Settling into her spot at the table, Vi got to work.
“You really have a thing for maps, huh?” Arwin’s voice startled her. Vi had filled five pages in the journal and half the inkwell was gone, so she must’ve been working for at least two hours. “You burned the midnight oil here last night, and were back at it before breakfast.”
“I do love maps.” Vi looked back down at her transcriptions. She’d been sketching from memory the map Sehra had shown her, the maps she’d grown up with on the Dark Isle. Now, she was making slow work of transcribing the coastlines of Meru—comparing them to what she knew, comparing them to the morphi’s records of maps through the ages.
Two pages earlier in the journal, she’d been working on a route to Adela’s Isle of Frost.
“Here, breakfast.” Arwin held out a sandwich as she sat across the table from her. Vi took a generous bite, ignoring the smear of ink her fingertips left on the bread’s hard crust.
“Thanks,” Vi mumbled over the food, looking back at her work.
“Why do you like maps so much?”
Slowly, Vi looked up. The question was calm, genuine. There wasn’t even a hint of a jab. So Vi answered an honest question honestly.
“I told you, I grew up captive.”
“You said you were sent to the northernmost territory of your Empire, for politics and prophecy. Nothing about being captive.”
“Well, it effectively made me a captive.” Vi glanced up again from her journal, seeing pity in Arwin’s eyes. She laughed softly, shaking her head. “It wasn’t that bad. I lived a fairly good life…” Her thoughts went to Taaivn’s imprisonment. Yes, her time in the North could’ve beenmuchworse. “But maps were my window to the world, how I made sense of all the space spreading out around me that I never thought I’d get to see.”
“I see,” Arwin murmured.
“What about you?” Vi dared to ask. “What are you interested in?”
“Mostly combat.”
“Just combat? Nothing else?” Vi knew many soldiers who delighted in honing their skills. But underneath the armor, they were still people. They had passions and hobbies.
“Sometimes I sing.” Then, as if suddenly regretting the burst of honesty, Arwin stood quickly. “But speaking of combat, I should get back to training.” She nearly bolted for the door, catching herself on its frame and turning back to Vi. “So should you… I’m sure you’ll be on your way toward the end of the world soon enough, and you’re going to kill no evil gods with your current scythe skills.”
Before Vi could reply, Arwin left.
She spent a few more hours poring through the maps, working as quickly as possible to get as much information down as she could from the records of the Twilight Kingdom. There was a wealth of information she’d never be able to comb through. As Vi returned the last book to the shelf with a sigh, she scanned the room one more time.
What if, somewhere in here, was information on the scythe? Its history? The history of all the mysterious crystal weapons?
She could spend months looking through every book, searching for information that may well not be there—that likelywasn’tthere. Arwin was right, she didn’t have much time, and she had to make the most of what she had. So, clutching the journal to her chest, Vi left the library behind and made for the training room.
“I was wondering how long you’d keep me waiting.” Arwin’s brow was slick with sweat when Vi entered. A spear in her hand today.
“Thanks for waiting at all.” Vi adjusted her grip on the scythe as she crossed over. Magic flowed through her, bright and immeasurably powerful.
“You need me.” Arwin shrugged.
“I do.” In multiple ways, Vi realized. A plan had been forming in the back of her mind while she had been working on routes to the Isle of Frost.
Taavin had said there was a shift protecting the Isle of Frost, like that surrounding the Twilight Kingdom. Originally, Vi had thought to try to get Sarphos to come with them. But perhaps Vi could convince Arwin to come along to continue her training with the scythe. It was another avenue to pursue and seemed more likely than convincing the soft Sarphos to venture out on a dangerous journey. Vi wasn’t about to leave their access to Adela’s stronghold to chance.
Vi considered the best next steps as they traded blow for blow in the sparring ring.
“Remember, distance.” Arwin knocked the pole of her weapon with Vi’s. “You have to manage the distance with that thing.” Vi adjusted her feet, and Arwin held up her spear again. “Dodge and slash—catch my hip with the curved part of that weapon and pull.”
They repeated the motions again, and again. They did them slowly and at a too-far distance to start, then sped up as Vi became more comfortable. Just when she thought she’d gathered the hang of it, Arwin changed the move.
“All right, put that to the side for now,” Arwin finally commanded. Vi’s arms were like jelly, limp at her sides the moment she let go of the scythe. “Let’s practice a little bit of combat, now that we’ve run through drills.”
All Vi could do was nod. She was winded, legs exhausted, arms failing. But she wasn’t about to back down. Arwin walked over to the weapon rack, grabbing a wooden halberd. With a pulse of her magic, the polearm had turned into a wooden scythe, nearly identical to her weapon. She tossed it over and Vi was shocked she still had the reflexes and strength to catch it.
