Allowed to pray together without being dragged out and beaten. Without being thrown in prison. Flogged. Killed.
“Mages,” the Black Witch tells us, her voice thick with emotion, “we must increase our numbers and fill all the corners of Erthia. Tonight is a night of new beginnings.” She looks out over the crowd. “Who here is ready to be fasted? To join with me in building our blessed Magedom?”
Cries rise in a cacophony throughout the room. Young couples’ hands thrust up into the air.
The priest gestures solemnly toward the center of the crowd. Rosebeth and Myles get up and walk to the dais.
The crowd bursts into a frenzy of jubilation. Women pull Ironflowers from their hair and pockets and throw them into the air. The glowing flowers soon carpet the central aisle, and the blue petals cling to Rosebeth’s and Myles’s hair.
They’re guided onto the dais by the priests as everyone beams at them. They move to stand on either side of a small altar, then clasp their hands over it. Another priest guides their families forward to stand around them.
The Black Witch holds her wand over the couple’s clasped hands as a hush falls over the room. The head priest opens our holy book, The Book of the Ancients, and reads the fasting prayer.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I watch them, overcome. Though Rosebeth hasn’t been the most loyal friend since we arrived here, I’ve known her since we were small children, and I’m beside myself with relief to see her so happy and cared for.
The Black Witch murmurs the fasting spell, and her dark lines of power whip about the couple, whirling around their hands.
And then it’s over, the dark lines of magic abruptly pulled into both Rosebeth’s and Myles’s hands.
With ecstatic smiles, they lift their fast-marked hands to the crowd. The permanent black fastlines now swirl in a dancing pattern over their glittering skin.
Everyone applauds and cheers. The couple’s families envelop them in an embrace, their collective happiness bubbling over as they all make their way off the dais and into a bright future.
Couple after couple follow their lead, bounding up to be fasted to wild cheers. Each couple’s eldest male guardian makes a tearful, earnest speech of gratitude to the Ancient One, to our Black Witch and to Gardnerians everywhere.
All of Genna’s Upper River friends rise to fast, three of them to Level Five Mages. Genna looks on, beaming, but she remains curiously seated.
It goes on for some time, and my elation for my long-beleaguered people slowly starts to chip away.
I’m standing on the fringes of all of it. Dressed up for a party where no one would ever want me. Not if they all knew about my friendship with Jules.
I’m an outcast, like Fain. And not just because of Jules. The list of my oddities is far longer than just that. I can read affinities. I’m one of those rare females with magic, and I’ve used it without Mage Council approval.
Nils ascends the dais, his military cloak swishing, one of Genna’s pretty friends on his arm. I can feel Genna’s triumphant glare as my heart sinks low as a stone in a well.
I watch the shy way the pretty young woman looks at Nils, their eyes gleaming with hope and the promise of sweet romance. The whole atmosphere of the hall is vibrating with such emotions, the results of rampant matchmaking everywhere I look. Couple after couple cling to each other.
I’m filled with a sudden longing for a fastmate of my own. Someone handsome and kind, someone who would help me look after Grandfather and Wren. Someone who wouldn’t think I was strange to be friends with a Kelt.
“Mage Bartholomew Harrow, please approach with your granddaughter.”
The sound of the priest calling out Grandfather’s name jolts through me. I look to Grandfather in confusion, but he simply pats my hand and smiles at me with gentle reassurance.
I take a steadying breath to calm myself.
The fastings are finished. The priests are stepping back from the altar.
I know Grandfather has spent most of our brief time here with the priests—going to service, praying, even leading an informal prayer circle. And the priests have been kind to us, praying over Wren, sending over their own apothecary. And it’s been a blessing to see Grandfather treated with reverence and respect, instead of targeted with cruel taunts.
Perhaps the priests seek to honor Grandfather in some way for his deep faith.
I help him toward the dais, the two of us soon joined by the head priest, who smiles at me benevolently and helps me support Grandfather the rest of the way.
I bolster my protective wall of fire as we climb the stairs of the raised platform. The combined affinities of so many Level Five Mages as well as the overwhelming affinity power of the Black Witch are like a barrage of magical spears. Fire, earth, air, light, water—a cacophony of elemental magic courses through the air and against my wall of fire.
We approach the Black Witch, and I struggle to maintain my balance. The black tendrils of her power circle around her, waves of fire emanating out with insatiable heat.
Breathless, I hold on to Grandfather’s arm and struggle to maintain my protective wall. Her eyes are deep green, just like Vale’s, and the same fiery heat simmers behind them—except her heat is multiplied a thousandfold.
“Mage Harrow, I have heard tales of you.”
I’m astonished—and a little panicked—to have her attention directed so singularly toward me.
“All conflicting,” she continues. She motions toward Vale, who seems as thrown as I am by this turn of conversation. “But my son, Vale, assures me that you did, in fact, save a considerable number of your brethren through bravery and magic.”
My heart races. Her magic. It’s so strong I can barely think around it.
“I believe him,” she says, a slight smile forming on her lips. “Which is why I have decided to allow a test of purity.”
“What?” I look to Grandfather in confused desperation, but he’s smiling at the priests, and they’re eyeing him knowingly in turn, their expressions filled with paternal solidarity.
They’re allied in this, I realize with spiking alarm. Whatever this is.
I catch Fain’s look of confusion and apprehension. His disorientation is mirrored in Vale’s storming eyes.
I’m suddenly on high alert, my heart thudding against my chest.
“Mage Harrow,” the Black Witch says, her tone gone hard. “There have been charges of staen’en raised against you. With a Kelt.”
A shocked wave of sound flashes through the crowd. I shrink back, blinking out at them all, intimidated by the sheer force of the dark censure pressing in all around me.
“It’s not true,” I defend myself, my voice shrill. “Jules and I...we were never...”
I’m drowned out by a swell of outraged murmuring in response to the sound of Jules’s Keltic name, overlaid with shouts of outright condemnation.
“You will be fasted this very night, Mage Harrow,” the Black Witch commands, her fire coursing around me. “And if you are not pure, it will be revealed to all.”
“Fast?” I cry out. “To whom?” I look to Grandfather, who pats me on the shoulder. His eyes aren’t on me. They’re on Priest Alfex, who nods at him approvingly, all of them humoring my anguish.
“Tessie, calm yourself,” he tells me in a stern tone I’ve never heard him use before. “I prayed on this, and the Ancient One led me to the right young man for you. It’s high time you were fasted. You must trust me in this.”
My grandfather and the priests turn and look toward the line of Level Five Mages, past Vale and Fain, clear across the dais.
Malkyn Bane strides forward, smooth as a serpent, a cold, cruel gleam in his eyes.
“No,” I gasp, blanching, staggering back. I look to Grandfather, pleading. “I can’t fast to him, Grandfather. Please, don’t
make me do this. Not to him. Anyone but him.”
“Tessla!” he admonishes me. “Be calm. I... I demand it.” He looks to the head priest for reassurance, and the tall man nods at him. “I am your guardian,” Grandfather says with a pious authority at odds with his reedy, quavering voice. “I must be obeyed as such. This is for your own good, Tessla. You will see, in time—”
“No.” I step away from his hand, panic rising. “I won’t.”
Grandfather looks to the Black Witch and holds his hands out to her in a pleading gesture. “It is completely natural for an innocent girl to have some hesitation.”
A nasty smirk spreads across Malkyn’s face. I suddenly know exactly what this is.
He’s agreed to this in the hope of seeing me disgraced. He believes Jules is my lover, and that I can’t be fasted. He wants to reveal me as a staen’en and watch the mob consume me.
Instead, I’m about to be permanently bound to a monster.
I send an imploring glance toward Fain, but he’s not looking at me. His eyes are locked on Vale’s, as if they’re relaying information to each other through the very air.
“I won’t!” I snarl at them all, glaring at Malkyn Bane. “I won’t fast to him!” I move to flee and cry out as firm hands grip both my arms.
“Stop!” Vale’s voice rings out clear as he strides forward. He looks grim and calm, but I can feel his fire raging, so strong it cuts through his mother’s affinity. “She can’t fast to him,” Vale states coldly, addressing his mother.
The Black Witch looks at her son, fire meeting fire. “And why is that?”
“She’s promised to me.”
A gasp ripples through the crowd.
“You’ve finally agreed to fast?” Carnissa Gardner asks, clearly startled.
“We’re a perfect match, Mother,” he says, as if only mildly interested in the proceedings, but his fire is burning violently hot. He gestures idly toward me. “Read her affinity lines.”
The head priest pulls up my sleeve. I defiantly struggle against the hands restraining me as the Black Witch’s fingers clench down around my forearm, tendrils of her dark power curling around my skin.
My wall of fire implodes the second she touches me, my affinity instantly laid bare. I’m vulnerable, splayed out like an open book, at the complete mercy of her fire.
“Incredible,” she says as I tremble beneath her touch, her terrible heat searing through me. She glances at Vale, astonishment in her eyes. “You’re a perfect match. Line for line. Amazing.” She looks toward the head priest with excitement. “Imagine the Great Mages a union like this could bring forth.”
“The Ancient One works in surprising ways,” the priest responds with a reverent dip of his head.
“Thank you, Mage Bane,” the Black Witch tells Malkyn as she releases me. I gasp and almost stumble backward, abruptly freed from the weight of her magic. “But if they are promised, then they must be fasted.”
Malkyn nods, shooting me a dark look, and steps back into the line of Level Five Mages. Vale takes his place across from me.
“Grasp hands and place them before our Great Mage,” the priest intones. He opens The Book of the Ancients to a passage marked with a crimson silk bookmark.
I look to Vale, a desperate plea in my eyes, and I can see my own urgency mirrored in his gaze. I can feel how high the stakes are in how hot Vale’s fire is running.
I’ve no choice, I realize with crushing certainty. It’s Vale Gardner or Malkyn Bane. And Vale’s trying to help me. He’s trying to save me.
Choking back a sob, I hold my hands out stiffly. My fire is whipping out of control, my protective wall of magic shattered.
Vale grasps my hands firmly in his, and our fires fall into each other, flame crashing through flame.
The Black Witch holds her wand over our clasped hands. Her power curls over us, cinching tightly around our hands. She murmurs the spell, and the priest begins the droning prayer. I can barely hear it as hot tears stream down my cheeks.
I cry harder as the lines appear, snaking around my hands, around Vale’s.
The lines curl and creep and then settle, the Black Witch’s tendrils of power pulling back and releasing.
I try to pull away, but Vale holds on tight.
“Seal it,” he says, the words hard and clipped. Like the final blow of an ax.
I gape at him with sudden fury. I try to pull my hands away, but his clutch is relentless, and suddenly her power is cinching our hands together once more. I glare at Vale, wide-eyed, shocked and thrust into a wild confusion by his betrayal.
By insisting on the sealing ceremony, Vale is ensuring that the consummation of our fasting occur this very night.
But why? Why would Vale want to be sealed?
The fasting lines grow darker, more intricately etched.
The final bond of a Gardnerian couple. With the inevitable public showing of intimacy, the dark lines ready to spread down our wrists after our union is consummated.
I wrench away from Vale, my mouth open in horror. His eyes are on me, white-hot, his fire coursing higher.
“How could you?” I rasp out.
I push through the wall of priests behind me and flee.
Chapter 21: Sanguin’in
“Tessla!” I hear my Grandfather’s heartbreaking, pathetic plea.
I ignore him as I bound down the dais steps and erupt into hot, angry tears. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!
“Let her go,” I hear Vale call out as I run down the aisle, my fire lashing.
There are sounds of shock as I pass. A soldier laughs and yells out, “Sanguin’in!” The word is taken up by more soldiers and echoes after me as I flee. “Bloody the sheets!” in the Ancient Tongue, the traditional and awful sealing cheer.
I stumble through the doors, past the rows of military guards, confusion etched on their faces.
I run and run, past tents, down deserted paths, until my lungs feel full of jagged glass. Until I reach a dark area just past a long line of tents, past the edge of the base, a dark field before me, a darker forest beyond that.
Thunder rumbles. Lightning cracks in the distance.
I fall to my knees, my palms in the dry dirt. Sobbing uncontrollably.
With each flash of lightning, I can see the black lines snaking around my hands like a cage.
An unstoppable wave of grief swamps over me.
Wandfasted.
Forever. Final as death.
* * *
I feel his fire before I see him or hear his steps.
“Tessla.”
My fire explodes. I wheel around, my knees scraping on the rocky dirt.
“I don’t want to be fasted!” I snarl at him, my hands clenched into fists. I want to rip off my own skin, rip off the lines. “I don’t want this!”
“I know,” he says calmly, but I can feel the full heat of his fire battering against mine.
“Are they happy now?” I cry at him, throwing as much affinity fire as I can toward him. I splay out my cursed hands. “Here it is! Proof that I’m pure!”
I drop my forehead in my hands and clutch at my hair, furious tears coursing down my face.
I’m bound. Forever.
Vale doesn’t move, and his fire doesn’t diminish. It’s burning hot as mine, barely contained. But he stays where he is, silently watching me.
Fasted. Forever. To him.
But it could have been Malkyn Bane, a small voice reminds me, cutting through the angry fire. It could be much worse.
I draw in a shuddering breath, trying to take full stock of the situation.
“You helped me,” I state flatly.
He doesn’t answer, his fire churning.
Defeated, I slump down to sit on the d
irt path, our fires meeting, his outrage surprisingly as scorching as mine.
“We’re fasted,” I say miserably, my hands going limp in my lap, fire sparking hot in fits and starts all over my affinity lines.
“We are,” he affirms, his mouth a tight line.
I take a shuddering breath, wipe away my tears and look up at him.
“I didn’t want this, either,” he tells me, his voice suddenly hard. “A fastmate, fleeing from her own fasting.”
His rebuke stings like the point of a knife. “I know that,” I relent. “But you did it, anyway. And you saved me. You saved me from him.”
Vale nods, as if darkly resigned. Then his mouth turns up in a cold smirk. “You’re perhaps the only woman in Gardneria who would be this furious over having to fast to me.”
My fire flares, and I glower at him. “I’m sorry for not slavering over you sufficiently, Vale.”
“Don’t apologize,” he counters tightly. “I rather enjoy your straightforward displeasure.”
“Hostility,” I scathingly correct him.
“Yes, well, it’s refreshingly honest.”
I’m breathing heavily, fuming, my fire scorching over my affinity lines.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there watching me coolly.
“I wish I was a man,” I spit out in defiance.
Vale gives a bitter laugh. “If you were, you might find yourself fasted to someone like Genna Thorne. You must admit, that would be a fair bit worse.”
I shake my head. “I’m sick of not having any power. Not allowed to have a voice. Not allowed to make any important decisions or defend myself. Do you know how many times I’ve had to fight off attacks?” I pin him with my eyes and glare at him with white-hot ferocity. “If I’d been trained in the use of a wand...”
Vale’s gaze turns deadly serious. “The Kelts would have strung you up for witchery.”
I shoot him a steely glare, my lip curled in a defiant sneer. “They wouldn’t have been able to catch me.”
“I’ll teach you,” he tells me calmly, but I can feel his fire lashing in hot, furious strokes. Barely contained.
Wandfasted Page 13