“It’s likely also something else.” Vi shrugged. She might know better, but her friends didn’t and there was no way she could explain otherwise. Just looking at the image was making her uncomfortable. It was as if she was looking at something she was never meant to see. “Who knows what this place really was, or who even built it.”
“Maybe your vision will give us insight?” Ellene suggested.
“Right. I’ll need to use my flame for it… if it goes out when I’m finished, it may be dark for a moment.”
“I think we can survive the dark.” Jayme readjusted her stance, stalwart as usual.
“All right, then.” Vi closed her eyes and held out her hand. Like a bird, her flame perched in her palm. She felt as much as saw the orb of light moving on the other side of her eyelids. When Vi opened her eyes, she prepared herself to be thrown into the vision.
This time, she wasn’t disappointed.
Once more, the world was over-saturated with white. Slowly, by the brush of an invisible artist, color returned, filling in shapes and lines that were as foreign as the last time. As she was coming to learn was normal, there was no sound filling the cavernous room she stood in.
Taavin knelt before her in stunning clarity.
For a brief moment, Vi merely studied his face: immobile, focused, sharp. Sharper than she’d ever seen it before. He looked real, almost like something she could reach out and touch…
Her hands were frozen in place, and Vi was forced to be nothing more than the observer she’d always been during her visions.
His expression was somber. He stared forward, seeing through her, but Vi felt as if he could actuallyseeher. His shaggy hair had been pushed back from his face and set. It was the first time she’d seen it not spilling over his brow, curling around the pointed tips of elongated ears.
The light of a fire blazing behind her, glowing through her disembodied spirit, cast his cheeks in oranges and yellows. His mouth was moving quickly, though the words were lost on her deaf ears, and Vi got the distinct feeling that she was watching another ritual unfold. Light peeled off his skin, spinning around his form, condensing over his hands as he continued to chant.
Taavin’s hands were folded together, holding something. A silver chain looped around them, dangling and catching the firelight. She could recognize those links anywhere. They were identical to the chain she wore around her neck.
A shadow moved in the background.
Inexplicable dread filled her and Vi fought the urge to shut her eyes.She didn’t want to see this. Somehow, she knew what was coming with a sickening certainty.
No, don’t do this.
The words drifted through her, soft as a whisper, heartbreaking as a scream.
The man continued to chant, continued to stare at the flame at her back that Vi couldn’t see. All she wanted to focus on was him and the steadily intensifying light peeling off his flesh. The world was reduced to his magic as it mingled with the bright white power that always hovered at the edges of her visions.
In the background, there was more movement. Vi squinted. She could see a figure nearing, but the darkness of the room had become so intense that it was impossible for her to make out who the person was.
A pair of feminine hands rested themselves on his shoulders. Light wrapping around them as well. The glyphs of the two sorcerers bounced and sparked off each other in the air before they merged. One spell, two casters; without even seeing the person’s face, Vi knew the stranger was reciting the chant in unison with Taavin. Just as she knew that soon, it would all be over.
The glyphs brightened and spun to their breaking point, shattering in a blaze. She watched Taavin’s head tilt back, mouth open in a soundless scream, as fire arced forward—through Vi herself—and onto him. He was immolated as the glyphs brightened to strands of pure light that wrapped tightly around him.
Vi bit back a cry of anguish as the world turned white. She kept her eyes on his face for as long as possible, watching as flames cracked through his skin, charring it instantly to ash. It was a horror she did not want to see, but she refused to turn away. She would see every detail up until the end.
She hadn’t made a sound this time when her vision ended, it seemed, nor had she fallen. Vi spun in place, looking for her mysterious ally. Panic set her heart to racing, as if somehow he could’ve already been lost to her.
What did she say to him? How could she tell him? Panic rose in her.She had to protect him.
“Hoolo!” Taavin’s voice rang through the darkness, ceasing all thoughts with the single word. It curled between her ears, taking residence in her mind with all the rightness of the world. “Vi, Yargen has spoken! She’s given you a word!”
Vi turned, looking for Taavin. But she did not find him. Instead, she saw a pair of glowing red eyes cutting through the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“You see her visions.One of the Dark Isle is truly Yargen’s champion,” the man with the red eyes spoke. “How the mighty fall…”
“Stay back,” Vi commanded, scrambling to her feet. She held out her hand, fire igniting across her fingers. “Or I’ll—”
She never had the chance to finish her threat.
