She had held him, loved him, in an impossible time and place. The light of Taavin’s glyphs began to consume him. They covered his entire form. His eyes opened and, one last time, they met hers.
Then, his gaze became unfocused. His pupils dilated. He fell to the ground, the watch clattering across the floor.
Vi dragged herself over to him. The world spun as she knelt over the body he had occupied. She touched his arm, trailed her fingers to his shoulder, gently rocking him.
“Taavin,” she whispered, staring at his wide, soulless eyes. “Taavin.” Vi choked on his name and doubled over.
She sobbed.
Tears flowed freely, her shoulders shaking. She gasped for air. The only pain she’d ever known that came close to this was the knowledge that her world was gone. That everyone she’d loved had been undone with a goddess’s broad stroke.
But this.
This.
He was gone, and she would never see him again. This was the end of their love story. This was the last moment she had with him and she hadn’t found the words to tell him how much he meant to her. She had decades with him and had never found those perfect words to encapsulate it all. She needed at least another hundred years and then some.
“Taavin, please.” A high-pitched wail escaped her. She didn’t care if half the Crossroads heard it. Let the world hear her agony. “Please don’t go,” Vi begged futilely. “Don’t take your warmth, your love—it was all I had left.” The begging was catharsis. She pleaded with the cruel gods whose game she was trapped in. And yet, without those same gods, she would’ve never met him worlds ago.
Vi buried her face into his shoulder, weeping until the tears no longer came. She expelled the last of her humanity, the last of her feeling, through her eyes. This was their curse, after all.
They had never been made for happy endings.
Finally, when the sun hung low in the sky, Vi peeled herself away from him. With one hand on his shoulder, she whispered, “Juth mariy. Come undone.”
His skin began to glow. Pure light peeled off his body like ashes cast from an invisible fire. The magic she had made that held him together unraveled all too easily. Beneath it all was the crystal she had taken from the Caverns. It was the essence of Yargen that had lived in the Sword of Jadar, the Caverns, and the scythe.
She allowed that power to flow into her, as if she could steal some of the last of his essence. After getting a taste of it, Vi couldn’t help absorbing it hungrily. It dulled some senses and heightened others. Yargen’s power was a balm to her pain and she invited it into her.
All she was missing was the Flame of Yargen.
She was nearly complete.
Blinking, Vi saw the world with new eyes. Everything seemed to have a vibration to it, a faint outline of magic that she had never seen before. In everything was both light and darkness, woven together and held in perfect balance. She looked down at her hands and saw the power of Yargen shining over top them. Tiny glyphs of words she was certain she would’ve never understood before had meaning.
The language of the gods was becoming known to her. With two of the three parts of Yargen within her, there was no Lightspinning she couldn’t do.
Taavin’s body had been reduced to obsidian dust. There wasn’t even a lock of his hair for her to keep as a memento. Vi reached for the pocket watch. It was all she had left of him, and now she had to give it away.
She dressed slowly in the same robes she wore the last time she met Vhalla in this place. It no longer felt like a costume she donned to play at fate.
Downstairs, Vi destroyed the few remaining objects on the shop’s shelves withjuth. It was an empty catharsis, and did little to make her feel better. Finally, she pulled back the curtain and lit a single candle.
Memories danced like shadow puppets in the flame of ninety-two other moments when a Vi had stood ready to perform this task. Each was a vision she shouldn’t have. Each carried an instruction for what must be done, but Vi didn’t want to expend the effort to understand what was being asked of her.
She didn’t want to think—Mother above, she barely wanted to breathe. Everything was too confusing and wholly too much. Taavin was gone, there was little reason left for Vi to remain in the world as she was. Her time was up. She was ready to submit to Yargen.
“I don’t want to do this,” Vi whispered into the darkness. Her hand was still clutched around the watch. It had been Taavin’s final wish to see it given to Vhalla to ensure the birth of a new Champion. She wanted to honor that, but… “I don’t have the strength to give him away.”
Then don’t, a voice whispered from within.Let me. I know what must be done, and you have given me enough strength to do it.
Yargen’s words were as clear as her presence. Vi could imagine the goddess standing behind her, hands on Vi’s shoulders, ready to swap places. Vi closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I leave it to you.”
Her physical eyes opened once more. But all Vi continued to see was darkness. Tonight was the beginning of the end as Vi relinquished her body to Yargen’s will.
When she came to, hours later, the watch was gone. Vi could only assume that it had been given to Vhalla, but her mind was blank on the details. Try as she might, Vi couldn’t quite graps why the watch had been so important in the first place.
