Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light as she stepped over rubble, heading first toward the carvings on the walls. There were men and women, standing among trees, carving the land and building civilization. Always among them was the single figure of a woman, an axe in hand.
She paused at the threshold of the arch, taking Ellene’s concerns to heart. Half of it had collapsed, a giant tree root stretching through the holes it’d punched in the stone. But that same tree root seemed to be helping support the ceiling of the narrow tunnel that led farther underground.
Even with her eyes continuing to fight to adjust to the dim light, it became harder and harder to see. The room opened up again; Vi felt it more than saw it. For now there were only the ghosts of light catching on the outlines of stone before her. The still, dank air felt expansive around her and Vi had the sensation as though she’d stepped into the mouth of a slumbering beast.
Taking a breath, and raising a slightly quivering hand, Vi carefully brought her spark to the surface. It shot up her forearm, running along the tendons under her skin. Vi focused on condensing the sparks into a single flame as they arced between her fingers and palm like tiny bolts of lightning. It was barely more than a candle, yet against the darkness that had rested undisturbed for countless years, it may as well have been a torch.
Before her was an expansive hall. Rows of columns at least three stories tall sloped down and away from her. Vi couldn’t tell if the room had always sloped, or if it was the weight of the jungle above it, pressing down for years on this forgotten place.
The damp aroma of water filled the air. But it wasn’t stale or moldy smelling. Instead, it was bright, fresh, as if fed by an underground spring. She’d heard of such underground channels feeding the jungles of the North from a great reservoir, but Vi had never seen one with her own eyes.
Vi moved her hand to get a better look at one of the carvings on the walls and her eyes were drawn to the flame. Suddenly, it was as if invisible fingers had grabbed her face and were stretching her lids upward and downward at the same time, holding her head in place. She felt the spark creeping up her neck, magic rattling in her skull. The flame brightened, going white hot.
No!Vi struggled against the sensation. She didn’t want a vision here and now. But all her muscles were rigid and locked, her mental resistance quickly thwarted. The fire was all she saw as it quickly consumed her senses.
All at once, Vi was no longer standing in that dark underground ruin, but in a city she’d never seen before.
The day felt sickly hot, and the aroma of death clung to the square where she stood. Her eyes darted from the sun-shades that looked more like sails extending up from the white-washed stones of the walls. Orange and red roof tiles dipped into gutters made of steel, embellished with faces that had wide open mouths to pour rain from.
To her left was a row of chairs, a throne in its center. A woman, dressed in whole bolts of draped silk, sat with an ornate crown of gold on her head. At its peak was a sunburst, pillars supporting it. Vi squinted, trying to make out the face hidden underneath the long veil attached to the base of the crown. It looked almost like the sun crown of the Empire, yet not… Vi was certain it wasn’t her mother sitting before her.
Flanking the queen were men and women, all dressed in finery with badges pinned over their left breasts. They each stared down a few short steps to the center of the square. There, kneeling before them, was a man Vi recognized.
“Father!” she called out. Her voice was muffled, smothered by the whole atmosphere of this strange place. It was then that she noticed there was no sound at all. She could hear nothing, despite seeing it with nearly perfect clarity.
Aldrik wore clothing she’d never seen him in before. It was embellished in patterns from his heels up to the long panels of the coat fastened with silver closures up to the neck. The sleeves were tucked into gloves, billowing at his elbows. She couldn’t recognize where such a cut would hail from.
Where was he?And who would the Emperor Solaris kneel to? He alone was the ruler of all civilization.
The queen spoke, her words silent, and waved her hand. Aldrik stood, looking behind him at double doors pulled open by men posted to either side. Vi squinted; the vision was growing hazy.
A burly man—no, amonster—emerged. While he walked on two legs, and had two thick arms attached to broad shoulders with a single head between them, the similarities with “human” ended there.
He had a snout much like a lizard, and his skin was armored with plate-like scales that seemed to grow naturally underneath his flesh. They extended up in small horns along his snout, running along his brow. They also extended in the opposite direction, down his long tail. When he spoke, two rows of razor-sharp teeth glinted in the light.
Vi could not hear the words, the silence suddenly suffocating.
He pushed forward a cage and within it was an even more horrifying sight. A man was slamming his head against the bars, white oozing from the splits in his skin. His eyes had gone milky, streaked with pulsating red veins of unnatural magic that bulged from his skin and ran down his cheeks like tears.
She could not hear every sickening thud of the diseased man’s body as he slammed it against the bars, but she could see her father’s wince. She could see his hands clench at his side as he no doubt fought to stand rigidly still. The vision continued to fade, the details blurring, slowly blotting out as though it were overexposed—burned away.
In a blink, Vi was back in her body.
She landed hard on her knees, hands digging into the slightly moist stones beneath her. Vi gasped for air. Her equilibrium reeled. What was real?What was that?
“It’s you.” The words were smooth and rich, and colored by a soft lilt. The voice’s timbre was deeper than the lowest string of a cello, more resonant than a war drum.
Vi slowly rose her head toward the sound of the voice.
When she had fallen, her flame had extinguished—thankfully. But the room was now lit up by the man himself standing before her. Concentric circles of light spun slowly around his feet, raising up to his knees before fading into the darkness; every few moments a new one repeated the cycle. He gave off his own illumination, and every movement seemed to trail sparks of magic through the dark air.
She recognized him from the first vision—dark purple hair, nearly black; his green eyes, the overall litheness about him. The Vi of the future had been on some clandestine meeting with this strange man who now stood before her.
“It’s you,” Vi whispered back, certain now that she’d hit her head and this must be a dream.
The man moved slowly. Every wisp of light caught along his hair and trailed off of him as he knelt before her. Eyes at her level, he stared at her, through her, with irises that glowed with their own strikingly green inner light. He looked at something in her that Vi wasn’t sure if she’d ever even seen.
“You… you are the champion?” He continued to stare at her. Vi slid back slightly, trying to put more distance between them. Her elbow ached from the fall, but the only thing she paid attention to was the man before her.
