I hold my breath, thinking it’s over.
To my surprise, Lukas starts in on Damion once more, kicking him to the ground and then kicking him in the side again and again as Damion cries for mercy.
I’m afraid that Lukas won’t stop. There’s something so wildly violent in his expression that I’m worried he’s actually going to kill Damion Bane.
Damion tries, pathetically, to crawl away from Lukas, but Lukas attacks even more savagely, Damion’s weakness seeming to provoke rather than calm him.
I turn away as I hear the sickening sound of a bone breaking.
Footsteps sound on the stairs and then on the balcony, running toward us and around the bend as a deep male voice booms out, “Lukas, stop!”
Lukas pauses, his gaze fixed on Damion, his hand a bloodied fist. He stands like that for a long moment before slowly lifting his gaze to meet that of his father, High Commander Lachlan Grey.
Lukas’s father is flanked by four Gardnerian soldiers, my guards among them, all of the soldiers wearing shocked expressions as they survey the situation. Sparrow comes into view behind them, and I realize, in a staggeringly grateful rush, that she must be the one who summoned Lukas and the other soldiers.
Still breathing hard, Lukas seems undaunted by their presence, and the soldiers shrink back from his glare. Only Lukas’s father is uncowed.
“You cannot kill the son of a Mage Council member.” Lachlan bites off each word, rage brimming in his eyes.
Lukas glances down at Damion, then back to his father, the side of his mouth curling up.
“He is a fellow commander.” Lachlan scowls.
Lukas is unmoved, his fists clenched tight.
“I will strip you of your command,” his father threatens, but I notice he makes no move toward Lukas, and neither do the other soldiers.
Lukas lets out a short laugh of contempt.
“And I will arrest you,” Lachlan stubbornly continues.
Lukas shoots his father an incredulous look and glances back at Damion, who is now unconscious on the floor.
We watch, breathlessly, as Lukas deliberates for a long moment then steps back.
The soldiers all let out a sigh of relief and step back in turn. It seems that no one wanted to be the one to try to arrest Lukas Grey.
“Take him to my physician,” Lachlan directs the soldiers, motioning toward Damion but keeping his gaze blazing on his son.
The soldiers jump to retrieve and then carry a limp, bloody Damion across the balcony and down the stairs.
Damion sensed my power. The panicked thought whirls in my mind. Sweet Ancient One, the Banes can’t know what I am.
Lachlan Grey gestures for Sparrow to leave, and Sparrow’s eyes briefly meet mine. She gives me a deeply cautionary look before quietly following the soldiers.
I slowly pull myself up, my legs trembling, power singing through my affinity lines.
Lachlan glances at me, his expression full of disgust, then turns back to his son. “Lukas. We need to talk,” he says tersely, eyeing me again with disdain. “Privately.” Lachlan walks a few steps away, turns briefly to indicate with his glare that he expects Lukas to follow, then leaves. His heavy, angry steps sound on the stone stairs.
Lukas glances at me, his expression and magic unreadable, but an echo of violence still burns in his eyes. He turns and strides off after his father.
I struggle to catch my breath, still rasping through my lungs. I hoist myself up and away from the balcony and follow them, hearing their voices below, the cool breeze coming in from the ocean chilling my face and neck.
I make my way down two levels and crouch behind a stone trunk as their voices become audible from the balcony’s far end.
“...throw away your entire career for what?” Lachlan’s harsh voice demands. “A girl who doesn’t want you?”
“She’s mine.”
“She was all but Damion’s before you stormed into the fasting, threatening everyone in the room. For a girl who had to be forcibly restrained to fast to you. Vyvian Damon played you! To get you to fast to a girl that no one but Damion would have wanted. Did I raise you to be such a fool?”
He saved me. Lukas saved me. Holy Ancient One, he saved me from being fasted to Damion Bane. Nausea churns in my stomach as a dizzying clarity descends.
“She’s a troublemaker and a whore,” his father continues. “One step up from a Selkie—”
“Careful.” Lukas’s voice is low and threatening.
They’re both quiet for a moment, and I’ve a sense of both the tension simmering on the air and that Lachlan Grey is intimidated by his son.
“You are a fool,” Lachlan finally says. “This girl is a traitor to her own kind. Is this your way of thumbing your nose at our traditions? I know you didn’t want to be fasted, but to make such a mockery of a sacred rite, choosing a girl who has disgraced herself in such a wanton, disgusting manner, from a family full of race traitors...”
“Are you finished?” Lukas’s voice has become cold, disinterested.
“No, I’m not done,” Lachlan snaps angrily. “You will not kill Damion Bane. Promise me!”
“If he touches her again, I will kill him,” Lukas answers calmly, irrefutably.
Again, they’re quiet.
“You should have let Damion have her,” Lachlan bites out, as if through clenched teeth. “He’d have beaten some sense into her. I suggest you do just that.”
There’s the sound of footsteps, and Lachlan storms by without noticing me, making his way to the descending staircase. And then Lukas strides into view.
He catches sight of me and stops dead in his tracks.
I freeze, wholly unprepared to face him, my heart pounding against my chest.
Fire power blasts through his lines and out toward me, his face taking on a look that’s so impassioned it stuns me. “Elloren, are you all right?”
So much power is swirling through my lines in response to his that I’m light-headed. “I am,” I force out with a stiff nod.
He extends his hand to me, his gaze fervent. “Come inside with me,” he offers as I’m encircled by his out-of-control flame.
My fire leaps toward his, and for a moment I want nothing more than to clasp his wand hand to mine and surrender to our all-encompassing, magical pull.
But I hesitate.
Our fire power is running feverishly hot, and I can feel Lukas’s emotion in it, blazing just as hot and raw.
I curl my wand hand into a tight fist and press it to my side, fighting against our draw. Because if our wand hands touch and he gets a full sense of my power, I know that he’ll likely realize, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’m the next Black Witch.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALLY
ELLOREN GARDNER
Sixth Month
Valgard, Gardneria
I sit on the stone balcony for a protracted moment, my eyes locked with Lukas’s. He keeps his hand extended to me as his fire whips around me in an uncharacteristically discordant rush.
My power strains toward his to the point where I feel that, if I give in to the pull, my body might slide to his of its own accord.
I do not take his hand.
A disturbance shudders through Lukas’s fire as his face takes on a look of intense confusion. His fire dampens in a flash, and his searching look is replaced by a more severe demeanor as he withdraws his hand and I rise on my own. I smooth my tousled skirts with shaking hands, then reach up to touch my aching neck, an echo of horror rising.
Lukas’s fire gives a pulsing flare. “I should have killed him,” he says, and I meet his gaze once more, green fire spitting in his eyes.
I hold his fervid stare as my trembling lessens and the lashing flow of my power slowly dissipates.
Nothing is as it seemed, and my head is spinning from so many ne
w realizations.
Lukas saved me from being fasted to a monster. He never conspired with my aunt to destroy my uncle and force me into fasting. It was all Aunt Vyvian’s doing—playing Damion Bane and Lukas off each other as a means to her wretched ends.
And Lukas stepped into her trap to save me from a truly nightmarish fate.
A sharper realization sweeps over me.
I remember all the Level Five Mages I was surrounded by on that day, my depraved aunt’s strategy so clear to me now. Aunt Vyvian not only arranged for me to be fasted to Damion Bane.She was careful to organize a guard large enough that Lukas wouldn’t be able to fight his way through it. Once there was no possibility of my escape, she likely called in Lukas at the very last minute and gave him an ultimatum—
Fast to Elloren...or see her fasted to Damion Bane.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, both astonished and newly decided. “I need to speak with you, Lukas.” I receive no response but a creasing of his brow, and in that moment I rue the divide between us.
I wish I could tell you everything, I agonize. I need a friend, and I need help. You don’t have any idea how high the stakes are. If I can survive, I’m a weapon that could bring down Vogel.
I remember how Lukas told me he considers Vogel to be unhinged. How he disapproves of the religious intolerance sweeping through Gardneria that Vogel is emboldening.
“Is there somewhere we can go?” I press, ready to plead if necessary.
Lukas’s jaw tenses and he looks just past me, as if trying to rein in some strong emotion.
But then his eyes meet mine and he silently holds out his arm to me.
For a split second I hesitate, unnerved by his piercing look and the memory of his out-of-control violence toward Damion.
Damion Bane.
Whom I’d be bound to without Lukas’s intervention.
For life.
I reach out and thread my hand through Lukas’s arm, careful to not let my hand brush against his.
* * *
I match Lukas’s long stride through the Mage Council Hall, the distant sound of orchestral music and the buzz of crowds growing louder as we step into a populated, tree-lined atrium with a constellation-imprinted ceiling. A sense of the surreal envelops me as I walk, arm in arm, with Lukas Grey, the memory of our fasting now viewed with such a drastically altered lens. I internally wince, remembering how I screamed I’ll hate you forever! at him.
And how everyone in this room likely knows it.
Mages drinking scarlet punch cast me looks of censure and narrow-eyed dislike as we cross the room, and I’m acutely aware of both the tension burning in Lukas’s banked-back fire as well as the scuff of my raw, shoeless feet on the smooth tile beneath me. A young soldier with aristocratic features approaches with the air of someone who has been looking for Lukas. I recognize Thierren, the Level Five Mage who guided me out of Lukas’s command tent in the Keltish Province and was part of my escort to the Greys’ estate.
“Where are the Banes?” Lukas asks him in an aggressive tone that implies So I can kill them.
Thierren’s gaze darts to me, his face remaining as impassive as Sparrow’s before he looks back at Lukas. “Commander Damion Bane has been brought to a physician,” he states succinctly, “and Commander Sylus Bane left with him. Mage Fallon Bane has been brought to the Valgard military base for questioning.” He glances at me again. “For attacking a fellow Mage with wand magic.”
Worry for Sparrow rises in me. “Have you seen a young Urisk woman with lavender features?” I ask him, concerned that the Banes could have enacted some vengeance upon her before they left. “She’s my lady’s maid, and she needs an escort home.”
Thierren loses his impassive look for a moment, his brow tensing hard as he views me searchingly. “She’s fine and is in a carriage traveling back to the Greys’ estate,” he assures me.
“Report to the Valgard Base,” Lukas directs Thierren, and the young Mage instantly regains his military-blank expression. “I’ll check in with you later.”
Thierren nods, then shoots me one last questioning look, turns, and departs, leaving Lukas and me both alone and surrounded by a candlelit swirl of strangers, most of them glaring at me with unconcealed animosity.
I look up into Lukas’s raptor-sharp gaze, a flash of affinity heat igniting between us and sending a shiver through my lines, our magical draw impossible to fully suppress.
“I know of a deserted library,” Lukas says, clearly ignoring our sparking magic.
“Good,” I reply, attempting to ignore his unnerving draw, as well. “Take me there.”
* * *
I keep pace with Lukas down a lengthy hallway, his posture stiff, his jaw set tight, as he holds his unsettled magic more firmly at bay. He remains dauntingly silent as he leads me through winding corridors, up staircases, and down more hallways, the sound of music and conversation rapidly fading.
Eventually, we come to an isolated, lantern-lit hallway far away from the crowds, and he guides me into a small, darkened library.
Lukas releases my arm and unsheathes his wand, my affinity lines immediately straining toward it. He turns, walks to a wall lantern, and mutters the candle-lighting spell. The candle inside bursts into a reddened flame.
I watch as he stalks around the room lighting crimson glass lanterns with an air of severe purpose, the rich details of the library gradually coming alive, Lukas’s black cloak swirling behind him.
He cuts a fine figure, I have to admit, tall and broad shouldered, an athletic grace to his movements. My magic continues its relentless pull toward his matching lines, and it makes me uneasy. His magic’s draw is nothing at all like Yvan’s alluring and bolstering fire. Lukas’s magic is like a force I have to push against to stay whole.
Ill at ease, I turn away, my gaze drawn to the marble mantel of the unlit fireplace beside me. It’s glossy black with thin green veins tracing through it, the emerald of the lines so bright that they almost glow, and the surface is so finely polished that it’s nearly as reflective as a mirror. For a moment, I’m overcome by the sheer beauty of the craftsmanship.
“This marble is beautiful,” I comment absently as I trace the green lines, strangely attracted to it.
My face grows warm with surprise as I instantly realize what this is.
It’s not marble. It’s wood.
Alfsigr Spruce, from the upper reaches of the northern Borial Forest. Dense as granite. I’ve heard about this wood, read about it, but I’ve never seen or touched it before. As I slide my finger along its gleaming surface, a static-riddled warmth flows up my arm as my earthlines shudder to pulsing, branching life, the image of a deep-green spruce tree with a silvery sheen to its needles unfolding in my mind.
“This is Elfin wood,” I murmur, transfixed by the effect the piece is having on my lines. I turn when there’s no answer from Lukas, my finger still caressing the enthralling wood.
Lukas is watching me from a few steps away, his arms crossed, his expression jaded. “What do you want, Elloren?” His fire gives a brief flare toward me and I can sense the conflicted energy in it.
I hold his confrontational stare, dauntingly aware of our difficult history with each other. I’ve no doubt hurt his reputation. Probably made him the object of more than a small bit of ridicule. It’s likely that everyone in this building knows that I resisted being fasted. Priests gossip, as do lower-ranking guards. And I imagine the Banes told everyone in Valgard about my behavior.
Lukas knew full well that this would be the outcome of permanently Sealing himself to me. But still, he did it to protect me. Even though he likely knows that I’m in love with someone else.
I swallow as my hand falls away from the wood and the larger issues I’m faced with come rushing in. Issues that are bigger than Lukas and Yvan and I.
Can I trust you, Lukas? I agonize as I
study his tall form. I need to be able to trust you.
“I...need your help,” I haltingly admit.
“With what?” His tone is sharp and wary.
I struggle to come up with a plausible lie, but the words get tangled in the back of my throat, because we cannot lie to each other. Lukas stares me down, his lip lifting with a trace of amusement that doesn’t reach his eyes, and both frustration and anger flare in me in response to his unreceptive demeanor.
Calm down, Elloren, I chastise myself. You need him. And Chi Nam said he might well be on the Resistance’s side.
“I’m ready to take my place with you,” I force out, the words stilted and stiff. It’s not quite a lie, though. Just the truth artfully picked through. Covering up the larger, explosive, world-altering truth.
Lukas gives a bitter laugh. “Really, Elloren. As my fasted partner? Shall we truly seal our fasting and consummate it this evening?” He looks at me cynically, like he knows the answer.
My angry desperation notches higher. “You once said you were my friend.” My voice breaks against the word as I step toward him. “Lukas, I need help. And I need to know what side you’re truly on.” I hold my breath, knowing that last question is dangerous.
Lukas looks away and shakes his head as if at war with himself.
Heated frustration mounts in me over his refusal to bend. “Fallon said you two are together.” I’m unable to keep the abhorrence from bleeding into my tone.
He coughs out a contemptuous laugh as he throws me a sarcastic look. “No, Elloren, we are not. Are you with the Kelt?” His smile is gone, and something like jealousy flashes through his eyes. He looks away again, his jaw ticking.
Yes, Lukas, I want to cry at him as pain strafes through me. I’m with Yvan. But I also can never be fully with him.
Because I’m fasted to you.
We’re both silent for a long moment. And when he brings his gaze back to mine, his brow is furrowed with both bitterness and something I’ve never seen in him before—profound hurt.
My anger caves in on itself.
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