The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  But he never expected there to be a baby. Or this lovely young woman. And Thierren senses, deep in his soul, that this is no illusion.

  The young woman rocks the baby, and her movements are like a swaying branch, all smoothness and grace. Thierren’s affinity power gives a hard lurch toward her.

  The young woman looks up, straight into Thierren’s eyes.

  A rush of overwhelming shock flows through Thierren as their gazes lock, her eyes green as summer leaves, tears pooling inside them. Her deep-green lips fall open, and her misery rocks through Thierren, straight into his heart.

  Heavily accented Common Tongue sounds to the side. “Mages. Stop.”

  Thierren’s head whips toward the old woman with the white hair. The woman’s arms are now out in supplication, her green eyes full of a fierce urgency. She gestures toward the dark forest behind her as if she’s trying to convey a vital warning.

  “Leave our forest alone,” the woman says, an ominous weight to the words. “If the trees die, we die. You die. We all die.”

  Her urgency strikes Thierren deep in his heart, and he has the disturbing sense that he’s hearing something true. A fierce, disorienting urge to stop all of this wells up.

  “The Shadow is coming,” the old woman warns, her voice low and blazing with inescapable certainty.

  “On your knees,” Commander Bane orders the Fae, almost blithely, and Thierren’s eyes snap to his commander’s in amazement that he can remain so unaffected. There’s a wicked gleam in Commander Bane’s eyes. As if he’s excited by all this.

  A flash of revulsion rocks Thierren. He looks back to the young Fae woman, and their gazes latch again. As if they’re both unwitting players in a nightmare. Suddenly, Thierren wants nothing more in the world than to grab the woman and the baby and whisk them away from here.

  The young woman calls out to Thierren in her Fae dialect, her voice as melodious as it is grief-stricken. Thierren opens his mouth as if to answer her, just as Commander Bane’s voice booms out.

  “‘By order of the Gardnerian government,’” he reads from a scroll, “‘you are hereby ordered to stand down and surrender your hold on our sovereign territory.’” Commander Bane sighs, as if this is all too easy, rolls the scroll back up, and slides it into his tunic’s pocket. He steps forward, unsheathes his wand, and loosely points it at the Fae. “I said, get on your knees.”

  The line of Fae steps defiantly backward with what appears to be great effort, their arms outstretched now, as if fortifying the barrier between the Mages and the thick forest. The hatred in many of the Fae’s expressions hardens. The young boy’s eyes have become rage-filled slits as he hoarsely yells out a stream of furious Dryadin, and the young woman’s mouth is a miserable, trembling frown as she hugs the baby to her chest.

  Horror slashes through Thierren. The desperate urge to rescue the young woman and the baby swells. There’s another flash of white birds in the branches above the Fae. A line of the ethereal creatures to mirror the line of birds on some of the Gardnerians’ uniforms. On his uniform.

  Thierren blinks and wonders if he’s gone completely mad.

  “Get on your knees,” Commander Bane snarls. “Now.”

  Wait, Thierren wants to cry at Commander Bane, everything in the world suddenly breaking down. Can’t you see? There’s been a mistake and we need to stop. This isn’t what we thought. These aren’t monstrous warriors.

  These are families.

  The old woman ignores Commander Bane’s threatening stance, his wand. She rises from her knees and steps forward falteringly, pushing her palms out toward Commander Bane in a halting gesture.

  Viper fast, Commander Bane whips back his wand, then hurls his arm forward. A spear of ice jets from his wand’s tip and plunges straight into the old woman’s chest.

  Her sharp cry turns to a gurgle as she falls backward to the ground with a heavy thud, blood streaming.

  Chaos breaks out. Fae scream and struggle against the iron to rush to her. The terrified children shriek.

  Commander Bane views the scene impassively. “By order of the Gardnerian government,” he repeats, “you are hereby ordered to stand down and surrender your hold on our sovereign territory.”

  “We will never stand down!” the boy screams, his Common Tongue thickly accented, his skinny body rising to his full height. The power of the forest rises with him, like a dark, inescapable tide. Thierren can feel it, right through his bones.

  Right through his lines.

  The boy’s hands bunch into fists. “We are weak now, but our Guardians are not. They will know what you do to us. The trees will tell them. And they will come for you with the full might of the forest!”

  Commander Bane’s eyes widen as he smiles with delighted mirth. He glances at the Mages that surround him, as if to share his incredulous glee. He sneers back at the boy. “Oh, the trees will come after us, will they? On their little tree legs?”

  Thierren looks up, the canopy of trees on all sides leaning in. Rustling. The hard push against his affinity lines strengthens.

  “We stand with the trees!” the boy yells with unbridled ferocity.

  Commander Bane spits out a sound of derision and rolls his eyes at the bearded Mage next to him. “Sweet Ancient One, we need to silence them.” Commander Bane stands military straight. “Mages!” he orders, looking to the left then to the right, down the line of soldiers. “Ready your wands!”

  The young woman is down on her knees by the dead Fae woman, sobbing, the baby in her arms screaming. She looks up and locks her grief-stricken gaze onto Thierren’s.

  Horror bubbles up, and Thierren can contain it no longer. He bursts forward into the clearing and whips around to face the line of Mages. “Stop!” he yells, throwing out his palm.

  Commander Bane lowers his wand a fraction and eyes Thierren. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Yes, Thierren thinks with head-spinning distress. “They’ve got children!” he cries at the line of Mages before him. “We have to stop!”

  “They’re Fae!” Commander Bane snarls. “Fall back, Mage Stone. Now!”

  Thierren looks over his shoulder at the young woman. The Fae have grown silent except for the sobbing and screaming young children. All eyes are on Thierren. He meets the young woman’s gaze. And suddenly, he’s swept up in a sense of kinship with her that’s so strong, all sense of self-preservation shatters.

  Thierren turns back to Commander Bane. “We have to stop,” he says, his voice hardening. “This is a mistake.”

  “Great Ancient One, Thierren, move aside!” Commander Bane bellows.

  Thierren holds his ground. “No.” He gestures toward the Fae, adamant. “They’re not warriors. There are children.”

  Commander Bane scratches the back of his neck then shakes his head, as if he’s seen this misguided foolishness before but never expected it to come from Thierren.

  “Thierren, you know what we’re here to do,” he says with reasonable calmness. Like a parent chastising a wayward child. “And you know why.” He points at the Fae without looking at them. “These heathen spawn, right here, attacked Mage farmers and soldiers doing nothing more than trying to clear our land for our farms. That ‘child’ there—” he points to the angry young boy without looking at him “—he tried to kill one of us.” His piercing gaze bores into Thierren with righteous fire. “Do you want to give up every last part of your life...for heathen Fae?”

  Overcome by his own righteous fury, Thierren raises his arm and points his wand at Commander Bane’s chest. “We need to stop this. Now.”

  Fast as an asp, Commander Bane flicks his wand and black tendrils fly out, slapping around Thierren’s wand and wresting it from his fist. Before Thierren can react, Commander Bane flicks his wand toward him again, and tendrils lash forward to wrap around Thierren’s entire body, pinning his arms tight against his sides and
driving the air from his lungs. Commander Bane snaps his wand backward, and the tendrils around Thierren’s legs cinch tight and yank him off his feet. He lands on the damp ground with a painful thud as he strains against the bonds.

  “Ready!” Sylus Bane commands the line of Mages.

  The Mages lift their wands.

  “No!” Thierren cries out, losing all control. All reason. The forest darkens.

  “Aim!”

  “Stop! No!” Thierren rages as wave upon wave of fury pours off the trees. “There are children!”

  “Fire!”

  Fae scream as Mage power blasts from the wands and crashes into them. Rage tears through the forest. The bloodcurdling screams of the young boy, the young woman, and the Fae baby all mingle with Thierren’s own.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOREST GUARDIANS

  VYVIAN DAMON

  Fourth Month

  Mage Council Hall

  Valgard, Gardneria

  Thunder cracks overhead and Mage Vyvian Damon glances up through the vaulted, stained-glass ceiling. The fierce storm brewing outside flashes lightning and slams wind against the imposing Mage Council building, steely clouds closing ranks above.

  Vyvian is seated with all twelve Mage Council members around an oval Ironwood table, the inlaid image of a huge tree surrounded by a whorl of white birds set into the tabletop. Her hand rests on a smooth, dark root at the table’s far end as a heady anticipation builds inside her.

  The chamber’s arching Ironwood doors open, and Vyvian’s heart quickens, a rush of heat bursting to life inside her as High Mage Marcus Vogel strides into the room trailed by two Council envoys as the Council members rise.

  The young High Priest is the absolute picture of pious elegance, his riveting features all perfectly tapered angles, his gaze like green fire. The sensation of Vogel’s contained power courses throughout the room and resonates in Vyvian’s lines as all the colors of the chamber flicker to shades of black and gray.

  Vyvian blinks to clear her vision, and the disorienting color change vanishes as quickly as it flashed into being.

  Vogel takes a seat at the table’s head, where the inlaid tree image branches into a mighty crown. His two square-jawed envoys move to stand preternaturally motionless behind him as Vyvian and the other Council members take their seats once more. Above Vogel’s stilled figure hangs a huge, inverted Ironwood tree attached by chains to the supporting beams of the chamber’s glass ceiling to form a massive, boreal chandelier, the tree’s obsidian wood sanded and waxed to a gleam. Mage-light lanterns are set throughout the nooks and bends in the tree’s branches and suffuse the storm-darkened chamber with their lambent glow.

  The anticipatory tension in the air thickens as Council Mage Snowden dips his pen in a crystalline inkwell then suspends its blackened point over the parchment before him. He looks to Vogel, preparing to take down the Council’s motions and rulings in compact, tidy lines.

  Vyvian glances at her own neat stack of papers, the Council’s M seal marking the top of each page. Lantern light flickers over her painstakingly put-together lists of the invaders recently uncovered on Gardnerian soil—glamoured Fae, Fae-blooded, Urisk escapees from the Fae Islands and a host of other Evil Ones bent on corrupting the sacred Magedom. All of these invaders blessedly apprehended by the Mage Guard and shipped off to the Pyrran Islands.

  Much of this purification of Mage lands has been overseen by Vyvian herself.

  She pulls in a discreet, steadying breath, confident that her reports are perfectly in order and that High Mage Vogel will be quite pleased with her tireless efforts.

  But still, she can’t shake the ever-present unease that now lives underneath her skin and heightens her desire to prove herself worthy to the shining star that is Vogel. To hold on to her newly tenuous Council seat, Vyvian knows she must prove herself perfectly loyal and devout, distinct from the reviled, traitorous members of her own family—her corrupted brother and nephews as well as her unexpectedly rebellious niece, who’s run off to Ancient One knows where.

  Not even Elloren’s fastmate, Lukas Grey, seems to know where the wretched girl is.

  The thread of unease inside Vyvian tightens and heats to anger. I’ll find you, Elloren. And when I do...

  “Let us begin, Mages,” Vogel says, his pale green gaze as piercing as a hawk’s, his long fingers resting on the dark gray wand he’s set on the table before him.

  Vyvian thrills to the sound of Vogel’s silken voice, her anger brushed aside as she’s caught up in her visceral awareness of his power unfurling throughout the room.

  Vogel is silent for a long moment as his fervid gaze simmers with portent. “A male Icaral has been found in the Noi lands.”

  The words strike the room like a hammer. Exclamations of stunned outrage erupt as Vyvian is swept up in the communal, shocked dismay. Vogel remains still as death as the chamber eventually quiets and settles into an excruciating moment of suspense, all eyes fixed on Vogel.

  “Where?” The breathy question escapes from Vyvian before she can bite it back, caution overridden by how stunned she is that Sage Gaffney’s demon-baby is not the only male Icaral that still lives.

  Vogel sets his probing gaze on Vyvian, and she feels that gaze clear down her spine, the air practically humming with Vogel’s magic, her weak earthlines straining toward it.

  “Our spies have located the Icaral inside the Vu Trin military’s Oonlon base.” Vogel’s words are sinuous as they work their way through Vyvian. “The demon Icaral is a Kelt...and he is the son of the Icaral who killed our beloved Carnissa Gardner.” Exclamations of outrage burst forth in the room as Vogel’s gaze on Vyvian sharpens. “The name he’s been going by is Yvan Guriel.”

  A harder shock explodes through Vyvian as the room breaks into angry murmuring.

  Yvan Guriel. The Kelt who was in bed with Elloren.

  He’s an Icaral.

  “The Icaral of Prophecy,” Vyvian rasps, almost unable to breathe. Unable to move. Feeling as if the ground is giving way beneath her. The Icaral of Prophecy is not Sage Gaffney’s baby after all, but the cursed son of Valentin Guryev—the very same Icaral demon who killed Mother.

  Not Yvan Guriel at all.

  But Yvan Guryev.

  Rattled beyond measure, Vyvian struggles to hold Vogel’s piercing stare. His gaze narrows intently on her as fear winds tightly around her gut and a desperate resolve coalesces—no one can ever know that Elloren was found with Valentin Guryev’s demonic son.

  “He must be slain immediately,” Mage Greer insists to Vogel, his tone brusque.

  Vogel’s penetrating gaze slides toward the pair of Level Five Mage Guards who bracket the chamber’s Ironwood doors. “Send in Mavrik Glass,” he directs.

  The guards open the doors, and a tall, rather dashing young Level Five Mage strides into the chamber, his dark cloak flowing behind him. He’s elegantly handsome, his movements fluid, his hand curled around the handle of the mahogany wand that’s sheathed at his side. Three more wands fashioned from a variety of woods are sheathed at his other hip, and two more against his upper arm.

  “Wandmaster Glass,” Vogel says, a shrewd smile forming on his lips, “show the Council what we’ve requisitioned from the Vu Trin.”

  Mage Glass smirks knowingly at Vogel, reaches into his tunic’s pocket, and places a series of six onyx lumenstone discs on the circular table. Identical sapphire Noi runes mark each stone and send up a gauzy sapphire light.

  Vyvian pulls in a surprised breath. “Are they Noi portal stones?” she asks, looking to Vogel.

  “They are,” he affirms.

  An uncomfortable fidgeting kicks up in the room, expressions of stark confusion that Vyvian mirrors passed around. The use of heathen sorcery is flatly forbidden by The Book of the Ancients.

  Mage Greer draws back from the stones, his black-bearded face tightening
with abhorrence. “Noi sorcery is polluted magic.”

  “We can’t risk mixing this magic with ours,” elderly Mage Snowden chimes in, the white-haired man seeming overcome by indignation.

  “No mixing,” Vogel agrees. His grip tightens on the gray wand before him, his gaze sliding across them all. “Consuming.”

  Vogel presses his wand’s tip to the stones, one by one, and Vyvian draws back, blinking in wonder as the blue glow of each circular rune is sucked into Vogel’s wand leaving a dark imprint, the rune shapes then filling with undulating shadow, fingers of gray smoke twisting up from their transformed designs.

  “They have power, the heathens,” Vogel muses as a delicate whirl of shadow coils up from his wand. “Portal abilities and superior runic sorcery that has given them advantages for far too long. This power belongs in Mage hands. We are the only ones who can wield magic to do the Ancient One’s will. So we are the only ones who should control it. All of it.”

  Vogel looks to the inverted-tree chandelier and focuses, and a flurry of dark wings appears behind a branch. A previously hidden bird flies down and alights on Vogel’s shoulder.

  Along with the rest of the Council, Vyvian draws back in both awe and revulsion.

  The bird looks like a crow, but there’s a grotesquerie of eyes all over its upper head, most a changeable gray color, as if they contain an incoming storm.

  But the eye in the center of the bird’s head...

  It’s the same pale, searing green as Vogel’s eyes.

  “What sorcery is this?” Mage Gaffney whispers, the words shot through with obvious alarm. Smoking shadow runes cover the bird’s sides, its chest, the top of its dark head.

  Both Vogel and the bird turn their heads toward Mage Gaffney with frightening synchronicity. A shuddering chill runs down Vyvian’s spine.

  “A runic eye,” Vogel says, as Vyvian is filled with the certainty that Vogel is seeing not only through his own two eyes, but through the bird’s central green eye, as well.