Water's Wrath (Air Awakens Series Book 4) (13 page)

Vhalla studied the minister’s face as the soft and unnatural glow of the crystal lit his brow. The man shifted his eyes to catch hers, and Vhalla did nothing to hide her study of his person. Victor’s lips curled into a conspiratorial smile.

“I want to know about the caverns.” Her research had only yielded splotchy patches of color. She wanted to paint the picture. She wanted to finally see what everyone else had been looking at all along.

“I bet you do.” Victor peeled himself away from her. He felt twice as tall, suddenly, as he loomed over her. “But first I need to know, what do you want?”

“What do I want?” she repeated, cautiously.

“I told you my dream. I told you the world I’m prepared to fight for. What do you want?”

Rather than speaking the first thing that came into her mind, Vhalla remained silent, introspective. She mulled over the question, letting it settle across her mind and stretch into the cracks where she’d pushed her hopes and dreams into—things that had been too dangerous for her to engage in while she had been property of the Empire.

“I want . . . I want a future again. I want peace. I want freedom. I want to be free of people trying to use me for my magic.”

“So we want the same thing.” Victor beamed. “I’m relieved to know we’re aligned in this.”

“What are we aligned in, exactly?” Vhalla settled back in her chair, watching as Victor rounded his desk to a workbench in the far corner.

“The world we want to strive for—a world where sorcerers aren’t used as tools, a time and place where we are revered and left to our own, rightful sovereignty.” Victor paused his motions. “Tea?”

“Sure,” Vhalla agreed cautiously. “How do you think we can get to your future? And what part does the axe play in it?”

“We will use it to make sure no one will be able to access the Crystal Caverns ever again.” Victor placed a steaming cup of tea on the desk before her.

“How?” Vhalla took the item in question from the saddlebag, placing it on the desk next to the steaming tea she sipped gingerly.

“How much do you already know about the Crystal Caverns?” Victor sat.

“Not nearly enough. The literature is disappointingly sparse.” Vhalla pondered all the books she’d managed to read about the caverns while working at Gianna’s. “I know the Knights of Jadar needed the axe—or, at least, they thought they did—to tap into the power of the caverns. I know they needed the axe even more than a Windwalker . . .” A thought suddenly hit her. “Wait, Victor. Am I truly the first Windwalker?”

The minister set his own cup of tea down thoughtfully. “The first to be known again. The first to return to the world as far as the general populous is concerned.”

“But, not the
first
?”

Victor shook his head, and Vhalla stared, baffled. She’d been revered, hated, desired, for being the
first
Windwalker. But there were more? She spoke as if Victor could read her suddenly tumultuous thoughts, “Why me?”

“Because you were in the right place at the right time.” Victor frowned slightly. “Or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it.”

“The East outlawed all magic following the Burning Times to avoid another genocide. It pushed the Windwalkers into hiding.” Victor stood and ran his fingers along the spines of books lined up on a shelf behind his desk. “You see, there were never
that
many Windwalkers to begin with, not when compared to the other affinities. That just seems to be nature. But Windwalkers disappearing? That was the greatest act of self-preservation the world has ever known.”

Victor placed a thin ledger on the desk between them. There were only a few pieces of parchment inside, some names and dates scribbled on a few lines. Victor flipped through them, the dates increasing until they stopped at the most recent date—
and her name
.

“It’s a record of Windwalkers,” she said softly.

“An incomplete one, for sure.” He sat down once more.

“You told me I was the first . . .” Vhalla honestly felt relieved to know she wasn’t.
Maybe she could return East and find others like her
.

“Everyone who wasn’t actively hunting Windwalkers would believe such. Aldrik believed it, and I saw no reason to correct him or tell you differently.” Victor pressed his fingertips together thoughtfully. “Whatever happened with you, I felt my actions would continue to protect your kin by not sending the world into another Windwalker-hunt.”

“He doesn’t know this exists?” Vhalla gaped at the notion of coming across some knowledge the prince didn’t already possess.

“No, there are only three people who know this exists.” Victor counted on his fingers. “Myself, the Emperor, and Egmun.”

“
Egmun
,” she seethed instantly. “Why isn’t he the Minister of Sorcery any longer?”

“There was an accident.” Victor scowled. “The man was mad, insatiable for knowledge, and lusted for something beyond his reach.”

“You mean crystals.” It always came back to crystals. It seemed the world’s every orchestration had the same, underlying harmony. Notes that one’s ears had to be trained to pick up, but once one heard them, it was a cacophony of sound that drummed to a singular beat, pulsing the world forward.

“Yes. The Emperor wanted the power in the Crystal Caverns and set Egmun to free it.”

Vhalla stilled, a memory flashing across her mind. She spoke without thinking, “You and Aldrik, he worked with you and Aldrik and crystals.”

The minister’s gaze suddenly went stony and guarded. His hands settled on the desk as he leaned forward slowly. Vhalla wasn’t about to allow herself to be intimidated, but the minister was doing his best to make a case for it.

“Tell me what you know about that?” Vhalla could hear the whisper of a threat hovering under his words. She didn’t have a good answer, and the minister continued in her silence. “The rumors
are
true then.”

“What rumors?” she whispered.

“Aldrik took you as his lover.”

Vhalla was on her feet, snatching the axe faster than Victor could blink. She meant to only take it so that if she was forced to leave, she would leave with it in her possession. The watch she wore around her neck burned hot on her chest. “Don’t you dare speak about him.”

“If you cannot take my remark without brandishing a weapon at me, then you shouldn’t go anywhere near the Court.” Victor frowned, leaning back in his chair.

Vhalla looked at her hand. It clutched the axe in a white-knuckled grip. Muscles taut and ready to swing. Slowly, she eased it back onto the desk, mentally forcing herself to uncurl her fingers from it.

“What does it feel like for you?” Victor blinked at her a few times and Vhalla could only assume he was observing her with magic sight.

“I don’t want to talk about the prince and me,” Vhalla mumbled.

“Not the prince, I meant the axe.” Victor tried to lighten the mood by smiling.

“Oh,” Vhalla hummed, staring at the weapon. “It feels . . . Good? Powerful. Like I really am as strong as the wind.” Vhalla considered it for the first time. “Is that how all crystals feel?”

“Yes.” Victor nodded. “They taint sorcerers by trying to widen their Channels unnaturally. For Commons, it takes longer because the crystals actually forge new Channels.”

Vhalla blinked. “Sorcerers can be
made
?”

“Not really.” Victor shook his head. “The Channels they make in Commons seek out the magic in the caverns. Sorcerers’ Channels are widened to allow for it. But our race wasn’t meant for such a power. It taints us. It twists our minds and deforms our bodies as it consumes us. It turns men into disfigured monsters.”

“Except for Windwalkers.” Victor nodded at her addition. “Then how could anyone but Windwalkers want to use the caverns? It brings taint for everyone else.”

“It does, if the crystals aren’t managed properly,” Victor elaborated. “Windwalkers can work with the crystals. Hone them, adjust them, alter their magic to fit better within a Sorcerer’s Channels, or to try not to leech onto a Commons and create something that isn’t there.

“With a Windwalker, and enough training and time, you could outfit an army of Commons with magically empowered weapons,” the minister concluded.

“And the Emperor wants this.”

“He
needs
it if he wants to take the Crescent Continent.” Victor sipped his tea for a long moment. “Our magic on this continent is fractured, diluted. Our sorcerers can only manage the elements. Across the sea, magic is part of the various peoples; it’s of a different and greater nature that defies the laws we know.”

Victor’s explanation reminded Vhalla vaguely of the magic she’d seen the Northerners use. They had spoken of the south being out of touch with the “old ways”, and the North was closer to the nearest point of the Crescent Continent, if her cartography knowledge wasn’t failing her.

“Their magic is more like the crystals,” she reasoned.

“Indeed,” Victor confirmed. “At least, the little we know of it. Our traders are limited in what they are allowed to see. But we have a few reports from sailors.”

“So, how do we make sure the Emperor doesn’t get what he wants?” Vhalla rounded back to their original topic.

“You help me close off the caverns.” Victor stood again, returning the Windwalker ledger back to the shelf before hunting for something else. “You have the magic, the skill, the affinity that allows you to touch the crystals. But I—” he placed a worn and unassuming journal between them, “—I have the knowledge required to do it.”

Vhalla reached out, gauging the minister’s reaction as she gingerly took the black, leather-bound book. Flipping it open, a script that Vhalla was utterly unfamiliar with graffiti-ed the page. Her eyes skimmed the words, and her heart seized.

“Subject One has been displaying some issues with his Channels and an increase in headaches. An instructor reported a violent outburst. Further exploration is postponed until symptoms subside,” she read aloud.

“I was Subject One,” Victor interjected.

Vhalla stared back at the page, her fingers paused at a new paragraph farther down. “Subject Two was Aldrik?”

Victor affirmed her assumption, and Vhalla’s skin crawled with horror. The Emperor had allowed his son to be turned into a test subject. He’d risked Aldrik’s body and mind for his insatiable thirst for subjugation.

The minister pulled the book from her limp fingers, closing it. “I know more than nearly anyone about the crystals. I worked with them myself. Let me make some good of this knowledge?”

Vhalla stared up at the man. She guessed he was only older than Aldrik by four or five years. That means he’d only been a boy as well when Egmun began his nefarious research.

“Tell me what I must do.” Her words were soft but stronger than steel.

“For now, go and actually rest. Sleep well, because tomorrow we will begin work.”

W
IND HOWLED
,
SWEEPING
fast up the mountain-side. Vhalla stood on a painfully familiar rooftop, side by side with the crown prince. Aldrik was fixated on something below, muttering to himself over and over.

“No, no, this is wrong. No!”

Vhalla took a masochistic look at what commanded his attention with such horror. She knew what she’d find. Her own body bounced off the rooftop, flying into the open air. She watched as the Vhalla that lived in Aldrik’s memory struggled to right herself in the wind. She saw the moment her power began to come to her, as she twisted and turned unnaturally and out of control.

Aldrik cursed loudly, pulling at his hair and storming down the Tower. Only a guest in his memory, she followed along at his side without trying, watching the prince’s actions play out before her.

He sprinted as fast as his long legs could carry him, bursting out of a dark hall and into a lavish parlor. Unlatching a window, Aldrik strained his neck out, looking for her. Vhalla wondered if somehow his magic called to hers through their Bond, even then, as her body smashed against the side of the building.

The prince pointed toward a pennon, burning away the supports in such a way that the pole it was supported by fell in her path. Her body hit it too violently for her to have any hope of catching herself. A futile and unexpectedly ill-thought gesture.

Another gale swept up the mountain, and Vhalla watched as her body unnaturally—magically—began to slow. The wind kept her from dying in its embrace. Vhalla knew that she would live, but this Aldrik clearly feared otherwise. His heartbeat reverberated in her ears as he was on the run again.

The prince skidded around a tight corner, pushing open a window and jumping over the sill into the small interior courtyard where she’d landed. Vhalla saw her body, bruised, bloody, broken and unnaturally bent at sickening angles.

“N-no . . .” Aldrik couldn’t take another step as the sight of her tripped him. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Vhalla felt him mustering his strength, retreating emotionally into the sheltered safe-haven of his stony, battlefield shell. Training clicked in. Instinct clicked in. And the horrified, guilt-crippled man became the Fire Lord. Through his memory, Vhalla felt it happen.