by Elise Kova
“Don’t.” She stopped him with a word. “Don’t get up again, you’ll just hurt yourself.” Vi sank down the wall slowly, crouching on the balls of her feet, knees to her chest and arms around her legs.
“Tell me.” He reached out with the hand that wasn’t supporting him, fumbling until he caught her fingers. “Did you run into a morphi?”
She shook her head no.
“The Swords of Light?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Vi stared at him. Her eyes felt dry, as though they’d been held open too wide for too long. She made an effort to blink them. Somehow, even that hurt. The same sensation she’d had when she’d woken returned: her body was not her own.
“I don’t know what it was,” she confessed. “There was red lightning around a fallen tree and—”
“Red lightning around a tree?” Taavin finally seated himself once more, no longer leaned over on his elbow.
“More like… inside the tree. Maybe it was struck during the storm last night? There was a tree that had fallen, and it looked odd. When I got closer, I could see red lightning jumping between its shattered trunk and it reeked. Taavin, it smelled of death.”
His expression darkened. “What else happened?”
“How do you know something else happened?” Vi whispered.
“Because you aren’t a woman reduced to shaking by a tree that smells of death and has red lightning… however darkly unnatural it may be.”
Vi balled her hands into fists, willing her arms to stop trembling. He was right. She wasn’t someone who quaked in fear. She swallowed hard, continuing when her voice was more level.
“The air above seemed… alive. Like it was writhing and ripping. Through it, I saw a city of darkness. Then, a bolt of lightning hit me and… noise. Terrible noise.” Vi’s hands slowly worked their way back up to her ears, as if she still needed to block out the wretched sounds. “Screaming, crying, talking, a thousand people—a whole world of people—all at once.”
She couldn’t put into words the sensation. She’d known the sound of every voice, as though she’d heard them with her own ears earlier in her life. Yet the words were muffled and unfamiliar.
“Is that all?” He pushed himself forward, sliding along the floor, reaching for her. This time, Vi extended a hand, allowing their fingers to knot together tightly.
This was real, she reminded herself. Taavin was real, and good, and safe, and that… what she had seen in the forest had been… had been…
“It was Raspian,” Vi uttered so softly she couldn’t be certain she’d spoken at all. “Above it all, I heard him, calling for my death.” Taavin’s fingers tightened around hers. “He’s getting stronger, isn’t he?” Taavin gave a small nod. “I saw the land of the elfin’ra, I heard their voices. He’s rallying them.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“But—”
“I agree… Raspian is getting stronger. He’s sinking in his dark clutches wherever he can find purchase, as Yargen’s powers weaken. We’ve seen it in the White Death, we’ve seen it in his magic streaking through the sky as red lightning. But I don’t think the city you saw was of the elfin’ra. I think it was the Twilight Kingdom. I suspect his dark energy is distorting the shift around the city, weakening it. Perhaps, as you describe, tearing it.”
“He’s rotting the world from the inside out.” Vi returned to one of her earlier conclusions.
“But this could be a good thing for us,” Taavin mused.
“How so?”
“Because Adela and her like have eluded punishment for years by retreating to her Isle of Frost. The whole of the island is protected by a shift of its own.”
“Adela knew the Faithful wouldn’t rely on the morphi, not even to get to her.” Vi pieced it together aloud, recalling what Taavin had said about the mutual hatred. That made the morphi an easy target for Adela to lure to her cause.
“But if Raspian is breaking down the shift, we may be able to find a way in to the isle. It was something we were going to have to confront, one way or another. This just provides us a simple solution.”
Vi dismissed the fact that Taavin was ignoring the obvious, yet again; they could simply seek help from the morphi. Vi likewise filed the idea away, for now. Getting a morphi on their side appealed to her, loathe as she was to bring an unknown element into her plans. She didn’t want to leave her father’s rescue to the chance of a tear in the shift around the Isle of Frost—she wanted to know for certain she’d be able to get to Adela.
“How is Raspian doing all this without a physical form? Isn’t that what the elfin’ra have been after, what they’re hunting us to achieve?”
“Yes. For Raspian to reap the destruction he so desires and rebuild the world in his image, he will need to be flesh and blood … But as Yargen’s magic continues to fade, Raspian can make bolder plays as he searches for a way to walk among us again.”
“What can we do to stop him?”
“Rekindle the flame and restore it to the blazing beacon of life it’s always been.” Such had been his goal from the start. It had been the one thing he’d sought her out to do all those months ago.
“The watch protected me from one of the bolts of lightning,” she said as she clutched the token. “Taavin, I think somehow, it has Yargen’s magic.”
He hummed in agreement, reaching upward. But rather than going immediately for the watch, his fingertips rested lightly on her cheek. They were almost scalding hot. Vi hadn’t realized how clammy she’d become. He searched her face for a long moment before his hand fell, resting atop hers and the watch.
“You may be right. We don’t know what it contains, yet, and I desperately want to uncover its secrets.”
“How do we do that?”
“I’ll need to use Lightspinning to investigate the magic within. Something I am in no position to do.”
Taavin pushed himself away and settled back against the wall across from her once more. His eyes fluttered closed a moment and Vi watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest. She didn’t know if he meant that he wasn’t in a position to do so because of his current state… or because they were in a place he couldn’t use Lightspinning.
Likely both.
“Well… you’ll just have to get better quickly then.” Vi pushed away from her wall, twisting and settling once more next to him. Their sides were flush and she soaked in his warmth.
“I’m trying,” he murmured over a bite of skullcap.
“Try harder.” Vi nudged him lightly, hoping she’d come off as playful. The emotion was rusty. It felt awkward to her, so she couldn’t imagine how it was received.
A smile broke on his lips. “Yes, my Champion.”
“Thank you, my Voice.”
There was something dangerously endearing to the words. Perhaps their physical proximity added layers of meaning that weren’t really there. Or perhaps it was the panic that still popped under her skin like electric shocks, driving her to seek out any feelings of safety and security she could.
“Taavin…” Vi whispered. His breathing had slowed, and she had yet to look back toward him, instead keeping her focus on the dancing shadows her small, flickering flame cast on the wall opposite them. She almost hoped he had fallen asleep.
“Yes, Vi?”
“You told me once, terrible things happen to those you love.”
“I did.” His voice had grown more lucid, and Vi felt guilty keeping him awake. What was she really trying to ask, anyway?
“Why did you say that?” He sighed softly. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I’ve only ever loved one person, Vi—” She braced herself for the name of some lover she really didn’t want to know about, instantly regretting her decision. “—my mother.”
“What?” Her eyes were pulled to him in surprise. But Taavin wasn’t looking at her. He stared off at the same wall she had been, seeing something entirely different in the shadows.
“Why is it so surprising I loved my mother?”
“I expected you to have a lover… I wasn’t thinking of familial love.”
He chuckled at that. “How would I find a lover? I was sequestered… The only person who really has unfettered access to me is Ulvarth.”
“Right…” She didn’t know what else to say. Vi had imagined servants coming in and out, attending him as they had her. Another thing she’d been wrong about. “What happened to your mother?” Vi couldn’t imagine a mother condemning their child to such a life willingly. And given all he’d said on the matter, she fully expected the truth to be grim.
“Ulvarth killed her.”
She wasn’t surprised, not really. After everything Taavin had told her… Her lips pursed into a thin line.
“Ulvarth killed her, to get me.” Taavin still wouldn’t look at her. His expression was blank, matching the hollow tone of his voice. “There is always a Voice, Vi… When one dies, Yargen chooses another child to serve her for their lifetime. I always suffered from my visions—that was what ultimately drew Ulvarth to me.”
“But your mother didn’t want to give you up.” Vi’s mind wandered back to her own mother. Vhalla had made that terrible choice to give Vi up for such an excruciatingly long stretch. But if she hadn’t… If the North had attacked during the rise of the Mad King, her mother and father may not have lived long enough to see Vi into the world.
“No, she said they were wrong. That I was merely a troubled boy, not afflicted by words of the goddess.” Taavin raised a hand, running it down the side of his face over the crescent-shaped scar on his cheek. “The struggle wasn’t much. What could a boy and a young woman do against Ulvarth and the Swords of Light?”
“You tried to defend her.” The scar had an explanation, and a terrible, gut-wrenching one at that.
“I did. They wouldn’t kill me… No… Ulvarth needed me alive. But he didn’t need me unbroken.”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. It wasn’t nearly enough. Taavin didn’t even address the paltry attempt at consolation.
“She loved me. So she defended me and died for it. If she had agreed to Ulvarth’s demands, she would still be alive. Bad things happen to those I love and who love me. So I swore I’d never love again and put someone at risk.”
Vi closed her eyes, ignoring the dull ache the words inspired. The halfway status of their relationship, the questions, the time spent wondering what they were… He’d never give them anything more than he already had, she realized. She heard it clearly between his words: I can’t let myself love you.
Despite all she’d been though, that realization may have hurt the most.
“We should go to sleep,” Vi murmured and extinguished the flame.
“We should,” he agreed and, within moments, his heavy breathing told her that he had, finally, allowed the world to slip away.
But Vi was still very much grounded in the world. It was a world of men who cut down women to take their children. A world of red lightning.
A world where she had somehow allowed someone into her heart who may not want to be there.
Chapter Six
Taavin had gotten worse.
“You should drink something.” Vi tapped his cheek gently. His head was limp, chin against his chest. “You haven’t drank anything for two days.”
His bloodshot eyes cracked open, blinking slowly in the dim light. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Two nights ago, when she’d returned from the red lightning incident in the wood, she’d thought she was cold from fear—that was why he’d seemed so warm to her. But the fever had been ravaging him then. Now, the infection from his broken bones and festering wounds continued to spread.
“Taavin, please, the fever is taking water from you; even if you don’t feel you’re thirsty, you need to drink.”
“Vi…” His lips barely moved as he spoke.
“I’m here, it’s me.” She held out the wide, flat leaf she’d been cupping in her hand and using as a bowl to ferry water into the cave. “Please, drink.”
“I…”
“Please.” Vi brought the edge of the leaf to his lips. Taavin didn’t have the energy to object further. Most of the water dribbled down his chin and onto his lap, but some got into his mouth. Surely, some had. “Good, that’s it.”
The knot in his throat bobbed and Taavin’s eyes closed. Vi set the leaf to the side. He was fading. She didn’t have to be a cleric to know when someone was dying.
“I’m going to find help,” Vi whispered. A foolish and dangerous idea had been forming in her head for days now. One that she became less able to shake with each passing morning as he woke worse than the last. “Stay here, and hang on.”
Vi emerged from the cave into the familiar haze of the Twilight Forest and struck out upstream as she had all those mornings ago. Part of her was already sick with the notion of what she was about to do. But there was no other choice. Inaction would result in Taavin’s death. At least this way he’d have a chance.
How long had she walked that first day? Long enough for her mind to wander… but she hadn’t really been paying attention to any actual distances. Vi’s eyes scanned the trees to the edge of where the horizon became hazy, looking for a tell-tale wobble in reality itself.
Finding none, Vi stepped off the rocky riverbank and onto the leafy carpet of the forest. She hadn’t found the last tear along the water—it had been in the woods itself.
Vi looked back the way she’d come. No other option, she repeated to herself. Going back meant Taavin’s death. And that was a reality Vi was not about to face.
Tree by tree, Vi ran her fingers along the bark. Her spark tingled beneath her flesh, heating the air between her and the tree. She left singed fingerprints in her wake on every tree she passed. They were signposts for her to use to find her way back, and Vi sincerely hoped she would need to use them—that this foolish notion wouldn’t kill her.
The sun was hanging low in the horizon and Vi had lost count of how many trees she’d marked when she finally saw a flash of red light. It was a tiny spark, barely perceptible in the wash of sunset amber. But it was the hope she’d been searching for.
Vi approached the abnormality in the fabric of reality with caution. Another tree had fallen, but this time, rather than landing on the ground, it was propped against its neighboring tree. Tiny bolts of red magic, like ominous fireflies, darted back and forth between the fallen tree and the ground. Scraps of bark were sheered off and hung at an odd angle, dangling in the air—perfectly still, even when breezes swept through the forest enough to rustle the leaves at her feet.
It had been the storm, Vi decided. The bolts of red lightning had struck trees in the forest, creating these abnormalities. She wondered if she went back to the bluffs, would she find red lightning crackling among dead grasses, like footprints of an angry god?
Murmuring returned to the back of her mind, the closer she came to the tree of red lightning. It was a dull, pulsing sensation, but one Vi knew would become sharper if she drew closer.
When she drew closer.
Vi watched the shimmering air in the triangle created by the upright tree, the lightning-struck tree leaning against it, and the ground below. She watched, and waited, keeping her distance. She waited long enough that her feet ached from her toes digging into the ground through the worn-thin soles of her shoes. It wasn’t until twilight had fallen on the forest in earnest that Vi caught the first glimpse of the kingdom shimmering beyond—this time more clearly than the last.
Taavin’s theory was that Raspian’s magic had worn away the shift protecting the Twilight Kingdom—however that worked. It was time to put his theory to the test.
Vi gripped the watch around her neck so tightly that she feared she would break it. But that didn’t prompt her to unfurl her fingers.
“Yargen, protect me.” Vi didn’t know if it was a prayer, a demand, or just a wish. She’d take all three, if that’s what got her through.
Shifting her fee
t, Vi launched herself forward like an arrow loosed from the bowstring. Each step was wider than her usual gait, intended to build momentum as quickly as possible. Her body tipped forward, running head-first toward the pulsating air that grew more violent with red magic by the second. She threw her entire weight behind every step. There was no turning back.
There was only one way for her now—into the breach.
Every muscle in her body tensed on impact, ready for the agony she knew was coming. Lightning flared on all sides of her, blinding her, trying to snarl her in its brutal embrace. Vi kept pumping her legs, pushing herself forward, but she didn’t know what she was pushing against.
Her eyes had closed instinctively, but now she forced them open. Lightning danced before her vision. It looked as though it was behind her eyes, shooting through her skull—in one ear and out the other. Between every bolt was nothing but pure darkness.
She clutched the watch tighter as the cacophony grew so loud, Vi could barely manage a thought beyond forward. She had to keep moving forward. She’d either free herself and be on the other side of this terrible bramble of magic in a world beyond, or she’d push straight through to the Twilight Kingdom as she’d hoped.
A thousand hands worked to keep her back as a thousand voices screamed at her all at once. Vi ignored the feeling of every electric grasp on her body. She ignored the noise as best she could.
Chapter Seven
The word resounded in her chest and Vi realized she’d been saying it aloud the whole time. That was fine. It drowned out Raspian’s call for her death. It kept her feet moving. It kept him from claiming her.
Underneath her hand, the watch seared white-hot. It throbbed with every pulse of magic washing over Vi’s body. Forward, and don’t let go. If she let go of the watch, she let go of Yargen. Without Yargen’s magic protecting her, Vi knew she would’ve already been torn apart.
Her long march suddenly had an end. In the distance, beyond the flashes of lightning, there was darkness. Perhaps, it was death waiting for her. Either way, Vi continued relentlessly on and, with a shout, she freed herself of the clutches of Raspian’s magic.