Chosen Champion

by Elise Kova

  “Oh, I don’t care if Kora hears. Kora knows everything. You’re the one who’s in the dark, Vi.”

  “What’s… everything?” Vi whispered. Her voice was so tiny, just like Vi felt in that moment.

  “See, Adela charged me with finding some new goodies…” Kora walked over. She could hear after all. “I docked up on Solaris and began listening around. Worked in the docks for a bit, got close to the Le’Dans—that was fortuitous. But it was when I was in the Crossroads that I really had my breakthrough with Jayme here.” Kora rested her hands lightly on Jayme’s shoulders.

  “You… you’re the woman Andru saw in the Crossroads.” Vi looked from Kora to Jayme. “You said you had no idea what he was talking about.”

  “I lied,” Jayme said it with an incredulous shake of her head. “You’re so damn gullible, you believed me when it came to just about everything.”

  “I believed you because I thought you were my friend!” Vi didn’t know if her voice broke in anger, or pain—likely both. The icy grip on her heart was spreading, building a cage. Every beat was slower, more strained. When it stopped, Vi didn’t know what would happen.

  “I was never your friend. I was the help. Your messenger. Your errand girl.”

  “I never saw you that way,” Vi said gently, pleading. It was already far too late. She was pleading for a girl—a woman—who had never really existed in the first place.

  “You’re a Solaris. Everyone is your plaything, your toy,” Jayme seethed.

  “So Jayme began selling us information,” Kora continued. “I hear Adela pays better than Solaris. I can’t say I’m surprised; her coffers are likely deeper.”

  “My letters…” Vi looked slowly from Kora to Jayme. The world was blurring into gray under the squalling snow. Or maybe the world had been so gray and void of color all along. “You shared my letters?”

  “It was easy enough. All I needed was to have a Solaris seal made, see to it that some official sealing wax fell into my hands. I had enough time in the palace and, like I told you once, us poor folk stick together.”

  “Those…” She felt violated, exposed, drawn out for the world to see. Her thoughts—raw emotions—poured into words only for her brother’s, mother’s, or father’s eyes, cast out to the world. “Those were mine… How could you?”

  “Like I said, easy enough.” There was no emotion there. Not one ounce of regret.

  “That was how we knew the Emperor Solaris was finally leaving the protection of his Empire, the course he’d be charting, and the vessel he’d be on.”

  “And now I’ll bring Adela his heir, and she will make me one of her crew,” Jayme said proudly. It was the pride that finally snapped something in Vi, the infuriating smugness that betrayed her frostbitten, blackened heart.

  “How could you?” Her voice rose to a near scream. “You sold my father to them? That’s my father, Jayme!”

  “A father for a father!” she screamed back, spittle flying. Her voice echoed over the water. “Your family took mine from me.”

  “Daniel Taffl was a willing soldier!”

  “My father gave more than a soldier gives. He loved your mother, and she turned her back on him. Had it not been for her, he would’ve left. But no, he stayed, and the Mad King got him.

  “My father gave his life for your family and got nothing! He was destroyed Vi, cast aside, left to die. And did your family care? No, they didn’t even go looking after him.”

  “Jax went looking!” Or so he’d said once. Vi thought he did. The details were blurring underneath the veil of sheer rage.

  “Another dog of the crown!” Jayme’s scowl deepened. “Your mother couldn’t be bothered.”

  “She thought he was dead until you showed up looking for work!”

  “Yes, and then they knew he was alive. They gave me a job. Such generosity. My father gave a life and they gave me work. And did they do anything else for him?” Jayme challenged. Vi stilled; she didn’t have an answer. “No, they didn’t. They left their mess to rot, as though they weren’t responsible.”

  Vi took a small step back, then a shuffle forward. She was pulled in every direction. Pity for Jayme, for her father, for the life they’d endured. Defense of her own family. Did the punishment Jayme was exacting fit the crimes perpetrated against her? One evil, begotten of the next, in a never-ending cycle.

  She clutched her head and let out a scream.

  “I think she’s gone mad.” Kora chuckled.

  “If you had told me, I would’ve done everything I could.” Vi looked to her friend. “You and Ellene were the closest thing I had to family in the North; I loved you.”

  “And I hated you,” Jayme responded without missing a beat. “You were a means to an end, preventing my lineage from forever being trapped under your family’s heel. I will not be grateful for your pity and scraps. I will not live without justice at the feet of the very people who saw my father harmed and cast him aside when he was no longer useful.

  “My revenge started with your father, it continues with you, and it will end when I dance on your mother’s grave.”

  Vi’s whole body trembled. A great and terrifying rage had reached a boiling point. Fissures erupted in her, power spilling out of them, feeding on a kind of hurt Vi had never known. Her heart had numbed, frozen over, and now shattered with an explosion.

  With a cry of pure agony and heartbreak, Vi’s magic exploded from her. It encircled them in a ring of flame.

  “Make her stop this,” Kora warned. “You said her magic wasn’t very good.”

  “It’s not,” Jayme assured Kora.

  The fools.

  Vi lifted a finger, pointing it right at Kora. With a horrible detachment, she uttered, “Juth calt.”

  To shatter.

  She pushed her magic into Kora, through her. The woman took a sharp inhale of air, eyes going wide. Inside, Vi strung her magic through and around every rib. She wove her power into the sinews and fiber’s of Kora’s every inch.

  So that when her glyph exploded, so too did Kora, coating the beach in carnage.

  Jayme was off-balance with shock. Her sword point faltered before she held it up again. “So you do have fight in you,” she growled.

  “You should know that,” Vi all but snarled in reply. She did not feel the fire that encroached closer as she took a step forward. But she felt the second life she’d ended already weighing heavy on her soul. “Didn’t I surprise you, after all?”

  “I won’t hesitate to attack you.”

  “I think you already have.” Vi stepped to the side in a quick motion. “Mysst soto larrk.” The sword appeared in her hand as she lunged forward.

  Jayme parried, taking a step back. Vi held her blade in place, leaning forward slightly.

  “How could you?” she whispered to the woman who was once her friend. “How could you spend years with me, telling me you were my confidant, my ally? That you were out to protect me, all the while knowing what you were doing to hurt me?”

  “Easily.” Jayme slid her blade down to the hilt of Vi’s. Vi jumped back. “And I would do it all again, given the chance.”

  “Did you ever care for me?” Vi let the sword down, throwing out her hands at her sides, as though attempting to take back her friend in her arms one last time. Tears streamed down her cheeks, evaporating in the heat before they could hit the ground. Let her friend return to her and let them wake from this nightmare together. “Did you ever see me as I saw you?”

  “Never.”

  Vi let out a single cry of agony. It was the end of her. The last shred of her innocence burning on the fire that Jayme had lit.

  “How could you?” Vi lunged. Jayme held up her sword. “Mysst xieh!” Vi all but shouted in her face, pushing away Jayme’s sword with her shield.

  They toppled onto the sand, Vi on top, Jayme’s sword pinned. The fire swirled around them, closer than ever before. She looked down at the familiar brown eyes.

  “I did all I could for you. Why w
as I not enough?”

  “You never could have been. Your name alone was all it took for us to be enemies.” Jayme spat at her face. Vi stared in dull disbelief. They couldn’t be on further ends of the spectrum. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it. It won’t be the first Taffl your family murdered.”

  “Your father is alive! Don’t you want to live and return to him?”

  “Not if I return as another pawn of Solaris! I’d rather die free than live under your rule.”

  Vi shook her head violently.

  “Kill me if you’re going to,” Jayme repeated her earlier demand. “I’m not going to grovel for my life.”

  “I don’t want to kill you!” Vi pressed her eyes closed in agony. She was pulled in more directions than she could count. But all of them held her against the woman in the sand, caught in stasis between her life and the fire surrounding them.

  “Then I’ll kill you!” Jayme began to twist, breaking free of Vi’s hold.

  They rolled. Jayme came out on top. Her sword drew back—point toward Vi’s chest.

  The world held its breath for a moment alongside Vi Solaris.

  She saw everything in perfect clarity. Her one-time friend, illuminated by the orange light of her wild, raw magic. The face of the traitor that Jayme had exposed herself to be was superimposed over the kind eyes Vi once knew. High above them, the sun hovered, as though the Mother was watching the squabbles of her children, waiting to see how it would all unfold.

  Vi gave a soft sigh and drew back in her magic.

  Jayme let out a cry—the last sound Vi ever heard leave her lips—as she plunged her sword downward toward Vi’s breast.

  “Juth calt,” Vi whispered softly, almost gently. But what she said internally was, shatter like me.

  It was an instant kill, clean, simple. Jayme shuddered, eyes rolling back, chest bulging slightly as Vi’s magic exploded her heart from within. She slumped, slid sideways, and fell to the sand, dead.

  Vi twisted her head, staring at the visage of what had once been Jayme Taffl Graystone, willing herself to feel something. Anything.

  But there was a hole in both their chests now where their hearts had once been.

  And no feelings came.

  Chapter Thirty

  Her friend was gone.

  Her friend had never been there to begin with.

  Vi continued to lay in the sand, inches from Jayme. She stared listlessly, eyes unfocused.

  Get up! a voice urged in her.

  Why?

  The voice didn’t have a worthy retort, so Vi continued to lie there. Perhaps, if enough snow fell, the whole world would freeze over and put a great hold on everything. But the Mother was not so kind.

  The world was ending, just not by ice.

  The sound of sand beneath the hull of a rowboat brought Vi back to alertness. She finally pushed herself upward. Magic crackled off her, igniting the air with the rage that still simmered under her skin.

  She didn’t make it very far before two arms suddenly appeared, hoisting her up. They yanked her hands forward and before Vi even realized what was happening, a man clamped shackles made of what looked like shimmering glass—crystal, she realized dully—around her wrists. Her whole body was instantly heavier as the spark retreated from her.

  Darkness. Nothing but darkness within her.

  Vi slowly found her feet as the men began to pull her away from Jayme. She had to keep moving. There was nothing more for her here—her friend was gone.

  Her friend had never been there to begin with.

  Ten pirates had come to retrieve her, each more hardened and terrifying than the last. If Jayme’s devious tasks had been some kind of trial to join Adela’s crew, she couldn’t imagine what horrors these men and women had wrought in the pirate queen’s name. Vi hoped Adela had sent her best after the display she’d shown on the beach.

  A fist balled itself in her hair. Pain barely registered to her anymore. Vi’s entire threshold and understanding of what pain was had been shaken. She hadn’t even set a new baseline. But the pirates were working to do that for her.

  Whoever had a hold of her braids yanked. Vi’s mouth opened on instinct to let out a yelp. But before she could, a ball was shoved between her teeth. The gag was cold. It burned her teeth and her tongue stuck painfully to it before the natural heat of her breath warmed it from the inside out.

  “In the boat.” One of the pirates pushed her forward.

  Vi stumbled, eliciting snickers from around her. Balancing herself was awkward with the heavy shackles. But she straightened enough to look them each in the eye to convey a single thought; She had killed to get this far. They should keep treating her like the threat she was.

  The rowboat glided across the lagoon. Two men for each oar made quick work of the lagoon. Vi kept her eyes forward, ignoring the debris-littered waters, the carnage, and the conversation happening around her.

  “Who would’ve thought she had it in her?”

  “She is Aldrik’s daughter.”

  “He fought like hell, didn’t he?” Vi glanced at the man who said the last part. His eyes locked with hers and a grin widened his face. “You hear your dear ol’ dad’s name? Wanna go running after him?” The man leaned forward, getting right up in her face.

  The last person who got in her face and threatened her family was dead on the beach.

  “Well you’re too late. We got him locked up tight on our Isle of Frost… Pretty little bargaining chip, that. Can’t wait to see what Adela cashes him in for.”

  “Shut up, Edgar,” one of the other pirates snapped. “Adela won’t like you talking to her.”

  “Upset Adela, and you’ll answer to Fallor.”

  Fallor. Vi’s eyes widened and she fought the urge to try to speak. Moving her jaw only seemed to further press the agonizingly cold ball gag against her teeth.

  Of course Fallor was alive. Why would Jayme kill one of her own? They had likely been in cahoots the whole time. It must have been some kind of test, to prove Jayme’s loyalty. Or perhaps it was all a set-up to deepen Vi’s trust in her “loyal” guard.

  The hull of the Stormfrost was nearly three times the size of the Dawn Skipper, making the smaller vessel look like little more than the remnants of a toy crashed on the battering ram. Vi saw the hulking form of Marcus, face down, amid the debris bobbing in the relatively still waters of the lagoon.

  How many had died because of her? Surely, the crew knew the risks they were taking. But this was certainly more than they bargained for.

  She struggled to keep her gaze forward. She couldn’t allow herself to feel guilty. She had to worry about her own survival. That was all that mattered now.

  Ropes descended on their little rowboat and the men quickly tied them off. Vi felt her stomach sink as the vessel lurched, hoisted from the water. It clanged against the side of the ship, sheets of ice falling into the water below. Like self-healing armor, the patches repaired nearly instantly with spindly fingers of frost reaching to cover the exposed wood.

  The magic it took to create such a barrier—one that could regenerate on its own—must come from some immeasurable well. It prompted a dull, bitter thought for the darkened spark inside of her. But the ice itself jarred a different memory—her vision from the Crossroads, of the frosty beach. Given what the pirate had said… they truly did have her father, alive yet, somewhere.

  The rowboat was maneuvered back into its place and not a second later Vi was all but pushed off with a gruff, “Out.”

  Vi complied, stepping onto the main deck of the icy ship, nearly slipping in the process. She barely managed to recover. Vi tried to force her spark around her feet to give them better purchase, but it was still dark in her. No matter how hard she tried to summon the magic, it refused to heed her call.

  Vi didn’t panic. Even if she’d had her spark, she was so outnumbered it was comical.

  The crew was situated in a semi-circle around her. They didn’t brandish their weapons, but had them
very clearly at hand even though she was constrained physically and magically. Most of the crew were wrapped in heavy wool and thick furs—but some wore loose-fitting clothing more regularly associated with seafaring.

  Those would be the Firebearers or Waterrunners, Vi assumed. Firebearers because they could keep their spark right under their skin for warmth. Or Waterrunners, because the ice would not affect them nearly as much. Or perhaps they had some other magic entirely—either way, it gave her a rough estimate of the number of sorcerers aboard.

  Magic did not surprise her.

  But seeing men and women outside of her visions who were not-quite-human still did.

  While all were human-like, two had upturned noses and a pale blue flesh with shimmers of magic that ran over what appeared to be scales. There was a man like the one she’d seen in her vision with her father on Meru—he looked as if he possessed some reptilian heritage, as he bore opalescent organic plates on his skin, an elongated snout-like nose, and slitted eyes. Several were nearly-human, but with faintly glowing dots on their brows in place of eyebrows.

  “Welcome to the Stormfrost, Vi Yarl Ci’Dan Solaris, crown princess to the Solaris Empire.” A woman emerged from the center of the group, commanding Vi’s full attention.

  Her eyes held the ocean itself within, her hair held the winds of winter, and she walked with a cane held by an icy hand.

  Adela. Vi recognized her from the vision at the Crossroads. But being in the woman’s presence was staggering. An impossible amount of magic radiated from her. A large bird was perched on her shoulder—bright-eyed and ruddy-feathered. It was the same one Kora had sent the day before.

  “You are not the easiest woman to catch. But if anyone was to do it, it would be me.”

  Vi glared at her, balling her hands into fists.

  Adela ignored her silent anger, turning to the crew that had been with Vi on the rowboat. “Where’s Kora and the lady of the hour—our dear Jayme?” Just the way Adela asked betrayed she already knew the answer.