When they touched, magic darted back and forth between them. A connection deeper than the love that had traversed the ages spanned their physical forms. They were one and the same—each given physical shapes by the will of Yargen.
“I don’t absorb power from the crystals.” He pulled his hand away.
“But you could.”
“I won’t.” Taavin looked forward.
“Why are you so unsettled?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” Vi hadn’t felt better in weeks. For the first time, she felt absolutely confident she could take on Raspian if she collected enough of Yargen’s essence.
“Of not knowing what you’re becoming.” Taavin stopped walking, turning to her. Vi stopped as well and melted under the warmth of his viridian gaze.
“Taavin, I’m me.” Vi took both of his hands in a firm but gentle grasp. “I’ve always been, and always will be.”
He searched her face and opened his mouth after a moment’s hesitation.
“Are you both coming?” Arwin called. She and Deneya had stopped ahead.
“Yes, of course!” Vi squeezed Taavin’s hands. “Let’s go.”
The man remained rooted, staring at her for one more long breath. Finally, he nodded. Vi kept his hand clasped tightly in hers.
Part of her held on to the man who made her feel human, the man who was home.
The other part was governed by the essence of the goddess that was always just beneath her skin. Vi had to fight against uncomfortable urges all the way to their rooms. If she hadn’t, she may have given into temptation and unraveled Taavin’s magic to satiate the ravenous hunger waking in her—a hunger that needed to be fed with Yargen’s essence alone.
* * *
“You want me to do… what?” Arwin asked, looking at the crown Vi had handed her.
“I need you to make it look like the scythe did.”
“The shift can’t make a crown into a scythe.” Arwin’s brow furrowed. They sat across a table from each other in a lounge that Vi had declared her own. After the incident of her absorbing the scythe’s magic, no one seemed to question her much.
“No, not a scythe.” Vi paused, thinking a moment. “Hold a moment.”
She held out her hands and felt magic rush to her fingertips. Yargen’s power pooled in her palms. Her stomach felt gutted by the mere notion of giving up the scythe’s power. It had only been a part of her for a month while Deneya had worked to fashion a crown for them to work with, but it had felt like a lifetime.
Just like she had in the Caverns, Vi drew the power into a single location and condensed it down. However, unlike the Caverns, the well of power Vi leeched from was herself. As Yargen’s magic collected in the air around her fingers, sparks of Vi’s magic tethered it together. With a softpop,a crystal appeared.
Reaching upward, Vi grabbed the stone and it writhed underneath her fingertips. Spikes of crystal grew from the “seed” of magic, then arced around and rose to points. Even though she had only seen the actual crystal crown from a glance, Vi knew its every detail, and she created an exact replica in crystal.
“I need you to make that crown—” Vi pointed to the one Deneya had made “—look like this one.”
Arwin gawked at the crystal crown in Vi’s fingers. The whites of her wide eyes nearly devoured the gray irises in the center. “How?” she said with a quivering lip. “How do you make something from nothing?”
“As Yargen wills,” Vi said airily, smiling at the child. She set the crystal crown gently on the table. “Now, let’s begin.”
The girl studied the crown in her hands with a furrowed brow. Her magic shuddered, rose, and thrummed across the surface of the metal crown Deneya had crafted. Vi watched with new eyes. She saw the metal unravel and piece itself back together with every pulse of magic.
The shift was seeing thebetweenof what something was, and what it could be. That had been how Arwin had explained it in her time. Or perhaps that was knowledge Vi was summoning from an otherworldly part of herself, just like the name of the morphi warrior who had helped fell the elfin’ra.
Arwin put the crown down on the table next to the one Vi had made. The metal had changed, becoming gnarled in places and smooth in others as it jutted like crystals. But it was still undeniably steel.
“It’s not right,” she said dejectedly.
