So that when her glyph exploded, so too did Kora, coating the beach in carnage.
Jayme was off-balance with shock. Her sword point faltered before she held it up again. “So you do have fight in you,” she growled.
“You should know that,” Vi all but snarled in reply. She did not feel the fire that encroached closer as she took a step forward. But she felt the second life she’d ended already weighing heavy on her soul. “Didn’t Isurprise you, after all?”
“I won’t hesitate to attack you.”
“I think you already have.” Vi stepped to the side in a quick motion. “Mysst soto larrk.” The sword appeared in her hand as she lunged forward.
Jayme parried, taking a step back. Vi held her blade in place, leaning forward slightly.
“How could you?” she whispered to the woman who was once her friend. “How could you spend years with me, telling me you were my confidant, my ally? That you were out to protect me, all the while knowing what you were doing to hurt me?”
“Easily.” Jayme slid her blade down to the hilt of Vi’s. Vi jumped back. “And I would do it all again, given the chance.”
“Did you ever care for me?” Vi let the sword down, throwing out her hands at her sides, as though attempting to take back her friend in her arms one last time. Tears streamed down her cheeks, evaporating in the heat before they could hit the ground. Let her friend return to her and let them wake from this nightmare together. “Did you ever see me as I saw you?”
“Never.”
Vi let out a single cry of agony. It was the end of her. The last shred of her innocence burning on the fire that Jayme had lit.
“How could you?” Vi lunged. Jayme held up her sword. “Mysst xieh!” Vi all but shouted in her face, pushing away Jayme’s sword with her shield.
They toppled onto the sand, Vi on top, Jayme’s sword pinned. The fire swirled around them, closer than ever before. She looked down at the familiar brown eyes.
“I did all I could for you. Why was I not enough?”
“You never could have been. Your name alone was all it took for us to be enemies.” Jayme spat at her face. Vi stared in dull disbelief. They couldn’t be on further ends of the spectrum. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it. It won’t be the first Taffl your family murdered.”
“Your father is alive! Don’t you want to live and return to him?”
“Not if I return as another pawn of Solaris! I’d rather die free than live under your rule.”
Vi shook her head violently.
“Kill me if you’re going to,” Jayme repeated her earlier demand. “I’m not going to grovel for my life.”
“I don’t want to kill you!” Vi pressed her eyes closed in agony. She was pulled in more directions than she could count. But all of them held her against the woman in the sand, caught in stasis between her life and the fire surrounding them.
“Then I’ll kill you!” Jayme began to twist, breaking free of Vi’s hold.
They rolled. Jayme came out on top. Her sword drew back—point toward Vi’s chest.
The world held its breath for a moment alongside Vi Solaris.
She saw everything in perfect clarity. Her one-time friend, illuminated by the orange light of her wild, raw magic. The face of the traitor that Jayme had exposed herself to be was superimposed over the kind eyes Vi once knew. High above them, the sun hovered, as though the Mother was watching the squabbles of her children, waiting to see how it would all unfold.
Vi gave a soft sigh and drew back in her magic.
Jayme let out a cry—the last sound Vi ever heard leave her lips—as she plunged her sword downward toward Vi’s breast.
“Juth calt,” Vi whispered softly, almost gently. But what she said internally was,shatter like me.
It was an instant kill, clean, simple. Jayme shuddered, eyes rolling back, chest bulging slightly as Vi’s magic exploded her heart from within. She slumped, slid sideways, and fell to the sand, dead.
Vi twisted her head, staring at the visage of what had once been Jayme Taffl Graystone, willing herself to feel something.Anything.
But there was a hole in both their chests now where their hearts had once been.
