Chapter One
Her hands movedthrough the dark night, leaving strands of light in their wake.
Vi Solaris was illuminated by the lingering remnants of fading spells and bright sparks of sorcery that caught on the rough-hewn walls of the sparring pit. The lines cut against the darkness in brilliant streaks—concentric circles, triangles, and dots that all spun together. Every mark had meaning, crafted by her knowledge and will, and brought to life with the utterance of intricate sounds.
“Juth starys.” As she spoke, her right hand lifted. The left was balled at her side, rigid, an anchored glyph circling her wrist. It held a completely different spell in place.
“Juth mariy,” the man opposite her quickly called back, impossibly fast. Symbols flashed into existence around him, hovering before her. The glyph was the embodiment of the words he’d spoken—words of the Goddess Yargen. It crashed against her own forming glyph, snuffing it instantly. “Don’t lift your hand. You’re telegraphing your movements.”
“My mother had a problem with that, you know.”
“Not surprised, then.” Taavin lunged for her. “Mysst siti larrk!” The light sparked, running down his outstretched forearm as he moved. It condensed before his open palm, shooting out and away from him to form a short sword.
“Mysst xieh,” Vi said hastily, dodging even faster. His sword bounced off the glyph she used as a shield.
Taavin uncurled his fingers, allowing the sword to fly from his hand at the momentum. When it left his palm, it looked just as any other normal sword would. But before it could hit the ground, the weapon unraveled into thousands of threads of light and vanished. Around his other hand, fresh magic was already gathering.
She could almost see the meaning in it before he even spoke the words. She had been studying the glyphs for months now. Training with their shape and words. Vi knew what he was about to levy as the magic collected.
But she saw it too late.
“Loft dorh.”
“Jut—” Vi began to say. But his glyph had formed before she could complete the two words that, when combined, meant to destroy magic.
Her body went rigid and all movement vanished.Loft, the high-level magic to incapacitate.Dorh, the secondary for immobilization. Vi fought against the invisible chains holding her, but they were too strong. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t even move an inch. Even her mouth was frozen open, mid-juth.
Taavin stared at her. The glyph still surrounded his fingertips. His magic was elegant, carefully crafted, and twice as bright as Vi’s. She admired it, just as she admired the way its glow highlighted the deep purple of his hair and cut of his jaw; there wasn’t much else for her to do in her present state.
Finally, he lowered his hand. The moment the glyph vanished, Vi could move once more. She stumbled, found her footing, and turned to face him.
“How do I fight against that?”
“You were right to go forjuth mariy. You just weren’t fast enough.” Taavin ran a hand through his messy hair. When he pulled it back his pointed ears were visible. Whenever she saw them, it was a reminder that for the easy closeness she had found with the man, there was nothing physically close about him. He was elfin, a race that didn’t exist as far as the Solaris Empire was concerned, and he lived across the sea in Risen on the continent of Meru—a distance Vi could barely comprehend and hadn’t even known existed until a few months ago.
A distance she’d have to find a way to traverse to get to him.
Her magic tutor, her friend and confidant, wasn’tactuallythere at all. She could see, hear, and feel him, but he only existed for her. The magic Vi had anchored to her left wrist had summoned him, and would keep him with her as long as she willed without sapping her magic, thanks to the word of power the goddess had bestowed on her at an apex of fate.
“So if I can’t cancel the immobilization, I’m trapped?” It seemed a vastly unfair spell.
“As long as the caster holds the glyph.”
“Someone could keep me trapped forever?” Not that she wasn’t already trapped, in a way. Vi hadn’t left the fortress for weeks now—not since the latest and worst outbreak of the White Death had taken hold of Soricium.
“No one could hold the word forever.Lofttakes a great deal of energy because a whole person is very difficult to keep completely still. The second the caster’s magic or attention wavers, you’d break free.”
Vi looked him over skeptically. He’d shed his usual heavy, embroidered coat for their practice. Now he wore a tight-fitting, long-sleeved shirt that hid little of his lean chest and was tucked beneath a wide pair of trousers. Not one area of fabric clung with sweat.
“You don’t look like you expended a great deal of energy.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” A small grin quirked the corners of his lips. “And I am the Voice.”
Yargen’s Voice. It was a title Vi still couldn’t fully comprehend. She knew it meant Taavin was important, that he held vigil over an eternal flame said to be the last remnant of the goddess’s power on earth… And that he had been kept sequestered all his life above the city of Risen, under lock and key.
It was a situation all too similar to Vi’s.
“A similar form of incapacitation you may want to begin with isloft not—to sleep. It’s not as effective, because anything could wake the person and the spell would be broken. But it’s easier to cast and maintain. You could actually move while holding it.”
