She hoped against hope, and Vi nearly let out an involuntary noise of relief when Taavin gave a small nod. He was still trying to consume the doorway with his eyes. It wasn’t enough; he slowly approached the doors, resting his fingertips lightly on the crystal barrier that seemed to have already grown thicker.
“You have the sword. The Knights didn’t get in. There’s a barrier,” he murmured, as if trying to keep it straight in his own head.
“I’m no expert at all this. But we did well, I think.” Deneya folded her arms over her chest.
“Only one thing will tell—” Taavin turned, looking down at Vi. “Have you peered forward yet?”
“Not yet.” She didn’t know if she was ready to. She didn’t know if her heart could take what she might see. If she saw a future of light, what did that mean for the rest of her time as a traveler in this world without a home of her own? If she saw a future of darkness… Did that mean the sacrifices made to get here had been for nothing?
“You have to,” Taavin said, as if he, too, was riding the tumultuous currents of her thoughts.
Neither of them wanted to hope. Ignorance would be kinder.
But the goddess hadn’t been kind to either of them when she’d given them this duty.
Vi held out the sword between two open palms and took a deep breath. She drew power from the Caverns—in through her feet, leeching it from the air like moisture to a plant. A blue flame erupted over the flat of the blade before her and Vi stared directly at it, her heart racing.
She wasn’t ready. But that didn’t matter. The world washed in white.
And all Vi could do was brace herself for the future.
Chapter Thirty-One
The light faded into darkness.
Vi blinked several times, looking around. Slowly, shapes came into focus. A thin, bright line of crimson circled the horizon perfectly. It continued in all directions. But Vi couldn’t tell if it was from an early dawn, about to break, or the last light of sunset vanishing from the world.
The color bled upward, casting the clouded depths of the sky in a bloody ombre. At the top, the clouds parted, the heavens had opened, and stars stretched to infinity. It was as though she stood on the top of the world. Everything stretched outward from this place where the earth and sky met.
A crack of red lightning struck from sky to ground. There, on the steaming rock, was the hulking, godly form of death and darkness incarnate. Raspian’s skin was red and shining, like a blood-filled ruby. From his skeletal visage to his writhing hair, Vi knew the face of death. He turned his eyes to her, snarling and baring his razor-sharp teeth.
Oddly, she wasn’t afraid.
She stood in a well of calm and strength. There was a prevailing sense of rightness with the world. Rightness at facing off against this wretched creature.
Once and for all.
Vi took a step forward without thinking. More like, the body she was in stepped forward. Most of her visions had Vi as an outside observer, but this time she was rooted in another form. A form that sprang wildflowers from barren earth with a single step.
A hand appeared in her field of vision—her hand, or the hand of the person she was in. Every color of the rainbow splashed across the woman’s body, brilliantly bright, deep and rich. The colors were so vibrant, Vi thought they’d sear into her eyes forever and make everything else seem dull.
Clutched in the woman’s hand was a blue staff.
The staff of the Champion.
Raspian tilted his head up to the sky and let out a cry that seemed to shake the earth itself. The woman braced herself, guarding against a shock-wave of magic that radiated out from the man. Vi tipped her head back and gaze skyward to see the moon had appeared in the center of the clouds. It was cracked, like an egg, a dark red yolk pouring at Raspian’s feet and collecting in the shape of a great dragon.
Still, the person Vi occupied didn’t panic. Though Vi certainly felt like she should.
As the dragon took its shape, cut from primordial essence, Raspian lifted his hand, pointing at the staff the woman still held outright.
“Let it be done,” he said without moving his jaw. The words seemed to resonate as thoughts, grating sharply in Vi’s mind. She wanted to wince, but she was subject to the vision before her.
She couldn’t turn away, even if she’d wanted to, as Raspian lunged for her. Lunged for the woman whom Vi knew at her core was Yargen herself.
Vi returned to the world with a sudden jolt, right as Raspian launched his first attack. The sword clattered to the ground as it slipped from her limp hands. Her arms swung at her sides and Vi staggered, forward and back. She gripped her head with one hand, her stomach with the other. The unnatural calm of Yargen had left her, and now Vi was filled with a panic that tasted like sickness.
“Vi.” Two hands on her shoulders. Stable, sturdy, warm, all the things she’d been missing for months. “What did you see?” Taavin asked softly.
