Vortex Chronicles: The Complete Series

by Kova, Elise

  Vi lifted the jacket from the drawer. Its construction reminded her somewhat of Taavin’s intricately embroidered coat—a tight-fitting, tailored torso that split into four panels at the hips. However, where his extended down to his calves, this looked like it wouldn’t go past her waist. And where Taavin’s coat had a small upright collar, this had a large cowl. Vi ran her fingers over the fabric. It was just as fine as his, from the deep yet colorful dyes to the cut and intricate stitching.

  Vi clutched the garment to her chest, imagining what she held was indeed Taavin’s. Imagining he was there. She pressed her eyes tightly shut and took a quivering breath.

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she breathed into the fabric, as though it could somehow carry her words to him. “I want to protect you.”

  He’d said terrible things happened to the people he loved. But Vi supposed her track record was no better. The only other people she’d loved were plagued, captured by pirates, struggling to keep an empire together, and watching their people die with little hope of a cure.

  Maybe they were both cursed.

  Vi returned the coat to the drawer and closed it. Her hands pressed on the outside, as if she could trap all her insecurities within. As if she could smother them.

  When her emotions had leveled, Vi walked over to the small washbasin. Grooming tools were set out around it, and Vi set to brushing through her hair. The process quickly reminded her of the discovery she’d made earlier: thanks to her escape from Adela, her hair was now at different lengths. Inspecting herself in the small hand mirror, Vi tilted her head left and right, looking at the longer hair on either side. She could braid it up and wait for it to grow out. Or…

  A pair of shears caught her eye.

  Vi carefully gathered her hair in her hands, suppressing a small shiver at the sound of the blades slicing through. Hair fell to the ground like the remnants of her past life. In just a few moments, it was over, and Vi’s free hand played with the freshly sheared edge of her hair—now almost all one length, just past her shoulders.

  She couldn’t remember the last time it had been this short.

  Staring at the pile of hair on the floor, she waited to feel something. Sadness, perhaps? Her hair was part of what had connected her to her grandmother, her father, and to her Western heritage.

  And yet… Vi felt very little.

  She had far more important things to worry about than hair.

  * * *

  A firm knock on her door jostled Vi from sleep. She’d barely had time to open her eyes before Arwin was barging in.

  “Up. I have breakfast,” Arwin declared gruffly, standing at the foot of her bed and holding a tray in both of her white-knuckled hands. The silverware on the tray clanked together as a result of her barely contained rage. “I will tolerate no complaints. I am not your servant girl to boss around.”

  “I wasn’t going to complain.” Vi yawned and pulled herself upright. Her room was identical to how it had been when she’d gone to sleep—there was no sunrise or sunset in the Twilight Kingdom, no day or night, just the perpetual half-light of its namesake. She looked at the breakfast Arwin held and resisted the easy jab that for not being her “servant girl,” she sure looked the part.

  “What are you smirking at?” Arwin muttered, setting the tray down heavily at the foot of her bed.

  “I’m not smirking. I’m smiling because the food looks good.” Vi reached for the sandwich, not inspecting it too closely before taking a large bite. She wasn’t dead, and Arwin wasn’t throwing chains on her… That must mean Sarphos hadn’t told them about Taavin—or at least not told Arwin. Noct was still a wild card, but Vi suspected if he was a smart king, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least capture a valuable enemy like Taavin.

  No, Sarphos hadn’t told them anything, Vi decided.

  “Are you always so trusting?” Arwin’s voice cut through the silence and Vi’s thoughts like a sharpened axe. “Eating food put in front of you by strangers without so much as a sniff?”

  “If you had planned to kill me, you could’ve done it when I was sleeping, or in the bath, or the first moment you saw me.” Vi took another large bite for emphasis. Arwin looked away, staring out the window. When she wasn’t glowering at Vi, there was a softness to the woman Vi was unaccustomed to. “Why are you so mistrusting of me? I told you I’m not Faithful and I mean no harm to your people.”

  The woman tensed. Vi could see the biceps in her folded arms tighten over her hands tucked by the insides of her elbows. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt today and the lines of her bulging muscles were on display. Perhaps another show of power, another subtle threat.

  “You truly know nothing, do you?” Arwin said almost delicately. Her steely eyes drifted back to Vi. “You’re really from the Dark Isle?”

  “I am. And I know a great many things… But I admit there are serious gaps when it comes to knowledge of your land and people.” Vi paused, allowing Arwin’s continued scrutiny. “But I would like to learn.”

  “Why?”

  Once more, her original question popped into her mind. What had happened that led to the morphi—Arwin—to have such a deep mistrust of all outsiders? Sarphos’s words the night before still clung to her thoughts as well: Why was Taavin a monster?

  Vi wasn’t sure she wanted the answers, but she needed to know all the same.

  “Why not?” Vi asked simply. “Aren’t you curious about the Dark Isle?”

  Arwin held her gaze for a long moment. Just when Vi thought she was about to give in, she uttered a simple, “No.”

  “But—”

  “Finish your food. My father is waiting for you.”

  Vi did as she was told, and quickly donned fresh clothing in much the same fashion as the articles she’d found yesterday. She didn’t really need to change—what she’d gone to bed in hadn’t gotten dirty. It just felt good that she could.

  Arwin led Vi down the tower, across the walkway, down another flight of stairs, across a hall, down yet another spiral staircase, and into what Vi would best describe as a council room. The walls were stone, vertical tapestries running from floor to ceiling depicting champions with dotted foreheads standing victorious in battle. Between the tapestries hung weapons, the low light of the glowing stones hung above the center table gleaming off their polished edges.

  “I’ll get my father.” Arwin stepped forward and around the table toward the back of the room. Vi watched as the woman swung her arm in a circle, magic rippling across the wall like waves in a pond. The stones shifted, shimmered, and changed right before her eyes, redesigning themselves in the shape of an archway.

  Vi had been watching the whole time, yet, if pressed, she wouldn’t be able to tell someone how a solid wall transformed itself into a door. Luckily, Arwin didn’t look back before slipping through the new passageway. She didn’t see Vi’s awe.

  With nothing to do other than wait, Vi began to inspect the careful stitching and bright dyes of one of the tapestries. But she didn’t get far before Arwin and Noct appeared in the archway.

  “Your highness.” Vi dropped to a knee.

  “Rise, child.” He spoke to her, but his focus was not on her. Rather, the king gave far more attention to the small wooden box he was carrying. Noct set it down on the table reverently.

  “Are you certain, father?” Arwin asked. For once, she didn’t sound indignant. She sounded… concerned. Worried. Ominous.

  “I am.” Noct turned his gaze to Vi. “My family has protected this with our royal shift for generations. But it is time for the weapon to be among the world of men once more.”

  He placed his hand down on the box and, in a single blink, it transformed into something entirely different.

  Vi’s eyes focused on the item wrapped tightly in a deep purple velvet. Time weighed heavy on the fabric, parts threadbare; the gold cord fastening was gray with dust. While Vi couldn’t see through the wrapping, it left little to her imagination: a long pole, connected to s
omething flat and curved at one end—a scythe, she’d surmise. Though that only made her more confused.

  King Noct rested a hand on the non-bladed end of the weapon, then finally looked up at Vi. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  Her eyes stayed glued to it. The watch was heavy around her neck, hot enough to nearly burn her skin, but Vi hardly noticed. A piece of her had been torn from her body, thrown into a different place and time. The surreal feeling raked up her spine and sank into her skull, impossible to shake, as she stared wide-eyed.

  “I don’t,” Vi said, her voice almost quivering. Though something insisted she did. She knew what it was… but not with her eyes. With something deeper rooted and less explicable.

  “The prophecy you mentioned… you said you were chosen by Yargen as her Champion,” King Noct began. “It reminded me of a piece of lore passed down in our family, generation to generation, dating back nearly a thousand years. My father told it to me, and his father to him—generations preparing one another should what I believe to be this moment ever come to pass.”

  Her heart was beating so hard Vi could’ve sworn she heard the watch chain rattling around her neck.

  “This is not of the Twilight Kingdom. We were merely the holders of this relic—protectors or curators, if you will. It came from your Dark Isle.” She should feel excited by that fact, shouldn’t she? But all Vi felt was sickness rising. The surreal feeling of having one foot in the present and the other somewhere else lingered—her body torn in two. “I was told that long ago, it was used to cultivate the land of the Dark Isle so that it would be fertile for eons to come, giving life to the magickless people who sought refuge there. But its powers could easily be used to end that same life.

  “A man, the grandson of Yargen’s last Champion, smuggled this off the isle to ensure it never fell into the wrong hands.”

  “How did it get to the Twilight Kingdom?” Vi murmured. Her voice felt like it was echoing from a distant place.

  “Queen Lumeria has sent spies to the Dark Isle over time. One of those spies was a morphi… back then, tensions weren’t as high with the Faithful.”

  “Why were there spies?” She should be offended by the idea. But Vi had felt very little since the wrapped item had appeared. All she could feel was a deep need to see it.

  “To ensure those on the isle weren’t disturbing forces they shouldn’t.”

  “A lot of good that did,” Vi whispered. Raspian had been locked away in the Crystal Caverns, the destruction of which led to the rise of the Mad King Victor. That set in motion a series of events that ultimately led Vi to where she was now.

  “So it would seem,” Noct agreed solemnly. “But that long-ago descendant of the Champion saw this weapon preserved for the future Champion—perhaps for this very moment.”

  Noct reached forward and Vi watched as he undid the knots of rope keeping the velvet closed. One of the braided tethers nearly disintegrated beneath his fingers. Vi’s heart raced until the fabric was at last thrown back—

  All at once, her heart stopped.

  There, shining dimly, was one of the four legendary crystal weapons. She knew it was true without needing further proof. She knew it in her marrow.

  It glowed with a faint blue light, a microcosm of stars trapped beneath its glassy surface. Vi reached out a hand. She was drawn to it with an undeniable pull. She couldn’t turn away if she tried.

  Her fingers brushed the top of the blade.

  The hazy light that surrounded the weapon slowly drifted over her hand and up her arm, before fading completely into her skin. It swirled within her, like a dust storm over the desert.

  The desert.

  Images flashed before her eyes, so clear Vi could swear she was standing at the event itself, watching them play out. There was an Eastern man with hazel eyes, working his way through a humble city that was ancient Norin. A shift in the magic, a spark of blue light, and he was now at the docks, speaking with another, passing over the velvet-wrapped parcel. Another shift, and Vi witnessed the man turning away from his precious heirloom.

  A chill ran over her as Vi jettisoned back to the present. The sensation of being in two places at once had finally abated. Perhaps because she’d finally seen what she needed to—what the goddess had wanted her to see. Vi lifted her hand away from the weapon, the dim shimmer of magic clinging to her fingers for several seconds before fading.

  She turned to King Noct, her voice barely a whisper. “It is a crystal weapon… But what do you want me to do with it?”

  King Noct and Arwin were a half-step farther away than she remembered them being. They both stared at her with wary, awe-filled eyes. Vi took a slow breath, not daring to ask what they’d seen when her senses were overtaken by a time long past. She didn’t want to know. With one touch to the crystal weapon, something within her had changed, and she wanted no additional proof of the fact.

  “I want you to do what you were chosen to do—use it to save our world.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vi sat on a bench at one end of a large, rectangular training hall.

  The floor was wooden, mats lined up on the back wall to her left, mostly forgotten. Archery targets hung on the far wall to the right; weapons of all shapes and sizes lined the wall across from where she stood.

  But none of them consumed her attention quite like the weapon in her hands.

  Every time Vi shifted her fingers across its surface, magic sparked and crackled within. Power seemed to flow from her to the weapon and back, growing more powerful with every turn. Her breath quickened.

  “So, what are you going to do with it?” The question jostled her from her fascination with the magic within the scythe. Vi hadn’t even heard the steady thunk of arrows sinking into the archery targets come to a stop.

  “I… don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t know?” The woman huffed, as if disappointed, passing her bow from hand to hand. “Aren’t you the Champion?”

  “This whole Champion thing doesn’t exactly come with a guide book,” Vi muttered. There might be someone who could help her… but getting to Taavin wasn’t an easy affair at the moment. Vi stood, holding out the weapon with one end on the ground. “Could you teach me how to use it, perhaps?”

  Arwin tilted her head to the side, looking Vi and the weapon up and down. “It’s a scythe—a farmer’s scythe, not a war scythe. The blade’s all wrong for proper combat. You really want it to be more vertical to get better access to the sharp edge.”

  “Well, it’s all I have, so I’d better learn how to use it,” Vi countered.

  “Can’t you reshape it somehow?”

  “Reshape it? You think I can reshape something a goddess made?”

  “Fair point,” Arwin mumbled and crossed the room to a rack of weapons. She tossed her bow from one hand to the next; there was a pulse of magic mid-air, and when Arwin grabbed it again, she wielded a long pole off the wall with an axe on one side. “Even if I’m confident with pole arms… I still have no idea how I’m going to teach you how to use that effectively at all.”

  “I’d appreciate the effort,” Vi said sincerely, meeting Arwin in the center of one of the painted rings on the floor.

  “Do you even know the basics of combat?” Arwin asked, slowly twirling the halberd in her hands.

  “I’ve had a bit of training,” Vi answered somewhat coyly.

  “The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of someone who’s had ‘a bit of training’?” Vi could feel the vibrations through the floor as Arwin slammed down the butt of her weapon. “We’re all doomed.”

  She should be offended, but Vi couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, she managed, “Maybe we are.”

  “You’re really reassuring me now.” Arwin’s posture went slack, slightly relaxed.

  “Let’s be honest, you thought we were doomed from the moment you first learned I was Yargen’s Champion.”

  “Can’t say I believe all that. Maybe you’re an opportunist with a go
od grasp of history. Maybe you noticed a convenient opportunity to claim you’re something you’re not, with few to argue against your claims.”

  “If I’m lying about being Yargen’s Champion, I sure went to great lengths for that lie.” Vi tried to mimic Arwin’s stance, gripping the small handles that extended from the main shaft of her weapon. She barely had time to shift her feet into a wider, sturdier base before Arwin lunged without warning. Vi stepped back, adjusting the distance. She lifted the scythe on instinct, pushing Arwin’s blade up and away from striking at her center.

  The curve of the axe at the end of the halberd hooked on the main body of Vi’s scythe. Arwin gave a firm yank, ripping the weapon from her fingertips. Vi was pulled forward and off balance.

  Arwin shifted the halberd back in her hands, allowing the scythe to fall to the floor. She stepped forward, driving her fist into Vi’s stomach. Vi doubled over, her muscles contracting around Arwin’s hand.

  The woman had a fist like a rock.

  Wheezing, Vi grabbed her stomach and fell to her knees. When she lifted her head, it was to find the tip of Arwin’s halberd at the tip of her nose. Arwin regarded her coolly down the pole arm.

  “Was the punch really necessary?” Her stomach was still spasming. Great Mother above it hurt, and it reminded Vi that her midsection was still mostly fresh flesh. But she tried desperately to keep her face calm and hide as much of the pain as possible.

  “Your enemies won’t show you mercy. Especially not with a pathetic showing like that.”

  A chuckle escaped Vi’s lips. “Don’t I know it.”

  Arwin cocked an eyebrow at the bitter remark. She lowered the halberd, replacing it with her hand. Vi stared at the open palm, glancing back to Arwin. She wasn’t about to take the bait and be an easy target once again.

  “Come on, up with you.”

  Vi’s fingers clasped around Arwin’s and she hoisted her up so quickly that Vi’s shoulder ached. Vi rolled it backward but said nothing. The woman started for the door.