There was no way it was the same traveler who had spoken to Sehra. No possible way. That meeting had to have been more than twenty years ago. Yet was it truly just chance she’d heard of two different mysterious travelers with knowledge of Yargen so close together?
“What did she tell you?” Vi dared to ask.
“That my visions would reveal the locations of the apexes of fate—landmarks on the path of a dying world where my destiny overlaps with the champion’s. That the champion holds the key to fueling the flame once more, and making sense of Yargen’s will.” Vi snorted, then laughter exploded from her mouth. Taavin blinked out of sight for a second and she quickly re-drew the glyphs fornarroandhathin her mind, securing them back around her hand. A frown crossed his mouth. “Just what is so amusing?”
“I can see why you hate me so much. I haunt your dreams and then, when you finally meet me, I’m absolutely useless.” Vi gave another self-deprecating laugh. When it came to magic, it seemed nothing she did would ever be enough, in any direction. There would always be someone she was letting down.
Her laughter subsided as she became keenly aware of Taavin’s stare. Vi turned up her face to look at him, waiting for his retort. The silence stretched on, and his eyes traced her features what must have been a thousand times.
Vi forced a smile and ignored the tension. She didn’t want it to be there. There wasn’t time for it. But before she could think of another substitution for discussion, he spoke.
“I never said you were useless.”
Vi swallowed. His words tightened her chest and stomach. Some kind of relief punched her in the gut, leaving her breathless and stinging in a way that was foreign to her. Was she really so desperate for affirmation that she was doing all right?
“Well, perhaps I can continue to prove I’m not by helping you find the next apex? Do you have any ideas from your visions?” She resisted asking if she was present in these visions.
“I’m still working to discern their meaning.”
“What do you have so far?”
“It makes little sense…” he murmured, pacing back and forth twice.
“You have someone to be a sounding board off of,” Vi reminded him. Given how he acted, and all he’d said, Vi suspected it was a relatively new development for Taavin.
“I doubt it’ll be much clearer for you.”
“Will you just let me help?” She threw her hands up in the air and the magic disappeared. “Oh, by the Mother,” Vi muttered, holding out her hand again. She took a breath, finishing a string of curses, and then uttered, “Narro hath.” Taavin reappeared. “Sorry about that.”
“You’re persistent, aren’t you?” He tilted his head slightly. When he did so, the bottom of his hair nearly touched his shoulder.
“I’ve been told I can be when something piques my interest.”
“I’m glad the end of the world has inspired your curiosity.” Vi opened her mouth to say thathewas the one who had, but before she could, Taavin saved her from herself.
“I have seen a room, dark, two women standing before a single flame. Roses and wheat…”
“Not enough to go off of,” Vi reluctantly agreed with his earlier sentiment. “At least for that one. Any others?”
“In my dreams I have also witnessed a throne room—covered in the crystallized fragments of Yargen’s magic. A dying man who was tainted by touching godly power with mortal hands.”
Vi sighed softly, wishing it were a clearer lead. “That sounds like something more on the Crescent Continent than here.”
“It is unlike any throne room I’ve ever seen on Meru.”
“Is that all?”
“Do you know anywhere called Eye-owe?”
“Eye-owe,” Vi repeated, then shook her head. “It doesn’t ring a bell. What’s it like?”
“Something about a temple, perhaps?”
Vi thought back to all her maps. She certainly didn’t recall any temples named Eye-owe. But, given the North’s opinions toward marking their ruins, she couldn’t exactly rule it out.
“One more has been clear and reoccurring,” he continued when it was clear she had nothing more to add. “Though I doubt it’ll be any clearer for you. I see two women by a statue. I see a tall tree, towering above them.”
“That statue…” Vi shifted to the edge of her bed, an idea dawning on her. “What does it look like?” She knew what he was about to say before he said it. Vi could already see it with perfect clarity.
