"So the stories and evidence indicates," Victor affirmed with a nod.
"Shaldan had Achel." Vhalla motioned to the axe. "Mhashan had the Sword of Jadar. And Cyven had a scythe."
"How did you come across that information?" He sounded impressed.
"I went to the library this morning," Vhalla explained. "I was reading some old Eastern books in the archives and noticed every story held mention of a scythe of great power. Now that I know about the weapons, I didn't think it could be chance."
"It's not." The minister preempted her next question. "Though if it still exists, it's not been mentioned in hundreds of years."
"Did Lyndum have a weapon?"
"Lyndum was rumored to not have a weapon, but a crown." Victor pressed his fingertips together in thought.
"A crown?" It made no sense.
"In some lore, the weapons were wielded by the Goddess herself as she forged and cultivated the earth and life. The crown was the symbol of her dominance over all things." The minister paused to sip his tea, collecting his thoughts. "But if it's true, the crown has been lost to time as well."
"What about the sword? The Knights of Jadar said it was stolen by a Minister of Sorcery."
"Egmun got his hands on it," Victor affirmed, confirming her worst fears.
"He took it to the caves," she continued. Something began to creep on the edge of her memory. Something about this story was familiar, despite having never heard it before.
"He did." Victor watched her carefully.
"And then he . . ." Vhalla placed a palm on her forehead. A sword. A crystal sword. The axe glowed faintly before her, as though the whole universe was contained within it and all she had to do was discover its secrets.
"He tried to unlock the caverns. But he miscalculated, and the fool started the War of the Crystal Caverns," Victor finished bitterly.
The knowledge was distracting enough that Vhalla ignored the feeling that it wasn't what she had been about to put together.
"How is he the Head of Senate if he caused the war?" Vhalla frowned. It sounded like he should've been long dead.
"Because Egmun craved knowledge in all its forms; he collected it, hoarded it. And some of that knowledge was inevitably the sort that other people didn't want to be made public." Victor sighed and stood. "His foolishness cost him his magic. But it did yield information that we will be able to use."
"How?"
"Egmun needed the sword because he needed it to access the heart of the caverns. The crystals have a single heart from which their power stems." Victor was back to rummaging. "Every other crystal's power comes from being spawned by this center, like tiny looking glasses into the caverns themselves. Hence the channels they build in search of that magic, which taint sorcerers and commons alike."
Vhalla was reminded of the Northern ruins where she'd procured the axe. The moment she freed the weapon from amid the crystals, the others had darkened into dormancy and fractured. "The crystal weapons are like smaller hearts, aren't they?"
Victor turned and gave her an approving look. He rested a box with Western writing on its lock on the desk between them. "Exactly so. Because of that, they are the only thing that can access the true power of the caverns-which is one reason why they've been so sought after. But I also theorize that they would be the only thing that can destroy that power as well."
"An axe that is legendary for cutting anything, even a soul." Vhalla stared at Achel.
"Perhaps, the soul of the caverns, if you will." Victor sat, opening the box of crystals he'd used on her after her fall. "You'll need to cleanse it, sharpen it." He motioned to the axe. "Look at it with magic sight."
Vhalla obliged. The axe was a tangled mess. Dark colors overlay lighter ones, a swirling mass of lingering traces of magic.
"Those are remnants, like a vessel; the axe has been dirtied with the leftovers of things it's been used for."
"Like magic blood," Vhalla reasoned.
"That's certainly a way to think of it," the minister agreed. "We will have one chance at this, Vhalla, and I want to set us up for success by removing all the possible variables that could get in our way. I want no magic reacting in ways we don't expect."
The minister spent the rest of the afternoon going back and forth with Vhalla on the properties of vessels and how they were created. He educated her on how a Waterrunner could draw out the magic from a person by tapping into their Channels.
The theory was the same for what they were seeking to accomplish, but the execution was completely different. Victor tried to help as best he could, though there were some things that were left to trial and error. Vhalla ran her fingers through the magic that hovered around the axe, imagining them to be threads fluttering on the wind.
With this imagery, she pushed them upward, focusing on one at a time. It was wind without wind, a level of magic that she had never tried to tap into before, and it was utterly exhausting. Once she had a thread free, the minister provided her a crystal to store it within. That was much easier than the brow-dampening process of untangling the magic from the axe.
She managed three threads before she felt utterly spent. Vhalla blinked away her magic sight and collapsed back into the chair. Victor wordlessly began to clear his desk of the tools they'd been using all day.
"You did well," he encouraged.
"I will be an old maid by the time it's cleansed," Vhalla lamented.
"Your second was faster than your first, and your third faster than your second." Victor smiled, rounding his desk. "Think of it as learning magic all over again."
"I just finished learning magic the first time." She stood, stretching.
"Then the process is fresh in your mind." Victor chuckled. "Thank you, Vhalla," he said sincerely. "You're going to be the catalyst for a new age."
"One step at a time." She shrugged. As all she sought was lasting freedom and peace, Vhalla kept her eye on the prize.
"We should work again tomorrow, if you feel up to it." The minister started for the door.
"I have a feeling this is how I am going to spend my days," she murmured.
"It is. I want to move quickly, but not so quickly that you burn out . . . so rest in the morning. I don't want you pushing yourself on trivial things; this will be taxing enough for you. When we are not working, focus on giving your magic ample time to recover."
"I'll be certain to take it easy," she agreed lightly.
The minister paused, unappreciative of her tone. "I am quite serious. We are working with advanced magic unlike anything you've ever seen before."
Vhalla held her tongue about the magic she had seen in the North.
"Don't fret." She shrugged off the minister's worry as fatherly concern. "I'll keep up my strength."
"I trust your judgment," Victor said finally, shrugging off the disapproving glint to his eyes. "Though, I request that you tell no one of what we are doing."
"By the Mother, no," Vhalla laughed. "I'm not stupid."
"No," the minister smiled, "you're not."
When Vhalla finally returned to her room, the window was dark and the moon was already cresting the horizon. Utterly exhausted, she wasted no time bathing. The baths were mostly empty due to the unconventional hour, and Vhalla greedily soaked in the warmth of the water.
By the time she crawled into bed, she expected to fall asleep instantly, but her mind lingered in wakefulness. There was a smell on her pillow, on her blankets, so faint that Vhalla was certain she was imagining it. Real or not, it brought back memories of the last nights she'd spent in the bed, with Larel soothing her nightmares away.
Vhalla passed the watch around her neck from hand to hand. She'd returned home, she was surrounded by almost everyone she'd ever known, but she still felt very, very alone.
TWO DAYS LATER, Vhalla escaped the Tower with determination-she could only spend so many hours with Fritz and Grahm making eyes at each other and saying nothing about it. There was somewhere else that she knew she had to venture. And, while she'd find friends there, it would also force her to confront the truth she'd been harboring since the West.
Swords rang out above shouting and laughter. The palace training grounds were full of veterans from the Northern war, and with them came a whole host of new recruits for the palace guard. It seemed Tim had been at it again, spreading stories about her, as most of the guard had a wing painted on their breastplates. It didn't take long for Vhalla to be noticed by some of the men and women, and she was greeted like an old friend.
It was the reception she would've wanted from the librarians and would've never expected to find among swords, bows, and drills. But the encouragement was welcome. Plus, once she was spotted, it made fleeing in absolute terror much more difficult.
Her eyes scanned the dusty training field. Archers sent arrows toward targets, and men assaulted wooden dummies with what would be lethal slashes. Vhalla found Daniel among the latter. Breaking the news about Jax to one of the guard would mean breaking the news to them all.
"If you want to say hello, I think he'd appreciate it," the voice nearly startled her out of her skin.
"Erion," she breathed the second she met the Western eyes. "Erion!"
Vhalla threw her arms around the man's shoulders. They'd never been exceptionally close, but the Golden Guard felt like family. The feeling must have been mutual as his arms wrapped around her waist for a brief squeeze.
"You are all sorts of trouble, aren't you?" Erion pulled away quickly, his Western nature getting the better of him. "It's no wonder Jax likes you."
Vhalla swallowed hard. "Erion . . . Jax is . . ." Vhalla gripped her fingers, emotions running high. "He was trying to protect me."
"Oh, he told us."
"What?"
"When he got back to the palace a few days ago, not long before Daniel, he told us all about how you got him stabbed," Erion laughed.
Vhalla didn't share the same emotion. "He's here?" she asked, deadpan.
"Yeah, right over there." Erion pointed to a group practicing grappling.
Vhalla stormed across the training grounds like a little vortex, her hands balled into fists as she stomped toward the tall figure of a Western man.
Jax turned with a laugh, breaking away from his conversation and noticing her for the first time. He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head to the side. "No blood, no weapon, no armor? This may be the first time you've disappointed me."
She debated between punching him and kissing him the second he was in arms reach.
"You've been back for days, and you didn't think to tell me you were alive?" Her voice couldn't make up its mind either, and it alternated between cracking with rage and relief.
"I figured someone else did." Jax shrugged. "It's not like it makes that much of a difference."
"Of course it does!" Her intensity startled him. Vhalla spoke over his loss for words. "You think that you dying 'doesn't make a difference'?"
The Easterner in her finally won out, and Vhalla wrapped her arms around his waist. The hug was awkward, but she persisted all the same. His hands fell on her shoulders, but he didn't instantly push her away. It seemed as though he was at an utter loss for what to do when someone showed him affection.
Vhalla broke the short embrace, staring up at him. "I'm glad you're okay, Jax. I thought I'd killed you."
"You don't need to worry about someone like me," Jax replied. He glanced around, catching the eyes of the other guards staring curiously. The man thumped the top of her head with a fist in a brotherly fashion. Laughing, he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, "Bleeding heart Easterners! You don't need to worry so much about us tough Western stock. Right, Erion?"
Erion gave a marginally committal grunt.
Some of the men chuckled, and Vhalla let them have their laugh. The look she received from the corner of Jax's eyes spoke volumes of his true feelings toward her concerns.
"How did you survive?" Vhalla was still trying to process that the man before her was real.
"One of Schnurr's servants found me," Jax explained. "I was able to cauterize most of the wounds myself, so I didn't bleed out entirely. Unsurprisingly, they had little love for their most generous lord, and helped me get back on my feet."
Her presence had been enough of a break from the normal routine that others were noticing. Among them was the golden prince, Raylynn at his side, with Craig and Daniel in tow.
"Vhalla!" The Eastern man nearly sprinted over to her.
If Vhalla hadn't pushed wind at her back, the force of his embrace would've knocked her over. But Vhalla locked her arms around him tightly for a long moment. Daniel pulled away, beaming.
"It's such a relief to see you all right." He hooked an arm around her shoulders and shook her lightly. "You had me so worried!"
"Jax told me you were foolish enough to feel responsible for letting me leave alone." Vhalla grinned, appreciating the now effortless atmosphere time had created between them.
"If it isn't the troublemaker herself." Baldair joined the group.
"You're one to talk." Without hesitation, Vhalla hugged the youngest prince tightly. Baldair squeezed her in reply. "How many hearts have you broken while I was gone?"
"Me? I never break hearts!"
Raylynn snorted.
"At least five," Erion outed the golden prince.
"No, no, only three."
"Only," Vhalla teased.
"It's not my fault if they think there's more to it than a night! I never advertise any differently," the prince defended himself with a laugh.
Vhalla decided it was true after a moment's consideration. He didn't seem to have many repeat offenses. Her eyes shifted to the blonde at Baldair's side. Maybe he had one repeat offense.
Raylynn rolled her eyes. "The paragon of innocence."
"I'm about to make all of you run double drills," Baldair threatened.
"Speaking of," Erion said as he caught Daniel and Craig's attention, "where are they at so far?"
The men began conversing on the status of the swordsmen. Vhalla was quickly forgotten, until Baldair took a step closer to her.
"Take a walk around the grounds with me, Vhalla? I'd like to show them to you."
She knew by his tone, by the way that the rest of the Golden Guard seemed to take a step away, that the prince showing her the grounds was a front for other intentions.
"Certainly. I'd like to see them," Vhalla agreed with grace.
The prince offered her his elbow, which she took without hesitation.