“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.”

WIND 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.