Crystal Caged (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles Book 5)

by Elise Kova

  “You infuriating woman,” he growled, taking a step closer to her. Taavin wrapped his arm around her waist, yanking her to him. “You have always made me act against my better sense. No matter the time, place, or world.”

  “I’m not sorry,” she murmured with half a grin before his mouth crushed hers.

  He kissed her like they were hidden away and not standing in the open among the moonlit tents of the Solaris army. He kissed her like it was their last chance to hold one another. She guessed every kiss from here on would be just the same.

  “I know you’re not,” he muttered hot and low over her lips. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she whispered in reply, eyes darting from his mouth to his eyes. Vi didn’t dare tell him that there were one or two things he might tempt her with to prevent them from leaving tonight. She could already taste desperation on him for every moment they had left.

  “Now, what’s your plan to get in?” Taavin took a step away, though their hands were still interlocked.

  “I’ll need you to illusion us both—make us invisible in the darkness, or nearly so.”

  He pulled her down behind a nearby tent. Taavin looked around, then said, “Durroe watt radia.” They stood, moving once more past the tents, this time with a glyph of invisibility swirling around them. “What next?”

  “I’m going to hope that Yargen already gave me something I can use.” Vi looked up at the large stone wall that encased the fortress. “She gave me a word for making and removing barriers, and this wall was made by Groundbreakers, which are a fracture of her magic.”

  “All right, I see your logic. But if this doesn’t work?”

  “Then we force our way in with juth calt.” Vi shrugged. “It’ll be louder and more chaotic. But we’re invisible, so we’ll slip in through the fray.”

  “Tactful.”

  “We’re in ‘making this up as we go’ territory, remember?”

  “Unfortunately.” He sighed, though a grin pulled at his lips. If Vi didn’t know better, she’d daresay he was enjoying this. Going off script was the slightest bit thrilling—if they ignored the fate of the world that hung in the balance.

  They walked through the darkness toward a back section of the Imperial army where soldier’s tents were fewer and siege weapons were in greater numbers. It meant there were less people here to take notice of them.

  In the darkness, she and Taavin approached the wall. Vi ran her palm along the smooth stone. Normal workmen and tools couldn’t create something this perfect. It was a wall fashioned entirely with magic.

  Closing her eyes, Vi sent small pulses of her own power through the wall. She tried to understand it, much like she would a crystal. She stood there for several long minutes, breathing and feeling.

  “Rohko,” she whispered, imagining the barrier that was the earthen wall peeling back like a curtain. There was a soft groan and the sound of stone grating on stone. Vi opened her eyes, shocked to find an opening, much like she imagined. “Let’s go, quickly!”

  Archers patrolled the walls, so Vi had no doubt one of them would soon notice the break in defense. They rushed across a narrow flat area, void of anything, to a secondary inner wall. Vi repeated the process, “Rohko,” and the wall opened for them, easier than the last.

  She said a mental thanks to Yargen and pulled Taavin through. They emerged on the other side of one of the great trees of Soricium. Vi looked up. She never thought she’d be so glad to see the familiar branches. After spending years trying to concoct ways to escape from under these boughs, seeing them above her made her eyes prickle with tears.

  “We should keep going,” Taavin reminded her softly.

  “You’re right.” Vi shook the nostalgia from her eyes and pressed on into the fortress.

  She knew the pathways and stairs like old friends. Not much had changed between this world and her own. Perhaps Soricium was one eternal constant, built hundreds of years before rebuilding a world in rewound time even became a thought to Yargen. This one place stood, and would always stand. Or so she hoped.

  Still, the Emperor torching it all still seemed a too-viable possibility.

  They crossed a bridge and Vi paused. She stared down over the rope rail to the masses huddled below. Everyone who was able had retreated into the fortress before they erected the walls and the Empire closed in. Half the city was cramped together, living in squalor. But they lived.

  Vi gripped the rail.

  “If we truly succeed in seeing this world continue on… No more war for this continent,” Vi whispered into the cool night air, speaking more to Yargen than Taavin. “Too much has been lost on this earth already.”

  Taavin didn’t reply. He merely stood as witness to her quiet, idealistic vow, waiting until she was ready to proceed forward once more.

  Up and up they spun on staircases, crossed bridges, and ascended into the heights of the canopy. Vi remembered the quarters Sehra had occupied before her mother died and she became Chieftain. They were the same quarters Ellene occupied after. She paused on the landing, raising a finger.

  “That’s where my rooms were,” she whispered into Taavin’s ear so she didn’t alert the guard that patrolled the bridge between where they were and Vi’s old chambers.

  “I’ve never seen it before.” His breath was hot on her ear as he whispered in reply. “I can imagine you here.”

  “Can you?”

  “After all the stories you’ve told me, yes.”

  There was no time for further conversation, however pleasant the reprieve. Without hesitation, Vi allowed herself into Sehra’s room.

  She moved through the archways of woven branches into a side hall that connected to a balcony. That balcony flowed into a room that only had three walls. Curtains of flowers gave privacy to the room’s occupant and reminded Vi distinctly of the Twilight Kingdom.

  There, sitting upright on the bed, green eyes shining in the dim light, was Sehra. Vi released Taavin’s hand and stepped out from the glyph. From Sehra’s point of view, she appeared from thin air, and the girl’s expression showed the fact.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” Vi said in the old tongue of the North. The accents were familiar to her, no power of Yargen needed.

  “Who are you?” she asked, sliding to the edge of her bed.

  “A friend.” Vi pushed vines of bell-shaped flowers aside, stepping into the girl’s space. Sehra would be about thirteen at this point, she guessed. But even youthful, Sehra had the same intensity she’d keep all her life. Vi dropped to a knee to seem less threatening. “I will not hurt you.”

  “You’re of Mhashan?”

  “I’m of Yargen.”

  Sehra stood, crossing purposefully over to Vi. Her every movement carried regal poise beyond her years.

  “You know of Yargen?”

  Vi held out her hand and whispered, “Durroe.” Just like all those years ago, a miniature glowing orb appeared in her palm. But this time, even without the clarification words, the orb was sharp. It was a perfect ball of light, hovering.

  Sehra lifted her hand; the moment she was about to touch the shimmering illusion, Vi released her magic and grabbed the girl’s fingers lightly. She covered Sehra’s hand with her other hand. The girl regarded her warily, but did not pull away.

  “I’ve traveled from where your fate leads. From very far, indeed…” Vi searched the familiar face. It was Sehra, all right, merely twenty or so years younger than Vi remembered. “I’ve come because there is something you must do.”

  “For Yargen?” she asked. Vi nodded. “What must I do?”

  She wished everyone else would be as easy as Sehra, who knew enough of the old magics, even at this point, that a small display was all the proof she needed. All that, combined with the knowledge that Sehra in Vi’s time had been instructed by a traveler, led Vi to determine the most direct path was the best one in this instance.

  Manipulation and suggestion hadn’t really gone well for her tonight, anyway.

>   “Soricium will fall,” Vi said apologetically. The words hurt to tell the girl. But her war-weary eyes were unfaltering in their attention. “When it does, you must see that your mother demands to negotiate the terms of surrender.” Sehra nodded, continuing to listen intently. Vi braced herself for what had to come next. “When Mhashan fell, the Emperor engaged Princess Fiera—”

  “You wish me to betroth myself to the Empire’s dark prince?” Shock and disgust leaked into Sehra’s voice.

  “Fate is often most cruel when we hope it to be fair.” Vi took a deep breath. She was toeing the line of saying too much, and she knew it. At least Sehra had come up with the idea of an engagement on her own. “You will return home a free woman. You will have two daughters… One of your own blood, and one of your enemy’s. Yet both will have the power of Yargen.”

  “A Solaris will have the power of Yargen?” she whispered.

  “You must nurture this power. When the time is right, take the eldest child. For her life, for yours, and for the lives of your people.”

  “You have made clear the will of Yargen.”

  “Good.” Vi stood, releasing the girl’s hand. She wanted to embrace Sehra tightly and tell her that everything would be all right. Vi might have, if a commotion wasn’t rising outside on the walkways and bridges. The smacking of sprinting feet could be heard. Someone banged on Sehra’s door.

  “Sehra?” Za called through the door. Vi smiled knowingly. That relationship didn’t exist beyond protector and protected. Sehra was yet a child, after all. The door opened. “There’s been a tunnel discovered in the walls.”

  “Good luck,” Vi whispered to the girl. She reached her hand back and felt Taavin’s warm palm close around hers. The glyph surrounded them both once more, and Vi disappeared from existence as Za rounded the entrance of the room.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am, Za,” Sehra said firmly, still looking at where Vi stood. “I need you to take me to my mother.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “It is. There is no one unwelcome in the fortress.” The girl turned to her guard, looking twice her age as she commanded, “Now, we go to the chieftain. There are things I need to discuss with her.”

  Za gave a bow and led the girl from the room.

  “Why go to her, and not her mother?” Taavin asked when they were alone.

  “I wanted the relationship with her in case our paths ever cross again. She’ll be the one in the South. And the Sehra of my world said a traveler instructed her about what to do. I didn’t have a sense that I needed to obscure things.”

  “A sense…” Taavin rounded to look her in the eye. “You said you had a sense in the Crossroads as well.”

  “I did.”

  “That sense might be the will of Yargen, flowing through you.”

  “Who knows.” Vi looked out over the branches at the Imperial camp beyond so he didn’t see the truth on her face. “Let’s go.”

  “Just where are we going?” he asked, though he was already following her.

  “The axe will be too guarded here. We’ll meet them back at the Crossroads and take it from her then—before it makes its way south and into Victor’s hands.”

  Vi’s fingers twitched. Soon. So very soon the last of the crystal weapons would be in her possession.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I am so tired of trekking across this continent!” Deneya moaned from her bedroll.

  “Keep it down.” Despite herself, Vi chuckled. She very much shared Deneya’s sentiment. “There might still be Northerners in these woods.”

  “After two nights ago? I doubt it.”

  Two nights ago… Those had been the final hours of Shaldan. They’d heard the fighting in the distance, echoing eerily through the towering trees. Vi could almost feel the earth weeping for the deaths of its children as she’d lain staring up at the canopy with wide eyes.

  “I wonder what happened.” Vi glanced in the direction of Soricium. “How it happened, rather.”

  “One war looks much like the next,” Taavin said solemnly.

  “You’re right. At least we didn’t have to be there for this one.” Vi stared at the fire she kept burning magically between them. Part of her willed Yargen to give her some kind of sign in the flames that they were on the right path. The other part of her was afraid of what she might see. “We should get going for the day. We want to make it out ahead of the army.”

  “It’ll take them weeks to move a mass of that size,” Deneya said with a yawn. “We can get a few more hours of shut-eye.”

  “We’ve slept late enough.”

  “Lies.”

  “Don’t you want a bed?” Taavin tried to reason with her.

  Deneya just rolled onto her side, gathering more leaves under her head. “Look at this pillow, so lavish. Don’t be jealous.”

  “Deneya—”

  “Deneya is sleeping.” She snored loudly for emphasis and Vi couldn’t resist laughing. It felt good to laugh. So good that guilt made an attempt to follow it as if to ask how dare she be even remotely happy right now. But Vi shut out the negative emotion.

  There was always someone hurting in the world. Someone was suffering every moment of every day. Sometimes, that person was her.

  Vi wouldn’t feel guilty for brief moments of joy.

  “Shame that we’ll have to leave Deneya behind.” Vi extinguished the hovering fire with a thought and began rolling her own bedroll. “She was such a good companion.”

  “Indeed. Certainly did a few things along the way,” Taavin said, packing up as well.

  “What were they, again?” Vi asked Taavin with a grin.

  “You know, I can’t recall.”

  “They must’ve not been very important, then.”

  “Perhaps it’s not a shame we’ll have to leave her behind after all.”

  “All right, I’m up.” Deneya sat. “And before either of you gets smug, it’s only because you’re both that terrible at teasing. I couldn’t stand to listen a moment longer.”

  Taavin laughed and the sound was a recharge to Vi’s system. Between the tense moments of guiding fate and holding the world together with straining threads, there were still traces of normalcy—moments of pretend. These, more than anything, were the moments that kept her human.

  She vowed to cling to them until her last breath.

  Traveling so light, it took them only a moment to pack up their basic camp. Vi led the way through the forest. She knew these trees from years spent underneath them. The thought they might have been in different locations than her world never even crossed her mind.

  Even if the trees were different, she knew how to read secret signposts made by Northern scouts, hidden from Imperial eyes.

  The sun hung high overhead when Deneya stretched out a hand. “Stop.”

  “What is it?” Vi asked.

  “I hear it too.” Taavin nodded at Deneya.

  “Hear what?” Their long ears were picking up something Vi couldn’t.

  “A horse, in the distance,” he said.

  “Northern?” Deneya asked.

  “No, they’d be riding noru,” Vi said.

  “This is definitely a horse.”

  “Are there many?”

  “Just the one, I think.” Deneya looked to Taavin. He hummed in agreement with her assessment. Deneya faced Vi. “What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s wait and see who it is.”

  They crouched behind the massive trunk of a tree, hidden by shrubs and branches. Soon enough, Vi heard the clops of hooves through the forest. The rider wasn’t going particularly fast.

  A messenger? Vi wondered.

  Her eyes widened when the horse came into view, a rider slumped over in the saddle, barely keeping herself upright. Twigs and leaves stuck out of brown hair Vi would recognize anywhere.

  “What is she doing here?” Deneya hissed.

  “Don’t ask me.” Taavin panicked at the sight of yet another thing going off
-plan.

  It fell to Vi to act.

  “Durroe watt ivin,” she hissed, stepping from underneath the branches and into an illusion. Her eyes were blue, skin paler, hair lighter. She looked as generic as any other Southern soldier as she called out, “Vhalla Yarl?”

  Vhalla straightened instantly in her saddle, looking over her shoulder. She gripped the reins of the horse tightly. Her wide eyes darted between Vi and the path ahead, clearly ready to bolt.

  “Did they send you after me?” Vhalla asked warily.

  “Send me after you? Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Who are you?”

  Vi put her hands in her pockets and sighed. She glanced sideways, slowly bringing her eyes back to Vhalla. For good measure, she chewed on her lower lip, dragging out the obvious uncertainty.

  “Mother, I can’t lie to the Windwalker… Who am I? I’m nothing more than a coward.” Vi chuckled tiredly, slipping further into the character she was inventing on the spot. “I should ask if they sent you after me.”

  “Why would I…?”

  “I’m a deserter,” Vi said plainly. “Got too scared of the idea of that last great battle and fled. We all did.”

  A shadow crossed over Vhalla’s face. “We?”

  Vi motioned to Taavin and Deneya. They emerged from their hiding places with their ears hidden underneath illusioned chunks of hair.

  “We just want to go home and see our families again.”

  For a brief second, a look of disgust flashed in Vhalla’s eyes, but it faded before it could gain momentum. The woman looked back at Soricium and sighed heavily.

  “I suppose I can’t blame you. I’m barely shy of being a deserter myself.”

  “The Windwalker, you’d never—”

  “Don’t tell me what I’d never do,” she nearly shouted. Vhalla’s lower lip quivered and it was then Vi noticed her bloodshot eyes.

  Sehra lived.

  That was the only explanation for Vhalla’s presence. Aldrik had been betrothed to the chieftain’s daughter, as planned, and Vhalla couldn’t handle it.