by Kova, Elise
“The trees,” Vi repeated, forcing her mind to continue to function. She couldn’t freeze up. Not now. Not after all she’d done to get here.
“Over there.” He pointed with his free arm as Vi lifted his other and placed it around her shoulders. “We have to get to the Twilight Forest.”
Twilight Forest. Her mental atlas flipped through its archives but came up empty. Not because she was panicked, but because she was now in a land she knew almost nothing about, running blindly into the night.
“Let’s go.” Vi pushed off from the ground.
Taavin was heavier than he looked and Vi hadn’t felt so weak in a long time. She ignored the signs of fatigue, pushing her feet into a run over the tall grasses that covered the cliffside.
The flames from the burning shack had been smothered by the torrential rain, and a heavy mist clouded above the quickly cooling remains. Fallor wouldn’t give up. And he wouldn’t make it easy.
As the thought crossed her mind, a pulse of magic rippled out across the ground, tangling her ankles. Vi felt herself falling, clasping her hand as tightly as possible to Taavin’s so as not to break the magicks that were hiding them. But it was Taavin who let go.
The power that had been concealing them shattered under the second pulse of magic that swept over the grassy cliff. Fragments of light swirled in the ripple before blinking unnaturally from existence. It was as if Taavin’s power had never been there at all.
“Loft Dorh Dupot,” Taavin snarled. Vi had never heard such a vicious tone from the man’s mouth before and was taken aback by it.
Taavin held out one arm, fist clenched around the center of a spinning circle, as though he was holding an invisible tether. She followed his focused gaze to Fallor. Vi remembered when Taavin had used the same immobilization rune on her.
He’d said it was no easy feat, even if he made it look otherwise.
Which meant Vi had to act fast.
“Mysst Soto Larrk!” She sprang into motion, feeling light condense under her palm into the hilt of a sword. She didn’t want to risk juth interfering with Taavin’s magic. She’d take the fight to Fallor.
Vi was nearly to him when Fallor broke free of Taavin’s magic with a roar. She shifted her grip on the sword, swinging it with all her might. Fallor dodged, the point of the blade missing his neck by a hair’s breadth. She let out a scream of frustration.
“A sword?” Fallor caught her wrist. His fingers looped entirely around and then some, compressing her bones. “Did you learn how to use this from your friend?”
Jayme.
Vi’s hand released the hilt under Fallor’s crushing grip. The magic blade fell to the ground, unraveling into formless strands of light that faded quickly into the night.
“What was the poor wench’s name who lived under your boot again?” he sneered.
The narrowing of her eyes was his only warning before magic exploded from her, unfettered. It was light and fire. Both and neither. It was every inch of agony she felt and had not even had a breath to properly address since waking.
Fallor jumped back from the flames. In the same movement, he unsheathed a dagger, nearly the length of a short sword, from his thigh. He reared back, driving it right toward her chest.
“Mysst Soto Xieh!” Vi proclaimed, staring up at Fallor, unflinching, as his weapon drove harmlessly into a spinning circle of slight. “Don’t you dare mention that traitor’s name in my presence.”
Fallor stepped back, spun, and launched another attack.
“Loft Dorh Hoolo,” Vi seethed. She poured every ounce of hate for the man—and Jayme’s betrayal—into the words. Fallor was stopped instantly, frozen in time.
Even under the influence of her own word of power from the goddess, Fallor was barely tethered. Rain poured over her shoulders. Mud dripped into her eyes. But Vi ignored the burning sensation, staring at Fallor as she waited for Taavin’s words.
Waiting for him to finish the job.
A crack of lightning arced overhead, dancing through the clouds, splitting toward the earth. Her attention wavered as red illuminated the entire bluff.
Red lighting.
Vi found herself flooded by a profound sense of foreboding. The watch at her neck felt hot and whispers tickled the edge of her hearing. She’d seen the phenomenon in the distance on the Dawn Skipper. Up close, the lightning was profoundly unnerving. In its wake, Vi felt surrounded by an enemy she couldn’t see but could sense lurking, ready to attack.
Unfortunately, it distracted her from the enemy right before her.
“Mysst Soto Xieh!” Taavin spoke so hastily the words were barely distinguishable. A shield of light was before her once more, this time shattering under Fallor’s blade.
Vi jumped and slid back, putting distance between her and the pirate. “Mysst Soto Larrk.”
In her right hand, a bow appeared; in her left, an arrow. Vi brought them together, hands moving with expertise born from years of training. She drew back the bowstring, feeling the aches in her shoulders that accompanied it. Vi ignored every protest her body made—every reminder that she wasn’t operating at full health.
She loosed the arrow point blank; it moved only inches to sink into Fallor’s shoulder. The arrow exploded into light as Vi reached back to where a quiver would be. Her fingers condensed around something solid—a new arrow where there had previously been none.
Nocking the second, Vi loosed it just as quickly. Fallor stumbled back, raising his hand up to his shoulder, covering the wounds she inflicted. Rain, tinted red by another burst of lightning, merged with the dark blood pouring from the wounds. Vi expected to find anger, rage, or frustration in Fallor’s gaze when he trained it upon her.
She hadn’t expected the laughter.
“You really think you’re a killer?” Her hands were moving to prove him wrong as he spoke. Fallor narrowed his steely eyes. “Do it then,” he challenged with a whisper. “Show me you’re a killer and not some pampered princess. Kill me, and meet Adela’s true rage.”
Rainwater shook from her quivering hand. Her fingers cramped in their grip, tighter than death, around the bow. She stared down the arrow, looking at the point right over the soft spot in the center of the man’s neck.
Kill him.
It would feel so good to kill him.
She wanted to. But she couldn’t. She was trapped between something dark and twisted that kept trying to snarl her in its thorny embrace, and everything she once thought she knew about herself. All the while, he was right there, waiting.
Was he right? Was this why she hadn’t shattered his heart as she had Jayme’s or Kora’s? She had been able to kill them in a moment of blind rage. But would she be able to kill so easily again?
No, she’d chosen this route because it would be more painful. That was it, a sinister voice uttered within her. It felt like a person Vi had never met had taken residence in the void of her chest.
“I want to kill you slowly,” she whispered. “I will see to it that none of Adela’s pirates enjoy a clean death.”
Vi let the arrow loose, aimed right for his throat. She wanted to watch the blood drain from his neck in a river. But the arrow only had time to knick his flesh before an unfamiliar voice boomed over the pouring rain. “Juth mariy.”
The bow in her hands shattered into harmless light. Vi let out a cry of anguish and readied her magic for her next assault. Enough of letting him off easy. Enough hesitation. She’d end this now.
The familiar grip of Taavin’s fingers closed around her. “Durroe sallvas tempre dupot. Durroe watt radia dupot.” They were concealed once more.
Fallor didn’t look for them. Instead, he turned, squinting in the darkness at the top of the far ridge. There, mounted on white steeds, was a line of men and women illuminated by shining orbs of blue-tinted light cast above their heads.
“Oh, holy Swords,” Fallor cursed. There was the tell-tale ripple of power that made her skin crawl and Vi watched as the man slipped between each pulse of mag
ic, disappearing and reappearing as an eagle where a man once stood.
“We have to go.” Taavin tugged on her hand. He was going to dislocate her shoulder before the night was up. “Quickly, before—”
“Juth mariy.” The man at the head of the group shouted again. Vi could make out little more than his golden armor and dark hair. There was an uncanny similarity between him and the man she’d come all this way to find.
“Father?” Vi said, small and weak.
“Vi, this way!” Taavin pulled on her as his concealment shattered. “We have to make it to the Twilight Forest.”
He broke into an all-out sprint, leaving Vi little choice but to follow.
That man atop the steed wasn’t her father, no matter how much the armor looked like that of Solaris. She was far from that world of white and gold. Far from her home.
And her father was still the captive of the pirate queen.
An eagle’s cry sounded, punctuated by the man shouting, “Archers to the Morphi! Calvary, to them! Loose!”
Vi couldn’t hear the bowstrings over the rain and rolling thunder that followed streaks of red lightning. Neither could she hear the hooves of the large horses in pursuit of them. But she could feel the beasts.
She pushed her feet harder into the earth as red lightning cracked once more, striking the forest ahead. Every leaping step she took had Vi’s free hand pressing into her side, where the flesh felt like it was tearing open anew. She was too freshly healed to be fighting and fleeing.
Taavin slowed. He was wheezing, too, his hand grasping at his shirt above his chest. Vi slowed her pace, looking back to the horses.
“Taavin, we—”
“I know,” he hissed. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked back at the horses quickly closing the gap between them. “Durroe watt radia. Durroe watt ivin.” He turned forward again, keeping close alongside her, the rings of light he’d summoned condensing around his finger. “Keep running, and don’t look back.”
Vi heeded his words, running with all she had. Taavin, for his part, managed to keep stride. But every five steps he seemed to stumble, then every three.
“Taavin—” She looked to his face with worry. His eyes were hazy and unfocused. Was he going to make it to the forest? What would happen if the Swords caught them?
“Keep, going,” he panted. “We’re almost there.”
As they ran, nearly at the trees, Taavin’s arm swung out, pointing. A tiny glyph still spiraled around his finger. Vi watched as a nearly identical copy of her and Taavin sprinted off at an angle.
An illusion.
The horses continued to charge, shifting course to chase after their fabricated copies. Taavin’s illusions vanished into thin air as the mounted men and women overtook them. One of the knights let out a cry of frustration as Vi and Taavin plunged into the welcoming embrace of the tree line, and into the dark unknown that was the Twilight Forest.
Chapter Three
The moment her feet hit the mossy, wet earth of the forest, Vi moved faster.
She’d grown up in the jungles of Shaldan, spending her childhood leaping and swinging from branch to branch. The feeling of damp brush and leaves under her feet, the sounds of rain muffled by the leafy canopy—its familiarity was a balm to her panic. She felt more comfortable with trees above and around her than she had in months in the desert and open sea.
There had been a road that led into the forest, but her and Taavin continued to ignore it. Instead, he struck out between the trees. From the corners of her eyes, Vi watched him move. Since entering the forest, her footing had become surer, while his stumbles were happening with greater frequency.
Taavin didn’t even so much as glance her way. His face was etched with a fierce determination that unnerved her. Not just because she’d never seen the expression on his features—but because she was afraid of what would happen when that expression vanished. It was the look of a man who was going to run himself until his body gave out. She took a half step closer to him so she’d be there if he fell.
Vi glanced back, looking to where the riders had been. The rainclouds had blotted out the moon, leaving them very little light to see by. She found herself hoping for the cracks of the ominous red lightning to catch a quick glimpse of the knights or Fallor, but there was no such luck and she didn’t dare summon a fire.
With every winded breath, the ache in her side ran deeper. Vi pressed a hand into the still-healing wound, wondering how recently Taavin had ripped it open. The pain seemed to spread, shooting straight up into her head.
“Taavin—”
“I know.” He slowed his pace, chest heaving with panting breaths. He was faring no better than she. “Looks like I was right…”
“About what?”
“None of them will dare to come into the Twilight Forest,” he wheezed, slumping against a tree. Vi was ready, reaching out to support him. But the moment her hand brushed feather-light against his side, he winced and let out a long hiss.
“Your ribs.” Vi pulled her hands away, looking at the place Fallor had made contact. “Let me see.”
“Let’s get out of the rain first. We may be able to find shelter closer to the cliffs—an overhang, perhaps.”
They pressed onward, albeit at a slower pace. Vi was soon dragging her feet and Taavin was leaning against every other tree to catch his breath.
“We have to stop. We’re not going to make it much longer.” She scanned their surrounds for options.
Ahead, the trees gave way for a small stream. Vi looked up and downstream, searching for any sign of Fallor or the Swords. But there was none. In fact, they seemed to be the only life in the forest, the world still other than the whisper of water. Taavin took a step down onto the slick rocks.
“Be careful.” Vi quickly leapt to his side. Her arm wrapped tightly around his waist, holding him to her and stabilizing him.
“You’re sure-footed.”
“I grew up in a jungle, remember?” Vi helped him across to the giant boulders she assumed he was heading toward.
Just as Taavin had suspected—or hoped—the terrain had become rockier the closer they got to the cliffs that met the sea. The banks of the stream became giant boulders that jutted out from the earth. Downstream, Vi could see more rocks than trees.
They made their way toward one particularly large outcropping, a dark gap betraying a space just wide enough for them to squeeze through.
“In here?” Vi asked.
“It’s the best I’ve seen and we should get out of the rain.”
“Let me go first and make sure there’s enough room.” Vi guided him toward one of the two giant boulders on either side of the opening, stepping away from his side only when she was certain he was stable enough to stand on his own.
Squeezing herself into the opening, Vi tip-toed into the dark before allowing a small flame to kindle above her palm. The passage grew so narrow, she was certain she’d have to give up and turn back. But the flame illuminated a more open space ahead, and somehow she managed to twist the curves of her hips in just the right way to pop through with only a small wince.
Sure enough, it was a small cave, formed by four massive rocks leaning against each other. It would barely be large enough for the two of them—but it was dry and certainly well hidden.
It’d do.
“Come on in,” Vi called back. “I think there’s enough room.”
Taavin appeared as he side-stepped between the rocks. Vi reached out, offering a hand and helping him through the rest of the way. He emerged with a sigh of relief, immediately leaning against the rocky wall opposite, hand splayed on his chest where Fallor had used his body as a springboard.
“Sit, and let me see,” Vi repeated her earlier demand.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, as if pain wasn’t written on his face in large, block letters.
“Quit being stubborn.”
He finally obliged her, sinking down the wall until he was seated. His legs extended until his toe
s hit the opposite wall, knees bent. Vi crouched at his side, twisting until she found a way to somehow sit comfortably and not be in his lap at the same time.
Her hands paused at the hem of his shirt, the fabric still slick with rain and clinging to every curve of his muscle. Vi raised her eyes slowly to his.
“May I?” she whispered.
“Go ahead.” The words were stronger than hers, but far from what she’d call confident. He was as nervous as she was. This was uncharted territory for them both.
She wasn’t undressing him. Well, she was. But not really. It was for medical reasons.
Her racing thoughts had her heart matching pace as she slowly lifted the shirt, exposing the tan skin beneath. His flesh was bumpy, thanks to the chill of the cave and the exposed damp. Vi continued to ignore the cut curves of his muscles and the line of hair trailing down to and underneath his trousers—an easy task the moment her eyes landed on his ribcage.
“Oh, Taavin…” she breathed.
He winced as her fingers lightly brushed the deep bruising that splotched his skin. “It’s that bad?”
“It looks like you had a small mountain crush you.” Vi lowered the shirt slowly. “I’ve used halleth before but—”
“Not very well.”
Vi narrowed her eyes slightly. She’d been about to say the same thing. But that didn’t mean she appreciated him beating her to the punch. As if reading her mind, he wheezed laughter.
“I could tell.” Taavin hid a wince between his words. The fight and flight had stolen their focus from their injuries and ailing bodies; it seemed that the pain was settling in on him now, just like she hadn’t noticed her aches until they’d slowed their pace in the woods. “The wounds that had been inflicted on you—you tried to heal them with halleth—it was clumsily done. The skin was all knotted and scarred in a way that was going to give you trouble long-term. I was forced to rip them back open and set them correctly.”
That confirmed her suspicions about why she still ached so badly.
“I was learning on the run,” Vi said defensively. “We haven’t had a chance to go over halleth yet. And Firebearing doesn’t cover any kind of healing other than cauterizing wounds.”