Lukas smiles slightly then murmurs a series of spells under his breath and points his wand.
The vial takes on a white-hot glow that explodes into raying light as the glass dissolves. I draw back along with everyone else as the cyclone springs free and rises into the air, wind now whipping through the room and through my hair, the torchlight wildly guttering as the cyclone draws upward and then expands over the room into a low ceiling of roiling clouds.
Lukas whips his wand outward and throws a tight line of fire into the clouds, the flame forking into horizontal streaks of bright white lightning. Lukas jerks his wand backward, and the clouds swoop down and contract into a tight, rotating ball suspended just before him and spitting lightning. Then Lukas murmurs a spell, and the contained storm morphs to wispy smoke and dissipates, the crowd of Mages emitting sounds of gratified awe.
I turn toward the onlookers to find Evelyn Grey’s gaze set on her son with a look of fervent pride. And then her eyes shift and meet mine. Her expression transforms into a venomous glare.
Vogel begins intoning the prayer for dominion over light as one of the priests carries out a brick of golden lumenstone and sets it on the floor. Lukas pulls his sword and brings it down on the lumenstone in a shower of yellow sparks, deftly rendering it to ash with one focused blow. Water is then brought out, and Lukas throws fire at it and sends it up into a rush of steam.
Lukas lowers his wand to his side and faces Vogel.
“Mage,” Vogel says with a formal cadence, “you have shown us your dominion over fire and wind and air and light.” Vogel swivels his head toward the priests, who come forward once more, this time hoisting a small potted tree between them. I’m enthralled by the sight of it.
The exquisitely gnarled fir tree has an ancient look about it, as if a huge old-growth tree was shrunk down to size and set in a black porcelain container, its needles resplendently limned in gleaming silver.
The priests set down the tree in the clearing, and I’m mesmerized as a wave of the small tree’s love washes over me. A returning love wells up deep inside me as I’m overtaken by a surprisingly potent feeling of kinship.
“Mages,” Vogel intones, “please rise.”
The sea of Mages stands.
I know this is a pivotal part of the Sealing ceremony—the male Mage always ends the ceremony by killing a tree, the higher the status of the family, the rarer the tree. The next day the couple walks alone into the woods to perform the Blessing of Dominion and scatters the dead tree’s ashes in the forest over the largest tree they can find as a stark warning to the “Heathen Wilds.”
Unease rises as an inexplicable commiseration with this tree blossoms within me.
It’s been sheltered, this miniature tree. This rare Silver Spruce. I can sense its mournful isolation. Grown in captivity and cut off from its woods...
Dryad.
I startle as the tree’s whispered word fills the back of my mind, prompting an ecstatic wave of affection for this small tree to swell inside me, quickly followed by a tremor of fear.
Don’t kill it, everything in me rises up to implore.
Vogel lifts his arms.
“May the Ancient One bless your union and grant you dominion over earth. May you bring forth Mages who own Erthia for the glory of the Ancient One.”
Panic assails me, fueled by my enraptured connection to the small tree as Lukas steps toward it, grasping his wand.
No. Don’t kill it, I silently rail, barely able to hold myself back.
A single word reaches out to me, lancing through my heart.
Dryad.
Wave upon wave of adoration courses over me as I whip my head to Vogel to find he’s taken a sudden, strong interest in me. In my peripheral vision, Lukas lifts his wand.
Panic explodes as I round on Lukas. No, Lukas. No...
Flame shoots from Lukas’s wand just before I can stage a protest, engulfing the small tree in an explosion of fire.
The tree screams in my head, its agony spearing into me as my affinity lines contract, devastation ripping through my heart.
Ancient One. No.
Grief grips hold. Inconsolable grief. I’m barely aware of Vogel’s final prayer as it’s intoned by the entire hall. Of Lukas’s arm coming around me as I stare at the pile of ashes in the center of the clearing.
My gaze jerks to Lukas, my breathing erratic, my eyes brimming with furious tears.
Lukas’s eyes narrow as he takes me in with a long, searching look and I struggle to get hold of myself. I need to get away from all of this right now. Away from Vogel and all of these Mages.
Away from this vicious ceremony that mercilessly kills innocent trees.
“Elloren,” Lukas whispers, his gaze locked on mine with unmistakable urgency, as if prompting me to remember the danger we face.
I glance back at the tree’s ashes, a heightened awareness flooding into me of what’s at stake. I can’t fall apart over the killing of this tree.
Tears obscure my vision as I let Lukas guide me back to the altar, his hands reaching out to grasp tight hold of mine once more, his fire and earth magic flowing into me and threading through my lines in what I know is an attempt to comfort me. But I’m beyond comfort.
Vogel raises his Shadow Wand above our hands.
“Lukas Grey and Elloren Gardner,” he intones, “I seal you with the Ancient One’s power. I seal you with the Ancient One’s glory. I seal you before the Ancient One’s Holy Magedom.”
His lips lift in an infinitesimal smile as he presses the tip of his Wand to our clasped hands.
As soon as Vogel’s Wand makes contact with the skin of my wand hand, a slight sting prickles through my fastlines and the torches all around us crackle and spit green flame, as if unsettled by the flare of magic in the air.
Without warning, Vogel’s Shadow tree punches through my lines and all the breath is wrenched from my lungs. Lukas’s hands tremble around mine as the rune on my abdomen begins to sting.
The world bends, my mind overtaken by a warping sensation as Shadow roils in from all sides and annihilates the light, only the image of a huge dark tree remaining.
The tree abruptly enlarges, and I’ve the sudden, strong sense of being lifted clear into the air, suspended from its limbs like a marionette, dangling and terrified as tendrils of Shadow twist around me.
I hang there in the darkness, with no control over my body, held completely in Vogel’s thrall. I want to scream, but I can’t breathe, the scream forcibly arrested in my throat.
And then...something slithers into me.
Another Shadow, like a snake twining out from Vogel’s Wand and into my earth affinity lines as I’m filled with the petrifying sense of Vogel’s disembodied pale green eyes set on me along with multiple pale gray eyes lurking in the dark tree’s hollows.
Watching me.
I sense, with staggering horror, that it’s not just Vogel in my lines, but an entire army of slithering, many-eyed Shadow things riding alongside Vogel’s power.
All of it coming from the dark gray Wand in Vogel’s hand.
The Shadow things slither along my affinity lines, testing, plucking. Then sharpening, like the slicing edge of countless knives cutting into my lines.
I gasp from the pain, desperate to cry out, but Vogel’s Shadow wraps around my throat and pulls taut.
And then, as abruptly as the invasion came, it falls away in one world-tilting swoop as the Shadow Wand pulls away from my wand hand, Vogel’s invisible grip on my throat releases, and the Shadow tree vanishes, everything around me blinking back into sight.
My hand flies to my throat as I gulp for air and Lukas does the same, one of his hands braced on the altar he’s now slumped into, his breath rasping and uneven.
Lukas’s gaze meets mine in stunned horror as he reaches out to grab desperate, protective hold of me.
But my focus is ripped away from him as all of the affinity power in the room suddenly blasts toward me and I’m whipped up in it, instantly consumed.
I’m like a boat caught in a storming whirl of magic. Whereas I used to only be able to sense some of Lukas’s power because of our matching lines and had a growing sense of Yvan’s fire, I’m suddenly hyperaware of every line of elemental power in every Mage around me, save Vogel. My eyes cast about in a wild, unfocused panic as the elemental magic of so many high-level Mages assaults me, wind magic roaring in my ears.
There are four Level Five Mage soldiers bracketing Vogel, and I’ve a clear sense of their wind, fire, earth, and water power being tethered to him, their affinity lines streaming from their bodies and into Vogel’s Wand like a fast-moving current sucked into a dark abyss.
Straight toward those many-eyed things.
I look to Lukas, disoriented from the battering onslaught of affinities. Tears burn in my eyes as I cling to Lukas and struggle to convey to him with my gaze alone that Vogel has truly become a monster.
The skin of my hands prickles, and I look down as both my fastlines and Lukas’s begin to branch out, curling and looping, the lines gradually thickening but stopping just short of our wrists. I release one of Lukas’s hands and look dazedly at my Sealing-magicked palm, and then Lukas and I exchange a dire glance as the power in the room carves hurricane paths through my lines, my balance unsteady.
I throw my palm back down on the altar to brace myself and startle as Vogel abruptly brings his own hand down on mine and Lukas’s fire explodes outward to whip protectively around me.
I flinch back from Vogel’s touch, but he smiles and holds on, seeming pleased by my reaction and wanting to draw me into a confrontation. His long fingers dig into my skin, his eyes bright as his lurid, dark Shadow rushes into me once more, pushing back all the magic in the room.
“So much power,” Vogel croons. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, his magic pulling on my affinity lines, and I’ve the horrible sense that, although he’s holding back, he could easily pull my lines clear out of me and into his possession, like the tethered Mages behind him.
“It’s all there,” he tells me, and it’s as if we’re suddenly the only Mages in the room, his merciless gaze locked on to mine, everything around us blurring. “Carnissa’s power is in you. And more. Your fire. It rivals hers.”
Lukas’s power abruptly ramps up as he tightens his grip on me, as if he’s assessed Vogel and is ready for him this time. Lukas’s fire takes on a wrathful force as it flows out to encompass me and force back Vogel’s thrall—and I worry that Vogel will sense this rebellion for what it is if he possesses my rare magic-sensing abilities, a skill he’s somehow quickened.
Vogel releases my hand and wrests his power from my lines with whiplike force, and a whoosh of dizziness overtakes me as all the affinities in the room rush toward me with renewed strength to batter through my lines.
Vogel turns to Lukas and gives him a narrow look, as if reading his defiance. His lip lifts, as if he’s amused by it. “You’ll bring her to me tomorrow morn,” he says, his voice keen with interest. “For wandtesting.”
Another flash of Lukas’s fire blasts through me as my fear surges through the maelstrom of power accosting me.
Lukas’s voice, when it comes, betrays nothing. “I’ve recently wandtested her,” he placidly states. “She has no access to her power.”
Vogel’s pale eyes shift back to me and I avert my gaze as I struggle to contain a violent swell of my magic that mingles with the onslaught of magic in the room.
“Bring her to me after the Blessing of Dominion,” Vogel says, ignoring Lukas’s attempt at deflection. “I will test her myself.”
Lukas hesitates for a split second. “Of course, Your Excellency,” he capitulates with a graceful dip of his head, but I can feel his earth magery rearranging itself into spears pointed directly at Vogel.
“I want to see her fastlines changed by morning,” Vogel says. “Your Magelines combined will be a formidable thing. I will take an acute interest in the Mage children you bring forth.”
Lukas is furious now; I can sense it in how wildly his fire is scything around me as he holds Vogel’s piercing stare.
Vogel’s mouth lifts, a gleam in his eyes. “Sanguin’in,” he says to Lukas.
Bloody the sheets.
Outrage swells along with my magic. The traditional saying is like some vicious charge. As if Vogel’s challenging Lukas to force me down and bloody me in the most invasive way possible.
Lukas holds Vogel’s terrible, bottomless stare. “Sanguin’in,” he says back to Vogel like it’s his own threat, only leveled at Vogel instead of me.
Vogel’s mouth turns up in a chilling, vulpine smile, and he steps back, sheathes his Wand, and stretches out his arms for the final Sealing prayer. I can barely form the words around the storm of elemental magic that’s engulfing me, invisible flame scorching through me, branches and shards of ice spearing, the roar of wind in my ears.
“Elloren,” Lukas says, his voice cutting through the swirl of magery. There’s fierce urgency in his gaze, and I latch on to it with desperation as the cacophony of magic lashes against my lines.
We’re supposed to kiss, I distantly remember.
Lukas moves around the altar, pulls me into his arms, and brings his lips firmly to mine, his hand splaying out over my back as he draws me tight against his body.
I shudder as a hard stream of his fire blasts through me, his dark branches rushing out to twine through my battered earthlines and meld them together in a way that was never possible before. My dizziness dissipates as Lukas grips hold of my wand hand and kisses me, pulsing his magery through my lines, and bolstering my affinities with his. Pushing the room’s invading power out and drawing my own magery back into my center.
And, incredibly, forming a shield from our combined magic just under my skin.
When he pulls away, his eyes are blazing, his expression steeled.
Steeled for me.
As the crowd applauds, I’ve a sense of my branches restoring themselves as Lukas’s residual fire whips through my lines. My head is still swirling, and I’m still hyperaware of the magic in the room, but I’m steadier on my feet.
Lukas keeps firm hold of my wand hand as we face the crowd, my tempestuous power fused to his.
We’re truly sealed, I realize. But not in the way Vogel imagines. Lukas is not set on dominating me. He’s my ally, and together we’re a joint force.
Against the Magedom.
My grip around Lukas’s hand tightens and he responds in kind, our perfectly matched affinity magic twining tight.
Fire to fire. Earth to earth. Air to air and water to water.
One vast wall of Mage power.
CHAPTER FIVE
PRIVATE FOREST
ELLOREN GREY
Sixth Month
Valgard, Gardneria
Lukas and I enter our Sealing reception under heavy guard. Two Level Five Mage soldiers stride before us, four keeping close to our heels as we enter the estate’s huge glass-enclosed arboretum. Anxiety, sharp and acrid, burns through my chest, my sense of mortal threat so all-encompassing that it’s beginning to feel like calm.
Lukas holds tight to my wand hand and I cling just as tightly to him, keeping our magic fused in a shield over my lines as we step into the greenhouse-contained forest. Countless trees are spread out before us, the path beneath our feet seamlessly cobbled with gleaming obsidian stone. Deep-green light emanates from emerald glass lanterns hung from the trees’ branches and mottles the indoor forest with an otherworldly latticework of shadow and verdant light, the scene undeniably beautiful.
But nothing can dampen my turbulent unease.
My deeper well of magic roils with volatile force just under the shield Lukas wove around my lines, battering relentlessly
against it. Lukas’s strong magic sizzles over my power like a densely woven net, holding my power firmly at bay and protecting me from the storm of magic in the room as the diffuse miasma of power emanating from the surrounding high-level Mages strains to get in.
But still, Lukas’s shield isn’t able to protect me from one of the most dangerous things in this whole estate.
Myself.
Because my hunger for wood has grown savage.
My hand tenses around Lukas’s to stave off my shockingly ramped-up desire to grab hold of every piece of wood my eyes light on.
Every branch.
Every tree trunk.
The Ironwood frame of the arboretum.
Every wand.
Vogel’s changed my power in some intrinsic way; I’m sure of it. When he touched his Shadow Wand to my hand and invaded my lines with his terrifying magic, he quickened my fledgling ability to sense power and made me more vulnerable at the same time. If I release my hold on Lukas and his power, I can feel Lukas’s shield begin to degrade like a net unraveling as the power around me pummels in.
I keep a tight grip on Lukas as I glance around the arboretum. My leaf-patterned skirts swish around me, glittering in the emerald light, the smell of greenery lush on the air. I’m surrounded by a decadent variety of trees, some of which I’ve never seen before but have envisioned when touching their wood, now suddenly magnificently before me in all their branching glory.
Rainbow Eucalyptus trees from the Salish Islands with color-striped trunks.
Dragon’s Blood trees with dramatically upturned crowns.
Uriskal Beech trees draped in gauzy moss.
Lukas and I pass under a grove of Alfsigr Wisteria trees in full bloom, their fragrant silver flowers hanging down in pendulous, emerald-tinted clusters, the trees so beautiful they make my heart ache, even in this dire situation.
With their roots pruned and cut off from the wilds, these trees have no hatred emanating from them. Only a palpable curiosity and a gentle murmuring as I pass, like the feathery brush of a light wind.
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