The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  “You lied to the soldiers,” I say, fighting to ignore the sparks.

  Lukas considers this, his brow tightening in thought. “If the Gardnerians find out the Kin Hoang have come for you, they’ll grow suspicious of the power they sense in you. They’d immediately bring you to Vogel.” He looks at my hands, and I self-consciously cease flexing them, realizing how odd the repetitive scratching must seem. And what conclusions he might draw from it.

  “You’re Gardnerian, Lukas,” I remind him, taking a chance of feeling out whether he’s still aligned with Gardneria, even though he’s not with Vogel. He’s talking about Gardnerians as if they’re a group he’s firmly on the periphery of, which gives me hope.

  But he isn’t listening. He’s watching me, lost in an idea. “I’m going to wandtest you.”

  Power again sparks over my fingers like pine branches catching invisible fire. I can feel the entire framework of the carriage all at once, right down to the wheels making contact with rough road. “It’s a waste of time,” I scoff, heart pounding. “I’ve been tested several times.”

  Once by my uncle, who quickly discovered that his three-year-old charge was the Black Witch and promptly went into hiding; once at university with a blocked wand; once with Yvan when I burned down a forest. And once by Vu Trin sorceresses who are now intent on killing me.

  Lukas’s eyes harden. “Give me your wand hand,” he insists, holding out his own.

  “Why?” I curl my hands protectively in my lap, balling them into tight fists to try to douse the sparking power.

  Lukas keeps his hand extended, insistent.

  I eye his hand, realizing that if I refuse, I’ll inflame his suspicions. Reluctantly, I reach out, filled with the acute sense that I’m rapidly sinking under a deep, inescapable tide.

  Lukas takes my wand hand in his and gently pushes up the sleeve of my dress.

  My arm is covered in angry bruises from the assassin’s barrage of stars.

  “She really wanted to kill you,” he observes, sounding slightly mystified as he turns my arm over for inspection.

  “You think so?” I nervously snipe. “I thought she meant it only as a warning. She seemed so half-hearted about it.”

  He glances up at me and purses his lips, as if mocking an assassination attempt is in poor taste, then goes back to studying my arm, the wheels of his mind visibly turning.

  “I can feel it.” His hand slides around my wrist, his thumb tracing an arc just below my palm. Small sparks trail in the wake of his touch, setting me further on edge. “There’s power just below your skin,” he murmurs. “More than in the past. Much more.”

  I pull my wand hand back toward me as I struggle to find a way to withhold the truth. “My uncle wandtested me,” I insist, leaving out the giant explosion part. “I was tested at university. And... I tried out a wand while I was gone. All with the same results. No more testing.”

  His brow furrows searchingly. “Are you back as a spy, then?”

  “What?” I cough out. “For the same people who’re trying to kill me?”

  “You tell me, Elloren.”

  “I’m here for protection,” I insist.

  Lukas settles back in his seat. “I’d be willing to wager you’re back for more than protection.” His unflinching gaze is formidable. “I think you’re back for information.” He reaches into his tunic, pulls out Chi Nam’s blue rune stone, and holds it up for my inspection.

  Panic jolts through me. My hand reflexively slides over my pocket and the blood drains from my face when I find it flat and empty.

  Lukas’s mouth turns up in a dark grin. “Did you lose something?”

  I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. It’s not mine. The lying words stick tight to the base of my throat, caught there like fish in a net.

  Lukas’s smile inches wider. He tilts his head and holds the stone loosely, his hand resting on his thigh. “Did Chi Nam tell you we’re acquainted?” He turns the stone over in his fingers. “We’ve been sparring for years. It’s like a game of cat and mouse with her.”

  “Who’s the mouse?” I shakily ask.

  Lukas laughs and shoots me a sly grin. “We switch off.” He narrows his eyes in consideration. “If Chi Nam wanted you dead, you’d be quite dead. So you must be in her favor for some reason. She certainly wouldn’t have given you this if you weren’t.” He rubs slowly along the stone, trying to work it out. “Yet her people want to kill you. Interesting.”

  “Not all of them,” I blurt, the compulsion to be honest with him building. “Maybe only...the one who came after me...”

  “And that one was after you because...” he prompts.

  I bite my lip in an effort to force back the truth, the wood shards under my nails now sending small spirals of fiery energy up through my wrists. The almost irrepressible urge to tell him everything is like an avalanche straining to break free.

  For a long, agonizing moment Lukas studies me as he turns the stone over and over in his palm. Then, seeming to have worked out the puzzle, he clenches the stone tight and leans forward, his green eyes searing.

  “Here’s what I think. I think you’re working for the Resistance and you’ve aligned yourself with the Vu Trin. But somehow they’ve sensed the growing power in your lines. Power that could easily be passed on to your children and lead to another Black Witch’s emergence. Perhaps they toyed with the idea of killing you.” He pauses, watching for a reaction. “But Chi Nam thought better of it, didn’t she? She’s letting you live because she wants something.” He seems to take my troubled, stubborn silence as an affirmation and sits back, looking satisfied. “In any case, at least one sorceress was deeply alarmed by the power in your bloodline. Alarmed enough to go against Chi Nam’s wishes.”

  I thrum my fingers, my dueling thoughts waging war on each other. Not telling Lukas the truth leaves me more vulnerable to further attack. And Damion might suspect what I am. But telling Lukas the truth would be just as dangerous if he’s still aligned with the Gardnerians in any way. Part of me desperately wants to cling tight to him and not let go. Part of me wants to wrest the rune stone from his hand, leap from the carriage, and make a run for it.

  “Will you go after her?” I ask. “The sorceress who escaped through the portal?”

  Lukas shakes his head dismissively. “I have no idea where that portal led. And I suspect she’ll be disciplined by her own kind if she did, in fact, go against Chi Nam’s orders. Chi Nam’s decisions carry a fair bit of weight.” He rolls the stone to the tips of his fingers then raises it level with his eye, drawing my gaze to his. “Elloren, why did Chi Nam give this rune stone to you?”

  Dance around the truth, Elloren. Let him believe his version of events. “Chi Nam gave it to me...in case there was trouble. To help me...”

  “No,” he cuts in, shaking his head. “Chi Nam’s not one for charity. She’s ruthless in the defense of her people.” He slips the stone into his pocket and leans in, his expression taking on a harder edge. “What did she send you here to find out?”

  I bite at the sides of my mouth, trying to hold the answer back, but it bursts from my lips before I can contain it. “What is it that killed the Lupines, Lukas? It’s that Wand, isn’t it? Vogel’s Shadow Wand.”

  Silence.

  The question hangs in the air between us, dark and terrible.

  Lukas’s smug look has disappeared, his eyes turned to flint. And there’s something else in his gaze that sends trepidation straight through me—fear.

  “That wand,” Lukas levels with me, “is the most powerful wand I’ve ever encountered. Yes, I think it was involved in the slaughter of the Lupines.”

  A chill snakes down my back as I remember the immobilizing effect Vogel’s Wand has on me. The sudden destruction of Diana’s people, all in one night, sent shock waves through all the Realms. It’s monstrous, the power of that Wand�
��monstrous enough for even Lukas to fear it.

  “You told me you’re not aligned with Vogel,” I say, leaning toward him as well, my voice hardening as I pin him with my stare. My gaze flicks over the silver Erthia orb on his chest. “Yet here you are, dressed in a Gardnerian military uniform after having overseen the annexation of Keltania. Lukas, I have to know. Are you still aligned with the Gardnerians in any way?”

  Lukas withdraws, his mouth a tight line as if he’s now struggling to hold back the truth from me as much as I’ve been struggling to hold it back from him.

  “What are you hiding from me?” I press.

  We hit a bump in the road, the wall lamp swinging. For a moment, we both freeze, our eyes locked. Lukas pulls back the window’s curtain a fraction and glances out. Seeming satisfied that everything is fine, he lets the curtain fall shut and leans back in close.

  “No, Elloren,” he says succinctly, “I am not aligned with Vogel or the Gardnerians. I’ve been trying to work out the complicated wards that Vogel has placed around himself for some time now. So I can kill him. And I’ve just begun recruiting high-level Mages to work for the Vu Trin for the eventual overthrow of the Gardnerian government.”

  I stare at him, astonished and wildly relieved. Because I know what he says to be true since Lukas and I are unable to lie to each other.

  “Your turn,” he challenges, his gaze weighted. “Tell me exactly what’s going on with your power.”

  My throat goes dry and tight. “It’s grown,” I admit in a rasp, barely able to voice the overwhelming truth that strains to break free. “More than you know.”

  “Then show me,” he says.

  I draw back at this. “What do you mean?”

  “Kiss me,” he says, his voice hard.

  My eyes widen as an almost affronted confusion whips up inside me as well as an instant refusal to betray Yvan’s memory so egregiously.

  But there’s nothing suggestive in Lukas’s tone.

  It’s a challenge. A charge. And suddenly, I understand exactly what he’s asking for.

  “I can read the full extent of your power in a kiss,” he says. “You know I can. Better than any other way. Kiss me once, Elloren. Show me what you’re holding inside you. Show me exactly what scared the sorceress.”

  I can feel the blood rushing from my face as apprehension sweeps through me, my mind dazed by the power that the wood under my nails is drawing up through my lines.

  Show him, Elloren. He’s not aligned with Vogel or the Gardnerians. And Yvan would want you to live and be protected. Let Lukas sense your power fully. It will take only one kiss for him to see.

  “I have more power than my grandmother,” I caution, fully leveling with him as my throat constricts tight, my heart hammering as if I’m bracing myself for a lethal dive off a cliff.

  Lukas’s eyes narrow further. He slides forward into the slim space between us, his hand coming up to gently touch the nape of my neck. “Elloren,” he says, softer now, his green eyes compassionate, “show me.”

  I reach up to touch the side of Lukas’s face with my trembling wand hand.

  As soon as my fingers make contact with the skin of his cheek, the splinters beneath my nails give a hard spark in response to Lukas’s internal fire power, my whole hand unnervingly sensitized by the wood. I can feel Lukas’s every line of magic, blazing with power just underneath his skin.

  Fire, earth, air, and a slim line of water.

  Our magery a perfect match, line for line.

  Sinuous sparks of my own invisible magic trace through my arm, catching fire as they stream through the fingertips of my wand hand to flow straight into Lukas, my magic colliding with his in a heated, explosive rush, a back draft of fire searing through me.

  Overwhelmed by the sensation, I move to pull my wand hand away, but Lukas catches my wrist and keeps my palm to his skin, his eyes widening.

  “There’s fire in your touch,” he says, his voice husky. “Like a torch.” Looking dazed, he brings my hand to his lips and kisses my fastmarked palm, as if trying to sense something in it, before pressing it back onto the side of his face.

  My power gives another hard flare, and another burst of magic flashes through me and toward Lukas in a shuddering rush, fanning out over the skin of his cheek, my palm suddenly fused to him and taking on a molten glow as our lines strive to merge and weave through each other.

  It’s impossible to fight my fierce draw to his power, to hide the sudden magical craving in my lines, the savage pull of our matching affinities burning through all my grief and fear.

  Only the magic remaining.

  “Your fire was only in your kiss before.” Lukas’s words are rough with an obvious desire for my power, as well. “Now it’s all over you.”

  We stare at each other as I struggle to keep control of the cataclysmic power that so desperately wants to fuse with his. That strains toward his lines.

  Lukas closes in, his lips coming down on mine.

  I gasp against his mouth as my obliterating power rushes toward his, rapidly merging with it and escalating into a wave of fiery, branching magic that forces my eyes wide and rocks me to the core.

  Lukas draws back. “Put your other hand on my skin,” he says raggedly as he grabs the sides of my skirts and pulls me closer.

  I slide my hand up along the side of his neck, another rampant burst of my fire rushing to meet his.

  Lukas kisses me deeply, the feel of our powers merging both startling and all-consuming. On some dim level, I know we’re crossing too many dangerous lines and too fast, but the fire makes it impossible to care.

  It builds, deliriously hot, a spiral of flame winding around us. Our affinity lines grab hold of each other with unrestrained force. Fire meeting fire. Branches winding. Air joining in a storming rush to fan the flames hotter. Our combined power caressing every line, impossible to resist.

  Lukas pulls my body hard against his. I gasp against his kiss as everything shudders and blazes crimson. The fire is everywhere, coursing through me, coursing into him, a roar in my ears blocking out sound, and I can feel every muscle of his body tighten, feel his deep groan in my mouth. Nothing exists but our combined fire, cutting out every last thing in the world.

  Overcome, I yank my hands away from his skin, the fire fading enough for us both to suddenly realize that the carriage has stopped.

  We break our kiss and turn to find the carriage’s door being held open by Oralyyr, the Greys’ stern-faced Urisk servant. She’s regarding us both with a wide-eyed, stunned expression.

  I freeze as the torchlit image just beyond her sears into my mind.

  Just beyond Oralyyr stands High Mage Marcus Vogel, his green serpentine eyes fixed on Lukas, his dark Shadow Wand sheathed at his side.

  Terror, like a hot iron, spears through me.

  Vogel is flanked by Lukas’s father, a young priest, and a sizable guard of Level Five Mages. And even more soldiers beyond.

  Vogel’s eyes meet mine for a split second, and the image of his dead Shadow tree crashes into my mind.

  “Congratulations, Commander Grey,” Vogel says, his reptilian stare sliding back to Lukas. “It seems you’ve triggered a war.”

  Lukas’s gaze flies to mine as I lean back from him, desperately trying to blink away the image of the dead tree. Lukas cautiously exits the carriage and I follow him, my heart thundering against my chest. I watch Lukas as he takes it all in—the number of soldiers, his father’s severe expression, and Vogel’s surprising presence. No one dares even a smirk at our tousled state, and I’m overcome by the sense that some evil thing’s hand is about to grab hold of me.

  “We were attacked by a Kin Hoang,” Lukas tells Vogel, his gaze darting around watchfully as he explains his false version of events. Lukas pulls Chi Nam’s rune stone out of his pocket and casually holds it out for Vogel’s inspection. “I
suspect she was looking for this.”

  Vogel takes the glowing rune stone and turns it over in his hand before fixing his penetrating gaze back on Lukas. “Such a large sacrifice of Vu Trin for so small a prize.”

  Lukas’s brow tightens in confusion. “There was only one Kin Hoang. Not an army.” His response is met only by Vogel’s withering stare. Lukas turns to his father for clarification, but Lachlan Grey only glowers back at his son with furious intensity.

  The young, slender priest to Lachlan’s left sneers. His priestly tunic is finely made, and he has Lukas’s same riveting green eyes. “What are you playing at, Lukas?” he demands.

  By now, Lukas has relaxed his expression into his usual impenetrable calm. He turns to me and loosely gestures toward the young priest. “Elloren, I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting my brother, Silvern.”

  Silvern ignores Lukas’s attempt at pleasantries. “You were attacked by a Kin Hoang,” he rages, “which is the equivalent of a call for all-out war on Gardneria, and this is how you behave?” He thrusts a hand out at me as if I’m the source of all trouble and disgrace that could possibly be visited upon his illustrious family.

  “She escaped through a portal, Silvern,” Lukas replies, as if humoring a fool. “There’s not much to be done about it at the moment.”

  Silvern seems as if he momentarily loses the ability to speak and all the words ball up in his throat, threatening to explode.

  “They’ve taken out a portion of our Eastern Command,” Lukas’s father states grimly.

  For a moment, Lukas’s careful veneer of calm is breached. “Who has?”

  “The Vu Trin,” his father replies. “They wiped out our base at the Spine’s Eastern Pass. And now the Vu Trin are massing near the Pass, ready for movement. They’re flying in dragons.”

  Shock explodes through me.

  An army. They’re sending an army after me.

  Vogel tilts his head, his gaze fixed on Lukas.