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I feel a rush of air push into the tavern and turn towards the door to see Loris stalking toward me. His face is a scowl of determination. Before I can blink his long legs have brought him abreast of me. He roughly grabs me by the collar of my loose tunic.
“What were you thinking,” he snarls, “choosing a human over your own people?” I flinch, shrinking away from him. The liquor I consumed at Stone’s mingled with the fresh glass Bracken gave me, leaving my head with a soft fuzz of pliability.
“I’m guessing you didn’t find any Summers to replace me with the shield,” I mutter, pulling myself from his grasp. “And I wasn’t thinking,” I continue, my voice calm and gentle. “I just knew in my gut I needed to save her.”
“Well, did you save her?”
“Not in the slightest.”
My friends gape at me, their faces slack with shock from the revelations of my day. I did my best to avoid the conversation of my first encounter with Viola, on some level embarrassed about the way she received me. Plume was the first to speak. “We can’t continue. We have to stop all the plans and just let the Race finish.”
I nod at the same time Nimh slams her hands on my dining table. “Absolutely not! One person is not worth all of those who are killed for no reason each year in the Race. Our people, fae and humans alike deserve to know the truth.” Her eyes, as blue as the deepest depths of the sea, are alight with a fiery passion.
I truly feel guilty for having to snuff it out.
“What other option do we have, Nimh? If we reveal the truth Stone will kill Viola and another vessel would be found. We’d be in this same position in a few years.”
Her eyes wild, she turns to face me, “And? In a few years, our people will have known the truth, the Race would be gone, and we can utilize the vessel to bring back the Gods then! Why do we need them back now? We’ve been doing just fine without them.”
“She has a point,” Loris murmurs. I hope the glare I fling his way communicates just how much I disagree with him. “What? Why do we need to allow Viola in particular to be used to bring back Himureal? We don’t need the Gods now, so what’s the rush to bring them back?”
“Why do you think they’d stop the Race? It was created to find Winter magic. If they kill Viola they will only up their efforts to reveal another vessel! Besides, in a few years, magic will have waned so much that we will have lost our control on the beasts who threaten our borders and will no longer have the magic to sustain our people. How long do you think we can maintain the shields that protect the cities?”
Plume winces at my words. She told me in confidence that the beasts were less and less receptive to the magic of her Seasonale and lesser magics, but it is not public knowledge, and I just threw it out on the table in front of everyone.
“You cannot tell me you haven’t noticed the change in the magic over recent years.”
Their silence speaks volumes.
It goes unsaid, but I admit that I selfishly want time to know Viola. To have her know me. There is something undeniable there and I long to explore it.
Plume speaks softly but with purpose. “We have to trust that our Gods knew what they were doing when they enacted this plan.” Her voice is reverent, her head bowed. She was always much more pious than the rest of us, and I know the revelation that the Gods were dead hit her hard. “We need to allow Viola to be used as the vessel. We need to step back from all of this, disentangle ourselves from Stone, Mace, and yes, even Viola Mistflow.” She shoots me a pointed look, and I shrink into my chair. “When the Gods return, we can explain to our people what we did to get them back.”
Objection roars within me, and I want to shake Plume for suggesting I disentangle myself from Viola. “We cannot let Stone and Mace have control of her, don’t you get it? She doesn’t just have power, she is power! We need to save Viola from Mace and convince her to fight with us against him and Stone. We must believe her power will be enough to right the imbalance in our world.”
Loris perks his head up, looking at me with a hint of smugness. “So, you’re finally coming around to the idea that she’s a God?”
“I’m not saying she’s a God. I’m saying she has power like we’ve never seen before. Who says we need the Gods if she is around?”
It’s late, too late for me to be out wandering the streets of Ytopie. The moon casts its orange hue across the cobblestones, lighting the way for me to stumble aimlessly. After what felt like hours of arguing with my friends, we were no closer to an agreement on how to proceed than when we began. With each passing hour, I consumed more and more liquor and ale, which now has me staggering throughout the city.
I find myself in the green behind the Palace, a favorite spot of mine to rest. I slide against the wall, head in my hands, trying to make sense of the tempest swirling in my head and heart.
There is little doubt in my mind that my personal obsession with Viola is encroaching upon my abilities to make sound decisions. I cannot fathom how someone who I have only watched from afar has entwined herself in my thoughts and actions so seamlessly.
A soft cough catches my attention, and I jerk my gaze up. It lands on a pair of steely grey eyes directly across the pavilion from me. The figure is cloaked in shadows, but I would recognize that stare anywhere.
Viola Mistflow rises, the shadows peeling off her like snakes, and walks towards me with purpose. Her movement is slow and deliberate, and it is impossible to miss that her thighs are strapped with glinting steel blades. Her shirt flows around her like water in a shade matching her eyes. For the first time I can recall, her hair is down and loose, gently brushing across her shoulders.
She looks like fury, a dark specter coming to engulf me.
I swallow the fear that rises in my throat at the possibility of her confronting me when I’m less than sober.
Viola doesn’t relent, quickly and quietly crossing the grass to drop into a squat in front of me. She narrows her eyes, digging through my very being with just a stare.
“Zeph, right?”
Her voice is raspy like she hasn’t spoken in a while and its timber lights me up. I blink away the alcohol haze and bring my eyes to meet hers. “Yep, at your service,” I say, feigning lightness. “Though, I’m surprised you’d even remember, considering how brutally rude to me you were when I met you off the elevator.”
