Failed Future

Rating:

[ Note: I’m trying something new: Using bullet points of key events. ]

–Vi wakes, freshly healed, but still sore.
-Vi and Taavin escape after fighting (and being wounded by) Fallor. -Vi also sees red lightening for the second time.

– They flee into the twilight forest to avoid capture by The Swords of light (strong-arm of the faithful) . But not before Vi sees their commander who shares a bold resemblance with her father. Though it isn’t him.
-Vi and Taavin are both injured and make their way to a rocky outcropping where they find an inlet to shelter in.
-Taavin and Vi debrief, but she’s not ready to tell him about her journey and killing Jayme. She merely tells him Adela is after her because the Elfin’ra have a bounty on her head.
-Meanwhile,  Lord Ulvarth, sole attendant to the Voice, Lord of the faithful, led the charge to recapture Taavin. The public does not know that their religious leaders has gone missing.
-Taavin explains they should take a chance to rest here. The twilight Forrest is territory of the Twilight kingdom, whose inhabitants are morphi. Morphi control power of the shift.

-The morphi and lightspinners hate each other vehemently, so they are not safe here either, but it can serve as a temporary reprieve. Taavin advises against interacting with anyone here before he and Vi slumber off.

-vi goes out foraging for food and finds a tree that is rotted and absolutely reeks. On closer inspection, she sees that the tree has a dark city forming in it and red light flits in between the cracks. The light zaps her once, twice and she hears thousands of voices at once. Most prominently, one calling for her death repeatedly.
-She flees back to the cave where she tells Taavin what she saw. Vi knows the voice calling out “die die die” was Raspian. However, Taavin believes that the city she saw was not Elfin’ra, but the Twilight Kingdom. Raapain’s reach is widening.
-Taavin believes that Raspian’s power must be disrupting the shift. However, that can be a good thing as Adela’s home base in the Frost Isle is protected by a shift.

–Soon, Taavin gets to a point of sickness that Vi knows he will die. She decided to go to the twilight kingdom by pushing through the shift.
-She finds a healer, Sophos, who happens to be the imperial healer. When she brings him to Taavin, she realizes the true hatred of between the Twilight Kingdom and the The Faithful. And most of all, they hate Taavin. The healer almost kills Taavin there and then, before vi convinces him not to.
-She goes with Sophos to the caslte where she meets King Noct. A kind and wise king, along with his prickly daughter Arwin.

-Vi explains about her mission and the will of Yargen, leaving Taavin’a role out of it. Noct then gives her a gift: a scythe that happens to be a crystal weapon. It has been in his family for generations, told to be given to the right person at the right time. Noct knows Vi is the one.
-Vi then hatches a plot to save her father. She tells Arwin that she will be going to the isle where Adela is to save Aldrik and Arwin agrees to go along to accomplish her own agenda, much to her father’s dissaproval.
-The isle of Frost where Adela harbors is protected by a royal shift. One that Arwin taught her prior fiancé, Fallor, before he betrayed her. Arwin wants to destroy the shift protecting the isle and right her wrong.  Noct agrees, but she may not return until she has accomplished her goal.
-They are saddled with supplies, a boat, and the like. Now the hard part. She springs a healthier Taavin on Arwin who is much harder to convince than Sophos about keeping Taavin alive,but she eventually relents under a common goal. Arwin warns Vi that Taavin will no doubt betray her.
-They eventually get to the isle of Frost with Vi’s navigation skills and Arwin’s ability to detect the shift.

-They sneak in and Vi makes it to her father. She attempts to get him out but ends up fighting Adela herself. She manages to beat her using Juth Calt which stops her heart immediately.
Meanwhile Arwin destroys the isle’s shift barrier and kills Fallor.
-Vi gets her father out and and explains the majority of what’s going on. Aldrik insists Vi has done enough and should go home and be with their family.  He wants to be by Vhalla’s side, with the plague and all. They still don’t know who called Aldrik to Meru for sure, but they suspect it was Ulvarth.

–Vi wants to allow her father to depart at Norin to get back to the Solaris Empire if he should wish. Taavin is vemenously against that, believing they don’t have time. The world’s end is approaching and they must be ready.
-Vi and Taavin do not come to an answer. But are rudely awoken the next day, to be captured by Ulvarth and his men.
Arwin turns into a bird and tells Vi she knew Taavin would betray them
-They are taken back to Archives of Yargen on Risen. Aldrik is a prisoner once again,  till Queen Lumeria decides what to do with him for his part in releasing Raspian.
-Until then, Ulvarth is willing to make Vi a deal.  She will restore the fire of Yargen and allow everyone to think he did it- that Ulvarth is the champion, and in return he will return Vi and Aldrik back to the Dark Isle.
-She agrees as long as her father is treated well and made confortable. She is led to the archives where she begins her research. But first she must find a way to Taavin, after all he was caught by Ulvarth as well. She refuses to believe that Taavin betrayed her to Ulvarth. After all, he is a prisoner here too.
-She finds blueprints,she uses underground and wall passeges to find Taavin’s room. They embrace and share a passionate kiss. 

-She brings her watch to Yargen’s paltry fire and they both recieve a word from Yargen.
-Taavin said it was the right decision coming back to Risen with the watch. and Vi stalls. She wants to believe that they were caught, but finds out it wasTaavin who called Ulvarth with is golden cuff link that was a communicator. Vi wanted to waste time they didn’t have stopping in Norin. He has been in contact with Ulvarth throughout the journey. He didn’t escape from the Archives of Yargen, he made a deal with Ulvarth.
-Vi becomes furious as her father faced death in his trial by Queen Lumeria thanks to Taavin’s betrayal.  Taavin counters that they will all die if they don’t restore the power of Yargen.
-Vi is hurt and betrayed and Taavin tries to prove he did it to help Vi. But she wants none of it. She leaves him in his room.

 -She’s read enough In the archives to understand they will never win against Raspian with Yargen’s fractured powers. The crystal weapons were destroyed in the war of the crystal caverns. Those weapons held Yargen’s power. Now, the scythe Vi has is only a fraction of a fraction of Yargen’s power.
-Queen Lumeria arrives and she is then summoned to talk with her. Vi essentially proves to Lumeria that they don’t have a chance the way they are right now, at defeating raspian. Lumeria dismisses her after Vi departs this information
-She goes back to Taavin and tells him she knows what the word Yargen gave her does. It’ll help reunite the remainder of Yargens’s power in her, the champion, him, the voice, and the magic in the watch.

-She uses the word and she finds glyphs spilling out of the watch and into Taavin who screams in agony as the glyphs hit him, begging her to stop it.  She tries but nothing works. He screams and cries until it stops and he tells her to get out, clear hatred in his voice.
-Vi leaves and is eventually sought out by Taavin who is still pretty angry with her. He tells her she must come with him. Her father is set to die at dawn. They must work quickly before Ulvarth finds them. Vi is confused but follows him.
 Finally, after they move, Taavin explains that the vision Vi once had of her burning him alive must come to fruition.

-The glyphs that entered him gave him  the knowledge of all history, all paths the world has taken. They must combine all the power of Yargen. And Vi asks how Tavin explains:

“It’s not a what, Vi. It’s a when.”

-She realizes what Taavin is saying. The only person who has that power- to control time is Yargen herself.  They must give her the power to help them.

-He explains that her watch has immense power held in it by multiple attempts to stop this future from coming to pass: the what has:

“Layers and layers of magic, Vi…countless time.
Countless attempts to stop this failed future from coming to pass.
You have to return the power that’s in me to her, along with the scythe.
Only that will give her enough power to send you back.”

-She is appalled at the idea of killing Taavin. She’s angry at him but she doesn’t want to kill him. Taavin reminds her of all he has done to her. Reasons she should hate him for all his betrayal and deceit. She should hate him, she sees him asking, as much as he hates her she realizes.

“Repeat what I say, Vi. And I will be there to guide you in the new world, I promise.
This is my destiny as much as it is yours.”

–She has no choice and burns him alive. The magic unites and her  world is engulfed in white light and Vi is falling and falling and burning alive until her body is made anew, but her mind has been preserved.

Eventually Vi stops and comes to face Yargen– who Vi is seeing as Queen Lumeria.  Yargen explains that she is everything and everywhere. Vi’s mind has conjured this image for her to attempt to see Yargen in some way the human mind can understand.  

“In you is my power from this world, collected from what fragments were left.
The flame has been extinguished. With it, the world you knew is gone.”

Yargen consoles Vi by telling her  they are not all gone forever, however, they will all possess a new shape, as  will Vi.

” We must begin anew in the shell of the former world and preserve my power, this time, so that I may face Raspian once more in our deadly, eternal dance.”

 Vi is still pretty confused, and Yargen tries to explain again in  her super cryptic way:

” Everything as you knew it has been wiped away.
But the lines of fate remain. The life that was cultivated can still thrive.
Everything is as it was, but new once more.”  

[…]
” I return you to before the first moment  where fate was changed.
I place you back in a new world. You will be free of the bonds of time
because my magic is in you. […] “You will be immune to time’s flow a traveler among mortals.”

-Yargen tells her to regain her birthright as Yargen’s champion and returns Vi back to the world.

-Vi finds herself in Norin. An old Norin apparently, as a face similar to her own gets up on a box and proclaims to the people of the west: The speaker is her grandmother, Princess Fiera of the west. She proclaims:

“I am Princess Fiera […] And I have received a vision from the Mother above.
The end is near, and we must be ready for it. “