by Elise Kova
Vi took in a gasping breath, only to find the air suddenly thin. Suffocating darkness was around her, so thick that not even air could exist here. She opened her mouth, not getting enough air through her nose alone. But there was no more to be had in this still, blank space.
Still, she forced herself to take a step, and then another.
With every inch, cool light flared underneath her feet until it condensed into a shimmering, solid form. The glowing blue path of magic hardened into stone guided her through the darkness and toward the twilight. Every step brought magic rippling over her like wind, giving her a brief reprieve before the darkness closed in again. But just when her head was throbbing and her eyes felt as though they might explode from her skull, the world slowly rebuilt itself before her eyes.
It was not the world she’d known. The Twilight Forest had vanished before her eyes and was now replaced by a city appearing through shadowy trees that barely had form. With every step closer, there was a brief flash of air, then sound, then light.
Vi emerged from between two dark trees, which seemed now more solid than shadow, and collapsed to her knees. Surrounding her were shards of pale blue stone; they fell off her, like shards of glass, fading to a dull black stone as they hit the ground. She gulped in heaving breaths. Air had never tasted so fresh, or felt so good. Her eyes were blurry, face wet. Vi didn’t know if it was from involuntary tears brought on by pain, sweat from the exertion, or immense relief to have made it through.
Likely all three.
Vi rubbed her eyes, sank to her heels, and blinked, taking in the new world before her. It was a city nestled in a valley. Tall ridges extended up on all sides, lined with the same dark trees that were now at Vi’s back. It was as if the trees were made of smoke—less solid the farther back one went, turning into wisps of magic that trailed up to form a hazy barrier around the Twilight Kingdom.
A metropolis of wooded magic lit up before her. Large buildings with rope-bridges suspended between them towered overtop wide fauna that served as roofs for bustling markets and businesses below. The construction reminded her somewhat of the North, but with more glass and fitted stone. There were no Groundbreakers here, Vi reminded herself.
There were balconies of glass, shining in the moonlight. Some homes had siding that looked like dark metal laid in a pattern that reminded Vi of snake scales. Wood blended into metal set into stone. Nothing seemed right, yet it all connected.
Vi’s eyes drifted upward to a moon that had never felt so close. She swallowed hard, her vision of the world’s end seared in her memory. Like that vision, this moon, too, was rimmed in a bloody corona, stretching out into the stars scattered on a perpetually dusky sky.
Even here, Raspian had sunk in his claws. Vi wondered how long it would be until the moon in her world looked much the same. And that was when a terrible thought crossed her mind…
What if Taavin’s injuries were not fully a result of Fallor’s attack? What if the voice was falling prey to Raspian’s effects on their world? And if he was—what did that mean for her own susceptibility to the spreading darkness?
Vi gripped her knees, hanging her head. Perhaps that was why, despite Taavin’s allegedly superior healing abilities, he was so injured. Vi sniffed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Memories of the White Death—of the clinic in Soricium—drifted through her mind.
No.
She wouldn’t let this be his end.
Vi struggled to her feet, using the tree next to her for support. Somewhere in the city beneath her were clerics. She would find one and she would bring him or her back to Taavin by any means necessary.
With one shaky footstep after the next, Vi descended into the Twilight Kingdom.
Chapter Eight
Vi made short work of the walk down the grassy, sloping ridge that ringed the bustling metropolis. Leaning against the back wall of a building right at the edge of the city—Vi took a quick assessment of herself.
Her clothes were ratty and torn. They were sun bleached and salt damaged, hanging like rags on the line that was her too-thin frame. Vi pressed at her stomach and hips. There was less muscle there than she was used to and far less than she’d like.
Rubbing her temples, Vi tried to maintain her focus. It was a difficult task. Her head was still splitting and she could feel the invisible scars of Raspian’s infernal lightning on the underside of her skin.
“Think, Vi,” she commanded herself. Hearing her voice aloud helped her brain return to task. She glanced around the corner, looking at the group of people lounging on a shared patio area between two buildings.
They didn’t seem to notice her, too busy carrying on laughing, drinking, and playing some kind of game Vi couldn’t see and doubted she would recognize. She mostly ignored the conversation—which, fortunately, was carried out in what she knew as the common tongue—and focused on the people’s faces. They each looked very much like what she would expect of a human… save for their eyebrows.
Dotted across their brows were faintly glowing spots like those Fallor sported. Every individual seemed to have a slightly different color and pattern. Vi leaned back, running her fingers along her own brow in thought.
There was no way she could create anything convincingly similar without using some kind of Lightspinning. Which meant she’d need to hide rather than masquerade. Perhaps there were humans among them, and Vi’s worries were ill founded. But the Twilight Kingdom went to great lengths to protect itself from outsiders, and Vi had yet to see any non-morphi. She wasn’t about to take a chance.
It took three side alleyways before Vi found one that wasn’t swarming with people. Two men lingered at the opening by the road, their backs to her. Neither so much as looked over their shoulders as Vi slipped in, grabbing a dishcloth off a drying line and quickly tying it around her forehead.
She adjusted it several times, making sure it was secured tightly—tight enough to contribute to her already-throbbing headache. Vi ignored the pain, focusing on running her fingers over her brow and making sure everything from just above her eyes to halfway up her forehead was covered.
It likely looked ridiculous. But given the sorry state of the rest of her, a dishcloth bandanna was the least of her worries. Vi held her breath and kept her strides even as she approached the two men.
Calm—she had to be calm, even when it felt like everything pointed to her being immediately discovered as an interloper.
“Excuse me?” Vi asked. Both men turned, startled to see her. Vi folded her hands, keeping her eyes mostly down in an attempt to be demure and nonthreatening. Just because she was willing to fight tooth and nail for her and Taavin’s survival didn’t mean she wanted to. If it came down to that, her odds didn’t look good.
“Yes?”
“Do you know where I can find the nearest cleric? I don’t regularly come this way… and I’m a bit turned around.”
“Cleric?” The man repeated, looking to his friend. The other shrugged.
“A healer, I mean?” Vi said tentatively, hoping her difference in word choice wouldn’t be what ultimately led to her discovery.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” The man shook his head, as though she was already burdensome, then looked to his friend. “Who’s closest to here?”
“Sarphos has a shop. But he’s rarely in it.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t be.”
“I think after that it’s Rem?”
“Rem?”
“Five streets down and over, on seventeenth, the shop with the purple-colored awning.”
“Oh, her.”
“So…” Vi jumped into the conversation. “Purple colored awning on seventeenth,” she repeated. “But Sarphos is closer?”
“If you want to try him.” The man gave a shrug that showed how likely her success was. “He is in the opposite direction though… Only one street down.” He pointed to another intersection diagonally across from where Vi stood. “He’s in between here and fourteenth. But he’s rarely th
ere.”
“Excellent, thank you.” Vi gave a small nod and started in the direction the man had pointed. The two men resumed their conversation as if nothing had happened. As if her heart wasn’t racing.
She adjusted her makeshift bandanna again and allowed her eyes to wander.
Men and women of all shapes and sizes, skin tones and hair colors walked around her, ignorant to the stranger in their midst. The only unifying factor among them was the glowing markings dotted above their eyes in place of eyebrows. But that wasn’t the most fantastical element of the kingdom.
There was a menagerie surrounding her. Jaguars lounged on balconies, wolves trotted down alleyways, birds of all manner of plumage soared overhead, and towering beasts of scales and feathers that Vi had no name for raced each other down the main streets. Magic pulsed around her, strange and foreign. In a flash those same animals would be replaced by human-looking folk, quickly conducting their business before another pulse of magic brought them back into their animal forms.
Her head was still splitting. Her body still felt ravaged by the toll it took to get here. And Vi knew she should be alarmed with every step—she had more worries than fingers to count them.
But for a brief moment, her chest was tense with delight. Laughter hid behind her smirking lips as she beheld the splendor of the world in perpetual twilight. Every glowing stone and flower, person and dialect, was new.
Turning the corner, Vi scanned the various narrow storefronts. It reminded her somewhat of the market in the Crossroads, with everyone fighting over space. But there were no street sellers here—only quaint doors with signs dangling before them.
Vi looped the street twice before she finally noticed a narrow door crammed between two others. On it was a picture of a garnet skullcap and a mortar and pestle, Sarphos’s Supplies engraved next to the image. Taking a breath, Vi pushed on the door, pleasantly surprised when it opened effortlessly.
A small bell overhead jingled happily at her entrance. Vi stepped into the crammed space. There were shelves of jars stacked three deep, floor to ceiling, on either side of her. Despite being shut tight, the jars emitted the earthy aromas Vi had associated with clerical salves her entire life. Herbs of all varieties dried from the ceiling, packed between linen bags containing unknown but sweet-smelling items.
At the very back of the store was an empty desk, and behind that a door.
And nothing and no one else.
Vi slowly walked, debating if she should just take something and run while the store was unattended. But she didn’t know the first thing about what salve or potion Taavin would need. And worse, she realized she didn’t exactly know how she’d get back short of running into that seemingly infinite blackness and hoping she ended up on the other side alive.
A risk that didn’t seem wise to take more than once.
“Hello?” Vi called, resting her hands on the counter. Glowing stones hung like pendants on either side, giving the whole room a ghostly light. “Is anyone here?”
“Yes, coming!” a male voice called. Vi heard stomping overhead, then stairs creaking, before a man emerged from the dark doorway behind the counter. “Sorry about that. You caught me right before I was going to step out. How may I be of service?”
He had steel-colored eyes and the dots above them were the same sort of pale blue. His expression was soft, youthful. Kind and yet… painfully sad. Perhaps it was the dim light playing tricks on her, but there was something haunted about this ruddy-haired man.
“Are you Sarphos?”
“I am.”
“Excellent, I… I need help.” Vi folded her hands on the counter. Were she back in the Solaris Empire, she could always resort to commanding him if she had to. But here, she had no sway, no golden coin bearing the Solaris seal lingering in her back pocket to reassure her even in tough situations that there was always a way out. “Please.”
“What seems to be the matter?” His expression grew serious, the dots above his eyes scrunching together.
“My… friend. He’s in the Twilight Forest. He’s wounded… I think he has broken bones that have become infected.”
“Its difficult to diagnose someone from afar… can you bring him here?”
“I don’t think I can move him. Can you come to him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t—I’m needed at the castle.”
Mother above, she would pick the cleric that had some tie to the royal family. Vi briefly debated heading to the other cleric the men mentioned, but she didn’t want to waste time. “Please, I… I think he may die.”
Sarphos’s expression deepened into a frown. He lifted the counter where it was hinged on one side, and slipped through. There was barely enough room for them to stand side by side in the narrow shop.
“Tell me exactly what’s wrong, what symptoms he’s exhibiting, as much detail as you think would be necessary and then some.” Even as he spoke, his eyes were scanning the shelves, hands reaching for jars.
“He had something heavy fall on his chest,” Vi answered somewhat vaguely. She didn’t think going into the fact that they had been battling with a morphi—even a morphi the kingdom had exiled—would help her cause. “There’s a lot of bruising. I think at least one rib is broken. From there… lethargy, fever.”
“Infection, likely.” Sarphos grabbed three leaves from one jar, filled a small bottle with an inky substance from another, then two dried roots from a third. “Take these to him. He eats the leaves first, and then drinks the potion—but slowly. It’ll likely make him sick if he goes too quickly. But he does need to get it all down. And then have him chew on the roots for the pain as needed until I can get to him. Come back to me tonight and I’ll go out with you.”
Vi accepted Sarphos’s supplies, realizing two things at the exact same time. The first was that she had no way to pay for this. An Imperial “I owe you” was likely not going to cut it here. The second was that she had no idea how to get back to Taavin.
Sarphos was sidestepping away, already halfway the door.
“I don’t know how.” Vi hated how weak she sounded, and felt. She hated being forced to rely on the goodness in this stranger’s heart because she had no other option. “I don’t know how to get back to him.”
“You lost a dying man in the woods?” he asked incredulously.
“No, I don’t know how to get back to the woods.”
“What?”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” Vi pulled the cloth from her forehead.
Sarphos took a step back, and for a brief moment she was afraid he’d bolt for the door. He looked at her like she had begun speaking in tongues—like she was going to attack him at any moment.
“How are you here?” he whispered. “Only morphi are allowed in the Twilight Kingdom.” Well, that confirmed one of her suspicions.
“Were it not an emergency, I wouldn’t have trespassed on your lands,” she assured him, trying to emphasize she meant no harm. If he raised an alarm, Vi doubted she could escape in time. “I just want to get medicine, that’s all.”
“No.” He shook his head, still not taking his eyes off her. Like she was some kind of apparition. “How are you here?”
“There was a tear in the… shift, I believe. I fell through.” That was technically correct. Still, Vi gripped her watch on instinct, remembering the full details of the ordeal.
“A tear in the shift? The shift doesn’t tear.”
“It can, and it is,” Vi insisted solemnly. “I doubt you’ll believe me if I tried to explain why, but—”
“What would a human know of the shift?”
“Frustratingly little.” The statement was somewhat snappish. But Vi would practically kill for a decent explanation of the morphi’s magic. “But I do know there are nefarious forces at play, and the world is rotting from the inside out.”
“I can’t say I believe you… But the fact that you’re here at all is proof enough something is amiss.” Sarphos looked her up and down. “Will you show m
e this tear you speak of?”
“Only if you help my friend. Come and heal him, and I’ll show it to you.”
Sarphos chuckled, and a small smile crossed his lips. In a world full of liars and backstabbers, the seemingly genuine kindness caught Vi off-guard. Don’t trust it, a voice in her mind cautioned. Everyone was out to get something. Everyone had a goal. And she had no idea what this man’s were or what he’d do to get them.
“I was going to help you anyway.” Sarphos pulled a bag from a cubby near the floor by the door. He took the items from her, and Vi begrudgingly released them. It felt like she was letting go of Taavin’s lifeline by relinquishing them back to him. “That’s what a healer does, you know… heal people. It’s my oath.”
“I’ll still show you the tear.” Vi much preferred a clear this-for-that agreement. The idea of giving someone good faith grated against her new base instincts, re-aligned by Jayme’s betrayal.
“And I appreciate that. The morphi need to know of it.” Sarphos motioned to the rag. “You may want to wear that again until we’re out.” Vi nodded, donning the cloth once more. “Right, this way then.”
With her stomach clenching with worry to the point of pain, Vi followed him back onto the streets.
Chapter Nine
They ascended the main street of the Twilight Kingdom. On one end was what Vi assumed to be the palace, given its grand gate, overall opulence, and positioning at the center of the city. On the other end, the road sloped upward over the ridge that surrounded the tree-line to a large archway that was the only break in the ominous black trees.
“Take my hand.” Sarphos paused and extended his palm to her. “I’ll need to guide you through the shift. Don’t let go, or you could find yourself trapped in the in-between.”
Vi still didn’t fully understand the shift, but she did as instructed. She didn’t need in-depth knowledge to know she wanted to get through as quickly as possible. Given her last experience, Vi didn’t want to spend any extra time in the space that was neither here nor there.