It was not the world she’d known. The Twilight Forest had vanished before her eyes and was now replaced by a city appearing through shadowy trees that barely had form. With every step closer, there was a brief flash of air, then sound, then light.
Vi emerged from between two dark trees, which seemed now more solid than shadow, and collapsed to her knees. Surrounding her were shards of pale blue stone; they fell off her, like shards of glass, fading to a dull black stone as they hit the ground. She gulped in heaving breaths. Air had never tasted so fresh, or felt so good. Her eyes were blurry, face wet. Vi didn’t know if it was from involuntary tears brought on by pain, sweat from the exertion, or immense relief to have made it through.
Likely all three.
Vi rubbed her eyes, sank to her heels, and blinked, taking in the new world before her. It was a city nestled in a valley. Tall ridges extended up on all sides, lined with the same dark trees that were now at Vi’s back. It was as if the trees were made of smoke—less solid the farther back one went, turning into wisps of magic that trailed up to form a hazy barrier around the Twilight Kingdom.
A metropolis of wooded magic lit up before her. Large buildings with rope-bridges suspended between them towered overtop wide fauna that served as roofs for bustling markets and businesses below. The construction reminded her somewhat of the North, but with more glass and fitted stone.There were no Groundbreakers here, Vi reminded herself.
There were balconies of glass, shining in the moonlight. Some homes had siding that looked like dark metal laid in a pattern that reminded Vi of snake scales. Wood blended into metal set into stone. Nothing seemed right, yet it all connected.
Vi’s eyes drifted upward to a moon that had never felt so close. She swallowed hard, her vision of the world’s end seared in her memory. Like that vision, this moon, too, was rimmed in a bloody corona, stretching out into the stars scattered on a perpetually dusky sky.
Even here, Raspian had sunk in his claws. Vi wondered how long it would be until the moon in her world looked much the same. And that was when a terrible thought crossed her mind…
What if Taavin’s injuries were not fully a result of Fallor’s attack? What if the voice was falling prey to Raspian’s effects on their world? And if he was—what did that mean for her own susceptibility to the spreading darkness?
Vi gripped her knees, hanging her head. Perhaps that was why, despite Taavin’s allegedly superior healing abilities, he was so injured. Vi sniffed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Memories of the White Death—of the clinic in Soricium—drifted through her mind.
No.
She wouldn’t let this be his end.
Vi struggled to her feet, using the tree next to her for support. Somewhere in the city beneath her were clerics. She would find one and she would bring him or her back to Taavin by any means necessary.
With one shaky footstep after the next, Vi descended into the Twilight Kingdom.
Chapter Eight
Vi madeshort work of the walk down the grassy, sloping ridge that ringed the bustling metropolis. Leaning against the back wall of a building right at the edge of the city—Vi took a quick assessment of herself.
Her clothes were ratty and torn. They were sun bleached and salt damaged, hanging like rags on the line that was her too-thin frame. Vi pressed at her stomach and hips. There was less muscle there than she was used to and far less than she’d like.
Rubbing her temples, Vi tried to maintain her focus. It was a difficult task. Her head was still splitting and she could feel the invisible scars of Raspian’s infernal lightning on the underside of her skin.
“Think, Vi,” she commanded herself. Hearing her voice aloud helped her brain return to task. She glanced around the corner, looking at the group of people lounging on a shared patio area between two buildings.
They didn’t seem to notice her, too busy carrying on laughing, drinking, and playing some kind of game Vi couldn’t see and doubted she would recognize. She mostly ignored the conversation—which, fortunately, was carried out in what she knew as the common tongue—and focused on the people’s faces. They each looked very much like what she would expect of a human… save for their eyebrows.
Dotted across their brows were faintly glowing spots like those Fallor sported. Every individual seemed to have a slightly different color and pattern. Vi leaned back, running her fingers along her own brow in thought.
There was no way she could create anything convincingly similar without using some kind of Lightspinning. Which meant she’d need to hide rather than masquerade. Perhaps there were humans among them, and Vi’s worries were ill founded. But the Twilight Kingdom went to great lengths to protect itself from outsiders, and Vi had yet to see any non-morphi. She wasn’t about to take a chance.
It took three side alleyways before Vi found one that wasn’t swarming with people. Two men lingered at the opening by the road, their backs to her. Neither so much as looked over their shoulders as Vi slipped in, grabbing a dishcloth off a drying line and quickly tying it around her forehead.
She adjusted it several times, making sure it was secured tightly—tight enough to contribute to her already-throbbing headache. Vi ignored the pain, focusing on running her fingers over her brow and making sure everything from just above her eyes to halfway up her forehead was covered.
It likely looked ridiculous. But given the sorry state of the rest of her, a dishcloth bandanna was the least of her worries. Vi held her breath and kept her strides even as she approached the two men.
Calm—she had to be calm, even when it felt like everything pointed to her being immediately discovered as an interloper.
“Excuse me?” Vi asked. Both men turned, startled to see her. Vi folded her hands, keeping her eyes mostly down in an attempt to be demure and nonthreatening. Just because she was willing to fight tooth and nail for her and Taavin’s survival didn’t mean she wanted to. If it came down to that, her odds didn’t look good.
“Yes?”
“Do you know where I can find the nearest cleric? I don’t regularly come this way… and I’m a bit turned around.”
“Cleric?” The man repeated, looking to his friend. The other shrugged.
