“I snapped at you first,” Vi said tenderly. “I’m sorry, too.” Their shoulders brushed as they walked down a staircase that would lead to the beach by the cliffs.
“We’re both trying to do what’s right, and that’s never an easy thing to do.” He took her hand and Vi didn’t hesitate to lace her fingers with his. The squeeze of his hand pushed forgiveness into her, a sentiment she tried to push back.
“There’s something I want to ask you about,” she said, pausing as their feet met the sand.
“Yes?”
“Jax, his life…”and death, she couldn’t bring herself to say aloud. “Is it a stone in the river?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she pressed, “Have there been worlds in which he died here and now?”
She almost told him not to say anything. She had her answer by the look on his face alone.
“I can’t decide what his fate is,” Taavin said, finally. “Some worlds he lives, and some worlds he dies. His life seems to be a variable, not a stone.”
Memories flooded her, rushing like the seawater around their ankles as she started walking again, rounding the cliffside. Vi watched the little rocks being carried out by the tides, the larger ones stuck in place. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s not an excuse.” The words could’ve been sharp and angry, but they weren’t. She wasn’t about to risk their restored peace. “You could’ve told me at any time. But you didn’t want to because you didn’t want to hurt me.”
“Am I that transparent?” Taavin blinked into the morning’s early light and Vi appreciated his profile. There might never be an hour of her life where the sight of all his sharp angles didn’t fill her with a mixture of sorrow, joy, and longing.
“I know every corner of you, inside and out.”
“I suppose if anyone would, it’s you.”
“Tell me about everyone else. Who does the goddess demand? Who can live? I won’t fight Yargen’s fate,” she added hastily. “But if I can save someone, I will.”
Taavin searched her face and sighed. “Regardless of the path we walk, Tiberus, Twintle Junior, Schnurr—”
“Schnurr?” Vi interjected.
“You met him, briefly.” The words brought back a fleeting memory of a young boy in a war zone.
“He was with Fiera the night Mhashan fell—the young man with the moustache, who she directed to keep fighting at the break in the wall.”
“And he becomes a leading member of the Knights of Jadar. He’ll be one to watch as the years go on.”
Vi groaned. “I should’ve killed all the Knights when I had the chance.”
“They’re a necessary counterweight. Without their presence, people wouldn’t be driven to actions we need them to take.”
“In any case…” Vi didn’t want to speak about the Knights a moment longer. They made her blood boil. “Tiberus, Luke, Schnurr. Who else dies regardless?”
“Of the people you may be familiar with, Craig and Baldair.”
She kept her face passive. Vi had never met her Uncle Baldair in her own world. He’d died years before her birth, before the war in the North had even ended. It was a wound on her father’s soul deeper than she could comprehend. Though Vi had tried to, conjuring thoughts of Romulin passing until her heart couldn’t bear it a moment longer and then multiplying that feeling by several hundred.
Baldair. His death was one she found herself longing to postpone.
“Very well.” They were nearing the outlet of roaring water now littered with pieces of ancient Solaris gold. “The rest of them I still want to save, if I’m able.”
She looked to Taavin and he held her attention.Don’t deny me this, she wanted to beg. Saving the world was a large, unimaginable task. Saving the people her heart still loved was a more reasonable goal.
“You know our purpose, right?”
“I do.” She knew his. She knew hers. And Vi knew a moment would come when only one of their desires persisted.
“Then yes, I’ll help you save them if you’re able… and if it doesn’t alter fate too dramatically,” Taavin said. It almost sounded like agreement.
