“Rise, child.” He spoke to her, but his focus was not on her. Rather, the king gave far more attention to the small wooden box he was carrying. Noct set it down on the table reverently.
“Are you certain, father?” Arwin asked. For once, she didn’t sound indignant. She sounded… concerned. Worried. Ominous.
“I am.” Noct turned his gaze to Vi. “My family has protected this with our royal shift for generations. But it is time for the weapon to be among the world of men once more.”
He placed his hand down on the box and, in a single blink, it transformed into something entirely different.
Vi’s eyes focused on the item wrapped tightly in a deep purple velvet. Time weighed heavy on the fabric, parts threadbare; the gold cord fastening was gray with dust. While Vi couldn’t see through the wrapping, it left little to her imagination: a long pole, connected to something flat and curved at one end—a scythe, she’d surmise. Though that only made her more confused.
King Noct rested a hand on the non-bladed end of the weapon, then finally looked up at Vi. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
Her eyes stayed glued to it. The watch was heavy around her neck, hot enough to nearly burn her skin, but Vi hardly noticed. A piece of her had been torn from her body, thrown into a different place and time. The surreal feeling raked up her spine and sank into her skull, impossible to shake, as she stared wide-eyed.
“I don’t,” Vi said, her voice almost quivering. Though something insisted she did. She knew what it was… but not with her eyes. With something deeper rooted and less explicable.
“The prophecy you mentioned… you said you were chosen by Yargen as her Champion,” King Noct began. “It reminded me of a piece of lore passed down in our family, generation to generation, dating back nearly a thousand years. My father told it to me, and his father to him—generations preparing one another should what I believe to be this moment ever come to pass.”
Her heart was beating so hard Vi could’ve sworn she heard the watch chain rattling around her neck.
“This is not of the Twilight Kingdom. We were merely the holders of this relic—protectors or curators, if you will. It came from your Dark Isle.” She should feel excited by that fact, shouldn’t she? But all Vi felt was sickness rising. The surreal feeling of having one foot in the present and the other somewhere else lingered—her body torn in two. “I was told that long ago, it was used to cultivate the land of the Dark Isle so that it would be fertile for eons to come, giving life to the magickless people who sought refuge there. But its powers could easily be used to end that same life.
“A man, the grandson of Yargen’s last Champion, smuggled this off the isle to ensure it never fell into the wrong hands.”
“How did it get to the Twilight Kingdom?” Vi murmured. Her voice felt like it was echoing from a distant place.
“Queen Lumeria has sent spies to the Dark Isle over time. One of those spies was a morphi… back then, tensions weren’t as high with the Faithful.”
“Why were there spies?” She should be offended by the idea. But Vi had felt very little since the wrapped item had appeared. All she could feel was a deep need tosee it.
“To ensure those on the isle weren’t disturbing forces they shouldn’t.”
“A lot of good that did,” Vi whispered. Raspian had been locked away in the Crystal Caverns, the destruction of which led to the rise of the Mad King Victor. That set in motion a series of events that ultimately led Vi to where she was now.
“So it would seem,” Noct agreed solemnly. “But that long-ago descendant of the Champion saw this weapon preserved for the future Champion—perhaps for this very moment.”
Noct reached forward and Vi watched as he undid the knots of rope keeping the velvet closed. One of the braided tethers nearly disintegrated beneath his fingers. Vi’s heart raced until the fabric was at last thrown back—
All at once, her heart stopped.
There, shining dimly, was one of the four legendary crystal weapons. She knew it was true without needing further proof. She knew it in her marrow.
It glowed with a faint blue light, a microcosm of stars trapped beneath its glassy surface. Vi reached out a hand. She was drawn to it with an undeniable pull. She couldn’t turn away if she tried.
Her fingers brushed the top of the blade.
The hazy light that surrounded the weapon slowly drifted over her hand and up her arm, before fading completely into her skin. It swirled within her, like a dust storm over the desert.
The desert.
Images flashed before her eyes, so clear Vi could swear she was standing at the event itself, watching them play out. There was an Eastern man with hazel eyes, working his way through a humble city that was ancient Norin. A shift in the magic, a spark of blue light, and he was now at the docks, speaking with another, passing over the velvet-wrapped parcel. Another shift, and Vi witnessed the man turning away from his precious heirloom.
A chill ran over her as Vi jettisoned back to the present. The sensation of being in two places at once had finally abated. Perhaps because she’d finally seen what she needed to—what the goddess had wanted her to see. Vi lifted her hand away from the weapon, the dim shimmer of magic clinging to her fingers for several seconds before fading.
She turned to King Noct, her voice barely a whisper. “It is a crystal weapon… But what do you want me to do with it?”
King Noct and Arwin were a half-step farther away than she remembered them being. They both stared at her with wary, awe-filled eyes. Vi took a slow breath, not daring to ask what they’d seen when her senses were overtaken by a time long past. She didn’t want to know. With one touch to the crystal weapon, something within her had changed, and she wanted no additional proof of the fact.
“I want you to do what you were chosen to do—use it to save our world.”
