The Shadow Wand

by Laurie Forest

  My hand trembles as I give Lukas a bedroll and pillow, acutely aware of the smoldering look he’s giving me and how hot his fire’s running.

  Lukas sets down his bedroll by a wall and rolls it out in one smooth motion, then languidly sits down on it, looking relaxed as he watches me.

  I set up my own bedding near the opposite wall, a few handspans away from him, and lie down on it, growing ever more flustered by how intensely Lukas’s fire is reaching for mine.

  Lukas smirks at me. “Keeping a polite distance?”

  I swallow, unsettled by my awareness of his maleness and how gorgeous his emerald-dusted body looks in the soft blue light. I can barely hold my fire and earth power back from his insistent draw.

  I watch as Lukas removes the rune blades strapped under his pant legs and places his two wands beside his pillow, then lies down and turns his head toward me, his gaze steady, his fire beckoning as I stare into his eyes.

  Regaining some control over his power, Lukas sends out one tendril of his fire, slow and teasing. Caressing me, but in a deeper way than usual. Stroking. Long and slow. I glance uneasily toward the curtained door, heat prickling to life on my cheeks, along my neck.

  Then he pulls back, smiling, as if he’s waiting for me.

  We’re both quiet for a protracted moment, the stillness broken only by the deepening rise and fall of my chest as tension sizzles in the air between us.

  Feeling reckless, I throw out my own line of fire.

  Lukas smiles as he catches my line and pulls it in. Then he sends out an answering rush of magic, teasing it down my lines, his magic now caressing every part of me quite wantonly as I struggle to keep my breathing even.

  I lie there, every part of me pulsing with heat, the pleasure radiating until it’s low inside me. Both of us are breathing deeply as his earth magery flows into me and mine into him, branches curling and twining. I throw out another slim line of my fire, then send a harder blaze along it, searing it into his entire body. Lukas gives me a deeply carnal look, then flows a cascading blaze of fire out to me, his magic torching through my lines.

  We lie there for some time, our fire and earth magic caressing every part of each other with increasingly brazen intimacy as Lukas shudders and looks at me with a desire so fierce that I know it will override any concerns about other people just down the hallway.

  He holds his hand out to me with firm insistence. “Come here.”

  There’s nothing gentle in the request. There’s a demand in it, fueled by overwhelming want that’s both wildly enticing and intimidating all at the same time.

  I glance toward the rune-curtained doorway. “Lukas, no. They’ll hear...”

  He half smiles, desire swimming in his gaze as he keeps his hand extended toward me. “Then let’s go somewhere else.” Again, there’s a command in it. A rough edge to this desire of his.

  “You’re hurt,” I remind him, dazed from the desire he’s sparking in me.

  “My shoulder’s a bit sore still,” he says, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “The rest of me isn’t.”

  For a moment I want to be reckless. To throw myself into his overwhelming passion and let him take me any way he wants. As if sensing my hesitation, Lukas reaches out more insistently, losing all vestiges of amusement. But he’s too intense and affected by the tirag and too full of a domineering want at the moment. I don’t take his hand.

  His expression tenses with frustration, and he balls his outstretched hand into a fist and withdraws it, breathing deeply. A torrent of his fire rushes through my lines, and when I meet Lukas’s gaze, there’s a hunger in it so intense that it stuns me.

  Lukas’s voice is low and impassioned when it comes. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.”

  I know he’s not just talking about this moment. He’s not just talking about wanting to take me, right now. He’s saying something of far greater significance.

  Moved by his open display of both his feelings and his desire, I lift my hand, ever aware of the lines that mark me just under the glamour. “We’re fasted. You have me.”

  His fire gives a harsh flare as he finally looks away. “No, Elloren,” he says, a different pain clear in his tone. “I don’t.” He stares at the ceiling, his torrent of fire wrenched away, only the slight chill of the cave remaining as a pang of grief spears through me.

  Because I know it’s true. I’ve grown to care for Lukas. A great deal in a short amount of time. In so many ways. And I gave myself to him last night with no reservations, surrendering to our fierce attraction and my longing to fall into our perfect affinity match. Yearning to let go of the shard of grief that’s lodged so deep and love him back fully.

  Because even though Lukas won’t profess his love, I can read it in his fire. Staggering in its strength, blazingly ardent and unfractured.

  But I can give him only a small piece of my heart in return because the rest of it is shattered over my loss of Yvan and might always be. And I know he can sense that truth too.

  I lie there for a long time, lost in conflict and guilt and horrific imaginings of Vogel’s pale green eye staring down at us all, until finally, my eyes fall shut and a dreamless sleep takes hold.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DESERT TREES

  ELLOREN GREY

  Sixth Month

  Northwestern Agolith Desert

  I bolt awake, momentarily disoriented when I find myself alone in a cave. My mind rapidly catches up as I take in Chi Nam’s meditation altar, the small statue of the Dragon Goddess Vo, the Noi military garb that’s folded beside me, and the black leather weapons belt set atop it.

  And Lukas’s neatly rolled-up bedding.

  I glance down at my blood-speckled Elfhollen garb. My storm-gray skin.

  Everything rushes back in—a world descending into war, the scorpio attack, Vogel’s terrible thrall, our escape through a portal. Lukas’s passionate words and unchecked fire.

  My inability to return his feelings wholly.

  I get up, feeling Lukas’s absence keenly as the desire to find him rouses in my emotions and in my tumultuous, unshielded lines.

  I catch my reflection in the silver meditation bell that hangs from the wall and give a small start at my vastly altered appearance. I look like a living storm, my pale gray hair wildly mussed, silver eyes and lashes glimmering, my skin the color of thunderheads, my lips a deeper gray.

  And my ears as curved as twin sickle moons.

  I throw off my Elfhollen garb and put on the black Noi uniform, my boots and weapons belt, then dare to touch the Wand’s surface with my wand hand, the feel of its spiraling handle refusing to prompt any flare of power in me. Thrown by the Wand of Myth’s quixotic nature, I slide it into its belt sheath, then glance down at the sapphire military runes that mark my uniform’s edging and pause, a sense of the momentous overtaking me.

  The time to be a soldier has come.

  To face my destiny full on.

  Today.

  Today I will wield my magic.

  Emboldened by the threat of Vogel closing in on both me and the wider world, I fold up my bedding, then stride through the narrow stone hallway and through Chi Nam’s bedroom, down more hallways, and into the Vonor’s main living space.

  The passageway to the outdoors reveals a spot of purple-edged predawn sky, the sound of Lukas’s deep voice speaking Noi filtering in.

  I look through the doorway and find Lukas sitting with Chi Nam and Valasca around a low circular table they must have dragged onto the ledge, a rune lamp in the table’s center. The lit firepit beside them crackles with bright red flame. The air is cool, the sky half-tinted a dreamy dark purple that stands out in stunning contrast to the fading crimson stars.

  I take in Lukas’s unbelted Vu Trin tunic, his chest, abdomen, and palms newly marked with multiple glowing sapphire Noi runes and a few
scarlet Amaz. He’s poring over a thick text marked with runic diagrams, deep in conversation with Valasca, as they point at pages from several more texts splayed open on the table before them. Chi Nam quietly listens to them as she sips a steaming mug of tea, her rune staff propped against the rocky outgrowth beside her and glowing with a wider variety of runes than it was last night—emerald Smaragdalfar, scarlet Amaz, and golden Ishkart runes mixed in with the sapphire Noi.

  Multiple wands hewn from a variety of wood are strewn among the texts, a glimmer of magic racing through my lines as my fingers itch to touch them.

  Lukas looks up, obviously sensing my roused fire, and meets my eyes.

  His black hair is spiked from washing, his distractingly muscular chest almost completely healed, only a slim red scar slashed horizontally across it. My fireline gives a reflexive flare toward his.

  A flash of searing intensity passes between us, his own fire rearing then immediately wrenched back and forced to heel.

  I feel the sharp sting of his guarded behavior as I step outside, flustered by my new knowledge of how strongly Lukas feels for me. And saddened to know the reason he’s closing himself off.

  But none of this matters compared to what we’re all faced with, and I know that Lukas and I will have to set our complicated emotions aside and focus on the coming fight.

  “I’m ready,” I tell them as I hold Lukas’s intense gaze. “Teach me how to use a wand.”

  * * *

  “Relax your grip.” Lukas’s deep voice is soft in my ear as he traces a slow line down the thumb I have pressed against the wand. “You’re not trying to crush it. Pretend it’s a violin bow.”

  My firelines shiver toward his, unrestrained, as Lukas’s arm slides around my waist, pulling me closer, his pianist fingers curling around my wand hand. His sinuous movements spark a tingling warmth that’s rippling through me in slow strokes, and I struggle to keep my focus.

  He’s so close, his rigidly contained power only a fraction away from mine. And he’s left his shield off my lines, which only makes it harder to resist being consumed by his draw.

  I know he feels it too, his skin as feverishly hot as mine.

  I loosen my fingers under Lukas’s caressing grip as I prepare to let him send his magic through me in a demonstration of control over the candle-lighting spell.

  Brow tensed, I set my eyes on the predawn desert before us as magic shivers along my heels and shudders up through my lines as it reaches for the wood.

  Red Manzanita, Lukas informed me when he handed me this wand. Wood harvested from the bloodred trees that dot the edge of the sands stretched out before us, the trees’ thick oval leaves a vivid plum that burns bright against dawn’s gentle glow. Beside the sparse Manzanita grove stand three Striped Baobab trees with dark, ballooning, water-filled trunks. And to our other side, Black Date trees twist under one of the desert’s multitude of arcing crimson-stone formations, a few Golden Yucca trees thrown into their mix. Knots of what appear to be dead, desiccated trees are interspersed throughout.

  They’re so silent and still, all of the living trees. No trace of hostility in the air.

  A chill snakes up my spine.

  Because I can sense them watching.

  “A wand is like an instrument,” Lukas says, ignoring our strong affinity draw, “and the magic is the music.”

  I glance at him askance over my shoulder. “Music that can level cities.”

  Lukas’s mouth tilts up. “Even so. You’re a musician. This is something you can intuitively understand.”

  Determined to focus past Lukas’s seductive pull, I squint at the landscape. The dawn sun is tinting the arches of crimson stone with a soft blush of rose as it breaks free of the dark storm band.

  Silver lightning crackles through the murky horizon of storm.

  “I’m ready,” I say, nerves spiking.

  “Good,” Lukas says, his voice a low thrall that threatens to scatter my magical focus into oblivion. “Now, sound the candle-lighting spell.”

  Surprise flashes through me, sharp as a blade.

  I round on him as I vehemently shake my head. “You said you were going to send your own magic through my hand,” I insist. “I can’t release my power. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll control it,” he calmly returns.

  “No, Lukas.” I step out of his arms and turn to face him fully as I slash the air with my free hand. “If you want me to do this, every one of you needs to get far away from me and shield yourselves.”

  Lukas gives me a cynical look. “Elloren, you used an actual wand for that testing. You’re holding a single layer wand carved from a branch. Besides...” He drops his voice and gives me a poignant look. “...I have a pretty good working knowledge of your power.”

  I shake my head, unmoved, remembering the river of fire. My river of fire. “No,” I emphatically protest. “You don’t know, Lukas.”

  Chi Nam cuts in from where she and Valasca are watching. “She’s right. If you’re going to have her use her own magic, you need to step back, and we’ll form a combined shield. I’ve witnessed what she can do.”

  “Apparently, she makes her grandmother look like a baby Dryad playing with sticks,” Valasca crows. “I’d take care if I were you.” She mock toasts me with her water flask, smiling broadly.

  Lukas eyes Valasca appraisingly. Then he gives me the trace of a humoring smile, turns, and strides to where Chi Nam is leaning on her rune staff and Valasca is perched atop a red boulder that lies at the base of a huge stone arch. Valasca’s mouth is set in its usual rakish half smile, anticipation narrowing her sharp eyes.

  Chi Nam taps her staff, and an aqueous blue haze flies out to envelop all three of them. Then Lukas draws his wand, murmurs a spell, and sends dark lightning forking through Chi Nam’s shield. Valasca pulls out her rune blade and idly touches it to the shield, and the entire thing, including the sparking lightning, turns Amaz crimson.

  Lukas leans against Valasca’s boulder with his usual casual grace, his eyes trained on me.

  “Are you sure you’re well shielded?” I shrilly ask Chi Nam, remembering how much longer it took the Vu Trin to shield themselves properly against the devastating onslaught of my magic.

  Chi Nam leans into her staff and nods. “There’s much more power at work here between the three of us.”

  I swallow hard and turn again toward the vast stretch of crimson desert before me, heat gaining ground as the sun rises farther from the horizon’s storm band.

  Battling back my intense trepidation, I grit my teeth, raise the branch, and begin to speak the candle-lighting spell.

  Power starts its whooshing rumble up from the ground beneath my feet, then branches through my legs in a tingling rush, like a fast-moving current.

  Then all of the power streams toward my wand hand like an arrow shot from a crossbow then whips backward.

  My power gives a hard flare, my eyes widening as my affinity lines cinch painfully inward with a brutal force that drives the breath from my lungs. My lines contract more intensely, and I double over, forced to my knees and onto the sandy ground as if yanked there by a savagely coordinated attack. And I can feel where the multiple points of cruel tension are originating from.

  The desert trees.

  I gasp for air, immobilized by my own lines as Lukas distantly calls my name and the power continues to ricochet backward from my wand hand, flying right into the affinity lines balled up in my center. Unbearable heat flares deep inside me, then gives a sudden, violent burst outward, and the world explodes into flames.

  I cry out to Lukas as fire cuts off my vision and scalds through me. The whole world enveloped in fire.

  I can hear Lukas yelling an incoherent spell through the inferno’s fierce roar as a punishing wind lashes against me, knocking me onto my side and rapidly snuffing out the conflagration, a choking bl
ack smoke rising into the heated air.

  Lukas rushes in through the smoke, drops down to his knees, and grabs hold of me. Chi Nam and Valasca are tight on his heels, their shield dropped, as Lukas flicks his wand and snarls out urgent spells, clearing the rest of the smoke away with a spiraling rush of wind.

  “Elloren,” he says with ferocious urgency, more rattled than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes blazing as I cough and gasp for breath.

  Wildly alarmed, I look around frantically.

  The landscape is unharmed. Lukas and Chi Nam and Valasca are unharmed. And they’re all gaping at me in obvious shock.

  “What happened?” I ask breathlessly, my voice rough from the rising smoke. “There was fire everywhere...”

  “You burst into flames,” Valasca explains. “A lot of flames.”

  “You exploded,” Chi Nam says.

  My gaze flits toward the trees as I’m swept into a terrible certainty.

  “The trees did this,” I tell them, outrage kindling as a deeper realization takes root. “They mapped my lines. They’ve been mapping them for weeks and finally got a clear view of them. They forced the flow of my power inward, away from my wand hand. Then they waited for the right moment and attacked.”

  I meet Lukas’s eyes, a terrible comprehension passing between us.

  Lukas’s jaw tenses as he turns and narrows his gaze at the trees, then looks back to me, seeming rattled. “Are you saying that they’ve completely infiltrated your lines?”

  My outrage explodes. “I’m saying that they tried to murder me! The only reason I’m alive is because...” The reason strikes home.

  Because Yvan kissed me and I’m immune to fire.

  I take a deep, shuddering breath and flex my wand hand, then meet Lukas’s gaze once more. “I survived because I have Wyvernfire in my lines and I can’t be burned.”

  A lash of invisible affinity fire flashes out from Lukas, jealous heat in it, there and gone again in a heartbeat.

  “Let me read them,” Lukas says. “Let me read your lines.”