“I can see you,” she whispered, her voice steady. “I can see you here… alone.”
“I was never truly alone.” His voice was low and warm on her skin. “I had you.”
Vi laughed bitterly. “My face was torture.”
“Until seeing you became my light.”
Her fingers curled tighter around his and Vi guided him toward her. Moments like this, moments of quiet, were so rare that they were more precious than any token or object she’d ever held.
She reached upward, fingertips smoothing along his jaw. Tilting her head, Vi guided his mouth to hers. Taavin’s eyes dipped closed slowly, as if he wanted to see her there until the last possible second.
A soft sigh escaped her at the blissful moment of warmth and rest. Their kisses had yet to solve anything for her, but they made the days so much easier to bear.
As gently and slowly as his lips had met hers, Taavin pulled away. Vi looked at him through heavy lids.
“Would you like me to heal these?” Taavin ran his fingertips over the bandages around her wrists.
“They’re fine,” Vi said, shaking her head. What she’d said to Serinia about the wounds still stood.
Taavin didn’t insist further. He must’ve seen the blood dripping from the shackles in Ulvarth’s throne room. So perhaps he had some idea of why she was allowing those marks to remain on her flesh.
“I want to show you something.” Keeping her hand in his, Taavin stepped away, guiding her toward the set of doors next to where Vi had entered from. He pulled them open to reveal a small, dark room.
There was nothing inside. No gilded statues. No signs or sigils.
On a single pedestal in the center of the room stood a plain marble candlestick holder with a flame flickering at the top. There was no wick for oil or candle wax. The flame burned impossibly, hovering just above the candlestick.
“This is it, isn’t it? The real flame.”
“Yes, this is the legendary Flame of Yargen,” Taavin affirmed. “Or what’s left of it.”
Vi took a step forward, her eyes never leaving the small flame or the dull ash collected around its base. “What about the brazier in the Archives?”
“The flame used to burn that brightly, barely controlled. Now, it’s nothing more than an illusion maintained by a few High Larks sworn to secrecy.”
That explained the lack of heat, and Ulvarth’s delight—she hadn’t immediately identified the false flame.
“Why has it dimmed?”
“I suspect because of the destruction of the other parts of Yargen’s power. The Crystal Caverns, the crystal weapons… they’re all connected.”
“We’re all connected.”
“What did you say?” Taavin took a small step forward into the room.
“We’re all connected.” She clutched her watch, thinking back to her father’s words. Members of the Solaris family had been wrapped up with the crystals for generations, likely going further back than she understood. “Fate is a road that is made, laid by the generations before us.”
“Vi—”
“And us,” she turned to face him, clutching her watch. It felt hot under her palm in a way not even burning through iron had felt. “We’re connected too, drawn together by her power. It lives in you, and in me, as it did in the crystal weapons and the caverns, and does still in the scythe.”
Vi’s hands went to the nape of her neck, slowly unfastening the watch. It was the first time it had left her neck in months, and she felt naked without it, bare before the Goddess. Taavin did nothing to stop her as Vi slowly turned toward the flame, compelled by an invisible force.
“I did what you asked. I’ve brought this to you.” Beseeching the Goddess had just as much chance of working as her tryinguncose. But she hadn’t come all this way not to try. “Tell us, what do we do now?”
She slowly lifted the watch, and as soon as it drew level with the flame, the world was overcome with white.
Wind rushed around her, soundless. Even though it should whip her hair and tug at the robes she wore, Vi remained perfectly still. Untouched.
