by Kova, Elise
“Sehra, we can seek out another cleric.”
“No need.” Vi paused at the door. “You did well, but things are only beginning. The vortex still spins.” And the only one who could end it was her.
“Sehra!” Vhalla jumped to her feet.
“If that is the name you choose.” Vi gave her one last smile and slipped out the door, walking away from the lives of Vhalla and Aldrik one final time.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sea mist sprayed her face as Vi sat serenely in the rowboat that carried her far out around the corners of the cliffs of Oparium. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, feet tucked under her. She swayed with the rolling of the ocean, never off-balance, always expecting the next wave that would jostle the little vessel.
The pirates who were escorting her, however, had less luck. They were tossed back and forth in the gray seas. A storm brewed on the horizon; Vi searched it for red lightning.
The Stormfrost stood anchored in a wide-mouthed cove. The mist that peeled off of it in sheets acted as a natural camouflage, mostly obscuring the vessel in fog. But there wasn’t much travel in these waters yet. Victor had died a mere day ago, and significant rebuilding had to happen before anyone was trading in the seas around the Dark Isle.
The pirates gave her wary glances from time to time, more when they hooked up the rigging. The natural magics surrounding their bodies, the ones Vi was learning made up every living thing, vibrated with apprehension. She made them anxious, which amused her.
At least, she thought it was amusing to her.
One of the men reluctantly offered her his hand to help her on deck and Vi accepted it. He went rigid at her touch and then massaged his palm when her fingertips left it. A smile quirked her lips. Yes, these mortal anxieties were, indeed, amusing, much like she imagined a mother would be amused by their child fretting over a rip in the dress of a beloved doll.
“I was beginning to wonder when you would come,” Adela griped, tapping over to her with her cane in hand.
“Everything in its own time. No sooner. No later.”
“Yes, well…” For the first time, even Adela seemed off-put by her. “Your friend is below. I trust you remember the cabin.”
“Thank you,” Vi said and gave a nod.
She descended belowdecks as Adela shouted, “Raise the anchor! Let’s get out of this backwater place!”
A woman emerged from a cabin door. Her bright blue eyes met Vi’s and they were flooded with relief. Deneya threw her arms around Vi’s shoulders. Vi slowly lifted her arms and gently patted the woman’s back as she believed a friend would.
“It has been forever.”
“Not that long.”
“Okay, you’re right, it’s been about a year.” Deneya laughed, pulling away. Her face suddenly became somber. She scanned the otherwise empty hall. “Where’s Taavin?”
“His consciousness returned to the watch. Why? I do not know. It was his will I believe. The watch is within Vhalla’s possession and the essence of Yargen that his body was constructed from is within me now.”
“Okay… that was a lot.” Deneya clasped her shoulder, giving her a light shake. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I only followed half of that. And that’s okay but, Vi, what really happened?”
“I have told you what has happened.”
“No, I mean, with you.”
“I have told you what has happened,” Vi repeated, slightly more curt. She couldn’t blame the mortal for not fully understanding, but it would be tiring to say the same explanation over and over.
“No, you’re…” Deneya trailed off again. Confusion furrowed her brow. “You’re different now.”
“I know.”
“It’s all the crystal magic, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Deneya stared at her expectantly. Vi suspected she was waiting for her to explain further. But Vi didn’t make even a remote effort to do so. It was clearly too much for Deneya to understand.
“How are you holding up?” Deneya asked delicately.
“I’m fine. Do you have it?” Vi shifted the topic of conversation.
“What? Oh. Yes.”
“Show me.”
Deneya led Vi back into the cabin. It was the same as last time—two bunks on either side of a small window. Beneath the window was a table and on the table was a golden box.
Vi opened it and, with her new eyes, saw the glyphs of a thousand divine words swirling around every speck of ash.
“When they find out the flame is gone, they’ll likely kill the Voice for it,” Deneya said gravely.
“She served her duty to this world.” Vi hoped the words would cheer Deneya, though they didn’t look like they did. “She was meant to die.” Still, no change in her expression. Vi sighed. “You see, because she died, I will be able to become—”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Deneya interrupted. “What I don’t understand is how you can say it that way.”
“What way?” She’d merely been stating fact.
“As if someone’s death means nothing.” Deneya approached her. “When I last saw you… you negotiated with a pirate for a single boy’s life who was nothing more to you than a friend’s lover—a friend from another world, even. You enlisted in the army just to save the daughter of a woman you’d once called ‘friend.’ You fought fate to save a man whom you, in fact, had no relationship with, because he shared the same face as the man who’d raised you.” Her purple-ringed eyes searched Vi’s. “What happened to that woman?”
“She’s gone,” Vi said, lightly touching Deneya’s forearm. “But it’s all right, because I am here now. I will protect this world.”
“I don’t know who you are. And I don’t even know if I want you here.” Deneya shook her head and stepped away. “What Champion sees the lives of those they’re sworn to protect as forfeit? What world is worth protecting if everyone in it is just a piece on some game board for higher powers?” Deneya waited for a response, but Vi kept her mouth closed. She could see the woman didn’t really want to hear anything she had to say. With a sigh, Deneya opened the door. “If you need me, I’ll be on deck.”
Deneya was in pain. The idea of people dying still hurt her. Vi looked to the ashes for solace. Deneya couldn’t see the lines of magic that connected everything and everyone to keep the world in balance, like Vi could. She didn’t know how life continued on within those unseen connections.
She was oblivious to the meaning in everything.
That was all right. A slight smile crossed her lips. Mortals could be like that, couldn’t they? And their shortsightedness made them endearing.
She sat on the lower bunk that did not look like it had been slept in. She took the open box, placed it in her lap, and remained transfixed on its contents.
“But you understand, don’t you?” Vi whispered.
I do.
“You will help me see that all these deaths have meaning? That there is no pointless suffering… even if they cannot see how their pain has a hand in fate?”
I will.
“Thank you.” Vi beamed from ear to ear. “Is now the time?”
Not yet. Enjoy your final hours on this earth.
“When it happens, will it hurt?”
No, it will not hurt. When it happens, you will not feel anything.
“Good,” Vi murmured. She closed her eyes, thinking of the most logical path to Salvidia. It would take them at least five days to get there. That was a lot of time to sit with a goddess. “I would like to ask you something.”
You would like to ask me a great many things.
“True.” She chuckled faintly. Laughter felt weird now. Even breathing felt strange, as though it was an unnecessary task her body insisted on doing. Yet, when she tried to stop, her lungs burned until her mouth gave in. “Tell me of the world beyond Salvidia? Tell me what lies beyond the seas, beyond the large continent to the southwest of Meru?”
You wish to know of the whole world.
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“Yes.” Vi closed her eyes, remembering the vision Yargen had given her of the room high above the world. The place where everything was seen and known.
You will know it, child.
“When?”
When we reach the final stop on your journey, I will give you the opportunity to know everything.
* * *
Vi stood on the deck of the vessel as they approached the isle of the elfin’ra. It was a barren place, with stone structures cutting up the horizon like pretend mountains. Somewhere, in the center of it all, were those ritualistic ruins that had stood for centuries. The same ruins Vi had seen in one of her early visions.
In that vision, there had been a body wrapped in a bag. A blood-offering had summoned Raspian in the failed future she’d been born into. Taavin had explained to her then that there were three ways to summon Raspian—the blood of the Voice, the blood of the Champion, or the ashes of the flame.
In this world, Vi came willingly. They would not need her blood because the ashes of the Flame of Yargen would be freely given to summon the dark god.
“I’m not asking my crew to get any closer,” Adela grumbled at her side. “I hope you’re a strong swimmer.”
“Give me a rowboat, that’s all I require.”
“Fine, then our deal is done.”
“There are terms that persist.” Vi faced the pirate queen. “The boy Fallor.”
“Yes, I understand, I’ll never touch him.” Adela looked forward. “Now stop staring at me with those creepy eyes.”
Adela feared her now, too. The fear that vibrated at her edges was different than the others. Adela still denied being afraid to herself. The pirate had stopped allowing fear to enter her mind long, long ago. So the fear was suppressed and muted. But it was fear, nonetheless.
Adela demanded a rowboat be readied. Vi followed close behind.
“Here’s your rowboat.” The pirate queen motioned to the vessel. “Now I’ve done all you asked. Tell me of these passageways into the Archives.”
Vi looked at Deneya. In her hands was the box holding the ashes of the Flame of Yargen. Just from the way she held herself, she stuck out in the group of pirates. She could never fit in here, and Adela would take her far from Risen if Vi didn’t do something.
Perhaps Deneya had been wrong, and there was just enough humanity within her to save an old friend. Vi silently thanked Yargen for making her wait to absorb the last part of the goddess’s essence.
“Deneya will show you the passages. Take her back to Risen.”
“I’m coming with you,” Deneya said, stepping forward.
“No. This is not a place for mortals,” Vi said softly. “Go back with them to Risen, and show them what you know of the Archives.” Vi suspected Deneya had learned much when she’d gone to procure the Flame.
Deneya searched her face and Vi tried to silently encourage her agreement. This was the only way she would get back to Risen. Vi was out of negotiated trips.
What Deneya did once there was up to her. She could try to flee. Or she could tell them about a passage into the Archives, only to have an ambush waiting.
“All right.” It seemed Deneya was smart enough to figure those things out. She stepped forward, awkwardly hovering before Vi. “Be careful saving the world, I guess.”
Vi nodded her head. “All will be light.”
With the box in hand, Vi sat on the railing of the Stormfrost and swung her legs into the rowboat with ease.
“Lower me,” Vi commanded, and the pirates followed her orders. As soon as the rowboat met the water, Vi glanced at each of the ropes holding it. With juth calt, she destroyed each one. Then, she envisioned the glyph for kot sorre in the water behind her. She pushed it forward and the skiff moved over the waves toward the isle of the elfin’ra.
A group of men and women had collected on the beach. They’d likely been drawn over by the sight of the Stormfrost in the distance. In Vi’s world, this meeting might have been the moment Adela crawled into bed with the elfin’ra. Perhaps even in this world, the pirate queen would’ve allied herself had it not been for Vi sending Adela away.
The skiff beached itself and Vi released her mental hold on the glyph. The elfin’ra surrounded her in a semicircle. They whispered under their breaths, but none made any motion to attack. They all watched as Vi stood and stepped onto the sand and surf of an island that had been surrounded by an impenetrable barrier for thousands of years.
Finally, a man stepped forward. Vi recognized him from her vision and assumed him to be some sort of high priest of Raspian.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am here to meet with your lord,” she said to him. “I have brought you the ashes of the Flame of Yargen so that you may summon him. And so that we might once and for all bring an end to the vortex.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The high priest led her down a beach path that quickly became gravely as it meandered between boulders and then buildings. The isle on the whole was smaller than Vi had expected. Yet she wasn’t surprised by its size. No, she was surprised; but the goddess who was taking over her mind and body was not.
“Why would Yargen come to us?” the high priest asked casually. He was merely curious, not disbelieving.
“Because this world is held in balance by him and—” Vi almost said me “—Yargen. Due to the actions of man, it has been thrown dangerously out of order. I have been working to correct it for thousands of years.”
“You?” The man looked her up and down with his red eyes. “You are her Champion?”
“I am.” There were murmurs at the admission behind her.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t slay you here and now and use your blood to summon my lord?” The man grinned wickedly at her. “That way he might usher in a new age of darkness without the burden of Yargen’s strongest warrior.”
“Because you cannot kill me,” Vi said lightly. Part of her was amused at the idea of them trying, though Vi couldn’t tell if that was her own feeling or the goddess’s. “And because I bring you the ashes willingly.”
“I say we kill her now,” a woman shouted behind her.
A man clearly agreed because he lunged for her. Vi turned her head and thought, juth calt. He seized and fell to the ground. Another woman screamed and rushed over to him, shaking him as a trickle of blood came out of his pasty lips.
“Foolish,” the priest sighed, as if the man’s death was little more than a frustrating inconvenience. Vi sympathized with the sentiment. “Please, no more of that,” he said to the group behind them. All of the others nodded in unison. “Our lord will need your blood fresh for his glorious return. To waste your life is to go against his will.”
They crossed into a desolate city square. More people were beginning to follow them as they marched through the cobblestone streets. The elfin’ra on the whole were an emaciated people with hungry eyes.
“Why do you worship Raspian?”
“I’m surprised you would ask.” The man glanced at her.
“I admit to being curious.”
“Very well… On Meru, there were once temples for both Raspian and Yargen. But after her last victory that ushered in this age of light, Yargen cast Raspian’s temple out to sea on a lone island.” Vi wondered where that isle might be. Perhaps it was Salvidia. “Unlike all the other times they had done battle, this past time she sealed him off in an unnatural way and ruled that none should worship him.”
“There were those who worshiped him before?” Vi tried to imagine a time when worshipers of Yargen and Raspian lived side-by-side. Thanks to the goddess, she had hazy visions of such a thing occurring on ancient Meru.
“Oh yes. What is light without the darkness? Or darkness without the light? I do not revere Yargen.” He scrunched his nose in a scowl, accentuating the point. “But I understand her role. I merely choose to relish the darkness. I choose the chaos his beast makes in our world. We all choose this because we believe that in nothingness exists true
equality.”
Equality through the destruction of all things… Vi certainly didn’t agree with the notion. But as the Champion of Yargen, she wasn’t supposed to. Perhaps, as he said, all she was meant to do was understand it.
They ascended an endless flight of stairs to a ridge. On the other side, a pathway sloped toward the sea. It ended on a plateau where a lone altar stood. Vi glanced behind her at the red-eyed men and women who had followed them to this point.
All these people were willing sacrifices for Raspian.
She wanted to tell them that their lives still meant something. But in their eyes, their greatest purpose was the one they stood ready to fulfill. She could see it in each one of them, how they walked with relaxed faces, as though in a trance. The closer they got to the altar, the more the elfin’ra moved as one unit, breathing together, marching together.
The moon was high as Vi crossed the threshold of the stones that surrounded the altar. At the center was the relief carving of a dragon, curling around on itself to form a perfect circle. A line had been drawn through the middle and cleaved the whole image in two, off-setting the halves. The image was meant to represent Raspian’s dragon breaking free of its lunar prison, ready to reap chaos on the world.
All those assembled moved around the symbol. They formed a second row, then a third. When everyone was in position, five complete circles of elfin’ra stood shoulder to shoulder around the altar.
The head priest positioned himself at the center of the circles, before the altar.
“Bring me the ashes,” he commanded.
Vi opened the box. This was the moment she let go of herself. Yargen had made her body with the intention of its eventual return to the goddess. Fulfilling that intention wouldn’t hurt. Yargen had told her that much.
Bringing the box to her face, Vi tilted her head down and inhaled deeply. The ashes filled her nose, mouth, and eyes. The magic they contained blinded her and burned her from within, singeing every corner of her body. But there was no pain. She felt only warmth, like sinking deeply into a familiar bed, the blankets layered so high, she never wanted to escape.