The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  Why they confiscated Trystan’s wand before they entered.

  A bright slash of lightning threads across the inky sky outside, momentarily brightening the sapphire hues of the rune lantern–lit room. Thunder rumbles over the Vo Mountains.

  “That can’t be,” Trystan finally says, his voice strained, his face pale. “Elloren has no power. She’s a Level One Mage...”

  “She’s not,” Commander Li throws down, her gaze pinned on Trystan and piercing with import. “She’s been wandtested by the Vu Trin.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your sister is more powerful than your grandmother ever was.”

  The finality of Ung Li’s words sends a rush of shock through Vothendrile that’s echoed by the jolt of lightning he can sense bolting through Trystan’s internal magic.

  Vothe can also feel, with his Wyvern-shifter senses, that Ung Li is truly certain about this. There’s fear there. Real fear.

  And she’s one of the most fearless Vu Trin in the entire Noi guard.

  Vothendrile’s mind reels.

  Not only is the Black Witch back—she’s a more powerful Black Witch.

  As if that were even possible.

  A storm of alarm is now slashing through Trystan, invisible lightning exploding along his affinity lines, and Vothe looks to him, the conflicting emotions he’s begun to feel for this Mage whipping into a near frenzy.

  Vothe’s initial animosity toward Trystan Gardner has proved to be frustratingly hard to hold on to as he’s witnessed, again and again, how Trystan has met abuse with resolve, refusing to be driven away from the Wyvernguard. Honestly dedicated to the fight against Vogel and his forces. Offering up his magic to the Vu Trin to test and figure out defenses against, even though he ends each day of magical sparring with savage bruising up and down his wand arm.

  But a Black Witch sister. A sister who could destroy the Eastern Realm.

  That changes everything.

  “Where is she?” Trystan asks in a choked rasp, obviously understanding the potential ramifications of this.

  There’s a beat of hesitation. Ung Li’s smooth, wide brow creases, and Vothendrile takes a deep breath as he realizes that she’s about to relay potentially devastating news to Trystan.

  Because Ung Li rarely hesitates with anything.

  “She’s likely dead,” Ung Li says.

  Trystan pulls in a hard breath and doubles over slightly as his invisible water magic comes untethered, his hands flying up to clutch at his abdomen as if he’s sustained an actual physical blow.

  Vothe almost takes a step toward him in troubled concern but sternly forces himself to keep back. A tempest kicks up inside Vothe as his heart twists for Trystan, even as he’s cursing himself for giving in to this ferocious sympathy.

  Get hold of yourself, Zhilon’ile, Vothe internally rages. Be clear on who your enemies have to be.

  “Your sister was caught in the cross fire when our Western forces attacked the Mage Council.” Commander Li conveys all this in a flat military tone, but Vothendrile can read her unease as she’s faced with Trystan’s obvious devastation.

  Trystan lifts his green eyes to meet hers. “But you don’t know for a fact that she’s dead?” he asks, almost a plea, his voice fractured as palpable anguish storms through him. The note of aching hope in the question is difficult for Vothe to witness.

  Ung Li’s dark eyes narrow. “There’s a slim chance that she’s still alive.”

  Vothe is stopped short as he reads the false note in Ung Li’s words with his Wyvern senses.

  Smelling the lie.

  No, Vothe thinks, rattled. There’s more than a slim chance that she’s alive, isn’t there?

  Vothendrile’s own powers whip up inside him, water and wind suddenly churning, the immensity of what this could mean for the Eastern Realm rapidly cycloning together.

  A more powerful Black Witch...

  Alive.

  “You will see postings going up throughout the Wyvernguard and the city with your sister’s likeness on them,” Ung Li states, her guarded energy increasing as she buries her ferocity deep.

  “Postings?” Trystan asks, and Vothe can sense the jolt of his confusion.

  “If your sister has survived,” Ung Li says, her tone and expression downplaying the possibility, “and if she makes her way to the Eastern Realm, then we need to make it clear that she’s to be brought to the Vu Trin immediately.” There’s a pause, a split second too long. “For her protection.” There’s the trace of a comforting smile on her lips, but her dark eyes are hard as stone.

  Vothe can sense all the water magic in Trystan freezing.

  Vothe glances at him sideways with no small amount of alarm, realizing that Trystan is reading everything in this suspended moment as clearly as he is.

  The postings aren’t for Elloren Gardner’s protection. Because if Trystan’s sister is more powerful than their grandmother...

  ...that means that Elloren Gardner is the most powerful weapon the Realms have ever seen.

  And the Vu Trin will almost certainly want to find her and kill her.

  Immediately.

  Her gaze raptor-sharp, Ung Li studies Trystan. “If your sister makes it to Noi lands,” she says, her tone carefully neutral, “it is likely that she will seek out you or your brother, Rafe. If this happens, you need to bring her to us without delay. Do you understand, Mage Gardner?”

  A whoosh of Trystan’s invisible water power breaks over the room, and it sets Vothe’s heart beating harder. And then all of Trystan’s magic is suddenly yanked back inside him, his vast water and fire magic instantly buried to the point that Vothe’s Zhilon’ile powers can’t detect even a trace of it.

  Trystan gives Ung Li a stiff, formal salute, striking his fist firmly to his chest. “Yes, Commander,” he affirms, grim-faced. “If my sister has survived and she seeks me out, I’ll bring her right to you.”

  Liar, Vothe senses, his roiling conflict heating up, lightning crackling through his internal Zhilon’ile power as he vows to double down on how closely he guards this Mage, regardless of how sincere Trystan’s Vu Trin alliance has been up to this point.

  Because it’s clear that he’s even more powerfully aligned with his family.

  With his sister.

  And that alliance has just put him at odds with the entire Eastern Realm.

  Elloren Gardner is now the Eastern Realm’s most sought-after enemy, potentially more dangerous than Marcus Vogel, and the entirety of the Vu Trin and Zhilon’ile forces will be set on finding her.

  Vothendrile will be set on finding her.

  And if Elloren Gardner is not dead, she will be soon.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHADOW INVASION

  TIERNEY CALIX

  Sixth Month

  Eastern Realm,

  the Wyvernguard

  Tierney looks over the choppy Vo as rain lashes the deserted Wyvernguard terrace, a storm-black night closing in. Both the rain and the chill wind are picking up as the tempest moves in from the north, the Vo’s waves as unsettled as Tierney’s rioting emotions.

  Tierney closes her eyes, links her Asrai power to the water around her, and forces the rain slightly away to create a misty shield just past her form. Encased in dry air, she reaches into her uniform’s pocket, pulls out the posting she’s torn down from the wall, and unfolds it. The terrace’s rain-dampened sapphire lantern light spills faintly over the paper.

  Elloren Gardner’s exact likeness stares back at Tierney, rendered in black ink. With instructions to bring her to the Vu Trin if she is found in the Eastern Realm.

  By force of military edict.

  Every muscle in her body tenses as Tierney’s mind roils. She balls up the posting and hurls it to the ground as she lets the rain beat back down on her.

  A collective gas
p went up when Commander Ung Li informed the Vu Trin apprentices that the Black Witch had been found. A weighty horror immediately descended over the Wyvernguard’s huge central hall.

  Tierney had to force even breaths as she came to terms with the stunning news. And the unbearable tension that rose up to fill the room.

  Even though she’s been a Vu Trin apprentice for only half a month’s time, Tierney has already heard countless stories about the last Black Witch’s reign of fire, everyone in the Noi lands having lost family members in the Realm War.

  During Carnissa Gardner’s push East.

  Everyone is clear on what the last Black Witch would have done to the Eastern Realm if the blessed Keltish Icaral hadn’t cut her down.

  Now the Prophecy that’s being sounded by every seer in the Eastern Realm is coming to pass.

  A new Black Witch looms on the horizon.

  Even more powerful than Carnissa Gardner.

  And it’s Elloren.

  Tierney clutches at the terrace’s slick stone banister as rain streams down her slender form, thunder crashing overhead.

  How did Elloren gain control of her power? And how did the Vu Trin find out about it?

  How did Elloren find out about it?

  Why was Elloren in the line of fire during a strike on the Mage Council?

  And why were the Vu Trin attacking the Mage Council to begin with?

  Tierney’s knife-sharp intellect works to assemble the pieces.

  So many questions unanswered, but there’s one question Tierney already knows the answer to, her internal water magic upsurging around this intuitive certainty.

  Elloren Gardner is alive.

  And both the Gardnerians and the Vu Trin know what she is.

  Oh, Elloren, Tierney grimly marvels, you’ve triggered a war, haven’t you? A war that was coming regardless, but a war sparked now because of you.

  But if Vogel doesn’t have Elloren and there’s serious conjecture that Elloren might come to the Eastern Realm...

  That means that she’s on the run.

  And likely not just from Vogel.

  A tremor shivers through Tierney as she pictures her close friend’s face on all those postings and everything snaps into lethal clarity.

  This isn’t a search for Elloren’s protection. This is a manhunt. Tierney is bone-deep certain of it.

  If the Vu Trin find Elloren, they’ll kill her.

  Subversive resolve coalesces inside Tierney as she comes to terms with what she must do. She holds her palms out toward the Vo and sounds a beckoning call to summon her kelpies.

  You fear for her.

  Alarm spears through Tierney in response to the preternaturally deep voice sounding inside her mind. She lowers her palms to the terrace railing, teeth gritted, as her heart pounds against her chest and she keeps her eyes focused on the storming Vo.

  Lightning flashes.

  “Get out of my mind, Viger,” she snarls, struggling to hide her desperation to force him out of her thoughts.

  Because what she’s going to do could get her thrown into military prison. And if Viger senses it...

  “Why do you fear for the granddaughter of the Black Witch?” Viger presses in that insidious tone of his.

  In a flash of anger, Tierney rounds on the dark-eyed young Fae, the sheeting rain around him turned to a shroud of mist that’s halted by the dark aura swirling around him. His gaze is a compelling pool, and Tierney is immediately caught up in the sensation of falling toward him.

  The whites of Viger’s eyes ink to black as Tierney’s fear swirls around her, like a pond stirred by a stick.

  “Keep your thrall off me, Viger,” Tierney snaps. “I’m warning you. You’re not the only one with power.”

  Viger’s form instantly morphs to dark mist then disappears as Tierney internally curses him, curses the entire situation, her fists tightly balled.

  “Why do you fear for her?”

  Her ire spikes as Tierney whips around to find Viger’s tall form now calmly reclining against the terrace rail, uncharacteristically devoid of his usual covering of snakes, his horns absent, the whites of his eyes back, his claws retracted.

  “If I talk to you,” Tierney says sharply, “will you stay put and spare me your Death Fae theatrics? It’s impressive and spooky, but I’m in no mood for it.”

  Viger goes silent as only a Death Fae can. It’s not a normal silence. It’s a stillness that seems to reverberate through the air on some low, bone-deep frequency that feels like being buried in the very center of Erthia.

  In this moment, Tierney finds him oddly comforting—his strange thrall, his pale, morbid appearance. His complete outcast status.

  Tierney considers how the Death Fae are famous for their nonalignment with any group. How they stand apart from any mob.

  Which seems like a very large mark in Viger’s favor at this moment, frightening as he can be.

  “You’ve become a friend to Elloren Gardner’s brother,” Tierney notes with a trace of challenge. Wanting to assess where he really stands.

  “He’s not what they think,” Viger states as the rain picks up, casting his form in mist. All except those hypnotic, dark eyes of his, their focus intensifying. “You’re summoning the Deathkin water horses to find the Black Witch,” Viger reads with unflinching accuracy.

  Tierney’s magic seizes as she struggles to find a plausible lie to refute this. But she’s devastatingly clear on one of the main reasons the Death Fae are mistrusted and often flat-out reviled here.

  It’s impossible to lie to them.

  Tierney holds Viger’s unsettling stare and decides to go for broke and let him in. It’s the only chance she has to make him see. He has to understand her completely, otherwise he’ll likely turn her in for treason.

  Tierney pulls in a long, wavering breath and internally lets go, opening up all her fears to him.

  Viger’s eyes widen a fraction then narrow in tight.

  Tierney gasps as everything darkens and she’s cast into the sense of hurtling down from a great height, her breath shuddering as Viger’s thrall takes rigid hold, a deeper darkness enfolding them both as everything cuts out—the rain, the wind, the riot of sapphire rune light tossed about by the waves, all vanished.

  All except for Viger and his all-encompassing stare.

  “Elloren Gardner is not what they think,” Tierney says against his darkness, the two of them now encased in it, Viger’s form dimly lined in silver.

  A raven blinks into view, perched on his shoulder.

  “She is the Black Witch,” he states with chilling certainty. “The forest echoes this. My ravens echo this.” His voice deepens to the point that Tierney can feel it low in her center. “Their fear echoes this.”

  Rebellion rises in Tierney. “She may well be, Viger. But...don’t you believe that things can run deeper than everyone thinks?”

  “Like you?” Viger says, silky smooth. The words send a warm disturbance through Tierney’s magic, and she struggles to ignore how enticing it feels. Tierney knows it’s odd that she’s both intrigued by Viger as well as terrified and repulsed by aspects of him. These Death Fae are all like mythical figures hovering around the edges of this place, unsettling the comforting sense of order.

  Throwing Death into the mix.

  I will not reveal you, Viger sounds in her mind.

  Tierney’s apprehension whirls around the thought.

  Is he saying he won’t turn her in?

  “If you could be a tad less cryptic, Viger,” she snaps, “it would be helpful.”

  They’re coming, Viger responds, a slight smile lifting his mouth as he draws back his thrall. The wind, the rain, the flash of lightning all rush back in and around them both, soaking his coal-dark uniform, his spiky hair, his pale face and pointed ears.

  A huge wave c
rests and crashes over the banister as kelpies form and leap onto the huge platform.

  Tierney turns to face them, their hooves splashing as they take solid, rippling form, limned by the terrace’s sapphire rune light.

  Es’tryl’lyan comes forward, and Tierney moves to meet with him, thrown by the strange terror in his eyes. The kelpie lowers his powerful head, and Tierney raises her arm to hold his flowing, watery form, her kelpie smooth and solid but covered in rushing water that flows over Tierney’s hand.

  And that’s when she feels it—the intense rush of alarm flowing from the army of kelpies.

  Warning. Warning. Warning.

  She’s accosted by a sudden vision, thrust into her from the kelpies’ minds.

  Tierney closes her own eyes as she reads their collective thoughts, reads what they’ve found in the Vo forest.

  Viger’s darkness is suddenly whipping around the edges of her mind along with the kelpies’ images.

  What are you reading in them, Tierney Calix? His words seem to come from everywhere at once.

  “Something unnatural,” Tierney says, her throat cinching tight. “Animals that should not be here. Some of them filled with an unbalancing power. Something...unnatural in it that could shred the matrix of nature.”

  What have they found? Viger thinks again, his presence in her mind sending the hairs on the back of Tierney’s neck prickling, his dark thrall intensifying.

  “They’re creatures I’ve seen only in books. Creatures of the desert. Insects. Like something from a nightmare.” Tierney turns away from Es’tryl’lyan’s dark, feral stare and meets Viger’s. “Scorpios,” she tells him breathlessly, her heartbeat picking up speed. “They found a swarm of desert scorpios, here in the forests of the Eastern Realm.”

  Part Six

  CHAPTER ONE

  WRAITH BATS

  ELLOREN GREY

  Sixth Month