Crystal Caged (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles Book 5)

by Elise Kova

  We have to get on the offensive, Vi urged the goddess within her. He’s larger and slower. We can out-maneuver him.

  She lifted her head and brought her hands under her shoulders, pushing upward with a grunt and finding her feet. With a strength no mortal should possess, she dislodged the boulder. Her focus returned to the dark god just in time to see Raspian swinging a clawed hand down toward her.

  Vi’s instincts kicked in. “Mysst xieh!” The words escaped her, even if they no longer needed to be said. She reached across her abdomen. Mysst soto larrk, Yargen’s voice echoed in her mind as her magic wove a sword into existence. Fingers around the hilt, Vi drew it as if from a sheathe and slashed it across Raspian’s lower stomach.

  Light flashed off the sword like steel on flint. There wasn’t so much as a scratch left behind on his gut. Raspian swung up with his other arm, reaching for her face. Vi bent backwards.

  Wildly off balance, she flailed. Yargen’s instincts kicked in. Her right foot swung out, her left bent as she tipped backwards, and she allowed herself to fall. A word Vi didn’t understand echoed across her mind. She plunged into the earth as though it were a pool of water. The once-hard stone vanished into puffs of light.

  Suddenly, she was falling through the sky.

  Vi twisted mid-air and looked at the ground beneath her, desperately trying to keep up with the goddess. Raspian spun in place, looking for her. His thunderous steps shook the ground.

  A spear of light was back in her hands. Wielding it in both, Vi was ready to use all the momentum of her fall to sink into his shoulder, but a bolt of lightning shot her down from the sky.

  Smoking and spinning off-course, she shoved the spear into the ground before her body met the hard earth. She spun around the weapon before it vanished. When Vi landed on the ground, she broke into a run. Raspian had turned to meet her.

  Vi stole back control of her body from Yargen. She bounced backward at the last moment, flipping through the air. She’d never done such acrobatics in her life, but being divine had its perks. Yargen seemed to know Vi’s intentions at the same time, if not before, they crossed Vi’s mind.

  When she landed she reared back. Misst soto gotha. A bow appeared in her hands and Vi released three arrows at once. As they flew toward Raspian, she threw out a hand, allowing her spark to run rampant. It was a hybrid of her Firebearer magic and juth starys.

  Fire erupted around Raspian’s feet and he let out a roar as one of her arrows sank into a soft spot between the bony plates that protected his body.

  So he can be wounded, Vi thought.

  Not easily, Yargen replied.

  Raspian recovered faster than Vi expected. He raised his arm in a straight line and the earth mirrored his motion. Clay grew like a Groundbreaker’s wall. The hand Vi had thrown out in the attack was enveloped in slime. Vi tugged and tugged, but the red earth hardened before she could free herself.

  The dark god approached. She could feel static building in the air. Vi readied an attack when her free arm moved without her permission.

  Mysst soto laark. The glyphs for the words appeared around her hand as it closed on a sword. In one motion, without any hesitation, her body moved and sliced off its own arm.

  Vi screamed, though mostly in her own mind. No blood poured from the wound. It hardly hurt more than any other blow she’d taken, but the shock of cutting off her own arm made her dizzy.

  Yargen was in control. She sprinted away from Raspian, pouring power into the severed stub of her arm. Crystals emerged, taking the shape of a new elbow, forearm, and hand. By the time her fingers closed in a fist, the appendage looked as normal as the last.

  A wave of red magic erupted behind her. Vi looked over her shoulder, watching it crash over every rock and ledge. There was no way she could outrun it.

  Spinning in place, she crossed her arms before her, kneeling. Mysst xieh rohko hoolo. The words combined in a way Vi had never expected, but with Yargen’s full power surging in her veins, a cocoon of light surrounded her just before the rush of Raspian’s power overtook her.

  Sharp snaps, like whips against the outside of her barrier, filled her ears. Vi kept her eyes closed, breathing and focusing on nothing more than putting power into her shield. She felt it beginning to crack, worn thin under the assault. Lightning reached in, searching for her like flailing tentacles before fizzling out.

  As soon as it faded she bounced upward, pushing the barrier out from her in a blinding flash of light. Raspian roared in frustration, holding his eyes. Vi moved for him. Mysst sut. This time, an axe was in her hands.

  Wielding it two-handed, she leapt and swung it against the side of his face. Raspian recovered, turned, and opened his mouth. He caught her weapon between his teeth, clamping down and shattering it.

  Vi tumbled with her remaining momentum, thrown over to his side. Raspian lunged for her. The weight of worlds threatened to smother her as the god was atop her. He grabbed her shoulder with his claws, pressing her into the ground.

  We need to move! Fall in the sky! Vi thought loudly, willing her body to sink into the earth and appear elsewhere.

  Too soon.

  “Loft dorh!” Vi shouted as Raspian swung a claw for her face. He froze, tipping forward, off-balance. Vi scrambled out from underneath him, his claws ripping her shoulder.

  On her feet again, Vi spun as Raspian regained control of himself. Chronot! Vi thought. It had been Taavin’s word. But Taavin had gained the word from the goddess who was now within her, and the magic blessedly worked.

  Vi’s glyph remained steady on Raspian, fading slowly. Thank you, Taavin. She spared a brief thought for the man she loved and the moment she did, her heart beat faster. She felt her breath. She tasted the metallic tang of panic in her mouth. She felt human and alive.

  Summoning an axe to her hands again, Vi swung it overhead at the nape of Raspian’s neck. It stuck, sinking deep into his skin. Magic, not blood, oozed around it, releasing into the air as a dark and rusty haze.

  Raspian’s features softened. He became clay-like and was absorbed into the earth before Vi’s eyes. She spun, searching frantically for him.

  Thrusting her arm into the air, a bolt of power shot upward, reflecting off the swiftly cracking moon. In this distorted reality of the gods, it seemed like everything was connected in odd ways. The sky was closer. The ground was malleable. The stars were gone unless they decided to put them there.

  Her magic illuminated the barren earth. Light rained down as droplets that seared the ground like acid. A roar echoed across the sky as Raspian emerged from below with an eruption of lightning and lava.

  Kot sorre. Vi pushed the lava back with a glyph in each hand, holding it at bay. She locked eyes with the god who was trudging over to her as the molten earth cooled. The sky was still filled with fading light and she could see every gnarled element of his nightmarish form.

  Durroe watt ivin. Nine illusions fanned out from her, surrounding Raspian. Vi ran to the right. The other illusions danced around her, darting in and out, trading places. She was the living version of a street urchin’s card game—find the queen. Raspian was twisting, trying to keep track of her.

  Vi lifted a hand, firing a bolt of pure light at him. Every other illusion repeated the same motion. Raspian swung at one, his claws sinking through it. The mirrored version of her dissipated on the wind as her magic struck him in the back. She danced again, struck again.

  “Enough games!” Raspian snarled. He tilted his head back and roared at the sky. Vi didn’t have time to react before lightning rained down all around her, one bolt striking her square in the chest. She felt it arc between her ribs. Her body seized as she fell to the ground, wheezing.

  Blinking into the void above her, Vi gasped for air.

  Keep moving.

  She didn’t know if it was her voice or Yargen’s that commanded it, but Vi struggled to her feet. Her whole body continued to seize and tremble as the lightning created a cage over top of her, pinning her to the groun
d.

  A clawed hand closed around her neck. The red magic sank back into Raspian’s arm as he hoisted her into the air. He held her aloft as she gripped at his forearm, gasping for breath.

  “An age of darkness will rule this land once more.” His terrible voice echoed in her mind as his lifeless eyes locked with hers. Every nightmare too horrible to be remembered come dawn lived in those eyes. “A thousand years of destruction. A thousand years when the land is razed and the earth is reset.”

  Vi pressed her eyes closed, blocking him out. Aldrik, Vhalla, Taavin, Romulin, Jax, a new Vi—everyone she’d loved in the world she’d been born into still lived in this world. Even if they were not the same people she once knew, even if they never knew her as she was now, they were living, breathing people who deserved a future.

  “They deserve a future,” she wheezed, opening her eyes. Eyes trained on his shoulder, she snarled a defiant, “Juth calt!”

  The taut skin stretched over the unnatural armored plates of his body exploded with shards of bone. Raspian roared and his arm went limp at his side. He dropped her and Vi scrambled away, gasping for air.

  Halleth, halleth, halleth. Heal me, Yargen, she begged. The light within her flashed brightly atop her skin like a protective coating. She felt the interior damage from Raspian’s lightning mend. She felt the tissues in her throat reconnect.

  But as she ran, the ground went soft beneath her. She was suddenly up to her waist in murky water. The light above her was going dark. Blood spilled from the fractured moon, flooding the land. Vi tilted her gaze upward and saw an eye open in one of the larger cracks.

  She felt like she had been holding her own against the dark god. But the longer the fight dragged on, the more control he was gaining over this temporary bubble they fought in. Soon, she would be drowning in his essence. His beast of chaos would be free of its cage and carry him back to the real world. She would be trapped here forever.

  The water was rising. Vi worried that she would soon drown underneath its currents.

  Raspian walked atop the water, crossing to her with ease. Vi continued to wade through. She glanced over her shoulder, panicked.

  How do I kill him?

  You cannot kill him. If our power is whole, neither of us can die.

  Then what do I do? Vi frantically asked the goddess within her. He’s gaining the upper hand!

  We must seal him away.

  We, not you. They were in this together. She had worked for decades toward this moment, to recollect the goddess. And even though she had lost everyone along the way, Yargen still stood by her.

  Vi looked down at the water before her. Mysst xieh. A glyph appeared and Vi jumped onto it. Mysst xieh. Another glyph. She jumped from spinning magic to spinning magic atop the water, racing away from Raspian. She crossed the deepening channel created by the breaking moon toward the bank on the other side.

  Her feet on solid ground again, Vi looked back to Raspian, but he was gone. She found high ground and held out both her hands. Uncose—Taavin’s word for “expose truth.” Light flashed across the land, the river of blood evaporated, and Raspian was visible once more.

  Vi raced down, bounding across the stones. Kot sidee! She pushed a glyph onto him, forcing him to brace himself. Mysst soto tonc. A spear appeared in her hand, and she threw it at his head. He grabbed it but in doing so didn’t notice how she closed the gap in one giant leap, a sword in hand. Vi plunged it into his gut with a mighty scream.

  Darkness exploded from the wound. She released the weapon, watching the magic unravel and the sword disappear as it sank into him. Raspian’s glowing, dead eyes fixated on her as darkness sprayed like noxious gas from his body. It filled the air around her, threatening to suffocate her.

  Soon, the world was blotted out entirely and the faint glow of magic that coated her body was the only light she could see by. Even the sky had vanished.

  Vi spun, looking for any sign of him. She raised a hand, firing a beam of light into the darkness, and then another. She was shooting blind.

  Uncose, she tried again. The light flashed out along the earth, but it did nothing for the darkness in the air. Vi moved over the desolate wasteland, climbing over rubble and buildings and what must be the remnants of the lives Raspian’s loyal followers had made. Her feet stopped in the center of the glyph of the dragon, split in two. Vi spun in place, still searching.

  Lightning cracked behind her, sparking a surreal sense of familiarity. She was in two places at once. She had seen this before.

  The vision.

  She turned, looking to the lightning on instinct. A plume of smoke rose from the dark spot on the ground, but there was nothing.

  She heard the inhale. He was behind her. This was the moment of her vision, a truth that she had seen but that eluded Yargen. This was why she was meant to be in this battle. Vi only had time for one choice, one decision, one word, before his claws and teeth overcame her.

  Wein.

  Glyphs shot out from her midsection. One rose to the crown of her head and the other sank to her feet. A thick coating stretched over her skin, turning it to stone. A protective barrier, identical to the one Deneya had used that fateful night in the Caverns, now covered her.

  Raspian was dedicated to his attack. His teeth and claws struck her barrier, bouncing off harmlessly. Vi spun, no longer turning away from the face of darkness itself. His gigantic arms were outstretched, ready to crush her.

  Grasping both sides of his face, her brow furrowed, Vi snarled aloud, “Suladin dupot chronot hoolo.”

  Suladin—seal him and lock him away once more for a millennium.

  Dupot—enhance this power and make it stronger than ever before.

  Chronot—slow its natural weakening over time.

  Hoolo—stabilize and elongate.

  Half of the words were hers and half were Taavin’s. They had come from the goddess, but she and Taavin had made them their own. She heard him within her, across time and space, his voice echoing inside her.

  The glyphs that surrounded them condensed into crystal. It started at Raspian’s feet and began to creep up his body. He roared, swinging for her. Vi released his face, leaving crystal handprints embedded in his flesh, and stepped out of reach.

  Her mouth began to move. The language of the gods spilled from her tongue almost like a song. The words were light and airy; they boomed power and whispered twisting glyphs into existence. Despite Raspian’s struggles, the crystals continued to grow up his body, caging him.

  With a final roar, Raspian promised he would one day return—as he always did.

  Then, silence.

  Stillness.

  The crystals grew toward the moon. They would patch the cracks and smooth over the edges of chaos that nearly escaped into the world she loved.

  Yargen’s chant hastened, faster and faster. Vi felt power siphoning from her body like someone was pulling an invisible rope from her navel. Light flickered around her, growing ever stronger, fading, then brightening once more as the goddess’s essence was drawn out to power the crystals.

  This was how the Crystal Caverns had been formed, Vi realized. History was repeating itself. Yargen would split herself again. A new cavern would be made to entomb Raspian, hidden on a new land. And when that tomb was inevitably breached, Yargen would be too weak to fight him.

  “Yargen,” Vi whispered aloud. Her voice was her own—quivering, tired, scared, and human. “Do not split yourself again. The world needs you whole. Stop this vortex.”

  Silence within her was the goddess’s response. Vi hoped she wasn’t too late. She swallowed hard.

  “Take me. Take my life. Seal him with all of my magic. Buy time for this world with the time left in me.”

  Are you certain?

  Vi closed her eyes, a tired smile crossing her lips. One final time, the memories of all those she loved flooded her. She thought of the faces of every person she adored—those lost in her world who had lived on in her memories. After this, they would
be gone for good.

  And she would be gone, too.

  “Do it,” Vi said with conviction. “This is my destiny. This is what you brought me all this way for. The world still needs you.”

  Another few seconds of stillness before light exploded out from her. Vi watched as the raw essence of Yargen peeled away from her body. She couldn’t stare directly at the goddess; Yargen was too blinding and too incomprehensible in this form. Vi squeezed her eyes shut.

  Flames seared her from the inside out as her spark was set free one final time. Every layer of skin boiled off of her bones. Her tongue crisped and her hair singed. She unraveled in the reverse of how Yargen had made her. Cycle after cycle of becoming condensed into this singular moment of release, lifetimes in the making.

  And Vi gave herself over to the brilliant void of nothingness.

  Chapter Forty

  Tick…

  … Tock

  Tick…

  … Tock

  Tick… Tock.

  Tick. Tock.

  Tick-tock.

  Something ticked softly in the distance. A sound she shouldn’t be able to hear—because she shouldn’t have ears, at least not working ones.

  She was dead. She’d died.

  Hadn’t she?

  Who was she, anyway?

  “Vi Solaris.”

  Ah, yes, that was her name. Or rather, it had been one of her names. She’d had so many of them. Vi Solaris—it was a good name. She’d thought that before, hadn’t she? Yes, certainly. That name had meant something to her… something important.

  “Vi Solaris, it is time to wake up.”

  It wasn’t so much waking in the way Vi had once understood it. More like going from a state of stasis to a state of awareness. The light around her was blinding. She could see every color blending together into a brilliance far greater than what mortal eyes were meant to see.