“I see the Watchers,” I confess in a whisper. “Every now and then. Like the one that just led me to you. And sometimes, when I touch the Wand... I see a tree made of starlight.”
“Every religion across Erthia has something like the Watchers, Ren,” she tells me, serious. “Every single one. And the tree of light. And the Wand, in some form or another. It’s all there, central in every holy book in both Realms.”
It surprises me to hear Sage talking like this, coming from such a strictly religious family like hers. “Do you even believe that you’re a First Child anymore?” I ask.
“No.” She shakes her head as she slides a squirming Fyn’ir under her tunic’s edge so he can nurse. “But I think I believe in those central, true things. And I believe in the Wand.”
My eyes flick to her bloody fastlines. “Your hands... How are they?”
Sage takes a deep, resigned breath, her expression darkening. “They’re painful. But it’s not as bad now. The runes tamp down the pain.” There’s a glint of steely resolve in her eyes. “I’m going to destroy this spell, Elloren. I’m planning to travel to Noi lands, to join the Wyvernguard and study light magic there.”
“You think the Noi will accept you?”
She nods. “Light Mages can link magic from different rune systems, and we can fabricate all the different types of runes. So, yes, I think they’ll accept me into their Wyvernguard.” Her look of resolve intensifies. “And I swear to you, I’m going to find a way to sever the wandfasting spell.”
“I can’t believe you know actual light spells,” I marvel. “Who ever would have imagined?”
Sage’s purple eyes sparkle, a wry smile forming on her violet lips. “Would you like to see some light magic?”
I gape at her. “Yes!”
Sage pulls her wand out with a practiced air and presses it lightly to the fabric of my sleeve. “What color do you want your tunic to be?” she asks mischievously.
The thought of altering my sacred black garb sends an unexpected surge of rebellious delight straight through me. I think of the most blasphemous color imaginable, laughing when I realize what it is.
“Purple!”
Sage gives a low chuckle. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and lets the breath out.
A vivid amethyst streams from her wand’s tip, like liquid running through the cloth, until my entire tunic is washed in the color.
I lift up a portion of my long skirt. “The skirt, too,” I seditiously urge.
Sage’s head bobs with another laugh, and she pushes amethyst into the skirt.
I stand up and twirl around for her, dressed in garb that could get me imprisoned in Gardneria. “How do I look?”
“Gloriously disobedient,” she says, a hard, subversive light in her eyes.
“What else can you do?” I ask, eager to see more.
Sage presses her wand to her shoulder and suddenly disappears. I jump in alarm for a moment, but then I see her eyes blinking, suspended in the air and camouflaged into the colors of the tapestry behind her. Sage shimmies a bit, and I can just make out the outlines of her body. Then she stills, closing her eyes, and she’s gone again.
“Holy Ancient One,” I say, both amazed and spooked. “Stop that. It’s eerie.”
Sage laughs and blinks back into existence. She twirls her wand in the air. “I can focus light and cut things with it,” she says with a grin. “Even stone.”
“That’s amazing.” I nod, impressed and heartened by the level of her power. “That could come in handy.”
“It could,” she agrees, and I notice how she carries herself with a newfound sense of her own blossoming power. Gone is the meek Sage I used to know, drawn into herself protectively, as if always bracing herself for censure.
This is a new Sage before me. Sagellyn the Light Mage.
“What happened to your sisters?” I ask, remembering that they escaped with her after Sage gave me the Wand.
“They’re here, too,” she says. “Clover is in love with this place. She’s already made a large number of soldier friends and is in weapons training.” She gives a rueful smile. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to get her to leave.”
That doesn’t surprise me. Clover was always a combative, easily stressed child. I can readily imagine her wielding a weapon. Or several. “And Retta?”
Her brow knots with tension as she considers her gentler sister. “She misses Mother Eliss. But the weavers have taken her in, and they mother her, so I think she’s as happy as she can be.” She lets out a deep sigh and sends me a sober look. “In any case, there was no way I could leave them in Gardneria to be fasted into that family of monsters.”
Fyn’ir rustles under her tunic, and she gently pulls him out, kissing him on both cheeks before cradling him in her arms.
He’s beautiful. Pudgy and drowsy and sweet. I can’t help but wonder if Ariel was cute like this before they threw her into a cage.
“I can’t believe the Vu Trin actually thought I was the Black Witch, here to kill your baby.”
Sage frowns at me as Fyn’ir snuggles against her. “It’s completely horrifying.”
I look to her worriedly. “Do you think there could be any truth to the Prophecy?”
“I don’t know,” she says, her expression edged with an anxious fear. “Everyone seems to believe in it because so many seers have scried the same thing.” Sage grows silent for a moment. “It worries me. How they don’t call Fyn’ir by his name. They call him ‘The Icaral of Prophecy’ and discuss him like he’s nothing but a weapon.”
“The Gardnerians are looking at him like a weapon, too,” I tell her. “And there’s a Mage... Her name is Fallon Bane. She’s cruel and she’s growing in power. The Gardnerians think she’s the other point of the Prophecy.”
Sage meets my ominous stare. “The next Black Witch.”
I nod. “She might be.”
Sage is trying to be strong—I can see it in her stubbornly straight posture. But after hearing this, the side of her mouth quivers, and her arms tighten around Fyn’ir.
Ancient One, what a horrible state of things.
“He’s a beautiful baby,” I tell her softly. “Completely adorable. He looks like he’s covered in gems.”
Her face softens. “Would you like to hold him?”
I nod with a smile and extend my arms out for Fyn’ir. He’s heavy with sleepiness, and his wings flutter nervously as I gently take him from his mother. He glances back at Sage for reassurance, and I can feel his pull toward her, like a little moon wanting to orbit his Erthia. But Sage smiles at him and coos, and he relaxes into my arms, looking up at me with drowsy curiosity.
“Fyn’ir’s a lovely name,” I tell her.
“It means ‘freedom’ in Smaragdalfar.” Her smile dissipates, her eyes suddenly pained.
I cuddle little Fyn’ir close and give Sage an encouraging smile as one of his tiny hands wraps around my finger. “I’m amazed the Amaz let him in here. Since he’s male.”
“Some of the Amaz ways are incomprehensible to me,” she says. Fyn’ir begins to fuss, reaching for Sage, so I hand him back to her. “The Amaz have been good to me, Elloren, but I just can’t understand them. How can they abandon their sons in the woods?”
I shrug, finding it difficult to comprehend, as well. “Religion and culture are powerful things.”
“More powerful than love?”
“If you let them be, I think so.”
Fyn’ir starts to cry, and Sage pulls him back under her tunic. He gurgles happily and makes a cooing sound.
“They let him in to repay a wartime debt,” Sage tells me. “The Vu Trin fought alongside the Amaz during the Realm War and endured heavy losses because of it. So now the Vu Trin are calling in the debt by having the Amaz temporarily hide us here. It’s...unprecedented.”
“
How long will you stay?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not long. After we leave here, we might be spending some time with the Lupines, though that’s still being negotiated. The Vu Trin are constructing a rune-portal to get us to Noi lands, bypassing the desert, but it takes time to create a portal that crosses such a vast distance. When they finish, we’ll travel east through it.”
And just like that, she’ll be gone.
A pang of loss cuts through me. It seems like practically everyone I care about is getting ready to converge on the Eastern Realm.
“Trystan wants to join the Wyvernguard, too,” I tell her. “But I don’t think they’ll ever accept him, with our grandmother being who she was.”
“Tell him to find Ra’Ven when he goes east,” she says decidedly. “He’s planning to carve out a subland in the Eastern Realm for his people. We’d accept him there.”
To live under the earth? With the subland Elves?
It seems like wishful thinking on her part.
“Will the Smaragdalfar truly accept a Gardnerian from the Black Witch’s line?” I ask her doubtfully. Or any Gardnerian?
Sage stiffens. “Yes. They will.”
I can sense apprehension in her about this, so I don’t press the issue. “What’s Ra’Ven like?” I ask instead.
A ghost of a smile plays on her lips, a sudden shyness coming over her. “He’s wonderful.” She infuses such passion in the words, warmth prickles along my neck. “He’s kind and caring and intelligent. And powerful.” She pauses, as if overcome by too many strong feelings to rein them all in. “Ra’Ven’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
There’s an ardent spark in her eyes when she says his name, and it provokes an edge of melancholy envy deep inside me. My friend’s life is fraught with troubles and danger, but at least she and Ra’Ven have claimed each other as their own, despite the odds.
“Remember when we were young girls?” I say, growing nostalgic. “How we’d spend mornings whiling away our time in the meadow behind my cottage, making flower necklaces and wreaths for our hair?”
Sage nods with a wistful smile. “Those were simpler times.”
“I wouldn’t mind having one simple day like that again.” I give her a grave look. “Things are getting really bad, much more quickly than any of us ever anticipated.”
“I know.” She considers the White Wand on the table before us. “I think we’re being called by the Wand to be more than we ever imagined we could be. To do more. To risk more for the good. Elloren, I never imagined I could wield a wand. That I could escape a fasting and rescue my sisters. If someone told me when I was thirteen that all this would happen...”
Sage coughs out a sound of disbelief and shakes her head. “Yet, here I am. Here we both are.” She reaches across the table to place her scarred hand on mine, her rune-chains cool and bumpy as they drape against my skin. “The world is very dark, Elloren. And it’s growing darker. But I have Fyn’ir. And Ra’Ven. And my sisters. And good friends.” She eyes me meaningfully. “Against all the odds. You need to hold on to your faith in the good.”
Tears are suddenly stinging at my eyes, and I’m all twisted up inside. “It’s so hard sometimes.” I can barely get the words out.
Sage’s grip tightens on my hand. “It’s going to get a whole lot harder. But hold on to it anyway.” Her eyes flick to the Wand, then back to me. “Vogel and the Gardnerians and the Alfsigr Elves aren’t the only forces at work in this world.”
I glance at the Wand, as well—a shard of wood in the face of a raging storm of darkness. “I don’t know, Sage. If you saw what’s going on in Verpacia...” I gesture toward the Wand. “If that’s truly the White Wand, then the force of good seems very, very weak.”
“Then we strengthen it,” she says with hard resolve. “I think it needs us in that way.” Her expression darkens, and she looks hesitant for a moment. “Elloren, there are shadow forces after that Wand.”
Trepidation shudders through me. “What do you mean?”
“Shadow demons,” she says ominously. “I’ve seen them in my dreams. Their numbers increase every day. I warded the Wand back when I was very young, but I should ward you, too.”
Fright fills me. “I don’t see anything like that in my dreams,” I protest. “Not even in my nightmares. Shouldn’t I be the one having demon dreams, if that’s truly the Wand, and if demons are after me?”
“You’ve only had the Wand a few months,” she counters. “I had it for years. It bonds with its bearer over time. It’s like it’s sleeping, and you’re sleeping, and you both start to wake up together. But once you wake up, even if the Wand leaves you, you stay awake.” Sage eyes the Wand intently. “It still sends me dreams. I still see the Watchers and the tree. And sometimes, I can feel the Wand calling to me. Tonight, I sensed the Watcher outside in the back of my mind. That’s why I opened the door.”
Sage gives me a small smile, gets up and settles a sleeping Fyn’ir into his woven cradle, tucking him under a deep green blanket embroidered with intricate emerald runes. Then she sits back down and takes her own wand in hand.
“Give me your arm,” she says.
Confused, but trusting my friend, I hold my arm out to her.
Sage pulls up my tunic’s sleeve, turns the base of my forearm up and sketches a small, circular rune on my skin with the tip of her wand. It takes a while for her to draw it, the glowing emerald design similar to the complex geometric style of the runes outside her dwelling.
“Those emerald runes aren’t Amaz runes, are they?” I ask curiously.
“No,” Sage says as she concentrates on fabricating the rune. “They’re Smaragdalfar runes.” She touches the tip of her wand to the rune’s center, and the emerald glow pulls back into the wand, leaving me with a black rune-tattoo in the center of my forearm.
“What does it do?”
“This one is a shield-safe rune. You can pass through a rune-barrier now. Any rune-barrier. Without harm.” She motions up with a flick of her hand. “I need you to stand up.”
I move to comply, wondering what’s next. “Pull up your tunic a bit,” she directs, a new urgency in her gaze that sends a thread of unease worming through me. “I’m going to place a ward on you that will deflect most demonic search spells.”
“Demonic spells?” The words burst out of me with alarm.
Sage waits, her grave expression unmoved, and my concern notches higher. Shakily relenting, I pull up my tunic and camisole, the skin of my abdomen pricking with goose bumps as she lightly traces an elaborate rune onto my stomach. The rune lines flow out from the wand in deep, glowing emerald as her deft strokes quickly form a series of interlocking patterns inside a circle.
Sage lightly jabs her wand tip into the center of the rune, and its glow flares bright. I gasp as the light sinks into my skin with a crackling sting and morphs into solid black lines.
Sage steps back and surveys her rune-work, seeming grimly satisfied. “If it lights up—and you’ll feel it prickling if it does—then be wary of whoever is around you, even if they seem harmless. Remember—demons are capable of glamours.” She points to the rune on my stomach. “This will make it possible for you to look demons in the eye without them sensing the presence of the White Wand.”
I’m struggling to take in the enormity of her words.
“Keep the Wand hidden,” she says. “Speak of it no more.”
Heart thudding, I lower my tunic. Sage presses her wand to my sleeve and the violet vanishes from my tunic and skirt as she changes them back to Gardnerian black.
To look like one of them again, I brood. To look like the Black Witch herself.
Dread ripples through me.
Sage, I’m scared. My grandmother’s power flows through my veins. And it’s growing stronger.
“What if I’m the wrong person for this?” I send her an anxious glanc
e.
Sage picks up the White Wand, grasping it firmly. Her brow draws tight, and she seems suddenly overcome, as if hesitant to relinquish the Wand to me once again. Then she takes a deep breath and holds it resolutely out to me. “It’s yours,” she says. “Take it. It’s clear that it wants to go to you.”
I take it from her, feeling even more conflicted than the first time she gave it to me, and slide it back into the side of my boot.
Hidden.
We say our farewells, and Sage hugs me goodbye. As we hold on to each other, I almost break down and confide in her about the power growing within me. About the forest’s disturbing reaction to it. But I can’t find the words—they’re too tightly bound up with a growing fear. And it’s time to leave.
My hand is on the door handle, and I’m about to step outside when her voice sounds behind me.
“Elloren.”
I turn. Sage’s violet face flickers a deep purple in the scarlet lamplight, her expression heavy with foreboding.
“The Wand knows you have her power in your blood,” she says. “It chose you anyway.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
TIRAG
Diana is outside waiting for me when I arrive back to our own clearing.
“Are you all right?” she asks me, her eyes lit up by the moonlight.
No, not really, I almost say. I’m in possession of what might actually be the White Wand. And I may never see Sage again. And the Gardnerians are sending trackers and soon Fallon Bane out after an innocent little baby.
I rub my aching forehead, the enormity of it all pressing in. “I’d just like to be alone for a moment,” I tell her. “I’ll stay close.” I motion toward our dwelling, the rune-barrier now conspicuously absent. “You’ll hear if there’s a problem.”
Diana studies me, then looks toward the adjacent forest, as if she’s assessing all potential threats. Then she nods and leaves me alone with my thoughts.
Once she’s back inside our lodging, I walk through the quiet woods and out past the edge of the forest, staring out over the city of Cyme. The silvery clouds are gone, leaving only cold, distant stars. The air is hovering on the edge of cool, as if the surrounding winter is trying to work its way through the invisible dome protecting the city.
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