by Kova, Elise
“Narro hath,” she whispered.
The light was thinner than normal, faint and flickering like a candle burning the bottom of the wick. But it was enough to carve a hazy outline. Her glyphs hadn’t been this weak since she first began.
Taavin stared at her for a long moment, hovering at the foot of her bed. His emerald eyes looked her up and down. Concern darkened his features.
“I’m fine,” Vi said before he could speak.
“You don’t look fine.” He crossed to her bedside, shifting strands of magic unraveling and then re-condensing until he solidified at her left elbow. It was as if he was sitting on the mattress, half leaning over her. Vi stared up at him; pressed back against her pillows, there was nowhere she could go. She was pinned beneath his gaze. Instead of focusing on his eyes darting all over her, she focused on keeping her magic wrapped tightly around her fingers. Should she have dressed in more than a simple sleeping gown before summoning him? When had summoning him in her bedroom, rather than her study, become more natural? “What happened to your face?”
“Is it that bad?” She smiled tiredly. Ginger had removed the majority of the bandages that morning. “I haven’t had the strength to look in a mirror yet.”
“You’re still beautiful, if that’s what you’re asking,” he whispered.
A spark crackled in her chest and her magic seemed to feed on it. He grew brighter, more solid. For a brief moment, Vi could almost ignore the glyph swirling around her hand and focus solely on him.
“I bet you say that to all the princesses you have clandestine meetings with.” She should’ve just said thank you. But Vi had to reach for the joke. If she didn’t, that meant acknowledging the feeling that had flooded her whole body at his flattery.
“I’m afraid you’re the only princess I meet with…” Taavin looked out the window. “The only person, really.”
“Where are you, Taavin?” Vi looked at his hand on the bed, light dancing where there should be contact. If she tried to touch him, what would it feel like? Would he be warm like sunlight? Or icy, like the misty illusions Waterrunners made? Would he feel like anything at all? Fear of the last answer being no was what kept her from reaching out.
“I told you, I am in Risen.”
“No, I don’t mean that.” Vi slowly shook her head. “Where are you? Where do you live? Is it hot or cold there? What do you see out your window?”
“Ah.” He made the sound of understanding, but said nothing for a long minute. Taavin stood, strolling over to the window—though Vi still wasn’t sure if he could see through it. When he spoke, he didn’t look at her. “I live at the top of the Archives of Yargen.”
“Is that a place where they keep the history of the goddess?”
“All the history of this mortal realm.” Taavin looked back to her. “Every record of the world’s knowledge is kept here… Well, what can be found, at least.”
“That sounds…” Her heart raced with excitement at the mere thought of it. “Beautiful.”
“I’ve only seen it from the outside twice.”
“Why?” Vi asked delicately.
“Why do you care?”
“I want to know you,” she said simply, honestly. Since when had baring herself become natural around him? Perhaps it was her wounds making her too tired to care about pretense. “I want to know what your days are like. What you eat. What you see when you look out your window.”
“I see… I see a view not unlike yours, actually,” he said softly. “A city sprawling beneath me. Far enough away that it looks more like a painting than an actual home for living, breathing elfin. I see the terracotta spires of the gilded palace adjacent to the archives. I can see the harbor where Risen nearly runs into the sea… I can see the worn whitewashing of buildings hiding behind slatted wooden shutters that hang on rusty, weeping hinges.”
“The way you describe it makes me feel like I can see it too,” Vi whispered. She could envision those narrow cobblestone streets. The buildings packed too tightly together, like crooked teeth. But in her vision, her breath fogged the air, and snow lined the edges of walkways.
In her visions, it was Solarin she saw.
“I’ve spent a lifetime looking out that large window.”
“So have I.” Vi wished she could leave her bed and stand with him. She wished she’d summoned him not in her room, just once, so he could see the world beyond through her eyes… what little she had to show of it.
“You don’t seem quite so trapped.” He crossed back over, perching himself on the edge of her bed again.
“Then appearances are deceiving. I spend most of my days in these quarters… maybe out in the fortress to join Ellene for dinner. If I am on top of my studies and in everyone’s general good graces, I may walk the city below. But never freely, never without an escort. That’s the extent of my leash.”
His gaze was hard, closed off. For the first time, she wished desperately to know what he was thinking—but lacked the bravery to ask.
“If you are so sequestered… how did you obtain such injuries?”
Vi swallowed. This was the real reason she’d summoned him. It wasn’t to talk about windows or the worlds beyond. It wasn’t to lay eyes on his tanned skin and emerald eyes.
“Someone tried to kill me. An elfin’ra tried to kill me,” Vi hastily clarified before he could get a word in.
Taavin went very still. When he spoke, a protective edge limned his voice that Vi hadn’t heard before. “Tell me.” Vi obliged him—what little information there was. “They’re moving quickly…” he murmured when she finished.
“He used juth…” Vi started and then abandoned the question. Luckily, Taavin picked up her meaning.
“As I said before, the elfin’ra are splintered from the elfin. They know Yargen’s words, but twist them with Raspian’s power—as well as use words of Raspian’s own making.”
“Lovely,” Vi muttered. That explained the lightning Andru spoke of seeing before the man vanished. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“He said he wanted ‘the champion’s blood for Lord Raspian.’ What does that mean?”
Taavin stood and began to pace. The magic trailed through the air behind him, as though his very essence was unraveling. Vi’s technique had improved with his tutelage, but she was struggling to catch up.
“Can you hold more still, please?” she asked. He stopped abruptly but did not face her. “Taavin, I need to know what I’m up against.”
“The ritual you saw, with the man of red lightning, do you remember?”
How could she forget? “Yes.”
“To perform that ritual, to bring back Lord Raspian to walk along this mortal plane, they need a sacrifice of Yargen.”
“How do they get the sacrifice of a goddess?” Vi asked slowly. Suspicions were dawning on her even as she asked, but she wanted to leave no room for error.
“Ashes, from the flame if it is snuffed. The blood of the voice… or the champion.” His eyes fell heavily on her. Vi swallowed hard. It was as if his words alone reignited pain in her ailing body.
“That’s why, in my vision… the body on the altar in the bag…”
It was one of them. One of them had been gutted, bagged, and laid across an altar to resurrect an ancient evil.
“You must be careful, more than ever, Vi. Yes, in the vision there was a whole body and that would be the most… effective way.” He grimaced at the word effective. “But given the strength they’re already displaying, I have no doubt that all they need is blood from one of us to pull off the ritual.”
“Should I start telling Ginger to burn my clerical rags?” Vi didn’t want to begin keeping track of everywhere she spilled a drop of blood.
“No… It needs to be fresh blood spilled at the sacred site. Or blood captured by one of their ritual daggers so that it is kept in a specific stasis to be brought back for their ritual.”
“That explains the dagger he was holding,” Vi murmu
red, remembering the strange-looking weapon the man kept slashing at her with.
“They shouldn’t even be able to create those weapons. It takes great power to craft them, ready them for collection of blood, and then keep the blood viable for ritual.” Taavin shook his head grimly. “Yet another sign of how Raspian’s power is growing while Yargen’s dims.”
“Dimming… The traveler said the flame will be fueled again, didn’t she? That the champion holds the key.” Taavin gave a small nod. “Taavin… I don’t know anything about your flame. Even if I wanted to rekindle it… I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“And that is what I hope the apexes of fate will show us.”
“Do you have any new leads?”
“None that I haven’t already told you.” He sighed.
“The throne room… the dark room… and a temple with eye-owe?” Vi recalled.
“Just so. Do you have any new leads on them?” he asked hopefully.
“Unfortunately not…” Vi admitted. “Eye-owe keeps sticking with me, but I haven’t been able to place it. I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to find it, though.”
Vi looked down at her hands: one rested in her lap, supporting the glyph, and the other rested at her side. A shimmering hand interrupted her thoughts. Delicate fingers rested on hers. Vi couldn’t tell if her mind filled in the sensation she expected, or if he truly felt warm.
“You must be careful in your search, Vi. More than ever. The elfin’ra and their dark arts were locked away, but the barrier keeping them in exile vanished when the seal on Raspian’s tomb was broken.” Her eyes drifted up the embroidered sleeve of his coat to his face. “I am protected in Risen. I am the most guarded man on Meru in a city surrounded by a barrier of its own that’s directly connected to the flame itself.” Taavin leaned forward slightly, and Vi wondered if she just imagined it. His voice was deep, pained. “But you are an easy target—and they will continue to come for you.”
Vi felt fear rising within her but forced herself to swallow it down. Jax had always told her she would be a target for enemies of Solaris. This was no different. She had been raised for this.
“Teach me how to protect myself,” Vi demanded. “Teach me beyond anchoring the glyphs and basic principles. I want to use Lightspinning to fight.” For a brief second, she was afraid he would reject her.
“I shall do my best to make myself available at every moment to be your tutor.”
Vi let out a small sigh of relief, leaning back into her pillows but making no motion to pull her hands from under his silhouette of light. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He glanced sideways. Then, speaking mostly to himself, said, “Here I am, willingly seeking you out after you’ve haunted me my whole life… I feel I should hate you for entrapping me once more.”
“Do you?”
“No… The only scrap of hatred I can find in me now is for the elfin’ra who harmed you.”
“Then what do you feel about me?” The question brought his eyes back to her. Taavin stared for a long moment and Vi held his gaze. Whatever he said would be fine. Her chest tightened. Whatever he said next wouldn’t change anything for her—not their pursuit of the apexes, not his tutelage, not her heart.
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Good.” Vi’s voice had gone equally soft. “That makes two of us then.”
He finally pulled his gaze from hers and Vi felt like a trance had been broken. Taavin looked down at the magic spinning around her fingers. She’d all but forgotten she was maintaining narro hath still. Now she stared into it, watching it curve and double-back on itself before spinning outward again.
“You should let the magic go, so you can recover.”
“Or you can keep me company until I fall asleep.” Vi shifted farther back into her pillows. The magic had been thin to begin with. Now it was nearly exhausted. It wouldn’t be long until he was pulled from her again.
“That, I suppose I can do. I’m beginning to enjoy having some company in my solitary life. Even if it comes from the woman I can’t escape.”
“Maybe…” Vi whispered, “I’m glad you can’t escape me.”
Taavin gave her a small smile, one Vi returned. They stayed just as they were, his ghostly hand on hers. Looking at nothing, looking at everything, until Vi could no longer sustain the magic and she drifted quietly off into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Even though Vi was only in bed on cleric’s orders for three days, her tutors decided they did not want to “push her” right away.
A part of her was offended at the notion, but a larger part was relieved.
There was work to do.
“The more words you add, the more detailed the spell and its outcome,” Taavin explained, perched on what had become his spot at the edge of her bed.
“The book outlines two words—the main and subordinate.” Vi had one of the drawers of her dresser opened. Sehra’s book was perched inside, the inner lip of the drawer holding open the page so her hands were free. “That’s how it breaks up the chapters at least… So there’s narro, and then hath is a sub-word underneath it.”
“Yes, that’s correct. There’s a structure to the chants… The first word of every chant is the high-level discipline you’re invoking.” Taavin held up a finger.
“Such as healing, or deception, or destruction…” Vi said, to make sure she was following along.
“Just so. The second word is the classification within that discipline.” He held up two fingers now. “Most chants will have at least two words. But sometimes there’s a third—the clarification.”
Vi lifted the book, flipping through the pages. She was becoming more familiar with the glyphs, her mind more accustomed to reading them. “I don’t see—”
“They’re there, likely not marked. Let me see.” Taavin stood and looked down over her shoulder. “Go to narro… flip the page, again, again—no wait, you’ve gone too far, back one.” Sometimes, it was a pain to be his hands in the physical world. “There—loreth.”
“Loreth,” Vi repeated, allowing the new word to settle on her. “To imprint a communication mark.”
“Like this.” Taavin pointed to the watch around her neck. Vi looked down. She was so familiar now with the hazy mark that hovered above it whenever she spoke to him that it barely registered any longer. “That was created with loreth; it is my unique communication mark.”
“So that’s why I can summon you, but you can’t summon me.”
“Unless you’re at an apex.” He took a step away and Vi fought a chill. She was growing familiar with how his magic registered as warmth. Especially when he was near.
“Right…” Their means of communication remained a noru in the room. Neither of them could offer an acceptable explanation for how she came to be in possession of his token. To some extent, Vi didn’t want to try to figure it out. As curious as she was, doing so would remove the mystery—the magic—of it all.
“So you have your first high-level discipline word, then the secondary, then the clarification,” Taavin continued.
“Would you ever have two clarifications?”
He shook his head. “At that point, the magic is shaped by intent. Take halleth, for example.” Halleth, to heal, Vi filled in mentally. “Ruta is the sub-discipline of halleth for mending the flesh. But then there are clarifications beyond that—sot for inner wounds, and toff for outer. Let’s say I were to heal that crooked bit in your nose that hasn’t quite set right.”
“There is no crooked bit in my nose.” Vi’s hand flew up to her face, gently feeling the bridge of her nose.
“Don’t be self-conscious, I think it suits you.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and Taavin had the audacity to have a laugh at her expense before continuing. “So if I wanted to heal that, I would use halleth ruta sot—” Taavin’s voice had a soothing quality to it, his accent running words together in a way that was smoother than silk. “—and make sure my glyphs were crafted with the
intent of repairing the tissue in that location.”
“Understood—three words, and then intent beyond that.” Just as she’d originally suspected. Lightspinning was not so different from the principles of elemental magic she’d been taught her whole life.
“Sometimes there’s a fourth word.”
“You’re just making this difficult now.” His mouth quirked up just slightly, as though he was not only amused by, but satisfied with, her accusation.
“It’s the last word, I promise—even more rare than the clarification.”
“Which is?”
“If you are particularly blessed, you’ll be told a word from the Goddess—a word only for you that will give you the opportunity to enhance your spells, somehow. Again, it’s different for every person, but individuals with a goddess-word know how to wield it.”
“Have you received a word?” Vi asked delicately, hoping he’d answer.
“I’ve received multiple.”
“Then you can hear the goddess through the flame?” Taavin’s gaze went hard. Vi’s heart raced. Perhaps she’d been wrong and even though the flame was weak, he could hear something?
“I am the voice. It is my duty to hear her and guide the people with her words.”
“Yes, but—”
A knock interrupted them.
“Your highness?” Andru asked through the door.
Was it dinnertime already? She could hardly believe they’d been working that long.
Vi’s eyes darted to Taavin and he gave a small nod. Vi stretched out her fingers and felt the tethers she’d summoned Taavin with unwind. Once she closed Sehra’s book and slipped her dresser drawer closed, it was like he hadn’t been there at all.
“Yes, Andru—” Vi opened the door and was assaulted with the aroma of steaming food “—thank you for joining me for dinner.”
“Thank you for having me.”
The servants were finishing setting the table in her main room. When she was no longer on bed rest, it became inappropriate for him to sit alone with her in her bedroom, so they had to find other means of communicating privately. Dinner seemed to be the easiest excuse. Jax had even praised her for making an effort to “win Andru over” while warning her to be careful in the same breath.