The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  A creature who looks just like my terrifying grandmother.

  A multitude of emotions spiral up inside me as I take in my reflection—fear, awe, rebellion. Along with an acute awareness of the Black Witch power contained in my lines. And of the walls rapidly closing in around me and that power.

  Low voices sound, and I head for the changing room’s door and open it. Surprise ripples through me as I pause at the room’s threshold.

  My guard, Thierren Stone, is just inside my bedroom door, huddled close to Sparrow, the two of them talking in low, indecipherable tones, engrossed in serious conversation.

  They’re standing much too close to be only passingly acquainted.

  Thierren is leaning toward Sparrow, his broad shoulder resting against the closed door’s frame, his green eyes riveted on her, and she’s looking at him with equal fervency. Thierren reaches out to gently touch Sparrow’s arm just as Sparrow catches sight of me.

  She startles, her amethyst eyes widening just as Thierren notices me as well, the two of them immediately stepping back from each other, as if attempting to conceal their bond. I remain standing there, blinking at them.

  Are they close friends? Lovers even?

  I think of Uncle Edwin and his Urisk love. Such dangerous lines to cross here in the Western Realm.

  Is this why Thierren broke with the Gardnerians?

  He’s fasted, I notice, but the fasting was never consummated, his looping black fastlines stopping just short of his wrist.

  “You should leave us,” Sparrow tells Thierren as she glances uneasily at me.

  Thierren gives her a brief, reluctant look, then nods stiffly. He throws an unreadable parting glance at me and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him as he takes up his guard post once more.

  I step into the room. “Sparrow,” I say, wanting to reassure her, “if you and Thierren are together...”

  Sparrow shoots me a quelling look. “We’re allies, nothing more.”

  A flash of yellow light bursts through the room from above, cutting off her words, and my head jerks back from its intensity. Startled, we both look up.

  A luminescent golden circle has flamed to life on the Ironwood ceiling.

  There’s a muted pop as the circle’s interior bursts into a geometric, runic pattern, and both Sparrow and I take a quick step back.

  I look to her, alarm rising. “What’s this...?”

  Another sizzling flash of gold as the wood beneath the huge rune disappears and a man drops down through the hole and hits the floor with barely a thump.

  My heart almost jumps out of my chest as I stagger back and a split-second impression takes hold—pale skin, sand-blond hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, blackened lips, dark garb. And a curved rune sword grasped in his black-gloved hands.

  A northern Ishkart assassin.

  “Thierren!” Sparrow shrieks as horror bolts through me.

  The assassin lets out a growl and launches himself at me as I stumble backward and everything happens at once.

  Thierren bursts into the room, wand out as the door to the servants’ quarters flings open and Effrey runs in, palm extended and flashing a purple gleam. The assassin grabs my arm and I struggle to fight him off as he pulls his sword back, a cry of terror escaping my lips.

  Just before the assassin is about to bring the sword down on me, a white creature flies diagonally in from a corner ceiling branch to collide with the assassin’s throat, the impact driving him away from me. I stagger back a step just as a line of violet fire streaks toward the assassin from Effrey’s palm and a spear of ice flies from Thierren’s wand to impale the assassin’s chest, his whole body arcing backward as he bursts into violet flame.

  The assassin’s runic sword clunks onto the carpet as he falls to the floor. He lets out a wet, gurgling cry as he kicks his feet out and desperately claws at the small white dragon affixed to his throat.

  A dragon. There’s a dragon in my room...

  I take another step away, the assassin gasping and flailing as the carpet begins to catch fire, the sides of his clothing consumed by the violet flame as the dragon mercilessly tears at his neck, and I fleetingly note that there’s a collar around the dragon’s neck marked with glowing deep-green runes.

  Another flash of purple fire streaks toward the man, and my head whips around toward the violet flame’s origin, to find Effrey’s purple-glowing palm still extended toward the assassin, her other hand raised and fisted around a large amethyst, her purple eyes wide with fear.

  “Hold your geofire!” Thierren orders Effrey as he simultaneously unsheathes his sword and plunges it into the assassin’s chest while sending out a stream of water from his wand to douse all purple fire as the assassin’s body convulses, shudders, and goes limp.

  Effrey’s frightened purple eyes meet mine as realization slams into me.

  Effrey’s a geomancer.

  Only male Urisk are geomancers.

  Which means Effrey is male.

  I look to Sparrow and find her poised for battle, a runic blade grasped in her fist, her eyes riveted on the gory scene, a line of blood splashed across her white servant’s tunic.

  Thierren throws down his sword and moves toward Sparrow as she lowers her blade. “Sparrow,” he says, his tone impassioned, “are you hurt?”

  “I’m all right. I’m all right,” Sparrow breathlessly insists as she dazedly looks to Effrey. “Effrey,” she says to the child, her face tightening with concern as she takes in Effrey’s fear-stricken stance. “He’s dead. We’re all right.”

  Thierren turns to me, his wand still gripped in his hand. “Elloren, are you hurt?”

  The words refuse to form, so I shake my head disjointedly, my heart racing.

  He almost killed me. He almost killed me.

  My fireline rears with chaotic heat.

  The dragon’s head whips up, as if it can sense my sudden flare of affinity fire, its bone-white muzzle shockingly red with blood. The creature’s ruby eyes narrow, and I’m hit with a lashing tendril of the beast’s invisible fire power that’s so strong I gasp, its bloodred Wyvernfire searing through my affinity lines.

  The dragon jerks its head back, as if in extreme surprise. Then it lowers its head and goes very still, its entire focus on me, its body coiling as a sense of danger builds in the air.

  “No, Raz’zor!” Effrey cries, lurching toward me.

  I recoil as the beast flaps its wings and takes to the air, darting toward me at the same moment that Effrey leaps forward to catch hold of its legs.

  The dragon gives an outraged shriek as it’s yanked backward to hang upside down in Effrey’s grip, like a large chicken being brought for slaughter.

  The creature growls ferociously as it writhes and gnashes its teeth at Effrey and Effrey struggles to avoid the dragon’s bite. Both Effrey and Sparrow let loose a stream of pleading Uriskal aimed at the dragon.

  The dragon hisses back at them what sounds like a stream of obscenities in Wyvern.

  “Order him to stand down,” Thierren insists of Effrey, his wand now pointed at the dragon.

  Effrey looks to the dragon with an unnatural level of focus, the beast glaring back at Effrey just as fixedly, and I realize, in that moment, that Effrey is not only a Urisk male, but one of the rare Urisk males who can mindlink to dragons.

  I point a shaking finger at the dragon. “How did you get hold of a dragon?”

  They all fall silent as the suspended dragon growls and snaps and glares at me from upside down.

  I look to Effrey, my voice quavering. “You’re talking to the dragon with your mind. Aren’t you?”

  The small dragon lets loose what seems like another stream of vicious expletives.

  “Can you tell me what he’s saying?” I ask Effrey, who looks ready to burst into tears.

  The dragon is now panting, fury i
n its glowing ruby eyes as it spits out a small, sparking line of red fire toward me. I glance at the clock with no small amount of alarm. I’m to face Vogel in less than an hour’s time.

  I turn back to Effrey, urgency rising. “Please, Effrey. Tell me what the dragon is saying.”

  Effrey hesitates, the child’s eyes flicking to Sparrow before he capitulates. “Raz’zor says that he senses your power and that he knows you’re the Black Witch. He says he’s heard warnings of your existence from the forest. And that dragonkin stands with the forest.”

  Outrage born of desperation whips through me. I take a step toward the small beast and meet the dragon’s murderous, glowing stare. “Tell your dragon that the damnable forest is wrong about me. I’m a friend to Wyvernkin.”

  Effrey, Sparrow, and Thierren all blink at me, as if thrown by my sudden show of defiance.

  Effrey turns and looks intently at the dragon, who lets loose with even more hissing and spitting.

  Suddenly, the beast gives a violent twist, breaking free of Effrey’s grip.

  Effrey cries out in alarm and I jerk backward as the dragon flashes toward me in a pale blur.

  Raz’zor collides with my chest with surprising strength, and my feet slip out from underneath me as I’m knocked to the carpeted floor, grappling with the creature as he sinks his teeth into my shoulder.

  I yelp from the jolt of pain, my affinity fire rushing out to the dragon in a powerful whoosh as Effrey, Sparrow, and Thierren all swoop in to pull the dragon off me and the small beast abruptly unclamps his jaws from my shoulder, his body going slack as he lets himself be pulled away into Effrey’s arms and I push myself up.

  The dragon’s eyes blaze with red flame as he stares at me, wide-eyed, as if stunned. Then the dragon begins to hiss out another string of unintelligible sounds, eyes fierce on me, as if he’s both outraged and wildly confused.

  Effrey looks to me with amazement, one of the child’s hands clenched around the top of one of the dragon’s wings as I shakily push myself up from the floor.

  “Raz’zor says you are bonded to Wyvernkin,” Effrey translates. “He says that you have Wyvernfire coursing through your Magelines.”

  I clutch the stinging bite on my shoulder as the meaning of the dragon’s words becomes devastatingly clear.

  Yvan.

  “How can this be?” Sparrow asks. They’re all looking at me in complete confusion, the dragon most of all, its slitted eyes locked on to mine.

  “I am allied with Wyvernkin,” I tell the dragon, my voice suddenly rough with grief over the remembrance of Yvan’s passionate, fiery kiss.

  When he gave me his Wyvernfire.

  “If you kill me,” I tell the dragon, my voice breaking over the memories of Yvan, “then you’re a fool.”

  The creature lets out a long, wavering hiss, but then stills and stares probingly at me.

  “He will not kill you,” Effrey shakily translates, “but...he wants to know the truth of things. He wants for his mind to touch yours.”

  I gape at Effrey. “How?”

  Effrey brings two fingers to his own forehead. “Skin to scales.”

  I meet the dragon’s blazing stare as the memory of how I once feared Naga fills my mind and a reckless courage takes hold.

  “All right,” I say, taking a chance. “Let him go.”

  Sparrow hesitates, but Raz’zor wastes no time deliberating. The creature thrusts his body violently forward, breaking Sparrow’s hold once more as he flies to me and lands heavily against my chest, pushing me back until I stagger down onto the carpeted floor again.

  “Raz’zor,” Thierren snaps as he steps forward, wand raised.

  I go very still, my pulse thudding as the dragon stares me down, claws on my shoulders, his eyes like two fiery red pits and heat searing off him. Ignoring Thierren, the dragon presses his warm, scaled forehead against mine, my fireline whipping up in response to the dragon’s proximity, his teeth too close.

  Invisible tendrils of the dragon’s flame stream into me, and I gasp as the full brunt of his power rushes into my lines, blazing hot. Raz’zor may be only the size of a small lamb, but there’s a torrent of power buried deep within his compact, reptilian body. Enormous power. Deep veins of it, like he’s connected to a volcano. Like he’s tapped into the center of Erthia itself.

  And I realize that this small dragon might hold more power than Naga.

  The dragon hisses.

  “Raz’zor says,” Effrey translates, wonder in the child’s tone, “that you saved Naga the Unbroken.”

  The dragon’s head draws back, his murderous look gone, confused awe remaining in his fiery eyes.

  I pull in a long breath to steady myself. “Yes, Raz’zor,” I affirm, the remembrance raw and bittersweet. “I helped to free Naga.”

  With Yvan. And my family and friends, I think, an ache cutting through me as I realize the dragon is able to skim only the surface of my thoughts and read just a scattered few.

  Raz’zor presses his forehead back onto mine, another rush of his fire searing through my lines. Then he pushes away from me, wings flapping as he rises then lands on the floor before me.

  For a moment, I remain seated on the floor, his gaze still pinned on me, and I’ve a sense of his internal red fire whipping up with indignant fury as he lets loose with an emphatic hiss.

  “Raz’zor says—” Effrey looks to me with evident confusion “—that you are the bonded mate of a dragonkin...yet you are Sealing to another.”

  There’s a storm of bewildered outrage in the dragon’s small ruby eyes, the flame in his gaze amplifying as I slowly rise to my feet. The dragon spits red sparks as he bares his teeth and growls at me.

  Effrey’s expression has turned to one of grave concern. “He says that the Wyvernkin gave you his fire and that you should not bind to another. He’s very upset about this.”

  I glare at the dragon, outraged myself as both a fierce grief for Yvan and a heated indignation rise within me.

  “I do not accept your censure, dragon,” I lash out as angry tears burn my eyes. “He’s dead.”

  Raz’zor cocks his head and goes very still, his gaze now fiercely questioning, his ruby eyes locked on to mine with unblinking intensity.

  “Elloren,” Thierren says, a shocked sympathy in his gaze, “were you with the Icaral? Yvan Guryev?”

  My emotions tense with pain over hearing the beloved name. I nod.

  Raz’zor lets out a series of low, whistling hisses and everyone grows quiet for a moment.

  “Raz’zor says,” Effrey translates, full of solemnity, “that he pays tribute to your loss.”

  “Thank you,” I force out, my voice rough as a tear streaks down my cheek and I brusquely wipe it away.

  When I look back at the dragon, he’s staring at me in a new way, a simmering gravity in his eyes.

  “Raz’zor says to you,” Effrey continues, “‘Take heart, friend of Wyvernkin. Naga the Unbroken sends forth the wingeds as her messengers. She will gather the dragons of the West and the East. And she will be our savior.’”

  A sudden rush of hope takes hold.

  “Do you know where Naga is, then?” I’m suddenly imploring the small dragon, almost forgetting he came close to ripping out my throat just a moment ago.

  Naga’s alive. Sweet Ancient One, she’s alive.

  Tears prick at my eyes as I hold the dragon’s fierce stare and he lets loose with a series of rough growls.

  Then grows silent.

  “Raz’zor says he will hold his fire,” Effrey finally announces. “He says he will break with the forest in this and he will not slay you, even though you are the Black Witch.”

  My breathless hope gives way to incredulity and I glare at the dragon. “That’s much appreciated, Raz’zor.”

  The dragon narrows his eyes, as if reconsidering, and
hisses again, more forceful now.

  “But he makes no pledge of fealty,” Effrey amends with cautioning gravity.

  What? I’m at a complete loss. It’s like I’ve landed in some strange, formal dragon court, ignorant of the rules.

  Whatever it is, this pledge of fealty sounds useful.

  They grow to be quite large, these dragons. I picture Raz’zor grown to the size of Naga. And I remember how Naga, even diminished by her long recuperation, was able to take out most of the guard of the Valgard Prison in a fiery inferno.

  “You know what, Raz’zor?” I throw out, worn to a frayed nerve. “Fine. You go ahead and deliberate about your fealty while the Gardnerians get stronger and stronger. But, please,” I snipe, my own fire rising, “take all the time you need. Really. While the Gardnerians burn down your beloved forest, enslave all the Wyverns, and slowly take over the entire of Erthia.”

  The dragon blinks at me, his small head pulling back, as if affronted.

  Fuming, I turn to Sparrow and Thierren. “How did you ever manage to get hold of an unbroken dragon?”

  “He was bait,” Effrey chimes in.

  “Pit dragon bait,” Sparrow adds.

  “I freed him,” Effrey adds with a touch of defiance that surprises me.

  I look to Effrey in confusion. “But...he’s powerful. I can sense it. Even though he’s so small.”

  “He’s not small,” Effrey counters with an emphatic shake of his head. “He’s full grown. He’s kept small by the rune collar. But when we get to Noi lands, we will find a way to free him of it.”

  My eyes widen at this as I turn back to Raz’zor, taking in the collar around the dragon’s neck, the metallic band marked with glowing deep-green runes.

  “Why in the world would they waste such a powerful dragon as bait?” I ask them all.

  Raz’zor’s fire flares, as if in hot appreciation of my words, his reptilian stance lengthening.

  Effrey’s lip tenses with obvious reluctance to answer, and he glances at Raz’zor. “He’s a moonskin. They’re unlucky.”