The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

“The Roaches don’t belong here,” he seethes, low and threatening. “And the grandson of the Black Witch, most of all, does not belong here. If he won’t leave on his own, he’ll need to be driven out.”

  Tierney holds Fyordin’s formidable gaze without flinching. “Trystan Gardner is my friend.”

  A deeper hush falls, the former air of welcome and acceptance whisked clear away.

  “Then maybe you don’t belong here either,” Fyordin states coldly.

  His words are like a knife straight through her. Jaggedly painful. But Tierney will be damned if she shows this arrogant Fae how much he’s hurt her.

  She stifles the pain and shoots Fyordin a potent glare, the storm cloud above her head gaining strength. “What ever happened to Asrai’il?” she snarls. “Or does that only apply when I don’t speak my own mind?” She takes a step toward him, incensed beyond reason. “I hear you’ve claimed the Vo, Fyordin.”

  “I have,” he shoots back, a storm flashing in his eyes.

  Tierney gives a mirthless smile. “I challenge that claim.”

  A collective gasp of astonishment goes up as Fyordin takes his time looking her up and down, his lips twisting with disdain, but Tierney can feel the storm in him battering against his skin. “You don’t realize what you’re dealing with,” he warns with a threatening smile. “You’d need an army to best me.”

  Tierney steps back, lowers her head, and throws out her arms, palms up, as she sounds out an Asrai call in her mind.

  A call straight out to the Vo River.

  Her Vo.

  Water explodes over the terrace’s edge. Shrieks sound out as more than twenty kelpies leap from the river and military apprentices all over the terrace draw back in surprise. The kelpies’ bodies roil with dark water, sharp teeth forming from ice as they flow in to converge around Tierney. Her beloved kelpie, Es’tryl’lyan, comes to Tierney’s side as Tierney notes the alarmed expressions of the Asrai surrounding her.

  Tierney knows that her kelpies exist outside of an alliance with any Fae. And that they are aligned with the power of water to cause death, straddling the line between Asrai magic and primordial forces.

  Death forces.

  Tierney reaches out to touch the cool, flowing surface of Es’tryl’lyan’s back as she gives Fyordin a lethal smile. “I have an army, Fyordin Lir. And we plan on fighting Marcus Vogel’s forces with anyone who will ally with us.”

  Furious, Tierney turns on her heels and stalks away from them all, the storm cloud above her head strengthening and spitting lightning as she throws out her arm and sends her kelpies back to the water and then doggedly makes her way across the broad terrace toward the Death Fae.

  “Tierney,” Asra’leen calls after her, the sound of the young Fae’s booted feet splashing over the water-slicked terrace.

  Her water magic churning with resentment, Tierney grits her teeth and slows to a begrudging stop, her gaze still set on the Death Fae, who is steadily watching her from the terrace’s farthest end.

  “Tierney, please,” Asra’leen pleads, her voice shot through with contrition.

  Tierney lets out a long sigh and turns. She can see, from the remorseful look on Asra’leen’s face, that she’s genuinely concerned, her prismatic shimmer dimmed. But it’s not enough to quell the angry hurt roiling inside Tierney.

  “I think you’re supposed to shun me now,” Tierney snipes, knowing even as she says it that she’s being wildly unfair to Asra’leen, who has been nothing but kind to her.

  Asra’leen’s face tenses with hurt, but she appears to shake it off quickly, the deep blue of her eyes darkening with a stubborn light. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  Tierney raises a blue brow at Asra’leen’s impassioned declaration, some solid will behind it.

  I’ve misjudged her, Tierney considers. She’s made of sterner stuff than her dancing rainbows and affinity for a small waterfall would seem to indicate.

  “I can see that this is...complicated for you,” Asra’leen falteringly offers. She glances back toward the Asrai massed on the terrace behind them.

  Tierney’s gaze briefly meets Fyordin’s, a flash of ire passing between them as the powerful Fae sweeps up his hand and blasts a waterspout from the Vo to fly straight up and scatter amidst the clouds above.

  A warning.

  Fine, Tierney thinks, glaring at Fyordin. It’s on. I’m taking the Vo.

  “Where are you going?” Asra’leen asks Tierney, her foam-white brow crinkling. “You’ll be disciplined if you leave...”

  “I will not train with Fyordin Lir,” Tierney snaps with an emphatic slice of her hand. “I’m going to petition to be assigned to a different division.” She inclines her head toward the dark young man in the distance. “And I’m going to go over there and talk to that Death Fae.”

  Alarm explodes over Asra’leen’s features. She swallows as she side-eyes the Death Fae. “Tierney,” she warns, low and emphatic, “don’t go near him. They’re not like us. Their magic isn’t elemental. It’s primordial and dangerous. They shouldn’t even be here in the Wyvernguard. All of the religions here mark them as demonic—”

  “No,” Tierney spits out with a derisive glare. “I just came from Gardneria. You’re going to have to find something better than religious arguments to get me to shun anyone. I’ll figure out for myself who’s a demon and who’s not.”

  Asra’leen takes hold of her arm with a nervous glance in the Death Fae’s direction. “They can read your fear and feed on it. They can pull you under a thrall, and they test you with animals that can kill you. So they can grab hold of a thread of your fear and control you.” Her tone turns adamant. “Tierney, he might be stalking you. They do that. Stay away from him.”

  Skepticism rises in Tierney. “And yet they’re the only ones willing to give Trystan Gardner a chance.” Recklessly decided, Tierney turns away from Asra’leen and makes for the Death Fae.

  “Tierney...wait!” Asra’leen cries out from behind her, but Tierney ignores her, ignores the collective looks of surprise from the Fire Fae division as she passes them by and homes right in on the dark figure and his unblinking stare.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DEATH FAE

  TIERNEY CALIX

  Sixth Month

  Eastern Realm,

  the Wyvernguard

  Approaching the Death Fae is like approaching a void, his dark form still as Tierney strides across the Wyvernguard’s stone terrace, rapidly closing the distance between them. For a moment, there’s the sense of slowing down even as Tierney picks up her brisk pace, the distance between herself and the motionless Fae seeming to telescope backward as the entire world dims.

  Her heartbeat quickening, Tierney continues to press on toward the Death Fae’s hypnotic form as he reclines against the terrace’s railing, pale hands gripping stone. He’s long and slender, but she has the growing sense of vast power contained in his streamlined frame, his face all angles and shadows, his Wyvernguard uniform tinted black, as if someone has poured ink over the sapphire fabric and the embroidered dragon flowing down its center.

  Tierney notes his nails are also black and sharpened to points.

  Claws.

  Claws that look like they could effortlessly eviscerate someone.

  As she approaches, the inky color of his eyes spreads out to encompass the surrounding white, giving the impression of a bottomless abyss. Tierney pauses, the warm whoosh of her pulse sounding in her ears as her body stiffens with a mounting intimidation that she stubbornly ignores. She forces her feet back into motion, the world growing darker and darker as she approaches, the Death Fae now lit only by a faint silvery mist that’s enfolding them both.

  She stills before him.

  It’s as if the world has paused, only the two of them now in it, all sound muted to nothing, the terrace, the Wyvernguard mountain, and the river surrounding them pl
unged into darkened hues.

  The Death Fae straightens slightly, his focus on Tierney seeming to sharpen with unsettling curiosity as hard obsidian horns emerge from his spiked black hair in spiraling arcs.

  Holy gods his eyes are black, Tierney marvels, her breath tightening in her throat.

  Black as the center of Erthia.

  Black as the deepest reaches of the night sky.

  Tierney swallows as onyx serpents slither out from under the hem of the Fae’s tunic to coil around his waist, his arms, his pale neck.

  He waits as his serpents raise their heads in unison, their eyes intent on Tierney, purple tongues flickering. She has the sudden, vaguely amusing thought that if the Death Fae opened his mouth, he’d push out a forked purple tongue that would flicker too.

  “Why are you watching me?” Tierney asks, no accusation in her tone, only curiosity.

  He cocks his head, seeming to peer at a focal point inside her. “You have kindred Deathkin,” he answers, and a shiver passes through Tierney, his voice a subterranean lull that resonates in her bones. “Your kelpie kindreds are kindred to us, as well,” he says, mist-shrouded. “And the Gardnerian spoke of you.”

  Tierney considers this as she recalls the looks of fear that came over the other Asrai when Tierney summoned her kelpies. It’s clear most Water Fae don’t like her vicious water horses, linked as they are to the killing power of water and known to drown anyone deemed a threat to waters they’ve claimed as their own.

  Death rides with them.

  But still, the kelpies’ ferocious loyalty to the waters of Erthia resonates deep in Tierney’s core, and she can’t help but love them for it.

  She holds the Death Fae’s bottomless stare, feeling a spark of kinship based on their mutual appreciation for creatures that are both terrifying and wildly misunderstood.

  She squares her shoulders against the Fae’s encroaching, palpable darkness. “I heard you were kind to Trystan Gardner, and I wanted to thank you for it. He’s my friend.”

  The Death Fae’s brow tightens, his silvery mist writhing around Tierney.

  A sudden flow of onyx spiders and scorpions appear over the Fae’s shoulders and around his sides, coalescing to swarm down his body onto the misty stone terrace and toward Tierney. She winces from the contact as the creatures scuttle up over her pants and around her form, along with two of the black snakes.

  Poisonous river spiders, cave scorpions, and water snakes.

  One bite a mark of death.

  Rebellion rises in Tierney in response to what feels like an attempt to intimidate. She meets the Death Fae’s stare unflinchingly as the gleaming black insects and serpents encircle her, her water power rising with confrontational energy.

  The Death Fae tilts his horned head, his black lips lifting, as he continues to study Tierney with those unnerving, unblinking void eyes of his.

  Without warning, his dark eyes widen.

  Tierney gasps, swept up in a sudden swell of vertigo, feeling as if the ground has upended to cast her straight into his bottomless eyes.

  She shuts her own eyes tightly to stop from careening into his thrall, almost losing her footing as ire rises in her like a fierce tide. Struggling to regain her balance, she draws in a deep breath then opens her eyes to narrowed, livid slits and is instantly accosted, once more, by his relentless draw.

  “Get your thrall off me,” she seethes as the sense of hurtling straight toward him overtakes her once again. Tensing every muscle, Tierney draws a storm, dark clouds bursting from her skin, blasting away the Fae’s silvery mist as her clouds whip around them both, spitting slim threads of white lightning.

  The Death Fae blinks, as if surprised, and then his pull recedes.

  Tierney takes a faltering step back to regain her balance, then forces herself straight as she glares at the Fae, her anger spilling over its banks. “I have an affinity for kelpies and for dark waters,” she snarls. “I’m drawn to the bottom of lakes. Hidden streams. Stormy weather. It’s not the clear, pretty water that I like—it’s deep water with many things living in its depths. Dangerous things.” Tierney flicks her eyes pointedly toward the insects still scuttling over her abdomen and the one serpent that’s twined around her arm as her fury mounts.

  She meets the Death Fae’s black stare intently, blazing challenge in her glare. “Go ahead, Death Fae. Try to scare me. You picked the wrong Asrai to try to intimidate. I’ve lived in darkness for a very long time.”

  His inky gaze slides over her face as the whites of his eyes reappear and his mouth hints at a smile. “You are attracted to the dangerous things of nature?”

  Holy gods, Tierney thinks again, the world darkening to pitch around that silken, subterranean voice, only the silver-mist-lit image of him remaining.

  And those deep-cavern eyes.

  Tierney stares back at him unflinchingly. “I am.”

  The Death Fae rises to his full, impressive height and takes a step toward Tierney, his slight smile edging higher as he draws close.

  Suddenly, Tierney is once again falling into that dark gaze, mesmerized, feeling as if she’s been swept up in a midnight current.

  “Are you sure?” he says, his breath brushing her ear, his voice thrumming through Tierney with an odd, enticing resonance that warms the currents of her power.

  The entire world dims almost to the point of full dark.

  Apprehension rises in Tierney, bubbling up even as she fights against what’s turned into a surprisingly alluring pull, his draw taking on the intoxicating feel of submersion in the vast river’s depths.

  “Why are you trying to pull me under your thrall?” she calmly asks him, holding his gaze even as her power churns warmer.

  “Curiosity,” he answers, his smile nocturnal as he studies her with those bottomless eyes. His brow tightens a subtle fraction, as if he’s distracted by something inside her. “Your fears intrigue me.”

  “Is it true, then?” Tierney asks somewhat archly, striving to ignore how seductive she finds him in this moment. “Are you a demon, about to swallow me whole?”

  A wicked smile lifts the Death Fae’s lips, and it sends a chill down Tierney’s spine. But then the smile is gone as his focus on her sharpens, an unsettled energy in it.

  Tierney Calix.

  Tierney stiffens with surprise to hear his deep voice sounding in the back of her mind.

  She recoils, swiftly moving back as she exhales and blasts invisible storm power outward, striking against his invading thrall. “Get out of my mind,” she snarls as fright ices through her.

  Their powers collide, one wall of Fae magic meeting another, neither side giving way, a dark wall pressed up against a storming tide.

  “No one can keep Death out,” he sneers, teeth bared, as he presses against her storm. “Don’t approach Death if you’re timid.”

  “What’s your name?” Tierney demands, not the least bit cowed this time as she forcefully holds his thrall at bay.

  He blinks, his black lips twitching, as their powers maintain a relentless standoff. “Viger,” he concedes, low in his throat. “Viger Maul.”

  “Well, Viger,” Tierney shoots back, emphatic. “You should know that I’m not the least bit timid. But my mind is my own, and if you try to control it, I’ll fight back twice as hard.”

  His thrall abruptly recedes. Tierney’s power rushes into the unprotected space around him, his form now encircled by her unsettled clouds, threads of lightning periodically illuminating his severe features.

  He stays silent as the spiders, scorpions, and snakes crawl and slither back toward him and disappear under the hems of his garments until it’s as if they were never there.

  “I do not control minds,” he finally says, with what sounds like a rueful note as the whites of his eyes return.

  “But I’m told you feed on fear,” Tierney snipes ba
ck.

  A slight, bitter scowl. “No. I read fear,” he counters with what seems like a trace of exasperation. “Better than anything. Better than your words. Better than the look on your face.” Tierney is struck by the sudden, world-weary expression that tinges the Fae’s coal-black eyes. He can’t be much older than Tierney’s nineteen years, yet, in that moment, he seems ancient.

  A morbid curiosity rises in Tierney, unbidden. “What are you reading in my fears?” she ventures, feeling as if she’s toying with something much more dangerous than her kelpies.

  The Death Fae’s lip curls back up, no mirth reaching his void eyes as he draws close once more and the whites blacken over, his misty darkness insinuating itself into her clouds.

  You fear Vogel, sounds inside Tierney’s mind. As you should. And you fear for everyone you love. Tierney’s muscles tighten in response to the invasive feel of that deep voice resonating once more in her head.

  You fear never being seen for who you are, the velvet voice murmurs. And you fear not belonging. His expression darkens further, his face closer to hers now, something approaching sympathy touching the sharp lines of his face. You will never resolve both of these fears, Asrai. You cannot have both of these things. You stand alone.

  Tierney draws back, suddenly pierced by a sorrow she can’t explain, an unsettling energy shuddering through her water power. “That’s enough,” she snaps, thrown by the vulnerability this stranger-Fae is stoking in her.

  His black-lipped mouth falls open a fraction as if he’s unearthed something that surprises him. His brow creases, a surprising tinge of compassion in his eyes. You fear never truly being loved.

  A defensive heat sparks in Tierney and she moves farther back from him. “Get out of me.”

  I can’t. The tone of the words in her mind is almost mournful as the Death Fae remains stubbornly fixated on her. Reading fear is like breathing air to Deathkin.

  “Then get away from me, Viger.”

  The energy between them changes as Viger flicks out his claws and the darkness he’s sent out to languidly circle around them morphs into a tempest of black smoke, roiling and storming. “You came to me,” he snarls, revealing disturbingly sharp teeth as his eyes flash then turn solid black once more. “You invited me in and asked for your fears.” So face what’s inside you, Asrai, seethes in the back of Tierney’s mind.