The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  Suddenly Tierney is accosted by every last one of her fears as every terrifying moment of her life and every fear for the future gather together and rise like a cyclone inside her.

  Being wrenched away from her parents at three.

  Playing with her water magic as a child and nearly being found out by the Gardnerians.

  The day that Vogel took power.

  Finding two of her beloved kelpies dead in an iron-spiked lake.

  Reading her kelpies’ images of Fae refugees being impaled by iron weapons wielded by Gardnerian soldiers.

  A Lasair Fae child with an iron spear thrust right through her head.

  And then a vision of Vogel’s dragon army flying over the Vo Mountains, straight toward where they’re standing, everyone here powerless to stop the evil onslaught.

  Her family and friends all ripped to shreds by soulless dragons.

  Uncontrollable terror strafes through Tierney and pulls her under. Suffocating, debilitating, horrifying fear.

  She lets out a strangled cry as she wrenches her gaze from the Death Fae and breaks his thrall. She turns back to face him and gives him a blazing look of anguished accusation. What appears to be deep remorse to the point of emotional pain flares in his eyes. But it’s all too much.

  Tierney turns on her heels and flees.

  * * *

  That evening, Tierney seeks out the Wyvernguard’s river-level terrace once more, desperate to be close to the bobbing waters of the powerful Vo River, her emotions still running in a turbulent stream from her encounter with the Death Fae.

  The cool breeze coming off the Vo ruffles her multihued-blue hair as she leans on the terrace’s stone railing, her mind a storm soothed only by the Vo wakening to her presence, waves leaping then gently scrolling toward her to lap at her feet. As if the river can sense her troubled state.

  Tierney exhales, her shoulders loosening in response to the water’s caress.

  Rune ships are streaming through the air and over the waters of the inky Vo, bright sapphire runes whirring at their sides. Beyond the stretch of river directly before her, the spiraling tiers of the Wyvernguard’s North Twin Island rise up, long, rune-lit walkways connecting the North and South Twin Islands like the rungs of an enormous ladder.

  Tierney turns east and takes in Noilaan’s twinkling capital city of Voloi, the city rising tier after tier and built into the vertical wall of the Voloi Mountain Range, the breathtakingly high mountains that hug the eastern coast.

  She pivots her head and peers west over the river at the hulking black wall of the Vo Mountains, which hug the Vo River’s western bank and wall off Noilaan from everything west of it. A fierce band of storms created by the Zhilon’ile Wyverns hangs above this ridgeline as a barrier to invaders, roiling clouds frenetically spitting blue lightning.

  Tierney knows the history of this Wyvern-made band of storms.

  It was created during the Realm War to keep the Black Witch out.

  She frowns as she grips the cool stone railing and glances from the Vo Mountain Range to the huge city of Voloi and back west again, concerned about the vulnerability of the city.

  At the base of the Vo Mountains, the Noi have fabricated a runic border that spans the Vo River’s entire western bank, curving over the river’s northern and southern reaches to encircle the entire country of Noilaan. The rune border is a ribbon of blue from here, but up close, Tierney imagines it would top Valgard’s cathedral in height. Its runes send up a barely visible runic dome over the entirety of Noilaan, making trespass impossible and enabling rune ship flight as well as the rune magery that powers the entire city.

  Tierney looks into the night sky, needing to squint and focus hard to catch the dome-shield’s slight blue shimmer and the occasional glimpse of one of the countless translucent runes that mark its gigantic surface.

  Her frown deepens.

  Will it be enough to keep Vogel out?

  The skin prickles on the back of Tierney’s neck, a disturbance rippling through her water magic as the uneasy sense of someone’s attention on her rises.

  She turns and scans the dimly lit terrace, its obsidian stone washed a faint blue by a few rune lanterns set into the mountain’s stone walls. Vu Trin military apprentices are strolling over the riverside terrace’s broad curving surface, some alone and some in groups or pairs, taking advantage of the spectacular views and the pure joy of being so close to this most majestic of all rivers, no doubt.

  None of them take much notice of the Water Fae standing by the terrace edge, enfolded in the night’s shadows.

  Still, Tierney can’t shake the feeling of being the object of someone’s unwavering focus. Her water magic whirs inside her as the sensation becomes directional, like a slight, magnetic pull.

  She looks up the Wyvernguard’s stone wall toward the sensation’s origin, her gaze quickly zeroing in on a dark figure sitting on the leg of the huge, ivory-stone dragon sculpture that’s wrapped around the base of the island and cut into the obsidian stone.

  A flash of reckless interest sizzles through her as her water magic winds apprehensively tighter.

  Viger Maul.

  He looks deceptively normal, except for the fact that he’s defying gravity slightly, like an elegant spider adhering to the mammoth bas-relief sculpture. His spiraling half-moon horns are absent from his short, spiked hair.

  She tenses, her heartbeat quickening as she waits for Viger’s mind assault of her own fears and his otherworldly, bitter voice to sound in the back of her head, but...

  ...nothing.

  She holds Viger’s intent stare, confusion and curiosity piquing inside her as she wonders whether what some of the other military apprentices told her over dinner is true.

  Do Death Fae really stalk you once you draw their interest? Will they take you down by nature’s most horrible means? And when you attract their attention, are you attracting Death itself?

  She doesn’t want to believe any of this, but here he is, staring at her.

  She waits for Viger’s dark thrall to descend, but it’s as if he’s politely, carefully holding his strange powers back. And then, never taking his eyes off her, his form turns to black smoke and twines up to be camouflaged from her sight by the obsidian stone above the dragon carving’s massive form.

  An inarticulate melancholy fills Tierney, overshadowing her surprise at his ability to morph into smoke.

  She coughs out a sardonic laugh. Do you truly want him to come back? She’s taken aback by her own bizarre draw toward this Fae who purposefully terrified her.

  But what did he do, really? He simply showed you your own fears.

  She stares after him for a long moment, wondering if he’ll rematerialize, both intimidated by the feelings he unearthed in her as well as filled with a surprising desire to approach him again.

  And not run this time.

  A slight disturbance in her water magic coming from the other direction has Tierney stiffening even as she lets out a small sigh over the fulsome sensation of another Water Fae’s power rippling against her own in a decadent attraction.

  “Are you going to take the Death Fae as your lover?” a deep, chiding voice inquires in the Asrai tongue.

  Ire churns through Tierney over the intrusion into her private space.

  And because she recognizes that voice.

  She wheels around to find Fyordin Lir standing there in all his Asrai Fae glory, tall and shockingly handsome, his Asrai skin mirroring the nighttime hues of the Vo River. Tierney glances down at her own hand, resting on the gleaming onyx stone.

  Surprise ignites when she finds that her skin has become a reflection of the Vo as well, a changeable dark current eddying over it.

  A bit overcome, she glances back up at Fyordin. He’s idly balancing a roiling globe of water above his palm as he leans on the terrace railing, his expression
arrogant. His dark lips twist as he gives her a poignant look and bobs his head at something behind her, as if inviting her to see.

  Tierney follows his line of vision and surprise flashes again, a deeper disturbance shivering through her water magic.

  Viger has rematerialized at the far edge of the terrace, his long, lean figure now perched on its stone railing, his focus unmistakably on her.

  And then he again morphs into black smoke, twining up into the night sky.

  “I think he’s besotted,” Fyordin teases as he pulls the globe of water back into his palm.

  Tierney glowers at Fyordin as she struggles to ignore how blastedly good-looking he is, but it’s impossible. At least he’s not half-naked anymore, blessedly garbed in his sapphire Wyvernguard tunic. Tierney forces aside the memory of how gorgeous his muscular body looks underneath it.

  “I’m glad you put some clothes on, Fyordin,” she tosses out in an attempt to seem unfazed by him even as her heart hammers and her water magic strains toward his, a prickling flush heating her cheeks.

  Fyordin cocks a dark brow in question, and even that is dauntingly entrancing.

  Tierney sighs, irritated by his powerful draw. “Men don’t go around shirtless in the Western Realm,” she explains in a barbed tone. “And I have very Gardnerian sensibilities. Since I was raised by Gardnerians. I’m quite polluted, you’ll find.”

  Fyordin’s eyes flash, his lips tightening as his vast water magic grows as unsettled as hers, and Tierney notices, once again, that they’re both a visual mirror of the Vo.

  “What do you want, Fyordin?” Tierney finally snaps, struggling not to stare at his matching night-river skin in beguiled fascination. “I thought I was shunned.”

  Fyordin turns and leans over the stone railing and surveys the Vo, which seems to be watching them both.

  Which seems to have claimed them both.

  “I don’t seek to shun you.” He sets his piercing dark blue eyes back on Tierney with a fervid gaze that she can feel eddying straight through her power.

  Hurt flares inside her, intensified by his magical pull. “I thought I don’t belong,” she challenges, her cursed voice breaking as she pointedly speaks in the Western Realm’s Common Tongue.

  Fyordin’s jaw ticks, a flash of what looks like reluctant chagrin momentarily tightening his dominant gaze. He glances back over the Vo, clearly unsettled by her, as well. Tierney can feel it in the jostled currents of his power. “You belong,” he states in clipped, almost impatient Asrai, as if apology is something foreign to him and this is as close as he’ll edge up to it.

  Tierney glares at him, and he begrudgingly meets her stare as she’s swept up in the fierce, sudden urge to grab hold of his arm like before—not in Asrai-greeting this time, but to really show him the storm inside her.

  Roiling with hurt, Tierney is tempted to not give this arrogant Asrai one second more of her time. To jump off the railing and spend the night at the bottom of the Vo, surrounded by the river’s all-encompassing embrace.

  “There’s great power in you,” Fyordin notes in that deep-current voice of his that seems accentuated by the night. Tierney reluctantly glances at him as he peers up at the star-blasted sky. “Enough power to control the weather, I’d wager.” He gives her a significant look.

  Tierney inhales, her ability to affect the weather so chaotic and linked to her storming emotions that the word control seems a laughable stretch.

  “I can change the weather,” she finally admits. “But...the power is...volatile.” She stops for a moment, her throat growing tight. “My weather power put me and my family in so much danger. So many times.” Memories of losing control scrape at the edges of her mind—storm clouds forming at wildly inopportune times, isolated rainstorms, small blizzards. And always, the Gardnerians lurking somewhere near, ready to swoop down.

  She struggles to force the horrible memories back down.

  Go ahead. Push it all down. Stifle your fear instead of facing it.

  An unbidden image of Viger’s horned head enters her mind. His dark lips and black, unfathomable gaze.

  Fyordin is watching her closely now, turned fully to face her as he leans against the railing, the hard arrogance from just a moment ago now gone. Tierney is struck anew by his unglamoured Asrai-ness. His pointed ears and rippling Fae hue. Out in the open. Unafraid. Rune blades strapped to his arms. It’s a heady rush just looking at his unhidden Asrai form.

  “Were you raised in the West?” Tierney asks him, wondering how long it will take her to shake off the lingering spikes of terror that flash through her whenever she releases her magic. The panicked reflex to force down her power and run for cover.

  Even her kelpies stay submerged most of the time, wary of coming to shore.

  In hiding.

  Still.

  “I didn’t grow up over there,” Fyordin admits with a tight look toward the storm-limned Vo Mountain Range, lightning flashing above it. “My family managed to get out before the Realm War. They were the only ones in their band of Asrai to survive.” He meets Tierney’s gaze once more. “I grew up here with my parents and brother.”

  Shock lights. “You have family here?” Tierney’s throat tightens at the memory of her mother screaming her Asrai name and being dragged away by several Asrai as Tierney was placed in the arms of her Gardnerian parents.

  Gardnerian parents who risked their own lives to keep her safe from the Gardnerians’ Fae purge.

  Her water power thrust into chaos, Tierney looks to the stone floor and furiously blinks back the wretched tears now brimming in her eyes. She can feel the storm cloud forming over her head, the crackle of lightning spitting in it as she struggles to pull it in, not wanting to bare herself to this arrogant Fae whose parents never died.

  Who doesn’t understand the full horror of the West.

  Who never can.

  “Stay in our division, Asrai’il,” Fyordin says, and Tierney snaps her gaze to his, astonished by his newly compassionate tone. His deep-river eyes are searching and dark as the Vo’s depths in this dim light, the metallic blue hoops in his ears catching glints of the terrace’s runic light.

  “So now I’m ‘Asrai’il’ again?” Tierney bites out, her voice fracturing as she roughly wipes away her tears.

  “You always will be,” Fyordin says, and this time there’s unmistakable apology in his eyes.

  She tightens every muscle and manages to pull the storm cloud in, wrestling control of her fitful power.

  Barely.

  Then she looks back at Fyordin.

  “The Wyvernguard has my fealty,” she says to him in Asrai with a ferocious sincerity. “And the Asrai do, as well. No matter what. Even if you despise me for speaking my own mind.”

  “I don’t despise you.” He takes a step toward her, a hard current of his water power breaking free to course around her. “Stay in our division, Tierney Asrai’ir. I want to help you gain full mastery over your Fae power. And train you to channel it through runic weaponry.”

  A blaze of defiance courses through Tierney as she fixes him with a mutinous glare. “Trystan Gardner also has the full weight of my support.”

  Fyordin’s water magic gives a hard, angry surge with an intensity to rival her own. “Gardnerians have no place here in the Eastern Realm,” he declares, impassioned and dauntingly entrenched.

  Tierney’s face twists into a deeper scowl as the Vo’s cool breeze rustles her hair and caresses her neck.

  An inexplicable longing to be back with her odd circle of friends from Verpax University washes over Tierney, rapidly gaining force as she stares in the eyes of this implacable Fae. But her friends are scattered, Trystan isolated on the North Twin Island with only Death Fae for companions, the Lupines brought to a Vu Trin military base somewhere in the northeast, Wynter sheltered by the Amaz.

  And both Elloren and Yvan,
trapped in Gardneria as Vogel’s darkness takes root there and grows.

  Dread and frustration roll through Tierney as she shoots Fyordin a hard, exasperated glare.

  Stubborn, intractable fool.

  But then, she’s struck by a new remembrance, of how she and her friends were able to fight Vogel effectively only when they worked together.

  Despite serious differences.

  Maybe, Tierney begrudgingly considers as she looks toward the Vo, working together means trying to work with an arrogant, rigid Asrai who is dead wrong about what it’s going to take to go head-to-head with Vogel.

  She turns back to Fyordin to find him considering her with equal frustration, both of their water powers contained but storming.

  “Fyordin,” she says in the Water Fae tongue, leveling with this stranger-Fae, Asrai to Asrai, “in the west, I was part of a Resistance group that included Trystan Gardner and his brother and sister too. It included hidden Fae. And Amaz. And Lupines. And Icarals. We destroyed a Gardnerian military base. Rescued an unbroken dragon. And got the remaining Lupines out of the Western Realm. But we needed all of us to do these things.”

  Fyordin shakes his head and gives her a stubborn look of refute.

  “Hear me out,” Tierney presses. “I do not have the luxury of uncomplicated hatred. And you need to let go of it, as well. The Gardnerians separate the world into the Blessed Ones and the Evil Ones. We can’t win this fight if we think that way.”

  “We will never see eye to eye about the Gardnerians,” Fyordin insists, and Tierney can feel his internal storm raging. His words cut to the quick, ramping up her worry for her Gardnerian family here. Her worry for Trystan.

  A brushstroke of attention shivers through her roiling magic, directional and light as the brush of a dragonfly’s wing. She looks past Fyordin and up.