Bellusdeo asked Helen—before the cohort came down to breakfast on the seventh day—whether or not Terrano had even bothered to say goodbye.
“No, dear.”
“I’m worried about Mandoran. He’s been almost polite in the past week.”
“I heard that. What do you mean, almost?”
“You kept your mouth shut,” Bellusdeo replied without missing a beat. Any embarrassment at worry on her part was probably only in Kaylin’s imagination.
Mandoran took a seat at the table directly opposite Bellusdeo’s. “Perhaps I’m attempting to treat my title as Lord of the High Court with the dignity it deserves.”
“Oh, please. I’m eating.”
The rest of the cohort filed into the dining room. If Mandoran was up to his usual sparring with Bellusdeo, they weren’t, although Annarion had a slight half grin on his face, which he wiped clean, figuratively speaking, as he sat.
“He is attempting to practice appropriate dignity,” Sedarias said; she was the last to be seated. She wore a deep purple dress that accentuated her color. And her power. She looked like a storybook queen. “He will appear before the High Lord and the Consort as a Lord of the Court, and he will do so without fidgeting or attempting to pass through the nearest wall in boredom.”
“I wish I could be there to see it,” Bellusdeo said, golden-eyed.
“Given the difficulties your visit to the West March theoretically caused, that would usually be impossible,” Sedarias replied.
Kaylin’s ears twitched. She didn’t say anything; Bellusdeo, however, did.
“Usually?”
Sedarias’s smile deepened; Kaylin swore she could see exposed Barrani canines. “Were it not for your intervention in the West March, we would not have arrived in Elantra. We would not have taken the Test of Name. And Mellarionne would not now have a ruler.” Definitely canines.
Tain’s eyes were blue, although Kaylin didn’t see much of them, as he covered his face with his hands.
For the first time in a week, Sedarias appeared to be enjoying herself. Kaylin decided that Sedarias and enjoyment should be kept a continent apart.
“Risky,” Teela said, without any of Tain’s obvious dismay.
“It is,” Sedarias agreed, still smiling. “But Lord Bellusdeo would be an excellent emissary, and she has proved herself a valuable ally—a dependable ally—to Mellarionne. To me,” she added, in case this wasn’t obvious. “Mellarionne is not, despite my brother’s best attempts to weaken it, a house without resources. I would, of course, extend an invitation. I would almost consider it a boon should you accept.”
The Emperor wouldn’t.
“You have a plan?” Bellusdeo asked, her eyes still golden.
“She always has a plan,” Mandoran said. His eyes were now a blue-green, but he seemed resigned.
“If I am to play a part in it, I would like to hear it myself.”
“Of course,” Sedarias replied. She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Kaylin could see a wave of stillness hit the cohort at once; hands froze, cutlery held; cups stopped between table and mouth. Eyes widened, mouths remained closed—or open—as if movement itself had been denied all of them.
Mandoran was first to rise. Annarion was second. In a flowing stream, the rest of the cohort joined them, pushing chairs back from table, their eyes turned toward the open—and empty—doorway.
Sedarias remained seated. Sedarias and Teela. Severn was no longer at the breakfast table; he had returned both to the Halls of Law and his own home.
Sedarias’s eyes were not a color that Barrani eyes normally adopted; they weren’t a color ascribed to Barrani eyes at all. Nor, now that she was looking, were any of the cohort’s eyes. They stayed the same shape, though.
Kaylin stayed where she was seated, as did Bellusdeo; Teela glanced at Tain, who had lowered his hands, where they rested, flat, against the tablecloth. Sedarias lowered her head; her chin almost touched the space between her collarbones.
Terrano walked into the dining room, his eyes the color of the cohort’s eyes, his form Barrani. They moved toward him in a rush, as if they couldn’t believe what Kaylin was almost certain they were hearing. But they paused without touching him, and stepped back, stepped away, to give him room.
To give him a clear path to Sedarias, who remained seated at the end of the table, her back toward that door and its occupant. He walked toward her and, to Kaylin’s surprise, gently wrapped both arms around her shoulders. She stiffened.
Terrano said nothing—not out loud—but Sedarias lifted her head. She was crying.
Kaylin almost looked away. Almost. But Sedarias caught her gaze and, as always, held it.
“This isn’t what I wanted for him,” the Barrani woman considered the leader of the cohort said. “This isn’t what he wanted.” She closed her eyes.
Terrano, however, shook his head, and their hair, black and black, mingled, he was that close to her face.
“You made your choice—”
“Yes. I can tell you all about it now. I can truly tell you.” He hugged her, his arms tightening before they fell away. He then turned to face the rest of the cohort. “They’re really noisy, you know?” he said to the room that couldn’t hear the internal voices of his friends. “I wanted freedom. You were all so much a part of me I didn’t think about what freedom would mean.
“I loved the freedom. I did. I can’t promise that I’ll never regret it. But it was empty. It was empty without you. It wasn’t the same. If you’d all come with me, it still wouldn’t have been the same. You could see and hear what I saw and heard, but...not together.”
The cohort converged then. Sedarias rose.
Her eyes were Barrani green; they were reddened, but if she cried, she didn’t weep. “Are we his cage, then?” she asked Kaylin.
Kaylin shook her head. “Not his cage, but his home.”
* * *
Read on for a special sneak peek at The Black Witch, the first book in The Black Witch Chronicles by Laurie Forest!
The Black Witch
by Laurie Forest
Part One
Prologue
The woods are beautiful.
They’re my friends, the trees, and I can feel them smiling down at me.
I skip along, kicking at dry pine needles, singing to myself, following close at the heels of my beloved uncle Edwin, who turns every so often, smiles and encourages me to follow.
I am three years old.
We have never walked so far into the woods, and the thrill of adventure lights up my insides. In fact, we hardly ever walk into the woods. And Uncle Edwin has brought only me. He’s left my brothers at home, far away.
I scramble to keep up with him, leaping over curved roots, dodging low-hanging branches.
We finally stop in a sunny clearing deep in the forest.
“Here, Elloren,” my uncle says. “I have something for you.” He bends down on one knee, pulls a stick from his cloak pocket and presses it into my tiny fist.
A present!
It’s a special stick—light and airy. I close my eyes, and an image of the tree the stick came from enters my mind—a big, branchy tree, soaked in sunlight and anchored in sand. I open my eyes and bounce the stick up and down in my hand. It’s as light as a feather.
My uncle fishes a candle out of his pants pocket, gets up and sets the candle on a nearby stump before returning to me. “Hold the stick like this, Elloren,” he says gently as he bends down and holds his hand around mine.
I look at him with slight worry.
Why is his hand trembling?
I grasp onto the stick harder, trying my best to do what he wants.
“That’s it, Elloren,” he says patiently. “Now I’m going to ask you to say some funny words. Can you do that?”
; I nod emphatically. Of course I can. I’d do anything for my uncle Edwin.
He says the words. There are only a few of them, and I feel proud and happy again. Even though they’re in another language and sound strange to my ears, they’re easy to say. I will do a good job, and he will hug me and maybe even give me some of the molasses cookies I saw him tuck away into his vest before we left home.
I hold my arm out, straight and true, and aim my feather-stick at the candle, just like he told me. I can feel him right behind me, watching me closely, ready to see how well I listened.
I open my mouth and start to speak the nonsense words.
As the odd words roll off my tongue, something warm and rumbling pulls up into my legs, right up from the ground beneath my feet.
Something from the trees.
A powerful energy shoots through me and courses toward the stick. My hand jerks hard and there’s a blinding flash. An explosion. Fire shooting from the tip of the stick. The trees around us suddenly engulfed in flames. Fire everywhere. The sound of my own screaming. The trees screaming in my head. The terrifying roar of fire. The stick roughly pulled from my hands and quickly cast aside. My uncle grabbing me up, holding me tight to his chest and racing away from the fire as the forest falls apart around us.
* * *
Things change for me in the forest after that.
I can feel the trees pulling away, making me uneasy. And I begin to avoid the wild places.
Over time, the childhood memory becomes cloudy.
“It’s just a dream,” my uncle says, comforting me, when the burning scene returns in the dark of sleep. “About that time you wandered out into the forest. During that lightning storm. Think on pleasant things, and go back to sleep.”
And so I believe him, because he cares for me and has never given me a reason not to believe.
Even the forest seems to echo his words. Go back to sleep, the leaves rustle on the wind. And over time, the memory fades, like a stone falling to the bottom of a deep, dark well.
* * *
Into the realm of shadowy nightmares.
Fourteen years later...
Chapter 1: Halfix
“Take that, you stupid Icaral!”
I glance down with amusement at my young neighbors, a basket of freshly picked vegetables and herbs balanced on my hip, a slight near-autumn chill fighting to make itself known through the warm sunlight.
Emmet and Brennan Gaffney are six-year-old twins with the black hair, forest green eyes and faintly shimmering skin so prized by my people, the Gardnerian Mages.
The two boys pause from their noisy game and look up at me hopefully. They sit in the cool, sunlit grass, their toys scattered about.
All the traditional characters are there among the brightly painted wooden figures. The black-haired Gardnerian soldiers, their dark tunics marked with brilliant silver spheres, stand valiantly with wands or swords raised. The boys have lined the soldiers up on a wide, flat stone in military formation.
There are also the usual archvillains—the evil Icaral-demons with their glowing eyes, their faces contorted into wide, malicious grins, black wings stretched out to their full size in an effort to intimidate, fireballs in their fists. The boys have lined these up on a log and are attempting to launch rocks at them from the direction of the soldiers with a catapult they’ve fashioned from sticks and string.
There are assorted side characters, too: the beautiful Gardnerian maidens with their long black hair; wicked Lupine shapeshifters—half-human, half-wolf; green-scaled Snake Elves; and the mysterious Vu Trin sorceresses. They’re characters from the storybooks and songs of my childhood, as familiar to me as the old patchwork quilt that lies on my bed.
“Why are you here?” I ask the boys, glancing down into the valley toward the Gaffneys’ estate and sprawling plantation. Eliss Gaffney usually keeps the twins firmly near home.
“Momma won’t stop crying.” Emmet scowls and bangs the head of a wolf-creature into the ground.
“Don’t tell!” Brennan chastises, his voice shrill. “Poppa’ll whip you for it! He said not to tell!”
I’m not surprised by Brennan’s fear. It’s well-known that Mage Warren Gaffney’s a hard man, feared by his fastmate and children. And the startling disappearance of his nineteen-year-old daughter, Sage, has made him even harder.
I look to the Gaffneys’ estate again with well-worn concern.
Where are you, Sage? I wonder unhappily. She’s been gone without a trace for well over a year. What could have possibly happened to you?
I let out a troubled sigh and turn back to the boys. “It’s all right,” I say, trying to comfort them. “You can stay over here for a while. You can even stay for supper.”
The boys brighten and appear more than a little relieved.
“Come play with us, Elloren,” Brennan pleads as he playfully grabs at the edge of my tunic.
I chuckle and reach down to ruffle Brennan’s hair. “Maybe later. I have to help make supper, you know that.”
“We’re defeating the Icarals!” Emmett exclaims. He throws a rock at one of the Icarals to demonstrate. The rock collides with the small demon and sends it spinning into the grass. “Wanna see if we can knock their wings off?”
I pick up the small figure and run my thumb across its unpainted base. Breathing in deep, I close my eyes and the image of a large tree with a dense crown, swooping branches and delicate white flowers fills my mind.
Frosted Hawthorne. Such elegant wood for a child’s plaything.
I open my eyes, dissolving the image, focusing back in on the demon toy’s orange eyes. I fight the urge to envision the tree once more, but I know better than to entertain this odd quirk of mine.
Often, if I close my eyes while holding a piece of wood, I can get the full sense of its source tree. With startling detail. I can see the tree’s birthplace, smell the rich, loamy carpet beneath its roots, feel the sun dappling its outstretched leaves.
Of course, I’ve learned to keep these imaginings to myself.
A strange nature fixation like this smacks of Fae-blood, and Uncle Edwin has warned me to never speak of it. We Gardnerians are a pureblood race, free from the stain of the heathen races that surround us. And my family line has the strongest, purest Mage-blood of all.
But I often worry. If that’s true, then why do I see these things?
“You should be more careful with your toys,” I gently scold the boys as I shake off the lingering image of the tree and set the figure down.
The sound of the boys’ grand battles recedes into the distance as I near the small cottage I share with Uncle Edwin and my two brothers. I peer across the broad field toward our horse stables and give a start.
A large, elegant carriage is parked there. The crest of the Mage Council, Gardneria’s highest level of government, is artfully painted on its side—a golden M styled with graceful, looping calligraphy.
Four military guards, real-life versions of Emmet and Brennan’s toys, sit eating some food. They’re strapping soldiers, dressed in black tunics with silver spheres marking their chests, with wands and swords at their sides.
It has to be my aunt’s carriage—it can’t possibly be anyone else’s. My aunt is a member of our ruling High Mage Council, and she always travels with an armed entourage.
A rush of excitement flashes through me, and I quicken my pace, wondering what on all of Erthia could have possibly brought my powerful aunt to remote Halfix, of all places.
I haven’t seen her since I was five years old.
* * *
We lived near her back then, in Valgard, Gardneria’s bustling port city and capital. But we hardly ever saw her.
One day, clear out of the blue, my aunt appeared in the front room of my uncle’s violin shop.
“Have you had the children wandtested?” she inquired, her tone
light, but her eyes sharp as ice.
I remember how I tried to hide behind Uncle Edwin, clinging to his tunic, mesmerized by the elegant creature before me.
“Of course, Vyvian,” my uncle haltingly answered his sister. “Several times over.”
I looked up at my uncle with confused surprise. I had no memory of being wandtested, even though I knew that all Gardnerian children were.
“And what did you find?” she asked probingly.
“Rafe and Elloren are powerless,” he told her as he shifted slightly, cutting off my view of Aunt Vyvian, casting me in shadows. “But Trystan. The boy has some magic in him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Vyvian, quite.”
And that was when she began to visit with us.
Soon after, my uncle unexpectedly soured on city life. Without warning, he whisked my brothers and me away to where we now live. In tiny Halfix. At the very northeastern edge of Gardneria.
Right in the middle of nowhere.
* * *
As I round the corner of our cottage, I hear the sound of my name through the kitchen window and skid to a stop.
“Elloren is not a child anymore, Edwin.” My aunt’s voice drifts out.
I set my basket of vegetables and herbs on the ground and crouch low.
“She is too young for wandfasting,” comes my uncle’s attempt at a firm reply, a tremor of nervousness in his voice.
Wandfasting? My heart speeds up. I know that most Gardnerian girls my age are already wandfasted—magically bound to young men for life. But we’re so isolated here, surrounded by the mountains. The only girl I know who’s been fasted is Sage, and she’s up and disappeared.
“Seventeen is the traditional age.” My aunt sounds slightly exasperated.
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