by Kova, Elise
“Your hold over the Voice would not last forever.” Ulvarth smiled, teeth shining in the darkness. “He was bound to call out to us.”
A pulse of magic drew Vi’s gaze upward. Arwin was perched on the stern railing. “There’s no way they found us in a dark sea. He betrayed you, Vi! Don’t trust him.”
“What?” Something wasn’t adding up.
“Archers!” Ulvarth shouted across the waves. Arrows peppered the back of the boat and water behind, but it was too late; Arwin had already taken flight again, disappearing into the dark night. “Keep your eyes on the morphi!”
Vi didn’t know how they could—she had already lost track of the nightwisp. But a second pulse of magic above the large warship gave away Arwin’s location aboard a mast’s crossbeam.
“Taavin,” Arwin shouted at the top of her lungs, so loudly that her voice was perfectly clear even over the crash of waves and creaking of boats. “I will not forget your promise to me. You will pay in full, and then some. I will have blood!”
The archers had readied another volley. But by the time they shot, she was off again. Vi watched as the nightwisp flew across the dark water, blending in with the sky and sea.
“Morphi scum,” Ulvarth muttered. “My work is never done.” Vi glared up at him and Ulvarth must have sensed it, because he locked eyes with her once more, an amused expression sliding across his face. “Do you have something to say, dark-dweller?”
Vi opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Ulvarth continued.
“Consider your next words carefully. Come peacefully, use no magicks, and I shall not be forced to gag and shackle you.” Ulvarth took a step forward, trying to loom over them. But he seemed so very small in Vi’s eyes. To her, he was little more than a boy wearing too-big armor. “Come peacefully and you will receive an imprisonment befitting your station. Fight me, and you shall know the full spectrum of pain I inflict on all those who stand against Yargen.”
He said it like he was doing them some great favor. Vi wanted to punch him square in his teeth. No magic required.
“We surrender peacefully,” her father said for both of them.
As much as Vi wanted to object, she didn’t. She’d reached much the same conclusion as her father—there was no point in fighting this now. They were out maneuvered and outnumbered and their best bet was to keep as much ground as they could beneath them as they tried to plan their next advance.
Plus, her jaw ached at the mere thought of another gag.
“Take them to Light’s Victory,” Ulvarth commanded his soldiers. “And torch this dinghy.”
Vi looked back to the cabin. Her meager supplies. The journal with all her notes and maps. Once more she was ushered away from what little she’d managed to scrape together and claim as her own.
The knights directed them to the side of the vessel; Vi took a step forward. Ulvarth snatched the scythe from her grasp.
“Give that back,” Vi demanded, knowing it was both foolish and futile. But seeing the man holding the weapon was enough to curdle her stomach. Ulvarth opened his mouth and it was her turn to interrupt. “You don’t know what you’re holding.”
“You dare question me?”
“I will not fight you, but that is mine to carry.”
Ulvarth leaned forward, passing into her personal space with a sneer. “Get in the rowboat before I change my mind.”
Vi stood her ground, hands balling into fists.
“Daughter, come,” her father said sternly. But she still didn’t move.
“Listen to your father, girl.”
With one last glare, and one last look at the scythe, Vi moved forward. She was oddly reminded of the Dawnskipper and her last moments aboard that vessel. Life on the high seas was exhausting, and seemed always to end badly.
She and her father slowly climbed down into one of the two rowboats. They sat side by side, right at the front, as the rest of the boat filled with Ulvarth and his knights. The remaining men and women piled into the other dinghy and were off rowing in an instant.
“A farmer’s scythe, of all things to carry…” Ulvarth glanced at her from the corners of his eyes. “What a useless weapon.”
Vi bit the inside of her lip, keeping silent. Perhaps if she let him believe that’s all it was, he wouldn’t investigate further and peel back the fabric.
“Unless your determination surrounding it is something more?” She remained silent. Ulvarth chuckled. “You’ll talk eventually. They all do. Now, burn the boat,” he commanded his soldiers.
Three soldiers set their stolen vessel ablaze with circles of light. Vi stared at it, watching as what had once been Fallor’s ship burned into the sea. She wondered if she should feel something toward it, but she must’ve retreated once more into that dark place within her that Jayme had created. Arwin’s words echoed in her mind: He betrayed you.
It seemed like no time had passed at all before she was back on deck, but this time aboard a far more massive craft than even the Stormfrost. Light’s Victory was no doubt a flagship of the Sword’s armada. Its sides were riddled with cannons and a long ramming spear dominated its tall front.
“Take them below,” Ulvarth commanded to the knights still surrounding them, walking in the opposite direction.
Vi and her father obliged as they were led below the main deck. A long hallway with many doors stretched the length of the vessel before dropping off in another stairwell. Judging from the outside, the gun deck was beneath them now, which meant there had to be yet another subdeck for the crew to sleep.
“In here.” One of the knights opened a reinforced door heavy with various locks. “You will have a guard posted day and night. If we so much as get a whiff of magic, Lord Ulvarth’s patience and extreme generosity will run dry very quickly.”
“More generosity than they deserve,” one of the other knights muttered.
Vi and her father held their tongues as they walked into the small cabin. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting in the slightest. It was sparse, but comfortable enough. Certainly a very different type of confinement than what Adela had given either of them. The linens on the two cots looked clean, the bedding plush and fresh. Water sloshed in a jug on the shelf, threatening to spill with every sway of the ship. She was already trying to figure out Ulvarth’s goals in giving them this much comfort. What game was he playing?
The door closed behind them, and the sound of locks engaging brought her back from her thoughts.
“So much for a rescue,” Vi murmured.
“Far better than my last imprisonment.” Her father sighed heavily. He’d just been liberated and here he was, back again under lock and key. He sat on one of the cots.
“Mine too.” She went over to the small porthole—barred—and looked out over the sea. The last pieces of Fallor’s ship smoldered in the water.
“Yours?”
“Adela had me for a while, but I managed to escape.”
“You escaped her?” Aldrik said, wonder softening his voice.
“I nearly died doing it.” Vi looked back to the door. “I think if I tried to escape this imprisonment, I would die.” She had no doubt she could make a good run of it. But there were too many trained soldiers here. They’d get her, sooner or later.
“We’re not going to try to escape. It makes the most sense for us to get to Risen and sort this there. Perhaps their queen will be able to assist.”
“I doubt it.” Vi put her back to the wall, sliding to the floor. “Ulvarth said it himself—he doesn’t answer to the queen.”
“But—”
“The Swords of Light are part of a religious order on Meru—the Faithful—and they’re trying to consolidate power. They’re using fear of the end of the world to do it.”
“Little good consolidating power does if you have no one to rule because the world ends.” Her father made a good point, one that brought a tired smile to her lips.
“The only hope we have is Taavin. As the Voice of Yargen, he technica
lly supersedes Ulvarth.”
“Technically?” Aldrik must’ve heard the strain in her voice.
“Ulvarth will do what he wants, regardless of what Taavin says. And if Taavin doesn’t say what he wants to hear, Ulvarth makes his life a misery,” Vi said bitterly, not wanting to go into more depth than that.
“This Ulvarth sounds like a tyrant in the making,” her father said solemnly. He’d know; he’d seen tyrants. Some claimed his own father had been one.
The words left a heavy silence in their wake. Vi took a deep breath, tilting her head back and staring at the ceiling. Her eyes drifted closed.
“I’m sorry. “I really was going to take you back to Norin if you’d wanted to go.”
The floorboards creaked as her father stood, walking over to her. He slowly sat next to her on the floor and covered her hand with his. “Only me?” he asked.
Vi cracked her eyes open, tilting her head to look at him. She couldn’t manage words. She couldn’t hurt him with the truth, but she didn’t want to lie to him either. She settled on a small nod.
“If there’s even a chance I can save this world, I have to take it.” The memory of Raspian was seared in her mind, the dark god tearing into her flesh. “No matter what happens.”
Her father was deathly still. When he finally spoke, it was a repeat of words he’d said before. “This recklessness—you get from your mother.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Have I told you that you also inherited her profound compassion?”
Vi gave a small smile.
“There are so many things I would’ve done differently, were it not for her. Before your mother, I was a man who would have watched the world burn. She was the one to show me how my actions impacted others, and how to care.” He let out a heavy sigh. “But that compassion has a cost, Vi. Trying to save just our Empire nearly took everything from her… Are you certain you understand what you would have to pay to save the whole world?”
“I do.” The words felt like a lie. But she couldn’t back down now and she couldn’t hesitate. She’d made up her mind.
Her father pressed his eyes closed, not hiding a wince. He slowly shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, he couldn’t seem to bring his gaze to rest on her.
“Why do you think it has to be you?”
“Because every step of my life feels like it was planned—everything led me here. You said it yourself: Solaris has a history with the weapons. You and mother have a history with the Crystal Caverns.”
“Then you are paying for the crimes of your forebears.”
“No, not just that.” Vi squeezed his hand and leaned forward. “I was born with magic I wasn’t supposed to have, in a land that knows nothing of it. I was given a watch that, somehow, connected me with the one man in this world who could help me understand myself—who had visions of my destiny before we ever met.”
“Taavin.” Aldrik turned to her. The way he said Taavin’s name gave her pause. “The young woman… the bird woman…”
“Arwin, yes,” her voice had fallen to a whisper.
“She said he betrayed you.”
“I…” Every fear raced to be the first to overwhelm her. The memory of Jayme. Learning the truth about Taavin. Seeing nothing but betrayal in Fallor and Arwin’s worlds. “He would never hurt me,” Vi insisted. Taavin had said so; she had to trust him.
“Do you love him?”
“I… I do,” she whispered. She hadn’t even managed to tell Taavin yet. But it felt surprisingly good to say it aloud. “But it’s also very complicated.”
The makings of a tired smile spread on her father’s lips. “Now you sound much like your mother, or how I imagine she sounded, when she talked about me.”
“I didn’t expect to. And I certainly wasn’t looking for it to happen. The only love I’ve ever been certain of—ever looked for—has been yours, mother’s, and Romulin’s. I’ve never thought about anything else. I’ve never considered it because—”
“You never thought you had a choice.” He stole her thoughts and gave them form. Vi must have given him a shocked look, but she couldn’t be sure—her face had gone numb. Her father chuckled and continued anyway. “You forget, Vi, I was a crown prince before I was an Emperor. I, too, fell in love with someone I wasn’t supposed to.”
“How did you navigate it?”
“It was nearly impossible… and I messed up, greatly.” Aldrik’s gaze swung to the door. “As I fear he may have,” he added very softly. Then, continuing louder, “But that love was the best thing I ever surrendered to. It gave me your mother, and it gave me you and your brother.” His palm rested on the crown of her head, stroking her hair twice like he would when she was a child.
“I don’t know if I can manage it all,” Vi confessed. “I’m scared of being hurt and of hurting him.”
“You may not have that choice. Love often decides for us. Do you trust him?”
“I do.”
“Then you have to have faith in him, his decisions for himself, and in what you just said—that he will not hurt you.”
Vi let out a heavy sigh, tipping her head back against the wall. Her chest ached and all she wanted to do was see Taavin. She wanted to curl in his arms again and merely exist quietly, hidden from the world, hidden from the pain of trying to sort through every complex and uninvited emotion she felt.
“How did you two meet?” her father asked lightly. Vi could tell the tone was forced, but the question was sincere.
“It’s a long story.”
“I think we have time.”
Vi took a deep breath, and as she let it out, the whole story poured from her.
It was a mess of emotion and facts, tangled together in a way she was certain barely made sense outside of her own head. The horrific visions of the world’s end fell heavy from her lips, the scenes of the dying men and women in the clinic tumbling alongside them. She spoke of Jayme, recognizing her own shock on her father’s face, her own anger at the betrayal in his eyes.
Vi finally spoke of Taavin. And, just like that, he transformed from her precious secret to a known person she held dear.
She detailed her trials on Meru, in the Twilight Kingdom, and finally on the Isle of Frost. Her father asked few questions, not because she was such a coherent storyteller but because he realized the telling was as much about catharsis as information-sharing. For the first time, she felt like all her burdens weren’t completely on her shoulders.
Vi’s voice was hoarse and ragged when she finished. Every detail had been explored and every truth confessed. Her father was the only person in the world other than her who knew everything.
When she finally laid down that night to sleep, Vi rested easier than she had in weeks.
* * *
Over the next three days, there was no word from Taavin or Ulvarth, which left Vi and her father to their own devices. The first day, Aldrik repaid the favor of her story with stories of his own. He elaborated further on the crystal weapons. He spun tales about his brother. And he told her stories about visiting the North when Vi was too little to remember.
On the second day they dared to ask for a deck of cards when food was delivered, both surprised when one was granted to them with dinner that night. So they played cards and discussed tactics, speculating what would happen when they finally got to Risen. The next day they discussed magical theories—not daring to practice—and played even more games.
Vi had never had so much time with her father all to herself and felt downright guilty for enjoying it. Their circumstances were terrible. But getting imprisoned with the Emperor seemed an effective way to secure his time and attention—attention Vi had never fully admitted she was starved for.
On the morning of the fourth day, they were woken by the same knight who had been bringing them food and leading them to the latrine. As usual, he strode in as though he were a god himself.
“Up with you both. We shall be anchoring off Risen shortly.”
&nb
sp; Risen. This was the city Taavin had grown up in, and the capital of Meru. Curiosity swelled in her with every step up the stairs and back to the main deck.
Sure enough, in the distance was a vast city. It was settled among rising hills that sloped to the docks and down to a wide river that cut the city in two. On one side a large castle dominated the tallest hill. On the other, a circular building smaller in overall size than the castle stretched taller into the sky.
Without needing to be told, Vi knew that the two were the residence of the Queen of Meru and the Archives of Yargen. She knew it in their opulence, and in the way their very construction seemed to square off against each other.
A city of stone stretched out before them. Buildings were packed against each other so tightly that Vi had no idea how roadways fit between them. Every one was three or four stories tall and had a tile roof with metal gutters—not unlike the buildings in that long-ago first vision of her father.
She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. His attention was still on the cityscape, and he was none the wiser. Taavin had said that her visions of the future were malleable. Had she changed the one with Adela? Or had the pirate queen taken him onto the beach before they’d arrived? Would he still end up in that square before the queen to bear witness to the plagued man in the cage?
Had she changed the designs of fate at all? Or had she merely played into the path that led to the world’s end? Vi grabbed the watch at her throat, nervous energy sparking across her skin, leaving goosebumps despite the warm air.
“It’s magnificent.” Ulvarth seemed to materialize from nowhere, leaving Vi to wonder what hole the snake had slithered from. “I imagine you’re in awe of it, coming from a land so… uncivilized.”
“It’s clear you’ve never been to Solaris, if you think us uncivilized,” her father retorted.
“I don’t recall giving you permission to speak,” Ulvarth said lightly, as if talking about the weather. “Do I need to have you fitted for a gag?”
Vi bit her cheeks, barely resisting the urge to rise to her father’s defense.
“Which reminds me… when we arrive, we shall proceed to the Archives of Yargen.”