“You really think you’re a killer?” Her hands were moving to prove him wrong as he spoke. Fallor narrowed his steely eyes. “Do it then,” he challenged with a whisper. “Show me you’re a killer and not some pampered princess. Kill me, and meet Adela’s true rage.”
Rainwater shook from her quivering hand. Her fingers cramped in their grip, tighter than death, around the bow. She stared down the arrow, looking at the point right over the soft spot in the center of the man’s neck.
Kill him.
It would feel so good to kill him.
She wanted to. But she couldn’t. She was trapped between something dark and twisted that kept trying to snarl her in its thorny embrace, and everything she once thought she knew about herself. All the while, he was right there, waiting.
Was he right? Was this why she hadn’t shattered his heart as she had Jayme’s or Kora’s? She had been able to kill them in a moment of blind rage. But would she be able to kill so easily again?
No, she’d chosen this route because it would be more painful.That was it, a sinister voice uttered within her. It felt like a person Vi had never met had taken residence in the void of her chest.
“I want to kill you slowly,” she whispered. “I will see to it that none of Adela’s pirates enjoy a clean death.”
Vi let the arrow loose, aimed right for his throat. She wanted to watch the blood drain from his neck in a river. But the arrow only had time to knick his flesh before an unfamiliar voice boomed over the pouring rain. “Juth mariy.”
The bow in her hands shattered into harmless light. Vi let out a cry of anguish and readied her magic for her next assault. Enough of letting him off easy. Enough hesitation. She’d end this now.
The familiar grip of Taavin’s fingers closed around her. “Durroe sallvas tempre dupot. Durroe watt radia dupot.” They were concealed once more.
Fallor didn’t look for them. Instead, he turned, squinting in the darkness at the top of the far ridge. There, mounted on white steeds, was a line of men and women illuminated by shining orbs of blue-tinted light cast above their heads.
“Oh, holy Swords,” Fallor cursed. There was the tell-tale ripple of power that made her skin crawl and Vi watched as the man slipped between each pulse of magic, disappearing and reappearing as an eagle where a man once stood.
“We have to go.” Taavin tugged on her hand. He was going to dislocate her shoulder before the night was up. “Quickly, before—”
“Juth mariy.” The man at the head of the group shouted again. Vi could make out little more than his golden armor and dark hair. There was an uncanny similarity between him and the man she’d come all this way to find.
“Father?” Vi said, small and weak.
“Vi, this way!” Taavin pulled on her as his concealment shattered. “We have to make it to the Twilight Forest.”
He broke into an all-out sprint, leaving Vi little choice but to follow.
That man atop the steed wasn’t her father, no matter how much the armor looked like that of Solaris. She was far from that world of white and gold. Far from her home.
And her father was still the captive of the pirate queen.
An eagle’s cry sounded, punctuated by the man shouting, “Archers to the Morphi! Calvary, to them! Loose!”
Vi couldn’t hear the bowstrings over the rain and rolling thunder that followed streaks of red lightning. Neither could she hear the hooves of the large horses in pursuit of them. But she couldfeelthe beasts.
She pushed her feet harder into the earth as red lightning cracked once more, striking the forest ahead. Every leaping step she took had Vi’s free hand pressing into her side, where the flesh felt like it was tearing open anew. She was too freshly healed to be fighting and fleeing.
Taavin slowed. He was wheezing, too, his hand grasping at his shirt above his chest. Vi slowed her pace, looking back to the horses.
“Taavin, we—”
“I know,” he hissed. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked back at the horses quickly closing the gap between them. “Durroe watt radia. Durroe watt ivin.” He turned forward again, keeping close alongside her, the rings of light he’d summoned condensing around his finger. “Keep running, and don’t look back.”
Vi heeded his words, running with all she had. Taavin, for his part, managed to keep stride. But every five steps he seemed to stumble, then every three.
“Taavin—” She looked to his face with worry. His eyes were hazy and unfocused. Was he going to make it to the forest? What would happen if the Swords caught them?
“Keep, going,” he panted. “We’re almost there.”
As they ran, nearly at the trees, Taavin’s arm swung out, pointing. A tiny glyph still spiraled around his finger. Vi watched as a nearly identical copy of her and Taavin sprinted off at an angle.
