Vi stepped out from her hiding place, listening carefully to the fading steps before relaxing her glyph.
“Groundbreakers,hmm?” Vi murmured. The prince was reading about the North when no one was looking. He was trying to hide his interest and Vi knew the reason why.
The Emperor was beginning to make moves against Shaldan.
And that meant she had less time than she thought to find out what happened to the crown of the first Solaris king, and get out of the capital.
Chapter Five
“Ah, punctual I see,”Egmun said as they met in the hallway outside his office door.
“I wouldn’t want to be late after all you’ve promised me.”
“What I promised, and will deliver.” He ran a hand over the doorknob and the ice that blocked the lock withdrew into his fingertips. “Please, come in.”
As they entered the office, the Minister went right for the cabinets in the back of the room. From the uppermost, he retrieved an unassuming box. Egmun set it on his desk reverently and Vi approached with apprehension. Engraved on it was Western writing, worn with time, and Vi knew what was inside before he opened the lid. The minister lifted a shimmering crystal from within.
“They’re magnificent, no?”
“Where did you get those?” There were four more stones nestled against the plush velvet lining of the box.
“Western heirlooms.” Egmun turned the crystal over in his fingers, the faint, blue light catching on the outline of his face and turning his pale hair to the same icy blue as his eyes. “They were a bit tricky to get my hands on, I admit. But I managed. The Knights of Jadar still claim I stole them.” He chuckled. “I’m sure they’ll claim I stole the sword, too, once it inevitably becomes known that it has returned to the world under my possession.”
“I hope information about the sword doesn’t get back to the Knights.”
“Truth is like cupping water in your hands.” Egmun glanced at her. “Impossible to keep to yourself for long.”
“Well, either way, you don’t seem like the sort of man who cares much for what others think.” Vi leaned against his desk and plucked one of the smaller stones from the box. It shimmered brightly underneath her fingers, the magic calling out to her. Vi almost had to make a conscious effort not to absorb the frail power within. Vi suspected these crystals had been severed from the Caverns long ago, during the Burning Times and the reign of Jadar. She wondered if the Windwalkers she’d read about last night in the library were the last ones to have held these stones.
It didn’t seem like enough power was collected in them that Vi needed to worry about their presence affecting her plans at all. She was trying to preserve Yargen’s power, certainly. But Vi’s plans hinged on the raw essence of the goddess, not tiny offshoots of magic from that essence.
“I’ve never seen a crystal have that reaction before.” Egmun startled her from her thoughts.
“It’s just a different way to draw out the magic. You use the flow from your own channel to pull it along.” Vi pulled the lie out of thin air.
“I’ve never tried that before… or read anything about that.” His eyes had an undeniably cautious glint.
“I picked it up in my readings in the West. This method is more similar to how the Windwalkers work with the stones.”
“Not many tomes on the crystal magics still exist in the West. The Emperor took most of the writings with him when he returned south following the late Empress’s death.”
“What did you say about truth? Like holding water in your hands?” Vi smiled thinly and returned the crystal to the box, hoping to end the conversation. Egmun placed his crystal back in the dip in the velvet.
“You said you weren’t with the Knights of Jadar.”
“I’m not,” Vi insisted.
“Yet you have a fascination with the stones one would expect a Knight of Jadar to have. You have knowledge one would expect only a Knight to possess.”
“Don’t assume just because I am Western and appreciate the power of the crystals that I must also be a Knight of Jadar.” Vi straightened away from the desk. “I don’t assume that just because you are Southern and obsessed with items of great power that you are working on behalf of the Emperor to gain weapons for him to use against Shaldan.” She let the wordsunless you areremain unsaid.
Egmun laughed from his belly. “Fair, fair.” He shook his head, as though the notion had caused him great amusement. “Though I’m not working with the Emperor and have proof of that.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll see soon—” He was interrupted by a knock on the door. “There they are now.” Egmun smiled in a most devious way. He passed her a folio on his way to the door. “Here, take this ledger and record what happens.” Vi accepted it wordlessly, allowing the tides of fate to pull her along. “Good morning, my prince. Victor.”
Victor. Vi recognized the name from her studies as a girl. She also recognized it from Taavin’s tales of past iterations of their world. This man was always behind the ultimate destruction of the Crystal Caverns, usually involving the crown of the first Solaris King somehow.
