Blinking into the void above her, Vi gasped for air.
Keep moving.
She didn’t know if it was her voice or Yargen’s that commanded it, but Vi struggled to her feet. Her whole body continued to seize and tremble as the lightning created a cage over top of her, pinning her to the ground.
A clawed hand closed around her neck. The red magic sank back into Raspian’s arm as he hoisted her into the air. He held her aloft as she gripped at his forearm, gasping for breath.
“An age of darkness will rule this land once more.” His terrible voice echoed in her mind as his lifeless eyes locked with hers. Every nightmare too horrible to be remembered come dawn lived in those eyes. “A thousand years of destruction. A thousand years when the land is razed and the earth is reset.”
Vi pressed her eyes closed, blocking him out. Aldrik, Vhalla, Taavin, Romulin, Jax, a new Vi—everyone she’d loved in the world she’d been born into still lived in this world. Even if they were not the same people she once knew, even if they never knew her as she was now, they were living, breathing people who deserved a future.
“They deserve a future,” she wheezed, opening her eyes. Eyes trained on his shoulder, she snarled a defiant, “Juth calt!”
The taut skin stretched over the unnatural armored plates of his body exploded with shards of bone. Raspian roared and his arm went limp at his side. He dropped her and Vi scrambled away, gasping for air.
Halleth, halleth, halleth. Heal me, Yargen,she begged. The light within her flashed brightly atop her skin like a protective coating. She felt the interior damage from Raspian’s lightning mend. She felt the tissues in her throat reconnect.
But as she ran, the ground went soft beneath her. She was suddenly up to her waist in murky water. The light above her was going dark. Blood spilled from the fractured moon, flooding the land. Vi tilted her gaze upward and saw an eye open in one of the larger cracks.
She felt like she had been holding her own against the dark god. But the longer the fight dragged on, the more control he was gaining over this temporary bubble they fought in. Soon, she would be drowning in his essence. His beast of chaos would be free of its cage and carry him back to the real world. She would be trapped here forever.
The water was rising. Vi worried that she would soon drown underneath its currents.
Raspian walked atop the water, crossing to her with ease. Vi continued to wade through. She glanced over her shoulder, panicked.
How do I kill him?
You cannot kill him. If our power is whole, neither of us can die.
Then what do I do?Vi frantically asked the goddess within her.He’s gaining the upper hand!
We must seal him away.
We, notyou. They were in this together. She had worked for decades toward this moment, to recollect the goddess. And even though she had lost everyone along the way, Yargen still stood by her.
Vi looked down at the water before her.Mysst xieh. A glyph appeared and Vi jumped onto it.Mysst xieh. Another glyph. She jumped from spinning magic to spinning magic atop the water, racing away from Raspian. She crossed the deepening channel created by the breaking moon toward the bank on the other side.
Her feet on solid ground again, Vi looked back to Raspian, but he was gone. She found high ground and held out both her hands.Uncose—Taavin’s word for “expose truth.” Light flashed across the land, the river of blood evaporated, and Raspian was visible once more.
Vi raced down, bounding across the stones.Kot sidee!She pushed a glyph onto him, forcing him to brace himself.Mysst soto tonc. A spear appeared in her hand, and she threw it at his head. He grabbed it but in doing so didn’t notice how she closed the gap in one giant leap, a sword in hand. Vi plunged it into his gut with a mighty scream.
Darkness exploded from the wound. She released the weapon, watching the magic unravel and the sword disappear as it sank into him. Raspian’s glowing, dead eyes fixated on her as darkness sprayed like noxious gas from his body. It filled the air around her, threatening to suffocate her.
Soon, the world was blotted out entirely and the faint glow of magic that coated her body was the only light she could see by. Even the sky had vanished.
Vi spun, looking for any sign of him. She raised a hand, firing a beam of light into the darkness, and then another. She was shooting blind.
Uncose, she tried again. The light flashed out along the earth, but it did nothing for the darkness in the air. Vi moved over the desolate wasteland, climbing over rubble and buildings and what must be the remnants of the lives Raspian’s loyal followers had made. Her feet stopped in the center of the glyph of the dragon, split in two. Vi spun in place, still searching.
Lightning cracked behind her, sparking a surreal sense of familiarity. She was in two places at once. She had seen this before.
The vision.
She turned, looking to the lightning on instinct. A plume of smoke rose from the dark spot on the ground, but there was nothing.
She heard the inhale. He was behind her. This was the moment of her vision, a truth that she had seen but that eluded Yargen. This was why she was meant to be in this battle. Vi only had time for one choice, one decision, one word, before his claws and teeth overcame her.
Wein.
