by Lora Leigh
“None shall break that bond.” Both Torran and Rhydan came to their feet, their hands gripping the hilts of the swords that hung from their hips.
They would see nothing that Astra called her own taken from her, especially the bond she had with the land. Such a travesty was more than they could bear.
“Be prepared then.” Garron nodded slowly. “Be prepared, young Wizards, for the battle may come far sooner than you know.”
Chapter Nine
Steel rang against steel in the tiny sheltered valley outside the entrance of the caverns leading to the lower levels of Castle Sellane.
The twelve Sorceresses of the Sorceress Brigade and their Guardian Keeper trained beneath the watchful eye of Wizard Twins rather than Sorcerer trainers of strategic magick.
The spore of magick was different within each magickal being who possessed it. As though it attached itself to talents, dreams or instincts and heightened them. Their magick infused those qualities, and gave the one possessing them a far greater sense of that ability than even those who may practice it.
Wizards of strategic or warfare magick could look at the sword, the bearer of the weapon, and see, or sense the warrior beneath whether they be Sorcerer, Warlock, Witch or Sorceress. But even those of the greatest of such magicks could not see the warrior hearts that resided within the Sorceresses as the Wizard Twins who were now Consorts to the Guardian Keeper of the Lands.
“Keeper, get that bedamned sword up,” Caise Sashtain roared as the Keeper dropped her guard against his Twin, Kai’el. “’Tis not your Consort you fight at this moment, Sorceress. ’Tis your enemy. ’Tis the Warlock intent on breaking through your magick and tasting that pretty body. Does he do so, what then happens to your magick?”
They were brutal.
Astra sparred against Camry, each aware of the words said even as they blocked what outrage they may have felt for how their Keeper’s Consorts trained them. Once they entered the training yard and their Consortress took up her sword, it was as though they were no more than trainers. And their Keeper took no offense to it. Her Sorceresses could sense her amusement, irritation or even her frustration with herself, but never anger or a sense of being dealt unfairly.
Soaked with perspiration, her leathers clinging to her body as the moisture dripped from her hair, stung her eyes and attempted to cool her body, Astra continued to practice the sword with her Brigade sister. Attempted to push back the awareness of her Wizards as they connected with her and aided each quick parry and defensive lift of her sword. As though they whispered what Camry would do before she did so, and then instructed Astra in the proper defense.
They were there with her, lending her strength when she grew weary, knowledge to defend her sword, a gentle touch of something cool against her brow as her magick blazed stronger, brighter within her.
Brace your feet.
That sword is not a babe suckling at your breast. Swing it. Use the strength you’ve honed and block.
Strike.
Stand firm.
They opened their minds to her, gave her glimpses of their own sword training as young Wizard Warriors, and instructed her in not just defending herself and her Brigade sisters-in-arms but also in the fine art of striking back and forcing her enemy to the defensive instead.
Once she had taken Camry’s sword, she collapsed to the grass, eleven swords carrying the ribbons of the house of Al’madere as she panted for breath and swore she could not lift her sword again.
“You have another sword to conquer, cousin.”
Astra lifted her lashes, staring back at her Keeper, fighting to breathe as weariness filled her.
Her gaze flickered to the swords she had won that day before she allowed herself to shake her head wearily.
“Verily, Guardian, you are welcome to the swords I have won this day,” she panted, exhausted from her afternoon’s efforts. “I can barely breathe, lifting my sword would take more magick than I possess this day.”
Marina plopped down beside her as Astra found herself forced to quickly sever the connection with the Wizards watching her from afar. She could feel her Keeper’s gentle probing of her inner emotions. Not her thoughts, for those were Astra’s alone. She searched the emotions of the woman Astra could not hide instead.
“Please, Keeper,” she muttered warily, the compassion in Marina’s gaze searing her with shame. “I would lose my faith, my strength should I see pity in your gaze.”
Astra knew what her Keeper sensed. The torn, jagged emotions of the child who still sobbed inside her soul each time she felt her mother’s attempts to sever the bonds the Mystic lands had created inside her, even before her birth.
“What does she do now, Astra?” Marina whispered hoarsely. “I can feel it. I can sense the Land’s offense, its insult at what she does.”
Astra could only shake her head. How could Marina sense such a thing? Know what even the Wizards she knew to be her natural Consorts had not yet sensed?
“I felt the Mystic Mountains tremble, and for the briefest seconds the rivers churned and threatened to turn direction and spill their magick back to the Raging Seas.” Marina’s voice lowered further. “The burning rivers that run beneath that land have sent their rage bubbling to the surface, spewing its molten fury from geysers that broke through the very ground itself in several places before she retreated.”
Astra sat up, propped her arms on her knees and buried her face in them as she fought to block her Keeper’s words.
The feel of that molten rage spewing from the land had brought Astra from a restless sleep before the twin moons had slept and the beaming glory of Musera, goddess of the magickal lands, sent her warming caress to the land of her children.
“Astra, the Mystic Forests give their secrets to you and to your mother alone. Do not force me to demand my answers from the lands that even I can sense crying out to you.”
Lifting her head, Astra laid it against her folded arms and stared back at the Guardian Keeper of the Lands of Covenan, sensing, nay, knowing, the Mystic lands were reaching out to her as well now, knowing she would need aid should Alisante continue her treachery.
“What foul act did she attempt to commit against the lands as you slept?” Marina asked again.
“Alisante believed that should she desecrate the final resting place of my father, that somehow his spirit would reach out in anger to punish me for allowing the lands to give up his remains,” she whispered, hearing the serrated sound of her voice as the agony piercing her increased at Marina’s horror.
“She would not dare,” the Keeper whispered in outrage. “His line is descended from the oldest, the most revered of the Wizard Twins. His foremother followed us because her Consorts had passed to the gods, not because of her fear of them. Hers was one of the few alignings that would have been a Joining had she been given a choice.”
The purity of that birth, even a millennium ago, had been respected by Astra’s ancestors even after leaving Cauldaran. The Sorceresses had a choice in accepting Sorcerers whose magick had also come from such natural alignings so many centuries before, believing it would increase the power of each Keeper of the Mystic Lands. And so far, it had held true.
Astra was believed to be the most powerful yet of her line. Even as a babe she had sensed the magick of the lands she had been born to.
“Anja was with her,” Astra whispered. “Alisante forced her to aid her. They tore papa’s remains from the magick surrounding him, knowing the land would tell me of their act and believing it would force me to strike out at Alisante.”
And had she done so, the magick of the Mystic lands would have no choice but to protect the Keeper it was still bound to. To the woman whose magick was still yet strong enough to command it.
By not striking out, Astra had nearly lost her sanity.
To feel her father’s remaining magick jerked from its resting place, torn from the land and then left defenseless within the cruel winds Alisante had called up, had near killed her soul. All
that had saved her, and her father’s last remains, had been a miracle. Just before that magick had dissipated some force had pulled it from the winds whipping about the lands and somehow secured it. The fact that it was not within the Mystic lands greatly disturbed Astra, but she could feel the security, the safety of her beloved papa’s remains for the time being. She contented herself with that.
“Astra, this cannot continue.” The voice of the Guardian Keeper spoke.
It was not Marina’s gentle tone. It was not a tone of fury, rage or anger. It was one of command, of the certainty that she commanded all magick in the lands, even above those of the Keepers, and she could, and she would, will it to sever its ties with Alisante and flow fully to the Keeper heir.
Astra lifted her head, bowed it, then shook it slowly. “The land must choose.”
As she must choose, she thought.
Choose her Wizards or her loyalty to this woman, to one who had sworn her loyalty to Astra years before. And unlike Astra, Marina had never broken her vow.
“The magick of the Mystic Mountains screams out to me in my dreams, Astra,” the Keeper revealed. “I will not ignore its cries again, hear you me?”
Astra turned to her once again. “The land must choose to break that bond, Keeper. Should you do such a thing, then it will affect your ability to protect your Keepers of each province for the remainder of your stewardship. You know this.”
“I will not see you destroyed,” the Keeper swore. “And I would know why you did not strike out at the insanity of her act.”
“Because some force, I know not who, heeded my plea to gather Papa’s magick and once again shelter it in a place she cannot reach, nor can she find.” Astra battled back her tears, knowing that despite the safety of her papa’s magick, still, it no longer rested in Al’madere sacred ground where his ancestors’ magick had rested for millennia now.
“She won.” The Keeper still spoke, that voice of pure power and menace sending a chill down Astra’s spine. “She will come for you next, Astra.”
Astra shook her head. “She cannot.” The land would never remain still for such an act, and neither would the Wizards watching out for her.
“You know Alisante was here yesterday eve?” the Keeper asked then.
Astra nodded. “Aerin informed me as we bathed after my return from the Emerald Valley.”
“She returns this eve.”
Astra stared back at Marina in confusion at this information. “For what reason would she do so?”
“This information I was hoping you would have.” The Keeper reflected at her answer. “For whatever reason, she has requested that you be present as well.”
Astra could feel the trepidation feathering up her spine now. She knew the woman who had given her birth well. Deceit and manipulation were but her gentler qualities.
“Must I be present?” Astra asked, suddenly certain she did not wish to be. “I wished to return to the Emerald Valley with Tambor and Candalar again this eve. Mandalee refuses to allow them out of her sight unless I am near, and they are growing weary of her overprotective growls.”
“Their return was the answer to all our prayers.” It was not the Keeper who spoke with such a gentle voice and such pleasure in her eyes now.
“Aye, ’twas but a dream I could not bear to even consider before we found them,” Astra agreed.
She had not told her Keeper of having found the cubs first. Astra had gone to the Emerald Valley with the other Sorceresses and their Guardian Keeper, and was there when they entered Mandalee’s lair and found not just the babe Tambor suckling but also the half-grown Candalar.
The nearly adult Griffon had slept even as he suckled, his velvet paws kneading at his mother’s flesh as he suckled the magick-rich milk he had been weaned from years before.
“What magick brought them back to us?” Marina wondered. “No matter how I search I cannot find the source.”
This was her chance, perhaps. A chance to test the rage inside the Guardian of the Lands toward her future Consorts.
“I sensed Delmari magick,” Astra whispered, staring back at Marina and feeling her heart break as rage instantly clouded the Guardian’s gaze.
“Never could such a thing be possible.” The Keeper was now back. “The Griffons would have given that secret to me, as would the land. Mustafa would have torn them asunder had they come even close to the broken remains of his babes. His hatred of the dark arts is greater than that of any Griffon ever known.”
Astra nodded, lowering her head once again. “Aye, this I know. I tell you only what I sensed, Keeper, as I questioned the babes.”
She did not lie. She did question the babes, wondering if they would betray her should the other Sorceresses do so.
The babes had shown her that place of dark fear and confusion that had been their prison in their stone forms. They had been cold, as though ice encased them, and Tambor had tried to cry out for his mother’s warmth, his father’s protection. Their terror had grown until the babe had been close to giving up and searching that path that only the youngest of magicks knew to that place where the Select would gather him to their hearts.
His bond with his mother was strong though, and he’d fought, just as Candalar had done, to find her.
Then slowly, they had shown her how the dark had begun to ease. The glow of life that had begun to fill it.
A sensation of pain nearing, yet it had never touched them.
Astra had realized the Wizards had taken that pain upon themselves.
Not the act of dark Wizards.
It was an act of compassion. Of love. For they had not had to do so, knowing it would weaken their strength even further. Yet neither cub had known even a second’s pain as their stone forms were repaired.
The cubs had then shown her of that slow return to magickal warmth. Of little lungs filling with their first renewed breaths. Of sensation returning, tingling at their paws, retracting their claws with a rebirth they had rejoiced at.
Weak though they had been, filled with hunger and confusion, still they had sought the warmth of the Wizards, feeling them as they shared the last measure of their magick with the immature Griffons as they all collapsed from exhaustion.
That was not the act of one whose magick was blackened by evil.
The other Sorceresses had been shown only that feeling of warmth and the return to life. Of warmth and exhaustion. They had, even in their immaturity, sought to reinforce the protection Mustafa, Malosa and Mandalee had extended around the Wizards.
Silence had stretched between them for so long that Astra looked over at the Guardian of the Lands curiously. Marina watched her with a heavy gaze filled with concern, and for a moment, Astra wondered what she sensed.
“I must ask you be here when Alisante arrives,” Marina said then, filling Astra with a sense of such shame that it was near unbearable.
To have to face the insanity of her mother’s acts was such a travesty that she barely held back her instinctive rejection.
“Might we request Garron’s presence as well?” Astra asked then, hearing her voice tremble at the knowledge that there was no escaping whatever cruel and merciless plan Alisante had designed.
“She asks that only you, myself and my Wizards be present,” Marina sighed. “But I shall try to ensure Garron is there, if not in all his leathery glory, then perhaps as the invisible shield of protection we have all known when in need.”
“What time should I make myself available for the Keeper of the Mystic Lands?” Astra asked with precise respect considered due a Keeper of the Land within Covenan.
“She says she will arrive just after the evening meal,” Marina advised her. “I ask that you come dressed as the Keeper Heir of the Mystic Mountains. Give her no chance, no opportunity to weaken your position, Astra. As the two of you stand together, the land you will one day command shall no doubt be strained to hold back its loyalty to you, despite the lack of the ritual giving it over to your keeping.”
Astr
a nodded before rising slowly to her feet. “I believe I will go to the Griffons now then, with your leave, Keeper.”
Rising as well, Marina nodded, her gaze compassionate. “Be prepared, Astra. Deceit is something she has honed and now wields with the same strength you wielded your blade this day.”
“Nay, Guardian,” Astra denied bitterly. “The Keeper of the Mystic Lands wields her deceit and machinations with all the skill and experience of your Wizards should they be forced this moment to defend your life. If only she wielded it to protect the lands, rather than attempting to destroy them.”
Marina watched as the Sorceress slowly moved through the training yard, carrying her sword with such weariness she was rather surprised Astra had not left it with those swords she had won for the day.
As much as that worried her, there were other matters concerning Astra that worried her far more.
“She is their Consortress,” she whispered as her Consorts drew to her, their magick wrapping around her. “They have not Joined, but you are right. Their magick has touched her and now remains a part of her own to protect her.”
“Was the taint of the dark one lingering on her?” Caise kept his voice low, for her and Kai’el’s alone.
“There was no taint,” she answered, confused. “Weariness, agony whispered across her magick. Fear, a guilt that tears at my heart as though a dull blade has struck it, and the purity of their magick reaching for her, even as hers does reach for them.” She frowned at the knowledge of it. “She does not yet realize that to cleave to them, to protect them, is no treachery of her own and her feeling it is tears at her soul. That alone is enough for any Sorceress to bear. But that bitch mother of hers…” Her lips tightened in offended fury. “Were my mother here, she would command I sever the bonds between Alisante and the land and begin the ritual to give it into Astra’s protection immediately.”