Imperfection fit them both well. Maybe life had carved enough parts out of each of them that they needed each other to feel whole.
She leaned forward, and Taavin moved to meet her. His breath was hot on her cheeks, lips soft under hers. He kissed her tenderly, almost timidly. Vi pressed forward and Taavin’s arms tightened around her, drawing her close. A hand knotted in her hair. A sigh escaped from her lips between slow, languid, sensual motions that ignited something completely new.
Something worth holding onto as long as time allowed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The scythe sat stretchedacross Vi’s lap. Beside her, Taavin manned the helm as she ran her fingers along the smooth crystal. Magic swirled underneath her fingertips, trapped beneath its glassy surface. She’d spent the day running drills on deck with Arwin again and still felt no more confident using the weapon for battle.
“You’ll master its use,” Taavin said encouragingly from her side, as though he read her mind. “And I’ll be scouring every book on the crystal weapons the moment we return to the Archives of Yargen for anything that could help you.” Taavin pushed his sleeves back and massaged both his wrists, the golden bracelet shining in the light of Vi’s flame, before grabbing the wheel again.
Suddenly, Arwin emerged from the cabin like a wild animal. She bolted on deck, hair a golden bird’s nest, stance alert, head jerking about before her attention landed on them. “It’s close.”
“Is it?” Vi reached for her journal, opening it up to the maps she’d been referencing. They’d been sailing for about two days, so it wasn’t impossible. Her maps were beginning to get as murky as the dark waters spreading beneath the hull of their boat the further they got from the Twilight Kingdom.
“I know the shift better than anything.” Arwin turned slowly, looking to the left of the bow. “I can feel its magic in the air.”
“How far do you think it is exactly?” Vi flipped her pages, looking at the sketched grid lines and trying to estimate where on their course they were.
“I’ll know soon enough. I’m going to fly ahead and see if I can find it. I’ll scout out a good point to enter through the shift.” Arwin began to run for the bow. “For now, just stay on course. I’ll find you!”
Before Vi or Taavin had a chance to reply, Arwin had leapt from the vessel, shifting into her form as a nightwisp and taking to the skies. Vi followed her with her eyes as long as she could. But she quickly lost sight of the woman in the darkness of the early morning. She didn’t have a working clock at this moment, but the days seemed to be getting shorter, the nights longer.
Arwin returned a short time later, landing on two feet after a pulse of magic and starting right for the helm. “I’ll take it from here to get us through the shift.” Taavin stepped aside and allowed her to take the wheel. “There’s a cliffside I think we can dock by without anyone seeing, near some caves that’ll take us right into their stronghold.”
“Will they know when we’ve crossed through the shift?” Taavin asked Arwin.
“I don’t think so. They didn’t seem aware when I crossed through in my nightwisp form.” An intense look of focus was painted on her brow.
Vi stared forward at the open sea, her heart already racing. All of her maps—now safely tucked in her pack below deck—told her that somewhere in this vast ocean of nothingness was an island. But as far as she could see on the dark horizon, there was nothing but water below and a sea of stars above. The horizon remained unbroken.
There was a growing electricity in the air. The sensation of a terrible storm on the horizon pulled Vi’s hairs on end from head to toe. She glanced over to Taavin, who wore as intense a look as Arwin’s. Did he feel it too? Was she the only one who felt the edges of something transformative about to occur?
“Brace yourselves” was the only warning Arwin gave.
The ship rocked with a violent pulse of magic. Rigging groaned, the sail slumped in the still air. The world around them shifted: stars brightened, light kissed the edge of the horizon before darkening once more to the near-blackness of the hours before dawn. Vi kept her eyes open and held her breath.
Like a veil lifted, the Isle of Frost shimmered into existence before them.
It looked like a great storm on the horizon, a frigid mass of ice and snow fogging the air around a giant, craggy rock. Vi squinted, trying to see through the haze, but it was nearly impossible. The sea itself had begun to freeze all around the coast, the waves calmed by the unnatural atmosphere of the shift.
Somewhere, in all that, was her father.
Another pulse shook her. But Vi kept her feet under her, using only a hand on the deck rail next to her for support. She kept her eyes forward, waiting for the pop in her ears that signaled the shift passing.
“We’re through. Take back the helm,” Arwin said. She jumped down from the quarterdeck, heading to the bow much as she had before. “Full sails. There’s not much in the way of wind here. Follow me.” The woman leapt over the water and took to the skies as a bird.
“I have the helm.” Vi rushed to Arwin’s prior position.
“I’ll man the sails.”
They rounded the island, the only marker of their vessel the white foamy trail that faded into blackness behind them. A blustery gale picked up as they plunged into the perpetual frost swirling the coast. It crept under her clothes, clawing at every inch of exposed skin. Vi knew this cold. She’d felt it before on Adela’s vessel.
She pushed the spark forward and felt its warmth bloom under her skin. Heat radiated off of her, melting snow to rain before it could settle on her. By the time they reached the ice that ran the perimeter of the coast line, her hair was slick against her face and neck.
“Shouldn’t they have more patrols?” Vi asked in a low voice. She’d seen the first specks of light in the distance at the far end of the isle. “It seems too empty, too quiet.”
“I imagine they feel fairly confident in their barriers… and the fact that no one in their right mind would walk into Adela’s stronghold.”
