I remember how Malkyn killed Daisie and feel chilled to the bone.
“It was more than revenge,” Vale continues hoarsely. “He...made sport of them.” His eyes fill with outraged tears. “He hung them from hooks. Pierced them clean through before he froze them.”
I look at him with horror. “What did you do?”
He shakes his head in obvious disgust. “There was nothing I could do, Tessla. She sent him there, knowing what he’s capable of. She doesn’t care. Not after what’s been done to us. Before, when we were weak, Mother talked about killing them all. And it seemed like a rallying cry. Not real. Not truly the goal. But now, I’m wondering what I’ve aligned myself with.” His face hardens. “I’m withdrawing from military service. The war will soon be dying down, in any case. Our neighbors falling at our feet like a house of cards. Surrendering everywhere.” He looks back out over the ocean.
“Where is she?” I ask him. “The Uuril woman who raised you?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Far away from here. Safe from what’s coming.”
A dark foreboding pricks at me. “What’s coming, Vale?”
I know the answer to this before he says it. “Our vengeance.”
I consider this, my fire now flaring and as troubled as Vale’s. Images of being herded toward the barn invade my mind, the children crying and screaming. Soldiers leering at us. Cursing at us. Ready to kill us all.
Our enemies were so terrifyingly cruel.
But being grabbed at the altar. Forced to wandfast by a crowd ready to rip me apart if I had indeed been Jules’s lover. A crowd of my own people, ready to treat me as viciously as the Kelts and Urisk had, if I had truly been staen’en.
It’s changed everything.
I take a deep breath and push every last bit of my fire out toward Vale.
His eyes widen with surprise, then lock on to mine as our fires lash tightly around each other in kindred lines.
* * *
Vale and I walk into the city, my arm threaded through his. We’re barely touching, but still, we’re wrapped up in each other—wrapped up in our interlacing fire.
Twilight is descending, the sky now deep blue over the ocean, black over the city. A cool breeze blows in from the ocean as seagulls squawk and wheel above us.
I barely notice any of it. I’m too consumed by how closely we’re knitting our fires together. Intentionally. Tendril by tendril, tighter with every step.
Wordlessly.
Vale leads me along a cobbled path lined with Ironwood trees, their branches dotted with blue Ironflowers. A row of merchants’ shops are just past the trees to our left, a narrow canal past the trees to our right. The rippling black water reflects the Ironflowers’ sapphire light in shimmering lines, and small boats filled with jubilant Gardnerians float past. My eyes light on a wandcrafter’s shop, and a spark of longing rises inside me. There’s a golden Mage Council M near the shop’s door—a reminder that the Council strictly regulates the sale of wands.
Firmly keeping me out.
“Mage Vale Gardner.”
A burly, bearded man is walking toward us, his gait heavy and suffused with muscular strength, his black tunic edged with mariner blue. He comes to a stop before Vale, goes military straight and hits his fist to his heart with a dull thump.
“How are you, Bron?” Vale asks with cool formality.
“Quite well, Mage,” Bron replies in a husky voice, narrowed eyes darting toward me.
“Allow me to introduce you to my fastmate,” Vale says, his fire snapped into a stiff wall. “Tessla, this is Bron Scullor. Captain of the Raven.”
“Mage.” Bron gives a short bow to me, his gaze going to our fast-marked hands, the lines heavy and intricate, indicating that we’ve been not only wandfasted but also sealed. I see his brow furrow as he realizes that the lines don’t extend up our wrists.
Sealed, but not consummated.
Bron looks up at me, as if he’s trying to puzzle us out, but then his face goes carefully neutral. He glances back at Vale.
A flush heats my cheeks. I imagine that, by not adhering to tradition, to the usual wedding night consummation, I’m causing Vale no small amount of humiliation.
And we’re reinforcing the rumors that already circulate about him and Fain.
Vale’s fire has consolidated. Cold along the side facing Bron, hot on the inside. I’m quickly realizing he’s often like this in public. Coiled. Ready to fight. Ready to pull his wand and release his fire.
Bron taps under his eye as he studies Vale’s two black eyes, his bruised nose. “In a brawl, were you?”
Vale’s gaze remains cool. “A misunderstanding.”
Bron eyes him quizzically, then shakes his head and huffs a sigh. “Ancient One, I’d love to have you with us again. Damned kraken spawned before you killed it. We’ve a Level Four Water Mage with us, but he’s nothing compared to you. Blasts at them, but doesn’t kill the godforsaken things. Took him what felt like a fortnight to clear the pass. Now, if we had your fire...”
Vale is unmoved. “Down the road, perhaps. If my fastmate wishes to travel.”
Bron gives me and then our hands another quizzical look. He narrows his eyes at Vale, as if he can’t quite figure out his game.
“It’s taking us forever to even reach the Salish Pass,” Bron laments, his tone brimming with a deep-seated frustration. “We need real Magewind. Level Five Magewind.”
“Let Fain know,” Vale offers. “He’s done fighting. He usually feels the pull to be back at sea.”
Bron’s face tenses, and he shakes his head. “These are superstitious times, Vale. You know how crews are, what with their prayers and talismans. We’ve even had to get a priest on board now.” He screws up his face with disgust. “Waste of resources, I say, but the men insist on it. They’re taking The Book of the Ancients quite literally these days, especially that one passage about blessings on a boat.” He leans in to speak to Vale more privately, ignoring me, as if I’m merely Vale’s accessory. “Tell Mage Fain to find a lady friend like you did.” He gestures toward me with his chin and shoots Vale a significant look. “It would squelch the rumors, and I could employ him again, eh?”
Vale’s face shuts down, his fire rearing tight and hot with sudden anger. “I’ll relay the message.”
Bron gives a heavy sigh, and his expression loses all artifice. “I’m sorry, Vale. I have to skirt the waters of hypocrisy carefully, eh?”
Vale glares at him.
Bron looks at Vale with weary resignation, bids us a pleasant night and takes his leave, his broad back quickly swallowed up by the crowds and the dark shadows.
“They fear rumors more than they fear kraken,” Vale says with cutting sarcasm. “That makes a whole world of sense.” He turns to me, a blistering heat in his eyes. “Do you know how many Gardnerians Fain’s saved?”
I throw him a questioning look.
“Well over a thousand,” he says tersely.
“That’s a lot.”
“Yes. It is, isn’t it?” His fire is whipping about in hot, troubled lines, riding along the edges of his anger and fear. Fear for Fain in this newly strident Gardneria.
Justified fear.
“Vale...” I slide my hand down his sleeved forearm without thinking and take his hand in mine.
The second my skin touches his, Vale’s fire gives such a hard flare that I gasp from the startling heat of it. The flare builds as Vale threads his fingers decidedly through mine and grasps my hand with firm pressure. His rigid wall of fire surges out and suffuses my entire arm, coursing clear into my chest. My own fire, suddenly unbridled, flies toward him and twines tight.
“Gods, Tessla.” His lips part in stunned surprise, his gaze gone blurred. “It feels really good to hold your hand.”
“I know
,” I agree, as shocked as he is, my breathing gone deep and languid, my heart thudding warmly. I swallow, his fire coursing through me in pulsating ripples of heat, my own fire slowing to pulse to his same disconcerting rhythm.
He rubs his thumb slowly along the side of mine, sending out a delicious trail of sparks.
“Oh, Vale,” I gasp. “That’s nice.”
His eyes are locked on me with molten heat. I run my thumb along his skin in a slow circle, and his breath hitches, the cords of his neck tensing, his fingers tightening around mine.
“What’s that like?” I ask, my breathing becoming uneven.
“It like...a waterfall of flame. I can feel it rippling up my arm. It’s so...” He takes a shuddering breath, his gaze gone liquid. “It feels very nice.” He leans in toward me, and I can feel his warm breath against my ear. “Tessla, if it feels this good to just hold your hand...”
“And here they are,” Fain’s teasing voice rings out just behind us. “The happy couple!”
Both Vale and I stiffen and straighten at the same time. We quickly unclasp our hands, as if caught doing something illicit. I thread my arm lightly through Vale’s arm, my heart pounding, trying to appear casual.
“I’ve got us a lovely table, just at the water’s edge.” Fain’s smiling at us gleefully, his cloak thrown rakishly over one shoulder, his bearing and appearance dashing as ever, the silver Mage stripes that edge his uniform glinting gold and blue with reflected lamp and Ironflower light. His eyes dart toward our flushed faces, my arm threaded through Vale’s, and I realize he can probably read how high our fires are running.
His expression takes on an edge of feline mischief. “Well, don’t you two seem cozy?” He looks to me, lip quirking, eyes narrowed in amused appraisal as he leans in conspiratorially. “He’s not inspiring the same terror in you that he does in most women, I see.”
Vale’s heat is straining to get at me, and mine is just as bad. “I’m not afraid of Vale,” I tell Fain.
Fain laughs and shoots me a fey smile. “Of course you’re not, love. I’ve read your affinity lines. You are Vale.”
He looks to Vale, his brow knitting as he studies him even more closely in the darkness. “Sweet Ancient One, Vale. Were you in a battle?”
“Tessla hit me,” Vale tells him evenly.
Fain blinks at us both, one eyebrow cocked in confusion.
“It’s true,” I tell Fain. “I hit him. As hard as I could.”
I venture a glance at Vale at the same moment he looks at me. Amusement bubbles up, and we both grin like complete fools.
Fain takes it all in in one sweeping glance—how closely are arms are threaded, Vale’s bruised face, our unconsummated fastlines. Our ridiculous grins.
“She almost ran a sword through me as well,” Vale idly comments. He tries to pull his expression into its usual aloof severity when he says this, but it won’t hold, and we’re soon grinning stupidly again, basking in this exciting new warmth between us, our fires reaching for each other.
The two of us unexpectedly, deliriously happy.
Fain gives us both an arch look. “You two are a sheer abyss of contradiction. Do you know that?”
“I had a nightmare,” I begin to lightly explain, smiling, as if merely recounting a tale. But my smile quickly fades, remembering the terrible dream. I feel Vale’s fire coursing toward me protectively now, and when I look up at him, his gaze is full of concern.
Fain has grown somber, dark understanding lighting his eyes. “It doesn’t matter, sweetling,” he says with an affectionate smile, leaning in to pat my arm. He shoots Vale a look of mock disapproval. “I’m sure he had it coming to him about twenty times over. But enough of this.” Fain smiles charmingly at me. “We’ve a birthday to celebrate! Let’s join everyone, shall we? Edwin and Lucretia are waiting.”
“Lucretia?” I question.
Fain grins, beaming. “One of my three sisters.”
Chapter 27: Weapons
Vale’s brother, Edwin, is disheveled and stocky compared to his elegant siblings, his black hair mussed, clothes wrinkled, wire spectacles slightly off-kilter and perched low on his nose. He has none of Vale and Vyvian’s natural grace and aloof severity, nor anything of his powerful mother in his visage—save her deep green eyes.
Fain introduces everyone, deflecting questions about Vale’s bruises with a vague, dismissive explanation.
Edwin takes my hand in his, blinking back and forth at Vale and me with an air of baffled confusion, as if he can’t, for the life of him, believe that his stern brother has landed a now-willing fastmate.
“It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Tessla,” he says, shaking my hand warmly. I sense little magic in him, save the faintest tremor of earth. He’s shy and unsure in his manner, yet I catch a quick intelligence in his eyes that mirrors Vale’s.
I have a feeling that still waters run deep within Edwin Gardner, and I like him immediately.
“You’re the musician,” I say, remembering that night when I was still Magedrunk, when Edwin was playing a violin outside the tent by the fire.
“And you’re the Mage who single-handedly fought off a horde of Kelt and Urisk soldiers,” he says with a trace of a smile. “Which explains why my brother hasn’t scared you off yet.”
I laugh at this and smile at Edwin, but it’s hard to concentrate on anything but Vale—his fire is running so hot, straining relentlessly toward me, wanting to leap straight through the fabric that separates our arms.
Fain introduces the slim, bespectacled girl who stands beside Edwin, her black hair pin-straight and pulled neatly back, her posture straight and proud. At fourteen years of age, Lucretia Quillen greatly resembles her older brother, though her countenance is much more serious than Fain’s.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mage Gardner,” she tells me with a self-possessed air that far exceeds her young age. I read her affinity lines as I shake her hand—she has a strong stream of water and wind magic. I look to Fain with mounting respect, remembering that he’s essentially raised his sisters on his own.
“LuLu was just admitted to the University and has been pre-apprenticed with the Historians’ Guild,” Fain crows, throwing his arm around his sister and beaming. “She’s brilliant, and I certainly can’t keep up with her.”
Lucretia gives her brother a wry smile. “Fain likes to brag,” she tells us, obviously pleased.
Fain kisses the top of his sister’s head and grins at us, clearly in his element here in Valgard, with his family, his people.
He’s reserved a lovely table for us, right up at the canal’s edge, and I take a seat next to Vale, Fain on the other side of me at the table’s head. Ironwood trees and potted flowers surround us, the table covered by a rich green tablecloth and laden with gleaming, vine-patterned china. Fain’s frolicking stream of anecdotes pulls even shy Edwin into conversation, some of his gossip so startling that my attention is pulled away from Vale for a brief moment.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the match of the season—two utter fiends, united in fasted bliss.”
We all look to Fain, waiting, and he savors our heightened interest.
“Malkyn Bane has fasted to Genna Thorne.” Fain gives us all a significant look, then goes about serving plump fillets of fish to each of us with silver tongs.
“Well, that has an awful symmetry to it,” Vale says flatly as he holds his plate out so Fain can reach it. Vale and I exchange a swift, sober glance at the thought of Malkyn and Genna’s union.
Fain piles my plate high with food, extolling the virtues of each dish as he does so. The food is bountiful and better than anything I’ve ever had in my entire life—fish poached with lemon and fresh herbs, followed by tender lamb with mint jelly, steaming rolls, a salad that’s almost entirely made up of delicate, delicious flowers.
Vale reaches toward me under the table and slides his hand over mine.
I twine my fingers through his, my breathing going uneven, my heartbeat racing. The very air grows hotly charged as our fires feed into each other.
Vale leans toward me and whispers in my ear, “There’s something I want to show you.”
His deep voice sends a thrum of shuddering warmth through my body. I nod in decadent agreement, wanting to go. Wanting to be alone with him.
I glance up to find Fain watching us closely as his sister brightly regales Edwin with a story about her ill-fated attempts at cooking. Fain’s eyes are darting back and forth between Vale and me.
Vale turns as Edwin briefly engages him in conversation, and Fain shoots me a wide, dazzling smile, rich in humor and genuine affection. He jerks his head toward the exit. “Go,” he says, leaning in to whisper to me. “I can feel the affinity fire you two are throwing at each other from clear across the table.” He pats my hand and gives me his feline grin. “Go take him home and change those lines, sweet Tessla. Before Vale simply explodes, right here, into a torrent of fire.”
* * *
Vale leads me, my hand in his, down several alleys and meandering side streets toward the city’s main public gardens, a lush park filled with succulent plants, bloodrose bushes and Ironwood tree groves. The gardens are edged by broad canals on all sides.
He guides me, his fire coursing hot through my arm, down the main path, cutting through the gardens toward a smaller path that leads down into a sheltered grove of Ironwood trees. We slow to a stop, and he turns to face me, the sharp contours of his face bathed in the Ironflowers’ soft blue light. The two of us are suddenly all alone.
Vale releases my hand, reaches inside his cloak and hands me a long, thin package, his eyes bright with anticipation.
“For your birthday,” he says.
Filled with a giddy curiosity, I set about opening it and gasp as the paper wrapping falls away.
A Maelorian wand. Black as midnight with a spiraling handle. Just as he promised.
Wandfasted Page 19