“I’m his daughter, not his prisoner.”
“You’re right, a prisoner would be better because he’d care much less about a prisoner.”
Vi rolled her eyes and looked away, doing anything to avoid his gaze. “I don’t want to bring him to Risen,” she finally whispered.
“Why?”
“Because it was someone in Risen who contacted him—claiming they had a cure for the White Death.” The surprise on Taavin’s face reassured her that he hadn’t known. It didn’t rule out Ulvarth; in fact, Vi’s bet would still be on the Lord of the Faithful. But she took solace in the knowledge that Taavin had no hand in this particular machination of Ulvarth’s. “Why do they want him?”
“I don’t know.” Taavin shook his head. “I had no idea he was summoned.”
“Then I’m inclined to believe it’s not a good reason.” Vi stressed. “I always told you that you’d have my undivided attention to figure out the watch—the scythe—as soon as my father is safe.”
“But your father will always be at risk.” Taavin grabbed the helm, standing right in front of her. “How long will you make the world wait in the name of your personal problems?”
“As long as it has to, because a world without my family is not a world I want to live in.”
“None of us may have a world if you keep dallying.”
“I amnotdallying.” Vi glared up at him and fought to keep her voice hushed.
“Every delay brings us closer to the end. Raspian’s power is growing exponentially by the day. You’ve seen it. You must surely feel it, perhaps better than I. You can’t deny it. And yet you stall.”
They were in a deadlock, each holding a peg on the helm’s wheel. Vi gripped and released the wood several times. It felt as though they were now at the moment when he would turn the wheel west, and she would spin it east.
There was a weighted, heavy sensation. Every nerve-ending firing. The spark was alive under her skin, flushing, radiating heat.
This moment had weight to it.
It was the same sensation she felt before they had entered the Isle of Frost. Perhaps their every decision now carried so much weight that nearly each choice affected the outcome of the world. Maybe this was how an Apex of Fate was formed.
The thought sparked an idea.
“Let’s let the future decide.” Vi was acting on a hunch.
“What?”
“I’ll look into the future. I have the scythe. The watch has been broken, some of Yargen’s power unleashed. Perhaps I will see a vision; perhaps I can command them now.” Vi released the wheel, giving it to him. Taavin regarded her warily.
“And if you don’t?”
“Then we’ll keep arguing after.” Vi sat, holding the scythe in one hand. “It can’t hurt to try.”
Before Taavin could say anything else, she summoned a flame in the palm of her other hand. The bright, yellow fire burned on and around her palm, snaking through her fingers. She held it at eye level, staring, waiting expectantly.
“Vi, I don’t think…”
“It will work,” she insisted. “I will make it work.” Her grip on the scythe tightened. A shot of energy went straight through her—from the hand holding the scythe to the hand holding the flame. It tinged the flame with blue, barely visible at the edges.
“What the—” Taavin’s voice was lost as Vi was pulled into a vision.
The world blurred and overexposed before slowly fading back into place. Things were hazier than normal. Nothing seemed sharp. Vi squinted, trying to make out the shapes being painted into a dark reality.
There was an arc of blue in the darkness, and a flash of red. The blade of the scythe came into focus first, floating mid-air, quivering with her strain as she tried to push it through a tangle of red lightning.
The blue-green magic that swirled within the blade illuminated her bruised and bloodied face. She had a split lip and swollen eye, and blood streamed down her temple to her cheek from trauma hidden by her matted hair.
Out of the darkness, a figure emerged opposite her future self. The lightning was his forearm, his face the haunted, skeletal visage of death itself. His hair writhed like snakes, silvery like moonlight. His mouth was a perpetually open maw of razor-sharp teeth.
