Vi’s hand tightened around the banister.
“As far as I’m concerned, you work with me, or you are against me.” He took a few steps back, giving her additional space. Vi didn’t move. “The choice is yours.”
At that moment, Baldair emerged from the side hall, nearly stumbling right into Victor. “Oof—Excuse me, Minister!”
“The excuse lies with me.” Victor took a step to the side and Vi saw the mask of a kindly sage slip over his features with the deftness of an actor’s well-practiced costume change. “I shouldn’t get in the way of determined princes.”
“I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Baldair shook his head and his gaze met Vi’s. She held it. He backed away as though he were staring down a monster.
“Is everything all right, my prince?” Victor glanced between her and Baldair.
“Yes, of course!” Baldair chuckled. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me… I have a bottle of wine I’ve been saving for something special and I think the festival celebrations will be just that occasion.” He retreated quickly and Vi descended the last of the stairs with forced slowness, not wanting to look like she was ready to race after him, even if she was.
“Even the prince fears you on instinct,” Victor said to her in whispered awe, so that none of the servants passing them would hear. “I’m right. You are the woman from all those years ago.”
Vi glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. So many had written off her similarity to a young woman they’d once met to faulty memory. Just a bit of insistence, and her agelessness had thrown them off her trail. But not Victor.
“I know you are.” He took a step forward. “I feel your magic. It is the same.”
“You cannot comprehend what I am. My being was not made for a mind like yours.” The words resonated from deep within and Vi followed their will on instinct.
“It’s the crystals, isn’t it? They gave you this power. They have made you ageless.” He stepped forward, encroaching on her personal space and staring down at her. “What else do they enable you to do?”
“More than you could possibly know,” Vi sneered up at him. She turned to leave.
“Help me find them. Work with me. I am not Egmun. I will be a willing student.”
Vi froze, then slowly turned to face him once more. “I would see this world burn again before I worked with you,” she whispered.
The man before her was nothing more than an extremely gifted sorcerer. He had a sordid history. He had experienced triumphs and pitfalls, most of which Vi didn’t understand.
He was as flawed as any other human and just as capable of great and wonderful deeds.
Except in Vi’s world, this man had murdered the people she called family. In Vi’s world, he’d nearly cost her parents everything… just as he had in various ways across every other world, according to Taavin’s recollections.
This man wasn’t a stone in the river. He was a glacier, cold and unfeeling. That was how she would treat him.
“Then it is to be war between us,” he whispered ominously and, for one brief second, Vi wondered if this moment had been an opportunity to guide him into more than the hateful man she had always heard him to be. Was it her insistence that he was wicked that pushed his wickedness over the edge?
“It has always been war.” Vi put her back to him and strode out of the Imperial quarters. Her feet were hasty beneath her, but her head was held high. This wasn’t a retreat. She was keeping two steps ahead of him.
Two became four.
Four became six.
She slipped into the back passages and began to run. Vi sprinted through the darkness, into the depths of the palace, keeping in a scream.
Though what she longed to scream about, she didn’t quite know.
Vi slowed her feet and took a breath. She side-stepped behind a tapestry and emerged in a hall that led to the wine cellars. The soft clank of a lock disengaging in the distance caught her attention.
So, Baldair really was heading to the cellars.
“Durroe watt radia,” Vi breathed and felt invisibility slip over her as she moved forward. “Durroe sallvas tempre.” A glyph wrapped around her other wrist, masking the echo of her footsteps.
Light danced on the barreled ceiling ahead as Vi emerged into a large, underground wine cave. The walls on all sides, three floors down, were lined with casks. Most seemed new and well-tended. But farther down, the shelves became cluttered with cobwebs and caked in dust.
At the bottom floor, the barrels were locked in vaults. The wine was kept prisoner down here, most likely for its own safety. Some vintages had been exclusive to the Solaris family for generations. One bottle could be worth a fortune.
