taavin kept his eyes forward. Raylynn had begun to move. She was just like her mother—the sword was an extension of her body. “I have heard of these people through you, across so many lives. Seeing them now…”
“They’re real,” Vi finished for him. The crowd erupted at Raylynn’s victory.
“Let’s save them.”
“When and where?”
“She’ll take on Luke.” Vi jerked her head to Taavin and he grinned at her. “She blames him for her mother’s death and wants vengeance. She’ll take the prince with her to get it. In your world, he died on the way to Twintle’s manor. It’s possible that Raylynn will also die rushing in to take on Twintle.”
Vi brought up a map of the West in her mind, placing a pin where Twintle’s manor was. “We have to head to Norin anyway. Helping keep them alive can be on the way.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Taavin laced his fingers with hers and brought her hand to his lips.
Vi gave him a determined nod.
They left at the same time as Baldair and his golden companions. The three men went after Raylynn, but Vi and Taavin headed toward their home. They filled Deneya in on their plans—she had just returned from trading a few more of their coins. The three packed their things and started off into the desert, toward the town of Yon.
It took Baldair and Raylynn nearly two weeks to arrive. Enough time that Vi and her company had bought temporary residence in a cramped apartment out back of a local metal worker’s home. Enough time that Vi could begin to listen to the people in town, and figure out who was a Knight of Jadar, who was in their pockets, and who supported the Knights. By the time Raylynn arrived, Vi was wondering how the clever girl who had gifted her with the idea of making her own crystal weapons had grown into a foolhardy woman. She was walking into the lion’s den willingly, challenging local combatants, winning handily, then strutting back to the inn where she and the prince were staying like she owned the town.