by Elise Kova
Vi ignored them, starting up to the quarterdeck. Consulting her maps and the compass, she quickly decided on the best headway. “Lower the sails. Taavin, as we sail out, please hide the ship.”
“Why?” Arwin asked.
“I don’t want anyone from Toris seeing us leave.” She didn’t want to give Adela any warning that they were coming. Though, despite her best efforts, Vi fully expected the woman to know. She was far too cunning not to. Vi was beginning to doubt that anything happened on the seas without Adela somehow knowing.
The wind hit the sails and Arwin finished tying them off as Taavin intoned, “Durroe watt radia.”
Light swirled out from him in glyphs that slowly wrapped up the whole vessel. They spun slowly over the deck, cutting through the walls of the vessel harmlessly. Magic settled on every surface with a dull shine.
Vi adjusted the tiller, checking her compass as the ship began to turn.
Arwin made a noise of disgust. “Even your magic feels slimy.”
“Slimy?” Taavin asked. Vi was genuinely curious as well. Could Arwin detect a tangible quality to Taavin’s magic, or was this just another opportunity for her to make a jab at the Faithful?
“It slithers, feels like wet seaweed over bare skin.”
“Your magic feels different for us, too,” Vi spoke before Taavin could, stealing Arwin’s attention.
“It does?”
“I wouldn’t say slimy though… uneasy, perhaps.”
“Yet another reason why the morphi are hated without cause.”
“Doesn’t that go both ways?” Vi looked down at the woman on the main deck. “I mean… if you describe Lightspinning as slimy… doesn’t that also sow the seeds of dislike?”
“Don’t talk like you know things, Dark Isle dweller,” Arwin grumbled.
Vi chuckled softly and turned her eyes back to the horizon. There was the same empty feeling she’d known all too well lingering between the spaces of Arwin’s words—the feeling of not belonging. She hadn’t belonged anywhere in her Empire, now she didn’t belong with those of Meru. Arwin was right: she didn’t understand because she wasn’t a part of this world.
But would she ever have the chance to be a part of anywhere?
“Ignore her,” Taavin said, placing a hand on Vi’s shoulder. She didn’t realize he’d even walked over, a testament to how lost in thought she’d been. “Do you have a headway?”
Vi nodded.
“How long until we arrive?”
“Depending on the wind… Perhaps two days? Three at most?”
“I’ll know when we near the shift that surrounds the isle,” Arwin declared with a determined stare over the bow of the boat. “I’ll feel it.”
“That’s helpful, then.” Vi looked back to shore. The land had become a narrow strip of black in the darkening night. The vessel was, indeed, a fast one.
“If we have a couple days, let’s sleep in turns and get decent rest so we’re ready,” Arwin suggested, starting up the quarterdeck. “I’ll take the first.” Coupled with her thoughtful expression, the offer sounded almost like an apology for her earlier remarks.
“All right.” Vi released the wheel and passed the compass to Arwin. “Head due southeast. We won’t start cutting south until we get to the Diamond Sands isles.”
“Simple enough.” Arwin said. “You two get some rest.”
Taavin paused, his gaze lingering on Arwin. Vi couldn’t tell if the woman was choosing to ignore his hesitation, or just hadn’t noticed. Not wanting to risk either, she tugged lightly on Taavin’s sleeve.
“Come on, she’s right. We should catch some shut eye.”
He followed her down into the cramped cabin, crouching through the curtained opening. Vi pushed aside the heavy tarp, hooking it on a peg.
“Leave it,” Vi requested as Taavin went to swing the tarp back down into place. “I’d rather it be open.”
“Are you sure? The moon is full tonight—it may be quite bright.”
“I’ll sleep better if I don’t feel like I’m trapped.” Vi settled her scythe on the floor between the two hanging cots on either side of the narrow cabin.
“Trapped… like on Adela’s vessel?”
She paused for a breath, then sat heavily. Vi rubbed her eyes. At every turn of her journey, no matter how much rest she managed to get at the end of the one previous, she somehow managed to feel even more exhausted.
“Yes,” Vi said finally. “The idea of being tossed around in the hull of a ship again, confined, is one of the last things I think I could tolerate right now.” In truth, there were a lot of things her patience was running thin on. This was just at the top of the list based on circumstance.
“Then we’ll keep it open.” Taavin took the bed across from her, laying down as she did.
Vi stared out the opening, the night sky barely visible over the rocking bow. Above her, Arwin stood, alone with her thoughts—and the knowledge of what she’d finally done to the person who’d harmed her.
Without warning, her chest was burning—brighter and hotter with every breath. She tried to slow her breathing, to stave off whatever was rising within her. But it was hopeless.
“Taavin,” Vi croaked. “Are you still awake?”
“Of course,” he whispered back. “What is it?”
“I…” Words escaped her. In the darkness, the burning of her chest flushed her cheeks and pricked at her eyes. All she wanted was comfort. Just the slightest bit of comfort. Why was that so hard to ask for? The longer the world forced her to be strong, the harder it was to accept weakness of any kind.
“Vi?”
“Can I sleep with you?” she forced out, finally.
Taavin shifted to face her, eyes shining in the darkness. Vi’s shone as well, but for a different reason. He pressed his back against the wall and lifted an arm.
Slowly, heart racing, Vi moved from her bed to his.
The cots were far too small for two people. Vi felt like half of her was hanging awkwardly over the side of the bed, which meant Taavin undoubtedly had no room for his considerable height. Even if she’d wanted to be modest, there was no room to be.
Vi’s eyes fluttered closed. No, she didn’t care about modesty. He was warm. His arm snaked around her back, hips twisting, legs intertwining… Taavin’s whole body fit flush against her, as though it were made to be there. His comfort was enough to soothe the burning of her chest and racing of her mind.
“I find myself thinking, more and more, that I am cursed.” Her fingers laced with his.
“You are not cursed, you are chosen.” Taavin held her tighter.
“Are they really so different?” Being chosen had led her down a path she had never wanted to walk—a path laid well before her birth. “If I try, I can tie everything together. My mother’s illness, my father’s plight… It all leads back to the Crystal Caverns, Raspian’s return. It’s all connected. Were they being punished for me?”
“I can’t claim to know the will of Yargen. None of us can.”
Vi closed her eyes, shutting out the world. “What if it’s all my fault? What if they suffered because they had to be the parents of the Champion?”
“Or what if everything was merely chance? Or what if their actions were what made you, out of everyone, the Champion?” His voice was low and soft, whispering across the shell of her ear. “I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know if it lies here.” His hand freed itself to rest on the watch around her neck. “I don’t know if it’s in the scythe. I don’t know if there’s a greater meaning to any of it.”
“That’s hopeful,” Vi said sarcastically.
“I won’t lie to you.” The words sent chills down her spine. “I can’t promise your mother will live, or your father will be saved. I can’t assure that you will find your way back to your family and homeland, and selfishly… selfishly I…”
“You what?” she probed when he hadn’t continued the thought after several breaths.
“Perhaps, selfis
hly, I don’t want to see you go.”
A sad smile crossed her lips.
Romulin had accused her of deserting her post. But everything Vi had done had been for her Empire and for the greater good of the world itself. If anything could inspire her to act selfishly, it would be Taavin. Perhaps, after all she’d been through, she wanted to be selfish, too.
“But…” Taavin continued, finally. Sorrow filled his voice, matching the sorrow that was beginning to fill her chest, extinguishing the burning fears that had risen there earlier. “I can guarantee one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Should you want it… allow my arms to be your home. Here is home. Because, as I told you once, here is where you are safe.”
The last holdouts of her stress and tension vanished. Vi sank further into his embrace, and his arm tightened around her waist, pulling her to him. There wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t flush against him, and Vi savored every bit of warmth he had, wrapping it around her like a blanket.
Despite feeling the most relaxed she’d been in some time, Vi disrupted the comfortable position they’d found to turn to face him. He didn’t seem surprised; a small smile played on his mouth, and his eyelids were heavy but not with slumber. Her arms were tucked between them, fingertips on both of his cheeks. Vi looked from his lips to his eyes.
This was not the man she’d kissed in Solaris. She was not the woman who had seized a moment in a tent for fleeting joy. She saw him for who he was—tortured and hopeful. A man who had done wretched and wonderful things alike. And she was no different.
Imperfection fit them both well. Maybe life had carved enough parts out of each of them that they needed each other to feel whole.
She leaned forward, and Taavin moved to meet her. His breath was hot on her cheeks, lips soft under hers. He kissed her tenderly, almost timidly. Vi pressed forward and Taavin’s arms tightened around her, drawing her close. A hand knotted in her hair. A sigh escaped from her lips between slow, languid, sensual motions that ignited something completely new.
Something worth holding onto as long as time allowed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The scythe sat stretched across Vi’s lap. Beside her, Taavin manned the helm as she ran her fingers along the smooth crystal. Magic swirled underneath her fingertips, trapped beneath its glassy surface. She’d spent the day running drills on deck with Arwin again and still felt no more confident using the weapon for battle.
“You’ll master its use,” Taavin said encouragingly from her side, as though he read her mind. “And I’ll be scouring every book on the crystal weapons the moment we return to the Archives of Yargen for anything that could help you.” Taavin pushed his sleeves back and massaged both his wrists, the golden bracelet shining in the light of Vi’s flame, before grabbing the wheel again.
Suddenly, Arwin emerged from the cabin like a wild animal. She bolted on deck, hair a golden bird’s nest, stance alert, head jerking about before her attention landed on them. “It’s close.”
“Is it?” Vi reached for her journal, opening it up to the maps she’d been referencing. They’d been sailing for about two days, so it wasn’t impossible. Her maps were beginning to get as murky as the dark waters spreading beneath the hull of their boat the further they got from the Twilight Kingdom.
“I know the shift better than anything.” Arwin turned slowly, looking to the left of the bow. “I can feel its magic in the air.”
“How far do you think it is exactly?” Vi flipped her pages, looking at the sketched grid lines and trying to estimate where on their course they were.
“I’ll know soon enough. I’m going to fly ahead and see if I can find it. I’ll scout out a good point to enter through the shift.” Arwin began to run for the bow. “For now, just stay on course. I’ll find you!”
Before Vi or Taavin had a chance to reply, Arwin had leapt from the vessel, shifting into her form as a nightwisp and taking to the skies. Vi followed her with her eyes as long as she could. But she quickly lost sight of the woman in the darkness of the early morning. She didn’t have a working clock at this moment, but the days seemed to be getting shorter, the nights longer.
Arwin returned a short time later, landing on two feet after a pulse of magic and starting right for the helm. “I’ll take it from here to get us through the shift.” Taavin stepped aside and allowed her to take the wheel. “There’s a cliffside I think we can dock by without anyone seeing, near some caves that’ll take us right into their stronghold.”
“Will they know when we’ve crossed through the shift?” Taavin asked Arwin.
“I don’t think so. They didn’t seem aware when I crossed through in my nightwisp form.” An intense look of focus was painted on her brow.
Vi stared forward at the open sea, her heart already racing. All of her maps—now safely tucked in her pack below deck—told her that somewhere in this vast ocean of nothingness was an island. But as far as she could see on the dark horizon, there was nothing but water below and a sea of stars above. The horizon remained unbroken.
There was a growing electricity in the air. The sensation of a terrible storm on the horizon pulled Vi’s hairs on end from head to toe. She glanced over to Taavin, who wore as intense a look as Arwin’s. Did he feel it too? Was she the only one who felt the edges of something transformative about to occur?
“Brace yourselves” was the only warning Arwin gave.
The ship rocked with a violent pulse of magic. Rigging groaned, the sail slumped in the still air. The world around them shifted: stars brightened, light kissed the edge of the horizon before darkening once more to the near-blackness of the hours before dawn. Vi kept her eyes open and held her breath.
Like a veil lifted, the Isle of Frost shimmered into existence before them.
It looked like a great storm on the horizon, a frigid mass of ice and snow fogging the air around a giant, craggy rock. Vi squinted, trying to see through the haze, but it was nearly impossible. The sea itself had begun to freeze all around the coast, the waves calmed by the unnatural atmosphere of the shift.
Somewhere, in all that, was her father.
Another pulse shook her. But Vi kept her feet under her, using only a hand on the deck rail next to her for support. She kept her eyes forward, waiting for the pop in her ears that signaled the shift passing.
“We’re through. Take back the helm,” Arwin said. She jumped down from the quarterdeck, heading to the bow much as she had before. “Full sails. There’s not much in the way of wind here. Follow me.” The woman leapt over the water and took to the skies as a bird.
“I have the helm.” Vi rushed to Arwin’s prior position.
“I’ll man the sails.”
They rounded the island, the only marker of their vessel the white foamy trail that faded into blackness behind them. A blustery gale picked up as they plunged into the perpetual frost swirling the coast. It crept under her clothes, clawing at every inch of exposed skin. Vi knew this cold. She’d felt it before on Adela’s vessel.
She pushed the spark forward and felt its warmth bloom under her skin. Heat radiated off of her, melting snow to rain before it could settle on her. By the time they reached the ice that ran the perimeter of the coast line, her hair was slick against her face and neck.
“Shouldn’t they have more patrols?” Vi asked in a low voice. She’d seen the first specks of light in the distance at the far end of the isle. “It seems too empty, too quiet.”
“I imagine they feel fairly confident in their barriers… and the fact that no one in their right mind would walk into Adela’s stronghold.”
“Good to know we’re all mad.” Despite the weight of the situation, a grin struggled to form on her cheeks. “Here I thought I was alone in that.”
“You’re not alone. Not in any way.” The thin line of his mouth almost made a smile.
Arwin continued to glide ahead, banking and turning on the swirling currents that surrounded the island. Vi worked to keep up,
following her as closely as possible. But as the ice became thicker—its frozen tendrils reaching out into the surf—she began to fear for the vessel’s integrity.
Luckily, Arwin seemed to think much the same. She did a wide loop before returning to their small ship.
“I think we should tie off here,” Arwin announced. “The cliffs will keep their eyes off us, and there are no outposts I could find on this side of the isle. Those caves will be our way in.” She pointed to a dark spot tucked into the side of a cliff.
Arwin and Taavin made quick work of striking the sails as Vi debated if she should take the scythe with her or not. Ultimately, she decided against it. She wasn’t skilled enough yet to use it, and carrying it onto the island only risked it falling into Adela’s hands.
After disembarking, Arwin guided them forward toward the yawning darkness of the cave. “I only scouted far enough to make sure this was an unguarded route. Once we cross onto the hillside beyond, we’re all on our own.”
Slowly, twilight filtered in, penetrating the blackness. It was carried on the icy wind and snow that piled at the mouth of the cave. The three emerged into a snow bank up to their knees, looking down over a small slope that ended with what could only be described as a pirate city.
Much like Beauty’s Bend, the Isle of Frost was crescent-shaped, surrounding a lagoon packed to the brim with ships of all shapes and sizes. The coast of the lagoon was riddled with waterways. They snaked through ice-covered buildings, functioning as main thoroughfares for the pirate city below.
“How many pirates do you think there are?”
“Too many,” Taavin said grimly.
“Enough to make our odds worse than grim.”
Vi found herself agreeing with Arwin’s assessment. This was certain suicide. They were walking into the hornet’s nest. “Shall we, then?”
“Today seems as good a day to die as any other.” Arwin gripped her spear tightly. “I’m going to dismantle the shift and then I’m back to the boat. Good luck finding your father.”
“Wait, aren’t you—”
“Going to help you?” Arwin interrupted. “I’ve helped you both more than enough to get here and I’ve my own business to settle. Hopefully, I’ll see you both, plus a fourth, before things get bad enough that I have to set sail. It’d be a pain sailing that thing alone, so don’t die.”