No. It can’t be. What happened to Cael and Rhys?
Tierney rushes inside the North Tower’s circular foyer and slams the door shut behind her.
“Can you fight them?” I ask her fearfully. “With water magic?”
Tierney shakes her head emphatically. “No. Their magic is...twisted, somehow. They have water rune-sorcery—I can sense it on them. But it’s all wrong. It’s not connected to the forest. It’s working against it. They’ve got these shadow-runes. Not the normal silver runes of the Alfsigr Elves.” She turns to Wynter, savagely decided. “You need to come with me now! Es’tryl’lyan and I will get you out of here.”
For a brief second, Ariel, Wynter and I are frozen as the horrific situation crushes down on all of us. And then Ariel straightens, her face becoming calmer and steadier than I’ve ever seen it. She places her hand firmly around Wynter’s wrist, her voice low and implacable. “Give me your clothes.”
Wynter recoils as she reads Ariel’s thoughts. Her eyes widen with horror, and she shakes her head violently from side to side. “No. No!”
“Give me your clothes,” Ariel insists. “I’ll give you mine. I’ll lead them away.”
“No!” Wynter starts to cry.
“They will kill you,” Ariel insists through gritted teeth, her calm giving way.
“But they’ll take you,” Wynter cries, struggling to pull away as Ariel holds on to her firmly. “They’ll throw you in the Valgard prison and cut off your wings!”
“If you don’t leave with Tierney and let me save you,” Ariel spits out harshly, “I’ll fight them so hard, they’ll have no choice but to kill me.” She stares Wynter down as she lets her ultimatum sink in.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Wynter finally nods and gives in. With shaking hands, she begins to undress, and Tierney springs forward to help her.
“No,” I protest, looking to Ariel. “There’s got to be another way.”
“There is no other way,” Ariel says. “If I don’t lead them off, there won’t be enough time for her to get away.” She turns her back to me, her voice steady and sure. “Unlace my tunic, Elloren.”
Tears sting at my eyes over her use of my name. My hands tremble as I pull the laces loose and Ariel shrugs out of the long black tunic.
Wynter hands her Elfin garb to Ariel piece by piece, then Tierney helps Wynter into Ariel’s black clothes as my heart twists to the point of breaking.
A hard pulse along my affinity lines cracks through my misery. The White Wand buzzes to life against my ankle, and I’ve a sudden awareness of a tang of dark power in the air, moving rapidly toward us.
I straighten, instantly alert. “They’re almost here,” I say in a daze. “I can feel them. They’re coming in from the north.”
“Bring Wynter to the Amaz,” Ariel tells Tierney as she rushes to finish pulling on the rest of the Elfin clothes, grabbing up Wynter’s white scarf from a wall peg.
Tierney shoulders open the door, and we all hastily gather outside the North Tower. It’s a warm night, the stars bright in the sky.
Ariel is now dressed from head to toe in white, Wynter’s scarf wrapped around her head to conceal her dark hair. Wynter has on Ariel’s tunic and black pants, a dark cloak fastened around her slim frame with the hood pulled low, hiding both her snow-white hair and her wings.
Wynter is silently weeping, her face so distraught, it’s as if she’s holding all the grief in the world. Ariel looks north, toward the direction from which the Marfoir are coming, then turns back to Wynter. “I love you,” she says flatly, as if stating an irrefutable fact.
“I love you, too, my sister,” Wynter says, her voice breaking around her tears.
“No,” Ariel says emphatically. “Not as a sister. I love you.”
Wynter nods in understanding, her eyes full of pain. “I know.”
“Goodbye,” Ariel says to all of us, and then she turns, without hesitation, and walks straight toward the northern wilds—right into the path of the Marfoir. She flicks her wings, and they fan open to their full size, washed in silver by the moonlight.
I realize, as tears fall from my eyes, that Ariel is the most heroic person I have ever met.
“Get back inside!” Tierney hisses at me as she pulls Wynter in front of her. The Kelpie rises up from under them, and Tierney gives me one last fraught look before she and Wynter take off like a shot toward the northwestern wilds.
No. No. No.
My heart constricts as I watch them disappear into the pitch-black forest.
Stinging pain sizzles along my abdomen, like lines of insects biting, and I pull in a sharp breath, reaching toward my center.
Sage’s rune, I realize with burgeoning fright.
Two spectral figures on ivory horses slip out of the northern forest and into view. Ariel halts just before them as a paralyzing terror seizes hold of me.
The Marfoir are taller than Elves should be, their limbs bizarrely stretched out, their eyes too big. Insectile and dark. An ancient, slithering malice washes over me as Ariel turns and breaks into a run back to the North Tower, her eyes thrown open wide and locking on to mine.
“Ariel!” The cry bursts from me as I set off at a sprint toward her.
The two Marfoir raise their hands in unison, their palms marked by black runes. Lines of shadow scythe toward Ariel and twist around her limbs and mouth.
Ariel lets out a strangled cry as she’s yanked roughly to the ground.
A black flood of outrage surges through me. “Get away from her!”
The eyes of the Marfoir flick to me. They move their palms toward me, and an invisible solid mass slams into my body, knocking the wind from my lungs and hurling me into the air and back several feet to land with a painful thud on my side, my hip and elbow painfully jarred.
I move to get up and realize I’m pinned to the ground by a web of shadow, like an insect in a spider’s clutches. Ariel is trapped as well, her mouth bound closed.
The Marfoir ride close, their cold, malignant eyes a solid black in their white faces, focused in on Ariel with deathly intent. And that’s when I notice it—they have horns made of shadow emerging from their heads, the dark smoke spiraling up to disappear into a twirling mist at the points.
They dismount from their steeds in one unified motion, as if they’re a mirror image of the same being. Together they flick out their long-fingered hands, and curved knives screw out from their palms, glinting in the moonlight.
They stalk toward Ariel, angling their knives toward her neck.
“Leave her alone!” I cry. “She’s not Wynter Eirllyn!”
The Marfoir pause. One of them holds a palm out to me, and shadow bindings lash toward me, slapping around my mouth, my head. Gagging me.
The other Marfoir tears the ivory scarf from Ariel’s head and wrenches her head back as Ariel hisses and struggles. The thing’s mouth jerks into a sudden, gruesome frown as Ariel’s spiky black hair is revealed. More shadow lines fly out from its hands, wrapping Ariel in a cocoon of darkness, only her wild, rebellious eyes still exposed.
The Marfoir lifts Ariel onto its horse as if she weighs nothing and hurls her over the animal’s back as I fight against my bindings. The other Marfoir throws out shadow lines to secure Ariel to the horse.
I scream against the gag of shadow as the Marfoir ride off with her. When they’re halfway across the field, headed toward the western wall of dark forest, all my bindings suddenly give way, tendriling into lines of black smoke.
I surge to my feet and run after them as Ariel’s raven shoots overhead like a small, black arrow, winging toward them.
“Ariel!” I scream.
But they’ve already disappeared, along with Ariel’s raven.
I slow, then stop as desperation hits me with crippling strength. I know what they’re going to do with her.
The
y’ll hand Ariel over to the Gardnerians. And once the Gardnerians get hold of her, they’ll throw her into the Valgard prison.
And once she’s there, they’ll cut off her wings.
* * *
The predawn sky is overcast and spitting rain as I watch the young Gardnerian fowler tie my missive onto the leg of a rune-hawk.
The Northern Spine is barely visible through the panoramic windows of the hawkery, shrouded in the morning fog. I watch as the rune-hawk is released into the damp gloom, winging its way north—but not to Lukas this time.
To Valasca, Alder and Tierney.
I feel myself honing into a battle-ready, tempered sword as I watch the bird disappear into the mist.
* * *
I trek back to the North Tower, my cloak pulled tight against the now-driving rain. A punishing wind has kicked up, and my steps are hurried against the quickly worsening weather.
I start up the North Tower’s rain-drenched field, my heels sinking slightly into the muddied ground.
“Elloren.”
I turn at the sound of my name, the voice muffled by the driving rain. A young man is running toward me from the direction of the University city. I squint to try to make out his face in the storm-darkened morning as a sense of powerful fire rushes through my affinity lines.
Heated recognition washes over me, and I set out at a run toward Yvan. His eyes blaze to gold as I throw my arms around him, emotion rushing through me in a powerful wave.
“Elloren,” he breathes, his heat blazing through my lines. Rain sheets down on us both as we cling tightly to each other.
What he’s done cyclones up inside me, in one overpowering whorl, and I draw sharply back from him. “What are you doing here?” I cry. “You can’t be here. This is Gardneria now.”
“I had to come back.” His voice is low and urgent as he clings to me. “Wynter and Ariel are in terrible danger. Cael and Rhys, too. I spoke to a fleeing Alfsigr diplomat. Their monarchy has ruled to kill Icarals. All of them, Elloren. They’ll send the Marfoir—”
“They’ve already come,” I tell him, trembling at the memory of those...things.
Yvan freezes, shock in his fiery gaze. His face twists with anguish as he steps back, his muscles tensing as he spits out what sounds like a frustrated curse in the Lasair language, and the rain sheets down on us both.
“Wynter escaped,” I tell him breathlessly. “She’s with Tierney, headed for Amaz lands. But Ariel...” I break off, my voice fracturing with emotion. “Yvan, the Gardnerians are sure to have her.”
“No.”
I tell him of Ariel’s sacrifice. How she impersonated Wynter to save her.
“I’m going after her,” I tell him.
Yvan’s eyes flare. “Do you know where they’ve taken her?”
I nod, my rain-soaked lips twitching with outrage. “The Mage Council has ordered that all Icarals be brought to the Valgard prison, so I’m pretty sure that’s where she is. But I have an idea of how I can get her out of there.”
Yvan’s eyes burn with solidarity. “I’ll help you.”
“It’ll be dangerous,” I tell him. “But I don’t care. I don’t care what it takes. We can’t let them take her wings.”
CHAPTER TWO
GLAMOUR
“Are you ready?” Valasca asks Tierney.
Tierney stands before us, trembling, her eyes a storm of emotion.
“I haven’t seen my real self since I was three.” Tierney’s words come out in a constricted whisper. “I don’t... I don’t even remember what I looked like.”
Yvan, Tierney, Valasca, Alder and I are gathered in the isolated circular barn. Dim lantern light gutters in the space, illuminating Ariel’s raven who returned to us this morning, the canny bird perched high in the rafters. The faded pages of The Book of the Ancients lie scattered beneath our feet.
Alder grasps a black stone disc marked with a glowing scarlet rune. She holds a slender, streamlined branch in her other glimmering green hand.
Star Maple.
Tierney points to the rune-stone. “So, my glamour will flow into that?”
“Yes,” Alder affirms, her posture serene and tall, her voice a melodic lull. She sets unblinking forest green eyes on Yvan and me. “Then we will transfer the glamour to the two of you.”
Yvan meets Alder’s unnervingly placid stare in that unflinching, intense way of his.
“All right, then,” Tierney says, her face rigid with determination even as she trembles. “Let’s do this.”
Valasca glances toward the ceiling, and I follow her gaze.
Fitful, dark clouds are forming high above Tierney, rapidly spreading out to fill the barn’s roof and obscuring the crisscrossing rafters. Threads of lightning pulse from cloud to cloud, eliciting an indignant caw from Ariel’s raven.
Valasca looks to Tierney with concern. “We’ll be right here,” she tells her with steadfast reassurance. “We’ll help you through this.”
“Just do it,” Tierney says roughly.
Alder moves toward her, the motion smooth and spare, as if she’s gliding across the floor. She gently lowers her branch to Tierney’s quaking shoulder as the clouds grow dense and fitful, so thick that I’m no longer able to see the rafters. Mist envelops us all, along with a cool dew that sets my skin prickling.
My eyes meet Yvan’s through the mist as Alder begins a low chant in the flowing Dryad language, and I feel a tremor of surprise. It sounds so much like our Ancient Tongue, the sacred language used during our holy services.
A static energy picks up in the room. Tierney’s storm-driven lightning increases, pulsing the mist with flashes of white.
Tierney’s form abruptly shudders, and Alder steps back as Tierney’s wavering form darkens. My eyes widen as she bulges and stretches, the dark mass of her straining outward, rippling like she’s a molting insect.
A face forms in the darkened mass, contorted in pain—her eyes closed, her mouth open in a tortured, soundless circle.
Tierney’s scream suddenly tears through the room, and the glamour springs away from her and into the rune-marked stone with a loud snap that reverberates down my spine.
For a split second, I’m aware of several things at once—Tierney collapsing to the ground. The clouds and lightning blinking out of existence, the mist abruptly clearing. The surface of the disc in Alder’s hand now swirling gray and black, as if overtaken by a storm.
Tierney cries out in agony, her neck stretched backward, blue hair splayed out all around her, long scraps of cloth wrapped mercilessly tight around her body.
Valasca curses and pulls out a rune-knife. She throws herself onto Tierney, her knife a blur, and slices at what I realize is Tierney’s childhood clothing, now much too small for her adult body.
Tierney’s whole body loosens as she’s freed from the cloth bindings, her chest heaving as she gulps in great lungfuls of air.
Valasca helps Tierney into a sitting position as Tierney gasps for breath and struggles to hold the tattered remains of the child-size dress over herself. I unbutton my cloak, swing it off and swiftly wrap it around her.
Alder’s almost supernatural forest calm has been breached. She’s staring at Tierney, her green eyes wide, the rune-stone clasped loosely in her hand, as if she’s in a slight daze over what she’s accomplished.
Stunned, I pick up one of the discarded cloth scraps, realizing that this is the dress Tierney must have been glamoured in—when she was three years old.
The dress has been rendered to glistening, viridian remnants, the fabric decorated with whirls of small, gleaming river-smoothed stones.
Lovingly hand-embroidered.
Tierney’s skin is marked by bright red slashes where the too-small clothing tore at her skin.
Lake-blue skin that is not static in color.
Tierne
y’s hair and skin both ripple dark blue, the color a perfect reflection of deep water. She glances up at me, her eyes such a dark blue they’re almost black, with the same water-like quality as her skin. My cloak slips off her shoulders as she clutches it tightly against her front.
Her body, so long constricted by her Gardnerian skin, seems loosened and freed. And her features are no longer sharp and hard, but all lovely curves—her nose widened, her lips full and deep-blue, her ears pointed in two long, graceful swoops and her back flowing like a gently winding stream.
“What do I look like?” Tierney breathlessly asks me.
Tears fill my eyes. “You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”
Tierney extends an arm and views it in wonderment. Her nails are a gleaming opalescent blue. A laugh bursts from her. “I can breathe,” she says, looking around at all of us, her voice breaking. “I can finally breathe freely.” She pauses and takes a long breath. “It feels...so good.” She rolls her shoulders. “I can move.”
Valasca’s gaze lights on a metal bucket nearby. She retrieves it, polishes its gleaming surface with the edge of her tunic, then solemnly brings it over to Tierney.
Tierney takes the bucket, swallowing nervously, her eyes sheened with tears and staunchly averted from the bucket’s mirror-like surface. She takes a long, shuddering breath, her eyes meeting mine.
A warm tear rolls down my cheek, a laugh breaking through. “Go ahead. Take a look.”
Tierney glances at her reflection and lets out a hard gasp, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. “I look like her,” she chokes out. Her face twists as she starts to cry, her eyes screwing shut. “I look like my mother.” She curls up, her arms around her knees, the bucket clattering to the ground and rolling over the pages of The Book.
Valasca’s eyes fill with tears, her face tightening as she looks away. Yvan kneels down in front of Tierney, his hand coming to her arm. “Let me help you. I can heal where the clothing tore at your skin.”
Tierney nods, sobbing, and Yvan gently places his hands over the angry, reddened marks on her body. One by one, the wounds fade under his Lasair touch. When he’s done, Valasca hands Tierney a simple brown tunic and black pants, everyone averting their eyes as she rises and throws on the clothing.
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