Vortex Visions (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles #1)

by Elise Kova

for the dreamers who never woke up and the doers who never gave up

Vi gave him one last, long look, trying to uncover whatever secrets he was hiding. But the man was a closed book. It was a good thing books of all kinds were Vi’s specialty.

Living in a region full of those with the power to manipulate the earth itself was both a delight and nightmare, for a hobby cartographer like herself.

“Everywhere is paradise, just a different kind.” Her maps told her that much. The world was wide and diverse; there were highlands and lowlands, frigid mountains and tropical jungles. Who was to say which was better than the other?

This was the oldest tree in the world—so the wrinkled men who sat around fires said—and they called it the Mother Tree. It was this tree that was said to have caught a falling star—a shard of the Mother’s light—in its branches. By the time the star finally reached the ground, it had absorbed life from the tree and became a woman. The same woman cut civilization from the boughs of the Mother Tree, forming all of Shaldan.

“I am too Northern to be Southern. I am too Southern to be Northern. Eastern to be Western. Western to be Eastern. I belong nowhere, and to no one, and it’s all because of some stupid magic and the words of one person—whose name you don’t even know.” Vi

“No child chooses the circumstances of their birth. Rich parents, poor parents, high and low. We are all handed the starting point. What you make of every step thereafter is what defines your life.”

“What are the apexes of fate?” “Places the world changed, or places where it still could be changed. They’re locations where fate was malleable and the future was—is—yet undecided.”

“Home is a funny thing…” she said, finally. “I don’t really know where home is or what it will look like. I have dreams, ideas, but nothing concrete.”

My family is the one thing I’ve wanted, the one thing I’ve been working toward. I can’t give up on it now.”