Vi carefully gathered her hair in her hands, suppressing a small shiver at the sound of the blades slicing through. Hair fell to the ground like the remnants of her past life. In just a few moments, it was over, and Vi’s free hand played with the freshly sheared edge of her hair—now almost all one length, just past her shoulders.
She couldn’t remember the last time it had been this short.
Staring at the pile of hair on the floor, she waited to feel something. Sadness, perhaps? Her hair was part of what had connected her to her grandmother, her father, and to her Western heritage.
And yet… Vi felt very little.
She had far more important things to worry about than hair.
* * *
A firm knock on her door jostled Vi from sleep. She’d barely had time to open her eyes before Arwin was barging in.
“Up. I have breakfast,” Arwin declared gruffly, standing at the foot of her bed and holding a tray in both of her white-knuckled hands. The silverware on the tray clanked together as a result of her barely contained rage. “I will tolerate no complaints. I am not your servant girl to boss around.”
“I wasn’t going to complain.” Vi yawned and pulled herself upright. Her room was identical to how it had been when she’d gone to sleep—there was no sunrise or sunset in the Twilight Kingdom, no day or night, just the perpetual half-light of its namesake. She looked at the breakfast Arwin held and resisted the easy jab that for not being her “servant girl,” she sure looked the part.
“What are you smirking at?” Arwin muttered, setting the tray down heavily at the foot of her bed.
“I’m not smirking. I’m smiling because the food looks good.” Vi reached for the sandwich, not inspecting it too closely before taking a large bite. She wasn’t dead, and Arwin wasn’t throwing chains on her… That must mean Sarphos hadn’t told them about Taavin—or at least not told Arwin. Noct was still a wild card, but Vi suspected if he was a smart king, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least capture a valuable enemy like Taavin.
No, Sarphos hadn’t told them anything, Vi decided.
“Are you always so trusting?” Arwin’s voice cut through the silence and Vi’s thoughts like a sharpened axe. “Eating food put in front of you by strangers without so much as a sniff?”
“If you had planned to kill me, you could’ve done it when I was sleeping, or in the bath, or the first moment you saw me.” Vi took another large bite for emphasis. Arwin looked away, staring out the window. When she wasn’t glowering at Vi, there was a softness to the woman Vi was unaccustomed to. “Why are you so mistrusting of me? I told you I’m not Faithful and I mean no harm to your people.”
The woman tensed. Vi could see the biceps in her folded arms tighten over her hands tucked by the insides of her elbows. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt today and the lines of her bulging muscles were on display. Perhaps another show of power, another subtle threat.
“You truly know nothing, do you?” Arwin said almost delicately. Her steely eyes drifted back to Vi. “You’re really from the Dark Isle?”
“I am. And I know a great many things… But I admit there are serious gaps when it comes to knowledge of your land and people.” Vi paused, allowing Arwin’s continued scrutiny. “But I would like to learn.”
“Why?”
Once more, her original question popped into her mind. What had happened that led to the morphi—Arwin—to have such a deep mistrust of all outsiders? Sarphos’s words the night before still clung to her thoughts as well:Why was Taavin a monster?
Vi wasn’t sure she wanted the answers, but she needed to know all the same.
“Why not?” Vi asked simply. “Aren’t you curious about the Dark Isle?”
Arwin held her gaze for a long moment. Just when Vi thought she was about to give in, she uttered a simple, “No.”
“But—”
“Finish your food. My father is waiting for you.”
Vi did as she was told, and quickly donned fresh clothing in much the same fashion as the articles she’d found yesterday. She didn’t really need to change—what she’d gone to bed in hadn’t gotten dirty. It just felt good that shecould.
Arwin led Vi down the tower, across the walkway, down another flight of stairs, across a hall, down yet another spiral staircase, and into what Vi would best describe as a council room. The walls were stone, vertical tapestries running from floor to ceiling depicting champions with dotted foreheads standing victorious in battle. Between the tapestries hung weapons, the low light of the glowing stones hung above the center table gleaming off their polished edges.
“I’ll get my father.” Arwin stepped forward and around the table toward the back of the room. Vi watched as the woman swung her arm in a circle, magic rippling across the wall like waves in a pond. The stones shifted, shimmered, and changed right before her eyes, redesigning themselves in the shape of an archway.
Vi had been watching the whole time, yet, if pressed, she wouldn’t be able to tell someone how a solid wall transformed itself into a door. Luckily, Arwin didn’t look back before slipping through the new passageway. She didn’t see Vi’s awe.
With nothing to do other than wait, Vi began to inspect the careful stitching and bright dyes of one of the tapestries. But she didn’t get far before Arwin and Noct appeared in the archway.
“Your highness.” Vi dropped to a knee.
