We hit a particularly painful bump, and the carriage pitches clear over and falls hard on its side.
Pain bursts as my head slams into the window and Lukas falls onto me. The hanging lamp smashes into shards that rain over us as its light snuffs out.
I look around, dazed, as Lukas shifts, lifting his weight off me in a shower of glass. I sit up. Stars wink in my eyes then give way to stars shining through the window that’s now above me, the carriage’s floor to my back, its roof before me as my heart thuds against my ribs. For a split second, all is ominously quiet but for the tinkle of broken glass falling from our bodies.
“They’ve come for me,” I say, my throat cinching with fear, only half able to make out Lukas’s features in the dark.
“Who’s come for you?” he asks with confusion.
“The Kin Hoang.”
Lukas’s eyes widen. He grabs my arm, sending glass shards everywhere. Then he jerks me backward and tightens his grip on his wand. “Hold on to me,” he orders, his voice sharp. “Don’t let go!”
My hand grasps the side of his tunic as he raises his wand slightly higher and murmurs a spell through clenched teeth.
A fuzzy, glowing mist flies out of the tip of the wand, over him then over me like a second skin, the magical shield’s buzzing energy coating me like millions of tiny flies bouncing uncomfortably off my skin as a metallic, whirring noise slices through the outside air.
The center of the carriage’s roof explodes inward with a spray of sawdust as a small, silvery blur flies toward my head and slams straight into my shielded nose.
My head jerks back as pain blossoms, my eyes temporarily crossed from the blow as the sharp object bounces off Lukas’s shield, ricochets back against the carriage’s base, and comes to a clattering stop at our feet.
My stomach lurches.
A silver star. A Kin Hoang assassin’s killing star.
Lukas turns to me just as a barrage of stars explode through the carriage’s roof. I cry out as they strike my chest, my head, my limbs, beating me backward toward the carriage’s base as Lukas holds on tight to me. It’s like being hit by rocks while covered by a blanket, each blow leaving behind a new, throbbing ache, the stars clinking against each other as they fall to the carriage’s side in a sharp pile.
And then it’s over. The roof of the carriage before us now resembles a slice of salty Krillen cheese, full of irregular holes slashed liberally by the killing stars.
Lukas thrusts his wand straight out of the carriage’s roof, grasps me tight, grows stone-still, and forcefully murmurs the words to another spell.
I recoil as an explosion of fire rips from his wand, cutting out all visibility as the flames engulf us and flow tight around the magic shield. It’s like my one attempt to use a real wand, my desert inferno, all other sound cut off by the roar of the fire. The brightness of the flames forces my eyes shut and fills the world with red heat. The carriage wall beneath me gives way and we fall down into a concavity I can’t see, the buzzing of Lukas’s shield against my skin now hot and stinging.
Lukas clutches me close and I keep hold of him. I can’t open my eyes. It’s still too painfully bright.
Behind my eyelids, red rapidly turns to orange then yellow then blue. And finally black.
I open my eyes and gasp.
We’re crouched in a smoldering pile of ash and rubble, a radius of charred ground all around, only one blackened carriage wheel still identifiable and spinning pathetically in the air. The horses are dead, their charred necks exploded, and so is our unlucky driver, whose burned body lies sprawled out on the singed ground, his neck a bloody mess and slashed almost clear through. Horror slashes through me at the sight of this innocent man so gruesomely slain.
Retreating hoofbeats sound, and movement catches our attention through the haze of smoke—a woman on horseback, both her rune-marked uniform and her horse dark as ash, racing up the sloping cornfield before us, her horse’s hoofbeats muffled by the loamy soil.
Racing straight toward the moon.
Lukas tightens his hold on my arm and pulls me to my feet, the buzzing shield still uncomfortably pasted around us.
“Come on,” he orders as he sets off in hot pursuit of the Kin Hoang, dragging me beside him.
Our attacker is bent low on her horse, rapidly gaining distance, and I recognize the style of her dark gray tunic marked with glowing blue Noi runes. There’s a gray headband tied around her head and rune swords fastened to her back.
The uniform of the Kin Hoang—she’s definitely one of the Vu Trin’s elite assassins.
I stumble over jagged cornstalks as I struggle to keep up with Lukas, half running, half being dragged, the fancy embroidered shoes Lukas obtained for me just the wrong sort of footwear for chasing down assassins.
Lukas halts, one hand still clenched around my arm as he raises his wand and grinds out the words to another spell before the rider can crest the long hill.
Fire shoots from his wand, focused in a stream aimed directly at the woman’s back.
Just before the stream of fire reaches her, a shimmering runic portal edged with luminous sapphire runes appears out of nowhere at the hill’s crest, its gilded interior flowing like molten glass and blocking the moon from view.
The sorceress rides straight into the portal and is engulfed in the golden liquid, both rider and horse disappearing from view as Lukas’s fire slams into the portal with a fierce roar. The fire curls up and around the portal’s frame, setting the surrounding cornstalks alight.
Lukas releases my arm and runs to the portal, cursing angrily to himself.
I glance around with disbelieving eyes. The decimated carriage at the bottom of the field is still smoking, the dead horses and driver dark mounds on the road.
Remorse stabs through me once more over the death of this innocent stranger and the animals too.
I turn back to Lukas, who’s come to a frustrated halt just in front of the shimmering portal and smoldering stalks of corn.
Breathing hard and dazed from the trauma of the attack, I slump and let my hands fall to my knees, my legs close to buckling as questions assault my mind.
Have the Vu Trin sent more assassins to strike me down? What happened to Chi Nam and my other Vu Trin allies? Will the entire Vu Trin army come after me now?
Should I tell Lukas what I am?
The remnants of Lukas’s shield are now a faint buzz on my skin that rapidly dissipates to nothing. As the shield fades, the acrid smell of smoke comes rushing in.
I remain hunched over for a long moment, catching my breath. My emotions a blaze of mounting alarm, I lift my skirts to check my badly scratched ankles, then take a deep breath, straighten, and make my way up the hill toward Lukas. Everything hurts, from my star-bruised body to my scraped ankles to my throbbing head and nose.
When I reach him, Lukas is quietly stalking around the fading portal. Only a hazy wisp of its shape remains and shimmers in the air. Lukas passes his hand through it, as if evaluating it with equal parts admiration and frustration.
“The Noi are talented with portals,” he says flatly, his lips taking on a rigid line.
He takes a deep, resigned breath, sheathes his wand, then pulls another wand out from under his tunic.
A wand that’s marked with glowing Noi runes.
Lukas lifts this wand and murmurs a new spell at the misty portal. It promptly explodes into finer mist, then disappears.
For a moment, we both stand there, looking at the place where the portal once was.
“Couldn’t you have used it?” I finally ask, since he’s clearly no stranger to combining magical systems.
“No,” he replies with a shake of his head. “There was no opening this portal. It’s beyond me, anyway. The Vu Trin have a firm lock on portal magic. Well done, really.”
In a rattled daze, I look down
at the singed ground, at the marks the horses’ hooves gouged out of the soil, the line of tracks coming straight from our destroyed carriage to where the portal once stood, where the hoof marks abruptly disappear.
“Elloren,” Lukas says, his voice all tight control.
I look up, my stomach clenching at the unmistakable edge to his tone.
His eyes are fixed hard on mine. “Why was an elite assassin trying to kill you?”
I open my mouth...but nothing comes out. I’m still not sure I trust his allegiances enough to tell him the truth, and I’m unable to voice every lie that comes to mind.
He stands there waiting, as if he’s ready to wait all night if he has to.
I fidget my foot away from the back of my shoe, where I can feel a blister forming, my mind a mess, unable to form a coherent thought. “Maybe...maybe I remind her of my grandmother?” I finally manage.
Lukas considers this as his eyes continue to bore a hole into me. “Elloren,” he says again, as if desperately trying to remain civilized, “how long have you known that the Kin Hoang are targeting you?”
I hesitate, realizing how terribly foolish it was to not tell him. “A few days now.”
He looks up to the sky as if praying for composure before bringing his gaze back to mine. “Perhaps, in the future,” he says, “‘Kin Hoang assassins are after me’ could be among the very first things you say to me. Just after your initial greeting.”
I nod in rattled agreement, the side of my head still throbbing from its collision with the carriage wall.
“Is anyone else after you?” he inquires. “Assassins of any type? Anything at all?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I go silent, and Lukas’s jaw tenses as he stares me down. I can tell he knows there’s so much more that I’m not telling him.
Lukas lets out a measured sigh and rubs the bridge of his nose. Then he resheathes his rune-marked wand under his tunic and peers closely at me. “Come,” he finally says, gesturing for me to follow him back down to the road. “This is a main route. We’ll requisition the first carriage that comes along and set you up with a proper guard.”
CHAPTER NINE
PREY
ELLOREN GARDNER
Sixth Month
Valgard, Gardneria
It’s not long before a carriage comes along and I’m sitting across from an elderly Gardnerian couple, the two of them staring at me with unwavering dubious expressions during the journey back toward Valgard. Lukas is seated outside with the driver where he can keep watch, wand in hand.
As the carriage bumps along, the feeling of overwhelming shock that initially buffered my emotions gives way to a stifling terror that I won’t live to see another day.
I grip the Scarlet Elm of my seat’s edging in a desperate attempt to stop the full-body trembling that’s kicked up, my thoughts swirling in chaos. An image of the wood’s source tree unfolds in the back of my mind—red serrated leaves, deeply furrowed trunk. But the beautiful image is able to shear only a slim edge off my panic.
Before long I’m disembarking in front of a military post on the outskirts of Valgard, unsteady on my shaking legs.
The garrison is lit by torches set on long iron poles and is made up of a collection of dark structures with walls formed from Ironwood trunks, twisting branches weaving into tangled roofs. A well-guarded central tree-building lies just ahead. This building is larger than the others and has the distinction of Gardneria’s flag raised atop it, flapping in the evening’s warm breeze.
Lukas strides to this central building, his tall form illuminated by the torches’ wavering amber glow as he launches into conversation with a hard-eyed Level Five Mage who has come out to meet us, his uniform bearing the markings of a post captain.
The captain nods grimly as Lukas describes a significantly altered version of what transpired. In this new version, the Kin Hoang sorceress brutally killed our carriage driver and the horses, then attacked Lukas. Quickly realizing she was seriously outmatched, the sorceress turned and fled through a runic portal. Just before escaping, she threatened not only to come back for Lukas, but to come after me, his fasted partner.
Lukas tells the story smoothly, and it’s accepted without question with grave nods and growled murmurs. I’m both relieved and alarmed by the fact that Lukas can lie so well to others.
The captain turns toward a sentry and barks out a list of soldiers’ names. The sentry strides purposefully away. He soon returns flanked by a small contingent of young Mages, severe-featured Thierren among them.
Thierren’s gaze catches mine for a moment, a flash of caution in the look that roils my emotions even more.
Most of the young soldiers nod with solemn deference as Lukas gives firm orders. Thierren simply listens, his face now impassive until I see him exchange a private, blazingly intense look with Lukas.
I ponder the exact nature of Lukas and Thierren’s obvious alliance as I wait nearby in the night’s shadows, sleeves pulled low to hide my bruised forearms, no longer able to hear all of what Lukas is saying over the clatter of our rescuers’ carriage leaving and a new one arriving along with more soldiers on horseback. Six more soldiers emerge from the command structure, two of them wearing black cloaks bearing the five silver stripes of the magical elite.
They all make their way straight to Lukas with a determined cadence.
A young, expressionless soldier presents himself before me, momentarily cutting off my view of Lukas.
“Your carriage, Mage Gardner,” he directs, hard insistence in his tone as he motions for me to follow him to the newly arrived carriage.
I hesitate, my heart picking up speed as I look to Lukas to make sure stepping into that carriage won’t put me in more danger.
Lukas briefly meets my gaze and nods toward the carriage, his message clear.
Yes. Get in.
Capitulating, I incline my head and trail the young soldier, hoping the shadows of the night will hide the bruise pulsating between my eyes. Glancing up, I notice the new carriage is not being driven by a civilian but by two additional soldiers, and it bears the crest of the Mage Guard.
As I’m ushered to the carriage door’s threshold, even more soldiers arrive on horseback. Panic builds as I worry that I’m teetering precariously on the line between guarded aristocracy and military prisoner.
Do these soldiers suspect what I am? Where are they going to take me? Is Lukas completely in control of this situation?
I climb in and sit on a velvet-cushioned seat, tensing at the sound of the door clicking shut as I clench and unclench my trembling hands in a futile effort to calm myself.
I flinch as the door abruptly reopens.
Lukas swings inside and sits down on the opposite seat. Then he shuts the door and levels his gaze at me.
My breath grows shallow. “Aren’t you going to ride out there?” I ask, gesturing toward the front of the carriage. “To guard us?”
“No,” he says, an edge of challenge in his expression. “We need to talk.”
The carriage lurches forward, and we’re quickly engulfed by soldiers on horseback. Thierren and the two black-cloaked Level Five Mages are among them, coming in and out of view through the carriage’s side windows.
“Are we still going back to your family’s estate?” I ask, my voice tight with nerves.
Lukas tilts his head and takes in my guarded demeanor. “We are.” He fixes me with a look that reads, Why? Should we be going somewhere else? Then he reaches over and jerks first one window curtain shut, then the other.
I swallow.
Lukas sits back, his stare coldly serious, one hand loosely fingering the hilt of his sheathed wand. “Your nose,” he says, pointing to the bridge of his own, “it has a bruise on it.”
I reach up to touch it. It’s sore, but not as sore as the rest of me.
“Tell me again w
hy the Vu Trin’s most elite band of assassins want to kill you,” he presses.
I stare at him, my mind falling into a panicked whirl as my lips part, the world-altering truth readying itself. But I hesitate as I remember again Ni Vin’s stark warning.
Lukas seems to be an enemy of Marcus Vogel, that much is clear, and I believe him to be my friend and ally. But he also seems entrenched in the Gardnerian military.
Entrenched in being a Gardnerian.
And I won’t be drawn in as a weapon for a faction of the Gardnerian army with questionable motives.
I’ll fight for the Resistance and the Resistance alone.
Stalling, I let my head fall into my hands and rub my eyes and then the bruised side of my head, wanting a magicked portal of my own leading right to my brothers. “I hit my head really hard, Lukas,” I bemoan, heart racing, desperate to divert his attention until I can learn more about where he stands. I peek up to see if I’ve roused his sympathy.
Lukas seems unmoved, his eyes narrowed on me.
I fidget and drop my hands to clutch the edge of my seat, feeling like an ant caught under the point of a stick. My fingers instinctively find the wood along the edge of my seat, just under the black velvet cushion. I restlessly scratch at it.
Lacebark Pine.
Soft and flimsy. And cheap. The whole carriage is cheaply made, nothing at all like Lukas’s family’s fine carriage with its even finer wood. Little pieces of the friable pine find their way beneath my nails.
Delicious and porous. Airy as a spring breeze and full of tiny places to fill with magic.
Small sparks of invisible magic flare under my nails, up my arm, cutting through my fear and grief, the feel of it like sparkling sunlight on water, inviting the power into my hands, my fingers, and straight through my lines. My nervous trembling smooths out, the throbbing all over my body cut in half as fire and earth magic sizzle through me. I bite the side of my mouth and flex my fingers, attempting to hide the effect the wood is having on me, feeling as exposed as if I had ten wands sticking out from under my nails.
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