The world was hazy, softly illuminated. Vi crossed the room to her dressing area, standing before the mirror. Sure enough, a face that wasn’t hers looked back at her. But it seemed to ripple and shift, like condensed smoke lit by candles, and it certainly wasn’t about to fool anyone.
“See, it doesn’t sit right.”
“How are you constructing it?” Taavin made a quick circle around her, inspecting the edges of her magic.
“Trying to think of how my face could change and tweaking that—maybe like a mask of a modified version of myself.”
He hummed at that. “I admit, I’ve never tried this before… It’s a curious application fordurroe.”
“Does that mean you can’t help?” Vi’s heart sunk. He always had an answer.
“I will always help you,” Taavin said, mumbling through his thoughts. “Durroe watt ivinis much easier if you try to think of it as creating something new, rather than modifying something that’s there. I would try changing your whole appearance. Don’t even imagine yourself inside. You are vanishing, and the new form is appearing.”
Vi let go of the magic and made a second attempt. “Durroe watt ivin.” A shifting outline overtook her, still not completely whole.
“Who are you trying to replicate?”
“No one, just reinventing some things.”
“Well, that could be another part of the problem. Start with something simpler. Instead of trying to invent every last detail of someone who doesn’t exist, or tweak yourself in ways you have to struggle to imagine and keep straight in your mind. Start by turning yourself into someone who already exists. Someone you know well.”
Vi looked to the mirror, seeing her own dark eyes reflected back. She hadn’t considered that…Who should she pick?
It would have to be someone who wouldn’t raise suspicion going in or out of the fortress. Someone the warriors would open the gates for, but wouldn’t care about leaving. Someone whose every detail she knew as well as she knew herself.
Sehra, Jax, or Ellene would be too noteworthy. Andru never left and never expressed any interest in doing so.
“Durroe watt ivin.”
Vi and Taavin both stared in the mirror for several seconds, looking at her handiwork. It was a near spitting image, down to every last brown wave of hair.
“That’ll do, I think.” Taavin patted her on the shoulder. His hand went through the illusion, landing oddly underneath as though plummeting through a smoke screen.
It reminded Vi of how Waterrunners could manipulate water vapor in the air to shift the light and make illusions. For the first time, she wondered just how the elemental magicks of the Solaris Empire were connected to the power of Yargen the rest of the world possessed. Taavin had said the sorcerers in the Empire possessedfracturedmagic…
But that was a line of questioning for a different time.
Right now, the moon was already up, and this was going to be her only chance to get the information she needed.
Chapter Five
Vi slippedout of her room and into the welcoming embrace of darkness.
Patrols had increased throughout the fortress following the attack on her and the rise of the White Death. But they were still relatively scarce this high up—especially after the wall was erected. It seemed most still believed that if they stopped people from entering the fortress at the ground level, they didn’t have to worry too much about the upper levels.
She kept her hood up and face down, taking an alternate route than the one she normally wound down. Vi paused in a shadowed stair, right before the final main bridge that led out of the section of the fortress that housed nobility. A guard was always positioned here now, and this would be her first test.
“Durroe watt ivin,” she whispered under her breath. It was as if she were stepping into a second skin. The light wove around her, clinging to her as she pressed onward. Vi’s vision was hazy, illuminated by the shifting power at its edges. But she could see in her periphery that her hand had changed.
Gone was the cloak, and in its place was a simple jerkin.
Vi strode forward. The warrior glanced over her shoulder as she neared and Vi gave a small nod. She held her breath and prayed that the woman guarding the path had no interest in small talk. All remained silent, the warrior made no move to stop her, and Vi slipped further into the night.
Her heart was racing, waiting for the guard to rush after her. Waiting for some kind of alarm to be called as her guise was up. But Taavin’s quick instruction held as firm as Vi’s white-knuckled grip around the glyph that surrounded her right fist.
As Vi stepped out onto the barren earth of the stables, she raised her left hand to her lips. If she could make it through this, then she could masquerade as anyone.
“Durroe sallvas.”
