Heart racing, I force myself to straighten. “Will Lukas be joining me there?”
“Yes, Mage,” Thierren replies after a short but significant pause, a caginess to his tone that makes me feel like we’re both playing a part. “He has some things to attend to here. Then he’ll meet you in Valgard soon after you arrive.”
Foreboding snakes through me. Being separated from Lukas leaves me vulnerable to possible incoming threats. But still, if I can survive this journey, this could be a path toward Lukas’s protection.
“Will I have a guard?” I press Thierren, hoping he doesn’t question my expressed need for one.
Again, a pause and that same cagey look. “Yes, Mage,” he concurs, a glint in his green eyes that reads like a deeper understanding of the questions behind my questions. “You’ll be accompanied by myself and three other high-level Mages.”
I hold his oddly knowing stare as we regard each other searchingly.
“All right, then,” I concede. “Let’s go.”
The edge of Thierren’s lip twitches up as I summon my courage and walk toward him.
I take my proffered bag, my breath suspended as I surreptitiously feel for the Wand’s spiraling handle just under the fabric. Relief floods through me as I locate it there, straight and true, and I have to force my expression to remain blank.
Then I sling the bag over my shoulder, exchange one last cryptic look with Thierren, and follow him to the carriage.
CHAPTER TWO
EVELYN GREY
ELLOREN GARDNER
Sixth Month
Valgard, Gardneria
“Mage Evelyn Grey wishes to meet with you straightaway.”
A broad, dour-faced, and pale-violet-hued Urisk woman stands before me, framed by the carriage door she’s just opened. She’s holding a wax cloth up high to form a rain-sheltering canopy for me to step under, raindrops drumming against the top of the stiff fabric. Just beyond her I catch Thierren’s eye as he rides away with the three other soldiers who guarded my carriage on the journey, his cloak’s hood pulled over his head.
Concerned to see my guard moving away from me, I rise from the carriage seat, my legs cramped from so many hours of travel, then freeze before the carriage door as I take in the sheer size of the estate that lies before me. Aunt Vyvian’s mansion is a small cottage in comparison to it.
The Grey estate is sprawling, and I immediately worry that it won’t be possible for such an enormous structure to be adequately guarded against assassins. Although...it is placed on elevated land near the edge of a towering bluff that overlooks the Malthorin Bay.
A huge cliff, that’s good, I consider. Makes it difficult to approach the estate from the west.
The estate is also encompassed by a spiky iron fence that appears to be warded against trespass by glowing Gardnerian runes affixed to its larger posts.
The mansion’s two stories are supported by massive sanded Ironwood trees, and its tunneling entranceways are framed by more trees’ densely woven branches, as if the entire structure has been wrought from a forest. And there’s a private, cultivated forest encased in a gigantic arboretum, the huge glass structure attached to the estate, the trees inside blurred by the rain.
The estate’s windows are striking, and I can’t help but notice their exquisite craftsmanship as we pass them, even in my state of jumped-up surveillance—they’re diamond paned and bordered by elegant stained-glass vines. And there’s a roof garden with multiple potted trees and flowering vines that spill over the roof’s edging in a cascade.
I frown, unsettled.
It would be so easy for an attacker to hide amidst all that foliage.
I am marginally relieved to find that High Commander Lachlan Grey’s familial home is surrounded by more than a few Mage Guards, soldiers not only bracketing the doors but patrolling the grounds as well, Thierren now among them.
Will this, combined with a warded gate, be enough to keep me alive?
“Mage,” the Urisk woman standing before me says, pulling me out of my momentary pause.
“I’m sorry,” I hastily apologize. “Thank you.”
I sling my travel bag over my shoulder and cautiously step down the carriage’s slick fold-down steps, taut with anxiety but also ready to be done with close to two straight days of travel to Gardneria’s capital city.
The Urisk woman shelters me under the wax cloth as I finish disembarking, her mouth set in a tight line. Rain streams off the sides of the cloth in long rivulets, soaking the woman’s cloak.
Like the mist being kicked up by the rain, hostility radiates from her, and I wonder at it, even as sympathy for her sparks over what must be an impossible situation—being Urisk and indentured to High Commander Lachlan Grey.
Still, I’m both thrown and rattled by her demeanor as I keep up with her brisk stride toward the nearest sheltering archway, its roof formed by interwoven branches of Ironwood. I glance over my shoulder as the carriage pulls away.
A panoramic view of Valgard and the Malthorin Bay beyond is spread out behind me, just past the iron-barred fencing, the gauzy golden lights of Gardneria’s capital city evident even in the hazy mist. My gaze catches on a faint, glowing green line that hangs over the outer edge of the bay, the Fae Islands beyond it shrouded into invisibility by the mist.
What is that?
I have little time to wonder at the odd sight as the rain begins to sheet down in earnest, like countless pebbles thrown at the wax cloth, the weather in this part of Gardneria famously stormy this time of year. A driving wind picks up that whips my hair around, and we quicken our pace through the torrential rain toward the archway.
The immaculate gardens that surround the Greys’ mansion are being worked, even in this heavy rain, by cloaked, bent Urisk women, while knots of cloaked soldiers guard its wrought-iron entrance gate just beyond.
Remorse cuts through my worry for my own safety. What will happen to all those women when Gardneria’s mandatory eviction of all non-Mages from these lands begins at year’s end?
My gaze slides to the northeastern edge of the property and the dense line of forest just beyond. I notice there’s a much heavier military presence near this stretch of isolated wilds.
We step under the branchy archway, a stone walkway beneath my feet, its geometric blessing-star design cobbled in black and forest green. I notice that rain has darkened the hem of my skirt as the angry Urisk woman directs me toward a huge Ironwood door with an impatient flick of her hand.
She slows, opens the door, and ushers me into a tidy cloakroom. Then she quickly folds the wax cloth and sets it aside as I pull back my cloak’s hood, but she gives me no time at all to pause and hang up my damp covering.
“Mage Evelyn is waiting,” she practically hisses with another curt wave to prod me forward.
I follow as she rushes me through a series of lantern-lit hallways hung with impressive oil paintings depicting lush Ironwood forests. Eventually, the woman comes to a halt before a set of ornate doors, their wood carved into a rich autumn hunting scene—Gardnerians with arrows nocked in bows and aimed at a herd of elk.
“Stay there,” she orders with a jab toward my feet, like I’m a dog in need of training. Then she opens one of the doors and slips inside, closes it behind her, and leaves me in the hall all alone.
I crane my ear and can make out muted conversation just beyond the thick wood. Soon, one of the doors partially opens and the Urisk woman steps back into the hallway.
“Mage Evelyn Grey will see you now.” She announces this with a slight sneer, as if I’m about to get what’s coming to me, then stands back and opens the door wide with a flourish, an obnoxious glint in her eyes.
I enter reluctantly and try to hide my wince when the door clicks shut behind me.
Lukas’s mother, Mage Evelyn Grey, stands at the far end of the room, her back to me.
She’s looking through a diamond-paned window that takes up almost an entire wall and is hung with sumptuous maroon curtains tied back with forest green tassels. She’s tall, finely dressed, and holds herself in the same regal manner as Aunt Vyvian.
Heart thudding, I rally my courage, set down my travel bag by a chair, and take a few tentative steps toward the center of the room as I quickly scan my surroundings.
A large black marble fireplace blazes to one side, overpowering the day’s damp chill. Richly cushioned chairs are grouped before it, an expansive bookshelf set into the adjacent wall. The soft glow of glass-encased torches on iron stands warms the dim gray light streaming in from the windows, and expensive-looking porcelain vases are placed artfully throughout the room. Everything is in the traditional Gardnerian colors—deep red for the blood of our people spilled by the Evil Ones, green for the subdued wilds, smatterings of Ironflower blue, and the ever-present black to symbolize our many years of oppression.
Thunder rumbles in the distance.
Mage Grey half turns, one hand resting gracefully on the windowsill as she gives me a slow once-over. She’s intimidatingly beautiful, fine as a painting, her black velvet tunic conservatively high in the collar, and both her tunic and long-skirt devoid of embellishment. Her green eyes bore into me, hard and cold as wintry glass. I can see now where Lukas gets his stunning looks, his fiercely commanding presence. The shock of white-silver running through Mage Grey’s ebony hair only intensifies her severe beauty.
I struggle to keep my confidence from wilting before her.
She continues to look me over slowly, like some unwanted insect she’s fighting the urge to crush, as I wait for her to say something. After a moment, she turns away, brings one hand to her waist, and peers back out the window toward her fine gardens and view of the ocean beyond.
“Do you have any idea, Mage Gardner,” she says, her voice all tight control, “how many young women would have given anything to fast to my son?”
My throat goes dry. I’m not sure how to respond. The black enameled clock on the fireplace mantel seems to be waiting for my answer as well, impatiently ticking to break the silence.
Evelyn Grey turns away from the window to peer at me once more. “Yet he chose someone who had to be physically restrained, actually held down, before she could be fasted to him.”
Anger sparks like flint to steel. Yes, well, he forced me. And I’d have struck your wretched son down and escaped if I had control of my magic.
Her frown tightens. “He regrets fasting to you.” She says it calmly enough, but I catch the desperation clawing at the edges of her tone as she glares at me like I’m some evil thing who’s imprisoned her son. “You should see the look that comes over his face when your name is mentioned. He bitterly regrets it.”
Nausea rises and burns at the back of my throat as I remember why I’m here. If I don’t secure Lukas’s protection, the Vu Trin will kill me.
“I wasn’t myself at the fasting,” I force out, struggling to keep my anger at bay. “My uncle had just died. It’s taken me a while to get over that, and... I think Lukas will understand.”
Her eyes go wide and she nods with theatrical pleasantry. “Will he, now?” Her lip lifts, her eyes narrowing into verdant shards of ice. “A warm reception he gave you, was it?”
I shrink under her mocking glare.
“Where have you been, Mage Gardner?” Her voice has gone hard as stone.
The question catches like a hook in my throat. She’s watching me, still as a cat.
“I...I just came from the Keltish Province...” I start, remembering to use Keltania’s new name. “I was with Lukas...”
“No,” she cuts in, acid edging her tone. “You know what I mean.”
My mind whirls into chaos.
“He fasts to you and seals the fasting,” she continues, “but you run off and let the Sealing spell go fallow with no consummation.” Her eyes flick down at my unmarked wrists. “I can’t seem to get a straight answer out of my son regarding where you went and why you rejected him in such a brazen manner,” she continues, “so I’m asking you. This past month. Where were you?”
I will myself to form a coherent thought, scrabbling to unearth the excuse I’ve readied. “I was trying to find a way to contact my brothers,” I lie.
“Ah, yes, the traitors.”
I nod stiffly.
“And did you find a way?” There’s cloying sarcasm in her tone.
I shake my head, grief stabbing at me. No, you witch, I didn’t, I anguish. I don’t know where they are. I don’t even know if they’re still alive. “I thought...if I could find them...” I haltingly offer. “I thought I could get them to stop.”
“Stop what?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Their rebellion.”
“Which you are no stranger to yourself, isn’t that right?” she states as fear shoots down my spine. She stares me down before shaking her head, as if deeply disappointed in me. “What a wretched liar you are, Elloren Gardner.”
I stand frozen, struggling to keep my breathing even as she moves away from the window and begins to circle me.
“I know you were found in bed with a Kelt,” she says. “Do you have any idea of the lengths Vyvian and I had to go to, to try to hide that fact?” She makes a full sweep around my still form then stops directly before me. Her gaze is searing, her tight control breaking around the edges as fury seeps through. “And now, you are fasted to my Lukas. A girl from a family of race traitors who takes every opportunity to spit on her grandmother’s great name, who lacks even one shred of moral decency.” Her mouth twists into a livid grimace. “Is my son’s reputation to be so polluted?”
“I’m not like my brothers,” I stammer, the lie painful to force out.
She gets right up to my face. “You are not good enough for my son,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “You are not fit to clean the mud from his boots!” She grabs my hands roughly with hers.
I give a small cry and try to pull away as her nails dig into my skin.
She holds on to me, glaring with furious desperation at the fasting marks. “If there was some way to break this spell,” she says, seeming distraught, “I would do it. I’ve tried to find a way.” Her voice grows rough. “In bed with a Kelt,” she grieves, then grows silent, fixated on my hands, the wheels of her mind visibly turning. “Do you know what we do now to race traitors, Elloren Gardner?” She’s speaking more to herself than to me, staring hard at my hands. “We execute them.”
“I never slept with the Kelt,” I insist, my desperation to elude this vile woman rising. “It was all a misunderstanding. My hands. They’re proof of it.” No bloody gash marks, like on Sage’s hands. Absolute proof of my chastity.
Evelyn Grey freezes, her eyes seeming to flicker in thought. A dark smile forms on her lips, and she considers my hands as if she’s seeing them clearly for the very first time.
A tremor of desperate alarm streaks through me, and I tug my hands away, her nails scratching me as I do. I step back and cradle my hands protectively over my thudding heart.
Mage Grey straightens and smiles at me like a shark. “You’re going to the Mage Council ball tonight.” She says this with renewed purpose, as if she’s terribly pleased with how clever she is, a malicious gleam in her eyes.
I swallow hard. I don’t like the way she seems firmly set on some devious course of action. And I can’t travel unprotected to a ball with assassins possibly on my tail. “I should ask Lukas first,” I shakily insist. “I’ll send a rune hawk—”
“No,” she grinds out, clearly incensed. “You will do as I say.”
I’m suddenly as aware of all the wood in this room as I am of the unknown threat emanating from this woman—the Ironwood tree trunks and their tangling branches that support the room, forming wavering rafters above my head. The Ironwood planks bene
ath my feet.
Dead wood. All around me.
An image of the living Ironwood trees this wood came from flashes in my mind as power pricks at my heels and I curl and uncurl my toes against it, fire roused in my lines. I force a deep, quavering breath and fight back the feral desire to set Lukas’s mother and this entire estate alight.
Something just behind me catches Evelyn’s eye and I turn, blessedly distracted from the pull toward magical violence.
“Mage.” A different, younger Urisk woman with lavender skin, violet hair, and amethyst eyes stands in the doorway, her features stunning, and I’m struck by the feeling that I’ve met her before. She looks about my age. “Oralyyr sent us.” She dips her head in a graceful bow.
The bow is artlessly echoed by the skinny little Urisk girl I now see standing beside her, the child perhaps no more than eight years of age. The little girl has wide, bat-like ears and the deep-violet skin of the Urisk’s most royal class. There’s something troubling about the stiffness with which these two hold themselves, frozen in their deferential bow, as if they’re afraid Mage Grey will have them beheaded if they make a wrong move.
Mage Grey eyes them with distaste then fixes her gaze back on me. “Sparrow and Effrey are to be your lady’s maids whilst you are here, and Sparrow will accompany you everywhere and report back to me as to your comings and goings. In addition, I will be sending two soldiers to accompany you to the dance. They, too, will report back to me. Do I make myself clear, Mage Gardner?”
I’m a caged bird, dangling from her elegant finger.
A mounting alarm swells. “I don’t need lady’s maids,” I counter, barely able to disguise my apprehension.
Mage Grey pins me with her stare. “You are living under my roof now, Mage Gardner. You will abide by my rules. Not your own.”
Through my tunic pocket, I finger the stone Chi Nam gave me, pressing it into my thigh. “Yes, Mage,” I concede, even as anger quickly gains ground inside me. I despise you, you witch. You and your cursed family. And especially your cursed son.
The Shadow Wand Page 17