Fiera’s attention volleyed between Vi and the soldiers. She let out a string of curses before settling her gaze on Vi once more.
“Tell me why I should believe you.” The princess lifted her sword. Oddly, it didn’t feel threatening. It felt like a challenge.
“Because I know what fate has designed.” It was the only explanation Vi could think of, and she knew it wasn’t a very good one. Yet somehow, it was enough.
Fiera sheathed her sword, turning to the carnage. “Schnurr!” she shouted. A man who looked far too young to be on the battlefield came rushing over. “See to the troops here. I do not want the Imperials to take one more step into our city.”
“Yes, your highness.” The man gave a salute.
“Honor guard, to me!” Fiera commanded. Three men and two women ran over as Schnurr ran back into the fray. “We’re going to the docks.”
They all saluted. Not one questioned her. Not one uttered a word of dissent. These men and women were ready to follow their leader to the ends of the earth or the ends of their lives—whichever came first.
Vi wondered briefly if she’d ever commanded such loyalty from anyone.
“You’re sure?” Fiera turned to her once more. Vi nodded. “Onward, then!” Fiera swept out her arm and cut a tunnel into the flame, much as Vi had.
The princess and soldiers took two steps ahead as Vi stared in awe.
The magic had almost felt like hers… It had almost felt like hers in the same way Vi would know her father’s magic from anywhere. She might be from another version of the world, but something still connected her with the woman who would become the grandmother to a new Vi.
The group plunged through the tunnel of flame. Without stopping, Fiera continued along the street. Their pace was a jog, which felt agonizingly slow to Vi. But she was in a simple tunic and trousers. The rest of them wore an array of plate and scale mail. She used the pace as an excuse to take sidelong looks at the princess.
The woman had a sharp nose and angular eyes set atop cheekbones even stronger than Vi’s own. Her hair had fallen free of whatever tie it had been in and was now knotting down her back. She was real, breathing,alive. But if the events of this world were transpiring along the same time frame as they had in Vi’s world… she wouldn’t be alive for more than a year.
Or would she?
In Vi’s world, Fiera had died in childbirth—no, her father had corrected that. She’d died protecting a crystal sword. Now Vi desperately wished he’d told her all the details. Though perhaps they didn’t matter.
Perhaps nothing from her world mattered now.
Her stomach knotted as they continued down the main street, turning off at the intersection Vi had walked with Jayme months ago. The docks weren’t far when cannon fire rattled the glass of the windows around them. All seven dropped, hands covering their heads as cannonballs ripped through the city.
“What was—” one of the soldiers began.
“The wall was a distraction,” Vi said, standing. “The Emperor is flanking you, coming from the sea.”
“You call the usurperEmperor?” The long-haired woman drew a dagger, placing it at Vi’s throat. “And just how do you know all this?”
“I—” Vi wasn’t prepared to explain, and luckily Fiera didn’t make her.
“I trust her,” Fiera interjected, rising to her feet as well. The woman holding the blade at Vi’s neck didn’t move. “I said I trust her. Put down your weapon.”
“What if she’s a spy? She speaks like an Imperialist. No red-blooded Westerner would call that destroyer of kingdoms ‘Emperor.’ She looks like she could get away with masquerading as you, even. What if they sent her to take us from the wall? What if the ship is the distraction meant to pull you away?”
“If she’s a spy, we kill her at the docks and return.” The other woman with hair cut so short it barely reached her ears rested her hand on her comrade’s shoulder. “Listen to our leader. We only have a few minutes before those cannons are reloaded.”
Ultimately, the woman with the dagger at Vi’s throat did as Fiera commanded, and they were off once more. Vi rubbed her neck as she ran and remembered Taavin’s words—if she died now, it was over.
But no, it was only over if shefailed. If she succeeded in this world and stopped Yargen’s power from being turned on itself, then it didn’t matter if a new Vi was born. Because there would be no more destruction and rebirth.
Vi’s mind was silenced as they rounded the corner and caught their first glimpse of the great port of Norin. Fires blazed in the ocean from ships that were sinking beneath its inky waters. Three large warships with massive battering rams had invaded the port, leaving debris in their wake. Each ship bore a white sail emblazoned with a golden sun.
The ships had already dropped anchor; two were using makeshift gangplanks to allow a near-endless stream of soldiers into the city. Half of the Imperial army had been crammed into those bloated hulls, and now they were encroaching on the castle of Norin, on the civilians that surrounded it, and on the troops battling at the wall from behind.
“Mother above,” one of Fiera’s men uttered in shock.
Cannon fire rang out, and they all dropped once more as shrapnel and cannon balls ripped through the paltry collection of Western soldiers and buildings alike on the docks. Vi continued to stare, watching them fall. For the second time since she’d entered this version of the world, she felt as though she was watching everything from outside of her body—a history book come to life in the darkest of ways.
