Remember who he is! Vothe sharply chastises himself. Are you honestly feeling sympathy for him? The grandson of the Black Witch? Have you gone mad?
Trystan is quiet for a long, fraught moment, his back to Vothe. And then he shuts the closet door and turns, his eyes now blazing, and Vothe can feel the power of that gaze straight down his spine, his own lightning crackling to life in response to it.
“I’ll just wear this, then,” Trystan bites out, gesturing sharply toward the worn indigo Noi tunic and pants he has on.
Indignation rises in Vothe at the idea of this Mage even being allowed to wear Noi attire. “You can’t dress like that here. You have to be in uniform.”
Ire flashes in Trystan’s eyes. “What would you suggest, then?”
Vothe bares his teeth. “That you leave.”
Trystan’s whole body spits invisible lightning. He strides forward, his arm brushing against Vothe’s as he moves to grab hold of the door’s handle, a flash of his storm magic lashing into Vothe. Overpowering magic. Possibly stronger than anything Vothe could throw at him.
Vothe’s concern spikes as he steps back into the hall and Trystan slams the door in his face.
He shouldn’t be here, Vothe rages at the door, conflict roiling inside him. It’s right to try to drive him out. He’s got Her power. Or some approximation of it.
The Vu Trin don’t know what they’re dealing with.
* * *
Trystan notes the swarm of spiders crawling in under his door as he sits down at his desk, wondering if this is some new torment devised to get him to leave a place he has no intention of leaving.
Until it’s time to travel back west to fight Vogel. With the Vu Trin army.
As spiders circle him, he gets up, opens his door, and steps into the hallway to find the silent young woman, his Death Fae neighbor, still standing there amidst the thick cobwebs.
The spiders flood back to her and scuttle up her short, slender form.
Trystan and the Death Fae stare at each other for a protracted moment.
“You’re afraid of Vothendrile,” she finally says, her voice a midnight thrum, her dark presence seeming like the calm eye in the storm of the insects’ agitated activity. Her gaze is like deep forest shadow and makes Trystan feel as if he’s facing the very center of the night.
Despite her intimidating, otherworldly presence, scorn rises in Trystan in response to her pointed question. “I’m not afraid of Vothendrile,” he tells her shortly. “I have a fair bit of lightning too.”
She gives a small laugh that doesn’t reach her gleaming black eyes. “No, not of his power. Of his beauty.”
A reflexive fear strikes through Trystan, every muscle tensing over the attraction that would be a crime in Gardneria.
The Death Fae tilts her head, eyeing Trystan quizzically as a scorpion climbs from inside her tunic’s collar to curl around her neck. A small lime-green scorpion.
Trystan realizes, with a small start, that it’s a Deathstalker scorpion, one of the most venomous scorpions in all of Erthia.
“I am Sylla Vuul,” she says with serene dignity as six more black eyes sprout around the two she has fixed on him, a tremor of surprise passing through Trystan.
Part of Trystan is amused by her polite introduction. It’s ironic, really, that the friendliest person here is so terrifyingly odd.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Sylla Vuul,” Trystan replies evenly.
She cocks her head again. “You don’t fear me,” she says, a question in the statement.
“No,” Trystan affirms.
She nods almost imperceptibly as another bright green scorpion scuttles down from inside her pant leg. “You should know, Trystan Gardner,” the Fae says, her voice a lull, “that you are as beautiful as Vothendrile. I can read you.”
Trystan’s throat constricts. “What do you mean?”
“Deathkin can read fear. I know who you truly are.”
They stand there for a long moment, eyes locked as a few spiders lower themselves down near Trystan on silken strands, peering at him through countless eyes.
“They are wrong,” the Deathkin says to Trystan. “They are as wrong about you as they are about us. Be patient with them, Trystan Gardner.” Her multi-eyed gaze turns almost mournful. “They fear the wrong things.”
Trystan pulls in a long breath, feeling an odd solidarity with this Deathkin with her poisonous scorpions crawling over her slender frame. Scorpions that are a true threat. That could fell him in a heartbeat.
“You’re right,” he tells her grimly. “They do fear the wrong things. There’s only one thing they should all be afraid of right now.”
The Death Fae nods, their solidarity palpably strengthening, and when her words come, they ripple over him like inky mist, thrumming straight through his lines.
“The Great Shadow.”
CHAPTER FOUR
WYVERNGUARD FAE
TIERNEY CALIX
Sixth Month
Eastern Realm,
the Wyvernguard’s South Twin Island
Bleary-eyed and dressed in battered Noi garb, Tierney steps down the rune ship’s lowered stairs, following closely behind Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho, her young Vu Trin protectors these past few weeks. The soldiers’ dark backs before her, Tierney strides onto the Wyvernguard’s night-darkened landing platform at the base of the military academy’s South Twin Island mountain.
Down by the mighty Vo River’s edge.
As sapphire-garbed Noi military apprentices stride forward to meet them, Tierney is enveloped by a fulsome Fae awareness of the vast river that now surrounds her, its waters rushing tirelessly north to south just beyond the rune-marked landing platform and its adjacent terraces that seem to ring the island. The black-haired apprentices salute both Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho, fist to heart, as other apprentices secure the ship to the platform’s metal posts, their curious gazes darting toward the new Asrai Water Fae apprentice as they work. Two of them nod at Tierney in amiable greeting.
Tierney nods back at them self-consciously, stunned to be walking among them unglamoured, her long blue hair swinging behind her like an Asrai beacon, her skin a rippling dark blue hue, and her pointed ears dangerously exposed.
She fights the urge to hide herself. To ready herself for escape. To fight for her very existence.
But there’s nothing but welcome in the young soldiers’ eyes.
Feeling as if a crushing weight is slowly lifting from her shoulders, Tierney follows Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho across the broad platform, craning her neck skyward as she takes in the mammoth island-mountain before her.
Tiers upon tiers of obsidian Wyvernguard buildings circle the island-mountain, the narrow landmass rising straight through the clouds like some goddess’s blunt spear. Dragons pulsing with what seems like internal lightning dart in and out of the Wyvernguard’s upper reaches as rune ships encased in shimmering blue haze soar through the night sky and stream over the water like a constellation of restless sapphire stars.
A stiff breeze skimming up from the river catches Tierney in a sudden embrace, ruffling her hair and twining around her body like a beckoning call. The caress sends a ribbon of effervescent euphoria through Tierney, and every one of her senses flares to life, her exhaustion wicked away as she comes to an abrupt halt. Tierney turns to face the great river, frozen in place as she sets her gaze on its vast expanse of shimmering black water just beyond the landing platform and broad adjacent terraces, overcome by the dark grandeur of the largest river in all the Realms.
And the unassailable sense that it has set its whole focus on her.
Tierney sucks in a wavering breath, swept up in an intense emotion she doesn’t fully comprehend. Everything except the river fades to the background—the Vu Trin soldiers, the glowing rune ship, the island-mountain, Voloi’s glimmering coastline—all of it falls aside unti
l there’s only the water.
Only the Vo River.
Churning black waves eddy toward Tierney, first in small, tentative breakers, then larger swells, as if the Vo River’s great expanse is waking up to her presence, its motion independent of the wind and distant ocean’s pull.
A wave breaks over the terrace’s edge, cool spray misting over Tierney, the contact triggering a bolt of sheer elation.
Asrai.
The word rides in on the water, sweeping through her, as tears sting Tierney’s eyes.
Feeling as if she’s fallen into a longed-for dream, Tierney starts for the river, rapidly closing the distance to the terrace’s edge. All the Vu Trin soldiers step back and wordlessly, almost reverently, watch as wave after wave breaks over the terrace’s edge.
Tierney climbs up onto the terrace’s slick stone railing and throws her arms out into an impassioned greeting as the Vo ecstatically crashes against her.
As if joyfully claiming her.
A euphoric cry breaks from Tierney as she surrenders to its call and dives into the water.
The Vo closes around her in an all-encompassing, cool embrace as Tierney glides down into its depths, swept up in the river’s adoration as her Asrai vision wakes, the dark waters lighting up to gleam a deep blue, fish and kelpies streaming in to swim alongside her.
Tierney opens her mouth and pulls in a huge breath of water, fusing with the river, filling her Water Fae lungs with it. Feeling as if she’s finally come home.
* * *
Water slicked and still pulsing with elation, Tierney follows Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho through the countless decorated onyx and sapphire hallways of the Wyvernguard’s first-tier barracks as she dries herself by drawing the sweet water from the Vo into her skin.
Their boot heels click over marble floors marked with Vu Trin martial scenes and dragon deities, the sapphire runic light emanating from glass-orb lamps transforming Tierney’s new world into a surreal dreamscape.
Kiya Wen halts before a black wooden door marked, as all the doors on this wing are, with a circular metal plate bearing the design of a crashing wave. The young Vu Trin soldier turns and smiles broadly at Tierney.
“This will be your lodging here,” she informs her in Noi, and Tierney can’t help but touch the Noi translation rune newly emblazoned behind her ear by the Vu Trin—the shock of being able to understand so many languages still a vivid, wondrous thing.
Kiya Wen pulls a rune disc from her dark uniform’s pocket and places it on the corresponding blue Noi rune marked on the center of the onyx door. “This is how you unlock it,” she says to Tierney. She gives the door a brisk knock.
“Come in,” a melodious voice sings out in the Noi language.
Kiya Wen takes hold of the door’s black metal knob and pushes it open.
And there, whirling around in the center of the small room, is another Asrai Water Fae, as Tierney was told there would be.
“This is Apprentice Asra’leen Filor’ian,” Kiya Wen formally announces. “Your Wyvernguard cohort.”
Tierney’s eyes widen with a visceral astonishment to be face-to-face with the water-hued, point-eared young woman. The only other unglamoured Asrai Tierney has ever seen since she, herself, was glamoured at three years old.
The dark blue of Asra’leen Filor’ian’s skin is as changeable and rippling as Tierney’s. Her hair is white as foam and worn in a cloud of soft, tight curls around her head, her graceful hands lowering as she twirls to a stop, a swirl of water suspended around her that quickly dissipates into a mist that encircles her slender frame.
Asra’leen’s large blue eyes widen with palpable warmth as her full indigo mouth spreads into an effervescent smile.
Then the air around Asra’leen bursts into a veritable riot of crystalline rainbows.
“Tierney!” she enthuses as she springs forward and draws Tierney into an embrace, as if Tierney is a long-lost, much-beloved friend, and Tierney finds herself encircled by glittering rainbows.
Asra’leen draws back, loosely gripping Tierney’s arms. “Welcome home,” she says with real warmth, her smile devoid of any guile.
Tierney gapes at her, caught up in a sudden vortex of emotion.
Just like Tierney, Asra’leen is dressed in the sapphire-blue, white-dragon-marked uniform of the Vu Trin military apprentice.
And she’s openly Asrai Water Fae.
A tension Tierney didn’t know she was holding suddenly gives way as the full ramifications of being free of the Western Realm and free to be who she truly is strike through her. Turbulent, dark clouds spring to life around Tierney as she furiously blinks back tears and struggles to find her voice.
Asra’leen’s smile fades as she glances up at the clouds, and both understanding and compassion light in the Water Fae’s rainbow-flickering eyes. “You’re safe here,” Asra’leen says as she holds on to Tierney. “We’re all safe here.” Asra’leen’s gentle look hardens with significance as she glances toward the rune blade sheathed at her side. “And now we’re armed.”
* * *
Awe sweeps through Tierney the next morning as she follows rainbow-flecked Asra’leen into the Wyvernguard’s massive central hall, the vast space cut right into the center of the South Twin Island. A towering alabaster statue of the dragon-goddess Vo twines up from its middle, the dragon surrounded by carvings of Vu Trin military women raising their rune weapons outward in alliance with the goddess.
Tierney pauses to take in the countless sapphire-uniformed Vu Trin military apprentices streaming by her, some striding toward runic lifts set inside cylindrical columns that rise from tier to tier, the plate-shaped lifts able to carry Vu Trin smoothly up and down the South Twin’s many stories.
Almost all of the Vu Trin apprentices passing by are young, black-haired Noi women, as the Noi men don’t possess the runic sorcery needed to amplify rune weapon power or create runes. But scattered among the Vu Trin apprentices are pointed-eared, jewel-hued Urisk women and even some Urisk men. As well as blonde Issani women, dark-brown-toned Ishkartan Vu Trin apprentices with golden rune-marked head-wrappings, and both male and female Elfhollen with gray hair and skin, bows slung over their shoulders.
All with a Noi translation rune emblazoned behind one ear to allow for fluency in a multitude of the Eastern and the Western Realms’ major languages.
And there are dragon-shifters here—the Zhilon’ile Wyverns, tall and stunningly attractive, their onyx coloring shot through with pulses of bright white lightning, some only partially shifted, their obsidian horns and dark wings on full display.
Now I’m part of this too, Tierney marvels, momentarily overwhelmed by a whirlpool of grateful emotion as she glances down at her own brand-new Vu Trin apprentice uniform.
It’s incredible, such diversity in one military, in one society, and the reality of it flows into Tierney in disbelieving wave after disbelieving wave.
And fills her with a fierce desire to defend it, no matter the cost.
Asra’leen sends Tierney an ebullient smile then pulls a runic watch-orb from her uniform’s pocket and checks the time. She holds up the luminous blue orb for Tierney’s perusal. “We need to report for roll call in an hour’s time.” She slides the orb back into her tunic’s pocket. “You’ll be partnered for a few weeks with Fyordin Lir, our division’s command. He works closely with all the new Asrai.”
Tierney’s nervous anticipation heightens at the prospect of meeting so many of her people—their Asrai’lon division is comprised entirely of Water Fae.
“Fyordin is incredibly powerful,” Asra’leen happily tells her as a sapphire Vhion’ile dragon enters the hall and walks by with a group of Noi Vu Trin apprentices.
Tierney’s attention is snagged in astonishment.
Dragons...right here in the open.
Unbroken dragons.
An ache fills her heart ove
r the remembrance of the dragon she and her friends helped to free.
Where are you, Naga? Did you ever make it to the East?
“...and he’s claimed the Vo River as his kindred.”
Tierney’s head snaps back toward Asra’leen, who goes silent, her smile fading, as she seems to register Tierney’s defensive flare of emotion.
Tierney’s mind falls back into the feel of swimming through the Vo’s dark waters, merging with the Vo’s dark waters, the immediate bond that formed between her and the Vo last night more intimate than she imagines any lover’s caress could ever be.
“Are you all right?” Asra’leen asks, her rainbow-flecked eyes glinting with concern.
Tierney can’t speak for a moment, feeling deeply thrown by the idea of another Fae bonded to her Vo.
Tierney knows that Asra’leen has formed her own kinship with a waterfall on a small island just to the south of the Wyvernguard. Last eve they talked deep into the night, and Asra’leen spoke of the first time she made contact with her waterfall, a deeply significant Asrai bond forming between her and the falls with just that one touch, the sense of immediate connection a euphoric rush like no other. And now, Asra’leen strives to visit the lovely waterfall as often as she can, submersing herself in it and often morphing into water to become one with it, happily surrounded by its myriad fish and amphibians and aquatic insects and plant life, this small manifestation of Erthia’s water now an integral and deeply cherished part of Asra’leen’s heart.
Tierney knows, from her kelpies, that all Asrai eventually find their waters, a body of water that they claim as their own and are claimed by in turn.
Last night, Tierney found hers, and she isn’t ready to share it.
“Did you just say that Fyordin Lir has laid claim to the Vo?” Tierney presses, an unmistakable edge to her tone.
My river.
Dancing mischief lights Asra’leen’s eyes. “Well, he’ll have to share it now, won’t he? It seems that you and Fyordin have formed the same kinship.”
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