An angry, embattled frustration swells up in me. I can feel it all around me, the subtle tremor of hatred emanating from the trees. “Do you need proof that I’m not the next Black Witch?” I ask Tierney, bitterly defensive. “Do I have to show you how I can’t even do a basic candle-lighting spell?”
Tierney’s expression grows wildly conflicted. “No. No, of course not. It’s just...your blood, Elloren. They feel it. It’s her blood.”
“I cannot change my blood, Tierney,” I state flatly, wanting to rip it clear from my veins. “Any more than you can change your cursed glamour.” Tierney casts me a resentful look, and I immediately regret saying it. I know she doesn’t like her secrets voiced, even among the people who are privy to them.
She turns to Yvan. “Vogel’s discovered another one of the escape routes east. Last night, his border scouts tracked down two glamoured Fae. They...” She pauses, blinking furiously. “They iron-tested them.” She stops again, her voice straining tight. “And then they killed them with iron spikes.” Tears of outrage slide down her face. “Es’tryl’lyan saw the whole thing, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it because of all the iron.”
“Tierney...” Trystan reaches for her, but she shakes her head and pulls away from him.
She looks straight at Yvan. “They’ll be doing the iron test on everyone.”
My heart speeds up, concern rising. “But you’ve touched iron,” I blurt out to Yvan. “In the kitchens—”
“I touch iron because I’m a Kelt.” He shoots me a cautionary look, and I can practically feel the angry fire blazing in him.
“We’ll fly you both out,” I insist. “Once Naga heals...”
Yvan shakes his head. “Elloren, Naga’s wings were decimated by Damion Bane. She may never fly again.”
“Then the Resistance will help you,” I persist, fear escalating. “You’ll both find amnesty. Somewhere.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” Tierney vehemently insists. “The Resistance is nothing compared to Gardnerian power.” She turns to Yvan with desperation. “All the escape routes will be found and shut down. There will be nowhere left for us to go.”
I reach out to touch his arm. “Yvan...”
“You can’t fix this, Elloren,” he says. “I know you want to, but you can’t. And you’ll never fully understand what we’re up against.”
His words sting like wasps. “How can you say that?”
“Because you’re Gardnerian,” he says, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Your family, you’ll all be fine.” His green eyes spark as the bonfire flares brightly. “Especially once you’re fasted to Lukas Grey.”
* * *
Numbed by Yvan’s words, I gaze sullenly into the bonfire.
Ariel has retreated back into the cave with Naga, and Yvan is sitting on the other side of the fire, talking to Tierney in low tones, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her.
I’m shivering from the cold at my back, my hands stiff as I pull my cloak more tightly around me. I gently rebuff Trystan’s attempts to talk to me, and he eventually gives up and focuses back on his wandwork. Fizzy lines of blue lightning periodically flow from the tip of the white wand and into the fire.
My wand.
Andras sits down beside me and hands me a hot cup of tea. The Amaz runes on his tunic glow crimson, his violet hair a deep purple in the firelight and curling around his pointed ears. He’s a quiet, comforting presence, Andras. He’s even patient with combative Ariel as they care for the dragon, treating her with the same unwavering calm that soothes even the most skittish horses he looks after.
I sip at the tea as Andras strips bark from branches with an impressive knife. I breathe in the scent of the green wood, the smell minty and invigorating.
Yenilin. For wound closure.
He and Ariel have been laboring long hours to undo the damage Damion Bane did to Naga’s wings, trying out a variety of medicinals with only limited success.
Before long, Rafe and Diana bound into the clearing and join us, practically falling over each other with laughter as they take a seat by the fire. They’re their usual happy selves, basking in their annoyingly requited love.
“Why are you here?” Andras asks me, his deep voice kind. He gestures toward the luxurious fabric of my skirt. “You’re dressed a bit formally for a bonfire.”
“I just came from the Yule Dance, and I was looking for Jarod,” I tell him quietly. “I thought he might have come here.” I recount what happened at the dance. “I’m worried that he might go after Randall. I don’t want him to get himself in trouble.”
“This will work itself out,” Diana puts in dismissively as my brother nuzzles her neck. I send her an irritated look, finding her superior hearing to be a tad invasive.
“Aislinn will come to her senses and become one of us,” Diana insists with complete assurance.
I inwardly cringe. Diana’s unwavering belief that everyone’s love lives will follow her own happy trajectory sometimes grates at my nerves. “Not everyone wants to become Lupine,” I irritatedly remind her. “Aislinn wants to remain Gardnerian.”
Diana blinks at me. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”
I let out a long sigh of exasperation.
Andras glances up at Diana as he continues to strip bark. “This bond between Jarod and Aislinn will end badly,” he predicts. He reaches down and throws a handful of the bark into the fire. It sends out a strong, minty aroma, and I inhale deeply, feeling a surge of energy in my earth lines.
Andras pauses and gestures toward Diana with the knife. “They cannot defy culture and win.”
“You’ve said that before,” Trystan remarks as he balances a compact, rotating ball of sapphire lightning above my wand. He throws it at the fire, and it momentarily turns the flames blue. “What happened, Andras?” There’s a dismissive edge to my brother’s tone. “Did you fall for some renegade Amaz goddess?”
Andras’s mouth forms into a jaded smirk. “There was a woman.”
“Was?” Diana ventures, curiosity pulling her focus away from Rafe.
Andras takes a deep breath and sheathes his knife. He leans forward and clasps his broad hands above his knees, firelight flickering over the sweeping lines of his rune-tattoos.
“Tell us,” Tierney prods, drawn away from her conversation with Yvan. Andras studies her for a long moment, then stares back into the fire and relents.
“When I turned eighteen, she came to me—Sorcha Xanthippe. A young Amaz woman. I was out in the pasture with the horses. It was fall, everything ablaze with color. I felt the thoughts of an unfamiliar horse and looked up just as Sorcha rode in from the wilds, her skin as blue as the autumn sky, her hair flowing out behind her.”
Andras is quiet for a moment, as if lost in the memory.
“It was a shock to see her,” he continues. “None of my mother’s people had ever contacted us in all the years since she left with me. She was completely rejected, shunned.” His eyes momentarily tense with sadness. “Sorcha rode up to me and explained that it was the time of the fertility rites, when the Amaz honor the Great Goddess by seeking to bring new daughters into their fold. She’d heard of me, and that I had recently come of age. Given my own Amaz lineage, and my mother’s reputation as a brilliant scientist and a powerful soldier, she felt that my seed would produce especially fine, strong daughters.”
“So, she wanted to...” Diana interjects, looking shocked.
Andras turns to her. “Have relations with me, yes.”
“With no life bond?”
Andras seems like he doesn’t quite know how to respond. “That’s not the way they do things.”
“So, you said no, of course.” Diana’s tone is self-righteous, her arms now folded in front of herself.
“Yes, at first,” Andras says. “But we spent much time together. Many nights under the stars. And in t
ime, we paired.”
Diana’s eyes widen. “You took each other as mates with no formal bond?”
“Diana,” Rafe puts in, “their customs differ...”
She rounds on Rafe. “But this is very shocking.” She turns back to Andras, disapproval written all over her face. “I don’t understand this at all. How can you mate with someone you do not love?”
A shadow falls over Andras’s expression. “What happened?” I ask softly.
He lets out a deep breath and rubs his jaw before continuing. “I began to have feelings for Sorcha. And it wasn’t just the way our bodies fit together, like we had been made for each other. She returned to me again and again, and after lying together, we would talk for hours. It was forbidden, what she was doing. The Amaz are only supposed to seek out men during the fertility rites. But Sorcha seemed as drawn to me as I was to her. During our last night together, I told her that I loved her. That I wanted her to stay with me and never leave.”
He pauses, staring into the fire. “She broke down crying and told me that she could not love me. That she loved the Amaz. And that she could not have both. She said that she was with child and would not need to be with me any longer, and that she had come to say goodbye.” He grows quiet, suppressed emotion heavy in the air. “Then she left, and I never saw her again. And now, I am left wondering if I have a daughter in the Amaz lands. Or, if the child was a boy, did she abandon him in the woods somewhere, as my mother was urged to abandon me?”
Andras’s expression darkens. “A few months after Sorcha left, another Amaz woman came to me during the rites.” His jaw tenses, affront flashing in his eyes. “I sent her away. And the Amaz have stayed away from me ever since.”
Everyone is silent as we stare into the crackling fire.
“Do you still love her?” Tierney asks quietly, and I wonder if she’s thinking of Leander. Andras makes a bitter noise, his private anguish breaking through, but he doesn’t answer.
“You need a life mate,” Diana states with authority. “This way of theirs is unnatural.”
Andras lets out a hollow laugh. “And who will have me, Diana Ulrich? Who?” he challenges. “No one. I am accepted nowhere.”
“Become Lupine,” Diana says. “We would accept you.”
Andras shakes his head. “I could never do that to my mother. She gave up everything for me. Everything she loves. It would kill her if I rejected her in that way.”
“But you wouldn’t be rejecting your mother,” Diana persists, confused.
An incredulous look passes over Andras’s face. “She would see it as such. To become Lupine would be the worst betrayal possible.”
“Why?” Diana asks, looking offended. “Are we so beneath you?”
“Diana,” Andras says, as if his reasoning should be obvious, “Lupine pack life is everything the Amaz despise.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Diana replies stiffly.
“Both Northern and Southern packs have male alphas.”
“And both have had female alphas, as well.”
Andras throws her a disparaging look. “Yes, but they haven’t for some time.”
“We will again.”
“Will you?” A mirthless smile lifts his lips. “Who is next in line to be your alpha?”
Diana eyes him with impatience. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a question of politics or lineage. Only power.”
“Then who of the younger Lupines is the most powerful?”
Diana grows still and looks down with a sudden, uncharacteristic gravity. When she looks back up at Andras, there’s a level force to her gaze that sets the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.
“You?” Andras says with obvious surprise. He looks Diana over appraisingly. “What if I was a Lupine?” he asks, curious and slightly amused. “Could you best me?”
Diana tilts her head. Her predatory eyes flick up and down Andras’s huge, muscular frame, gauging his strength. She sits back, decided. “I could take you. I’m very fast. Speed would give me the advantage.”
Andras smirks. “Now I am tempted to become Lupine, Diana. If only to watch this future transition of power.”
I look to Diana, stunned at the idea of a female alpha. At the idea of her being a female alpha. I’m so used to living in a society where the High Mage can only be a man. It’s hard to wrap my mind around such a possibility.
Diana seems lost for a moment in her own thoughts, then appears to have an idea. Her eyes light back on Andras. “There is a man of Amaz ancestry in my father’s guard—his beta. You should speak with him. My people found him in the forest when he was a baby, and he’s lived with us all his life. He has a mate and a child. He’s happy and completely accepted.”
“Diana...” Andras says, shaking his head.
“No, Andras. You don’t have to live like this. You could have a place and a family.”
I catch Yvan’s intent gaze through the fire, and he quickly looks away.
Trystan stands and abruptly sheathes my white wand. “It’s been fascinating hearing about everyone’s love lives and cultures,” he tells us evenly, “but I think I’ll go work on some spells. Alone. Where I can concentrate. You can all stay here and figure out who is joining the Lupines.”
MAGE COUNCIL
RULING
#199
Defacing the Gardnerian flag shall be punishable by execution.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WANDS
Aunt Vyvian is already seated before a well-appointed tea table when I enter the small receiving room on tremulous legs. She doesn’t rise to greet me, which sets me even more on edge.
“Ah, Elloren,” she says, her voice silken. Aunt Vyvian gestures toward a chair across from her. “Join me.” She has a charming smile on her lovely face, but her eyes are glacially cool. I force a cordial smile in return as I cautiously take a seat.
It’s a nice room they’ve given her for this visit. Perhaps the nicest one in the whole Gardnerian Athenaeum. Heat radiates from a beautiful woodstove wrought in the shape of an iron tree, and flowing roots are artfully rendered on the tile work beneath us in rich browns and blacks that fan out over the floor. Stained-glass vines rim the huge, arching windows that overlook the wintry Southern Spine.
Aunt Vyvian is just as I remember her, elegant beyond belief in luxurious black silk exquisitely embroidered with tiny acorns and oak leaves. Her posture is perfectly regal as an elderly, lavender-skinned Urisk servant hovers nearby, ready to tend to her every whim.
She looks like a queen holding court—a queen who’d chop your head off for the tiniest infraction.
“Would you like some tea, Elloren?” she inquires.
“Yes, that would be lovely,” I say with measured politeness, even though I’m too much on my guard to be hungry or thirsty, my stomach clenched tight.
Rafe, Trystan and I have spoken at length about this impending visit, privately agreeing to placate her as much as possible, and I know Trystan has been writing friendly letters to Aunt Vyvian to keep her at bay. But it was inevitable that Rafe’s very public relationship with Diana would eventually bring her down on our heads.
Aunt Vyvian gives an imperious flick of her hand, and the Urisk woman springs forward, silently pouring tea and setting out a plate of small cakes for me. My aunt’s eyes remain fixed on me while she stirs her own tea with a tiny silver spoon.
As soon as the Urisk woman finishes serving us, Aunt Vyvian gets right to the point. “You need to cut off contact with Aislinn Greer,” she says bluntly. “I know you’re friends with the girl, but she’s fallen in with the Lupine twins. She was spotted in the library with the male. Fortunately, she’s open to reason and is now back under her family’s protection. She seems to realize the danger, but one can never be sure about such things.”
Aunt Vyvian takes a deep breath and
shakes her head disapprovingly. “We can only hope that her family intervened in time. They could have had another Sage Gaffney on their hands.”
She taps at her china plate, tiny vines painted along its edging. Her servant springs over with a tray of assorted breads, fresh from the oven. They smell nutty and sweet, but the aroma only heightens my roiling nausea as outrage swamps over me.
It’s terrible what you’re doing, I inwardly rail against Aunt Vyvian and Aislinn’s awful family. You’re ruining my friend’s life, the whole lot of you. I want to protest Aislinn’s impending fasting right then and there, but I know I would only make things worse for my friend.
My aunt selects a roll studded with gooseberries from the plate. “Perhaps the Greer girl truly does see reason, but for the time being, take care, Elloren.”
“I will, Aunt Vyvian,” I tell her with flat and completely false assurance. I clutch at the edge of my chair to hide the angry trembling of my hands.
Blackthorn wood.
A hot flash of energy blasts through my arms, clear up to my shoulders, jettisoning through my earth lines. Startled, I yank my hands away from the wood, squeezing them into tight fists on my lap, my heartbeat quickening.
What was that?
Aunt Vyvian’s gaze sharpens on me. “I’ve heard you’ve been seen with the Lupine twins, as well.”
I struggle to keep my expression impassive as I clench and unclench my fists under the table’s edge, surprised by the sudden rush of power. “I can’t avoid Diana Ulrich,” I explain, forcing myself to take even, measured breaths. “She’s my assigned Chemistrie research partner.”
“Well, switch partners. Immediately.” Her eyes flick toward me as she butters her gooseberry roll.
“Yes, Aunt Vyvian.” My wand hand tingles, my fire lines sparking. I’m suddenly and acutely aware of how much wood I’m surrounded by. Practically everything in the room is made of wood.
Aunt Vyvian purses her lips. “Lupines are unpredictable beasts. I hear the female has forsaken her lodging to live in the woods. Like the wild animal she is.”
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