“You’ll teach me what?” I snap at him.
“How to use a wand.” He smirks again. “Without blowing yourself up.”
My breath catches tight in my chest and I gape at him. “You would?”
“I’ll even buy you a wand,” he tells me evenly.
He’s playing with me. He has to be. He can’t honestly be offering me a wand. It’s illegal to secure wands for Mages without Council approval, and for him to jest like this only stokes my anger higher.
“Go ahead, then,” I taunt back. “Get me a wand. I might strike you down if you irritate me.”
Vale coughs out a laugh. “You could try. I like to spar with the outrageously overconfident. I’ve a lot of practice with that.”
“I don’t need your help,” I snipe at him. “I’ve used my grandfather’s wand.”
“And what type of wand was that?” Vale asks, his tone condescending.
My angry fire burns hotter. I lift my chin. “An Elstorth Oak wand.”
Vale spits out a sharp sound of disdain. “The cheapest, most poorly made wands in all of Erthia. They work against power more than they work with it.”
I remember the wand I used that terrible night. “Then get me a wand like that white wand,” I counter.
Vale smirks. “I can’t get you a Wand of Power. But I can get you a Maelorian wand.”
I eye him closely. There’s no slyness in his fire. It’s coursing hot and steady.
“Sweet Ancient One, Vale, you can’t actually be serious. Those are outrageously expensive wands. They cost as much as...as Valgard.”
He narrows his eyes. “You do realize you have money now.”
I stare at him blankly.
He gapes at me. “You really hadn’t given that any thought?”
“I was too busy being...upset.”
Vale gives an incredulous laugh, then shakes his head and grows thoughtful, his fire lashing out. His lips purse into a tight line of displeasure. “You’re easily a Level Three Mage. Maybe even a Four, with the way you can layer power. If you were Noi, you wouldn’t have to put up with any of this nonsense. They’d put you right into their Vu Trin guard, and they’d be the stronger for it. We waste half our fighting force. I find it deeply ironic that a woman is turning the tide for us.”
I stare at him in dumbfounded surprise.
He notices my shock and shoots me a sardonic grin. “Not so bad having a fastmate with complete contempt for the rules, is it?”
“You’d really get me a wand,” I marvel. “You’re not joking.”
His eyes glitter with fiery mischief. “Oh, Tessla, I’d get you a very nice wand.”
Blinking at him, I sit rooted to the spot, my fire out of control, lashing out in angry fits and starts. I stare toward the Command Tent, and the flames briefly surge, coursing with hatred.
“Gods, Tessla,” he says. “I can feel your fire even more clearly than my own. Would you like to get out of here?”
I turn toward him, incredulous, put off by his casual use of the blasphemous “gods.” There’s only one god—the Ancient One—and Vale’s idle cursing is jarring.
“What about my brother?” I almost include and my grandfather, but I’m too hurt to even mention Grandfather, ready to lash out or burst into violent tears at the thought of his betrayal. “Wren needs me. I’ve no choice but to stay here.”
His brow knits tight. “I’ll not leave your family here. I have a home in Valgard. I’ll arrange for a carriage to bring them there. Tonight. They’ll be well cared for.”
I stare at him, stunned. “You’d do that? You’d help them?”
His brow knits tighter. “Of course. Tessla, you’ve just made a very good match.” His expression turns cynical. “At least in terms of money and connections.”
“But if you’re bringing my family to Valgard, then...where do you want to take me?”
“Somewhere quiet.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out, staring at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. “I have a second home by the Voltic Sea. It’s just a small cottage, but it’s isolated. Away from—” he motions toward the base as a whole “—all this.”
Fear and suspicion suddenly flare to life inside me. What if the rumors about him and Fain are wrong? I’d be alone with him, and it would be all too easy for him to take advantage of that in order to consummate our sealing.
“I won’t let you bed me,” I tell him fiercely. There’s an edge of pathetic desperation in my voice, and I loathe hearing it.
He stiffens with offense. “I have no desire to force you into my bed.”
I waver, remembering what Fain said earlier. We fit together, Vale and I. Like two pieces of a puzzle. If Vale didn’t want to wandfast at all, and he has no interest in pursuing our consummation...it must be because of Fain.
There’s still one question left unanswered, though. “Why did you seal the fasting, then?” I challenge, raising my line-marked hand into the air.
There’s a searing flash of irritation in Vale’s eyes, as if his reasoning should be patently obvious. “I had them seal us to bring you under my full protection, Tessla. Or would you prefer to stay under the partial guardianship of your grandfather? That was going so deliriously well.”
I let out a shaky breath, still furious at Grandfather. I realize that Vale was right to insist on our sealing. Right to strip Grandfather of his power over me.
“Well, in any case, it’s done,” I observe flatly, turning my hand side to side as more tears sting at my eyes. “It’s over. I’m...”
“Stuck with me, yes,” he snaps. “But it’s a fair bit better than being stuck with Malkyn Bane. Of that, I can assure you.” His expression loses its sarcastic edge. He looks at me full on, serious and searching. “At some point,” he says with a sigh, “we’ll make a trip to Noi lands and...try to undo this. I can’t make any guarantees. This magic is as strong as Elfin steel, but it might be possible. All right?”
I look to him, his face drawn into hard lines, his fire raging. But there’s genuine concern at the edges of his gaze.
I nod in unspoken agreement. It’s clear he doesn’t want this, either. Chastened gratitude pricks at me. “Why would you do this?” I ask him.
He spits out a derisive breath, as if irritated by the question, then locks his gaze on to mine, his eyes searing. “Because what they were doing to you was monumentally unfair. Regardless of what they think, you saved the lives of many of the Gardnerians in there. And, no offense, but your grandfather seems like an idiot. And I hate idiocy.”
I eye his wand with a glimmer of unease. “I suppose you’re my lord and master now. You’re a Level Five Mage and we’re sealed.”
“I would never force you to do anything.”
“Except wandfast,” I snipe at him. My words are hardly fair. I know they’re not. But I’m of no mind to be fair.
Vale’s face twists into a sneer. “I know you don’t want me. I know you don’t want any of this.”
“I’m sorry, Vale,” I concede miserably. “You helped me. I know I should be thanking you.”
“I don’t want your gratitude,” he says, fuming. “It was well worth it just to see the look on Malkyn Bane’s face.”
I stare at him, suddenly feeling lost and defeated as his fire lashes against me. My fire is as out of control as his. The pain of my grandfather’s cruelty slices through me in jagged cuts and sends my affinity flames roaring higher.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” Vale asks.
I nod, hating them all. Hurt by them all. Everyone but my brother and Fain and Vale.
“I’m ready,” I tell him, my voice breaking with despair. “If I stay here, I’ll steal that wand straight from your belt and set them all on fire.” I narrow my eyes at him. “And even your mother won’t be
able to stop me.”
Chapter 22: Voltic Sea
My arms are tight around Vale as we ride, my body pressed up close against his back. We didn’t pause to collect any belongings. Vale simply requisitioned a black stallion and pulled me up behind him, and we rode away, Vale’s lineage and silver stripes giving him leave to go anywhere, do anything he dictated.
The wind picks up as we ride, pulling at my hair. Vale’s cloak is wrapped around me to cut the chill, his heat fueling my own.
He feels good.
Too good.
His sparking fire radiates off his back, his affinity lines as out of control and fitful as mine, flaring violently at times.
Both of us passionately upset.
But there’s also the matter of how exciting it is to touch him.
The muscles of his chest move under my hands, strong and sinewy, and my fire struggles to surge straight into him. Mortified, I pull my fire in hard, but it’s like trying to control a raging storm.
I resist the urge to move my hands, to slide my fingers over the planes of his chest and trace fire all over it. I hold myself stiffly, but the movement of the horse is rhythmic and bumping and my fingers slide on their own. Every movement of my hands on him prompts a trail of explosive sparks.
We kissed, I think, my fire wanting to crash into him as we race through forests and farmland. His mouth was hot on mine. I realize, with a start, that I want him to kiss me again.
No, I rebuke myself, shocked by my own thoughts. He won’t ever kiss you again. He only did it to save your life, and you only want him because you fall into his affinity so.
He belongs to Fain, not to you.
The rain begins to spit in fits and starts as the thunder grows closer and more insistent. I’m filled with a mounting frustration, and the chill wind doesn’t do anything to dampen my hungry fire.
The desire to get even closer to him rocks through me. I want to get under the silk of his tunic. Feel his hot skin against mine. Forget everything in the whole world and drown in his fire.
My face is flushed hot. The heat he’s kindling in me—it’s all new. I’ve never had such brazen thoughts in my life. My fire sparks toward Vale in covetous flares and I struggle to rein it in.
Does Fain feel the same wild pull toward Vale? Toward his fire, his hard body? And does Vale want Fain that way, too?
A despairing frustration crashes through me that dwarfs the ocean scene opening up before us. Waves crash on the rocks below, the road abutting a sheer cliff dropping down to the Voltic Sea.
I’m fasted to a man who will never want me. Who wants Fain instead.
There’s a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder as Vale’s cottage comes into view. It’s deeply isolated, set down near an arcing beach, with rocky cliffs rising to great heights all around it. The beach is dark, the clouds threateningly low, stormy as the churning water.
Of course it’s isolated. Hidden away from everything. So Vale and Fain can hide what they are to each other. And they can still have each other, I bitterly consider. Fasting places control only over women. But still, I’ve complicated their already disastrously complicated lives. A sting of miserable regret stabs at me—regret over any hurt this might cause Fain.
The cottage is as stark as the landscape and blends in perfectly, traditional Gardnerian in style. It’s constructed of Ironwood, carved to resemble a grove of giant trees, their limbs rising up to flow into the stone cliff. Part of the adjacent cliff is hewn into a side arch that’s attached to the house. Trees are etched right into the stone, mirroring those carved into the Ironwood. There’s an upper floor with a semicircle of long windows that open onto an sweeping porch. The porch looks out over the turbulent ocean.
It’s beautiful.
This will never be your cottage, I harshly remind myself. It’s Vale’s and Fain’s. I’m an outsider in it. By virtue of their charity. A pitiful outsider, and nothing more.
The heavens open up. Lightning cracks, and rain sheets down on us in glistening, spearing lines.
Vale rides down to the cottage and pulls the horse to a stop beneath a long stone arch. Rain spills off the arch’s edge in thick streams, the thunder and lightning whipping up into a frenzy. There’s a path to a cavernous and well-appointed stable cut right into the cliff, and I absently stare into it as my misery rises along with the storm’s intensity.
Vale hastily gets off the horse, as if angered at me, and I feel the loss of his heat acutely. Like a blow.
He throws me a storming, tortured glance, and I glare right back at him, fighting off the urge to burst into tears. He looks away, his hand tight on the horse’s bridle, waiting for me to dismount.
I hop off the stallion, made clumsy by my tear-blurred vision. Vale quickly leads the horse away, as if he can’t wait to be rid of the sight of me.
It’s too much.
I turn and walk away, straight into the storm, meet with the rain and surrender to my fury and anguish, letting my fire lash out in fractured spears. I walk clear away from the house, right up to a cliff’s sharp drop.
There’s a path that would take me right up to the edge of the Voltic Sea.
The rain’s now pelting my face, chilling me to the bone, and I clench my fastlined fists and cry into it, staggeringly aware of what I’ve lost.
Yes, I can make a life for my family now. And I should be grateful. But Vale’s enticing fire has, for the moment, singed all other thoughts to ash, save for one painful realization.
I splay out my hands in front of me, rain pelting the black, curling lines.
I’ll never be loved. Never have a true fasting. I’ll never have anyone.
Because of Grandfather.
It’s all his fault, I seethe. My arrogant, pious grandfather’s fault.
Anger rears up and slashes through me.
A wave of heat hits my back. “Tessla.” Vale’s hand touches my arm. Fire flashes through me with his firm touch, his hand so warm. It feels so wildly good, which shatters my heart anew.
I wrench my arm away from Vale and round on him, my breathing gone erratic and harsh, everything exploding out of me in a sudden rush.
“I took care of them for years!” I cry at Vale, teeth gritted, tears streaming.
Thunder crashes around us.
His hair and body are slick with rain, which only makes him more beautiful. His fiery green eyes sear into me. I’m pulling in staccato breaths, unable to control my despair. “I made all the money! Did all the hard work! The two of them sick, for years and years! And then he forces me! Gives me no say! Goes behind my back! It hurts! It hurts that he’d do that to me!” My chest is heaving so hard that my sobbing has grown painful. “I was powerless there, and I’m still powerless here. How could he? How could he do this to me?” I raise my cursed hands as my rage devolves into a wounded keening.
Vale’s face is set tight. There’s a whirlwind of conflict in his eyes. The rain has completely soaked him now, and I look him over with open longing.
His lips are drawn, and he briefly glances out over the steel-gray ocean. Then he turns back to me, his gaze fierce.
“If I’d only left a week earlier,” I say with anguish. “I’d be there. I’d be in Verpacia right now.”
“Tessla,” Vale says. “Come in out of the rain.” There’s an adamant insistence in his tone, but also something else. Genuine concern.
Lightning streaks and thunder crashes, and I’m suddenly aware of how cold I am. But I can’t look to my fastmate to warm me.
No, he’ll never warm me. He’ll warm Fain.
The thought makes me cry even harder.
But he’s trying to be kind. Trying to get me to come in to shelter.
I relent and follow him back under the stone arch. I slump up against the inside of the arch, weepin
g, not caring how pathetic I am.
Vale’s eyes are on fire as he leans back against the opposite wall, facing me.
“Tessla, there’s something you should know.” He’s biting off each word as if this is difficult to say.
“I know,” I anguish, wiping at my tears. “I already know.”
You love Fain.
“No, you don’t,” Vale says, his voice ragged. “Jules Kristian. He’s one of my closest friends. Aside from Fain.”
I raise my head and gape at him, instantly flooded with vast confusion. Not sure I’ve even heard him correctly.
“Jules? You’re friends with my Jules?”
“Yes, your Jules.” The words are tight and bitter, and shame washes over his expression. “I met him at the University. He’s a brilliant historian. We’ve been close friends for almost three years.” He pauses, as if momentarily at a loss. “When I saw him that night...when we came for all of you... I knew who you were immediately. Jules talked about you often.” He hesitates, his words stilted, then shakes his head and spits out a short, wry laugh. “He’s madly in love with you.” He brings his hand to his forehead and massages his temple. “When he finds out...” He takes a deep breath and looks squarely at me. “I’ve betrayed him.”
My heart speeds up. “Where is he?” I ask, breathless with hope.
He narrows his eyes. “I gave him a protective amulet against fire. He’s...fine. He sent a runehawk. He’s getting ready to cross into Verpacia. I have a small house there. I’m sending him funds.”
I grasp at the wall behind me, going light-headed. “He’s all right. Oh... Ancient One. He’s alive.” I can barely get the words out. Exhausted relief washes over me.
He’s alive. All of us alive.
I glance up at Vale again. “His family?”
Vale’s whole face pulls in tight. “They’re dead.”
The news is like a blow to my gut. “All of them?”
He nods, his eyes reddening, glazed with guilty tears. “My mother’s fire.” He almost chokes on the words.
Oh, Ancient One, no. “His sister, too?” Little Sarla. Ten years old and full of life.
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