Our eyes meet, and an intense flash of recognition passes between us. Fright explodes through me and sets every hair on my body rigid.
The tall Council envoy. From last night.
And his eyes are glowing red.
I blanch and grip at the edge of the carriage bench. He loses his smile, drops the apple and starts for the carriage just as it lurches forward at a fast clip. I rapidly lose sight of him in the crowds, but a wave of nausea sweeps through me nonetheless, along with a rancid fear. He knows I have the Wand. And now he’s going to kill us all.
“Sage, are you quite all right?”
I whip my head toward Mother Eliss.
“What’s the matter, Sagellyn?” Father asks, a note of confusion in his tone.
We have to get out of this carriage. They’re coming for us. I can feel it in my bones. I can feel it in the Wand that has begun a low, unsettling vibration against my thigh. Don’t look them in the eye. Terror mounts as I remember Gwynnifer’s warning too late.
“I... I’m going to be sick,” I tell my parents with desperate urgency. “I have to get out! Now!”
I’ve never been this strident with my parents before, and it seems to momentarily stun them into taking me seriously. Father pulls the cord, and the transit carriage soon comes to a stop at the next carriage station.
I burst out of the carriage on shaking legs, my eyes darting from side to side like a hunted animal. The carriage station is a crowded bustle of activity, with knots of Gardnerian families and friends chatting amiably. Urisk women with bent backs and pale rose coloring sweep away the horse refuse, their eyes downcast.
Panicked, I grasp Mother Eliss’s hand and drag her into the station. Bald terror races through me as I position myself at the edge of an arching, diamond-paned window, mostly hidden from sight.
I peer through the glass.
They’re not there. Not on the road. Not in the crowd.
I clutch the wand through the fabric of my cloak’s inside pocket, and my dizziness starts to abate. It can’t be real, I desperately try to reason with myself. I can’t have the actual White Wand. I can’t truly have demons after me....
I watch as the carriage we were in fills with a new set of passengers. No demons in sight. No explosions of flame. Nothing.
I breathe a long, jagged sigh of relief.
Mother Eliss briefly walks away, then returns with a glass of water, her face tense. I slump down, chastened by her expression. Father is talking to the schedule master, fists on his hips as he arranges for another carriage.
“There now,” Mother Eliss says, handing me the cool glass. I press it against my temple, my heartbeat throbbing against it and quickly morphing into a pounding headache.
“You’ve got yourself all worked up.” She purses her lips. “You spent far too much time around Gwynnifer Croft—she’s too fanciful, that girl.” Mother Eliss crosses her arms in front of her chest and shakes her head, then strides over to join my father.
Feeling small and scared and foolish all at the same time, I turn back toward the carriage we were just in. My lungs constrict.
The two envoys have pulled up behind the carriage on horseback.
I recoil back from the window, my heartbeat slamming against my chest as I watch the envoys out of the corner of my eye, a mere sliver of my face pressed against the glass, my breath fogging one of the diamond panes.
The carriage pulls away from the station, and the envoys follow. It soon turns right at a fork in the road, and the envoys turn right along with it.
I stay glued to the window, a spiral of fear twisting inside me. I strain to keep the carriage in sight as long as I can, until both the carriage and the envoys who doggedly trail it are out of sight.
Then I turn and retch all over the floor.
Shocked murmurs go up as Mother Eliss rushes toward me. Father’s face tightens with revulsion, but I don’t care. All I can think about is the Wand hidden inside my cloak.
And the darkness that’s closing in around it.
Chapter 8: The Wand
After our return to isolated Halfix, I read all of Gwynnifer’s journals.
I commit every runic system to memory and carve protective wards into stones that I bury all over the property and place under floorboards, over arches. Anywhere I can get away with hiding them.
I carry The Book of the Ancients everywhere I go, reading it every day and resolving to follow its every stricture, repeating prayers over and over like talisman.
Mother Eliss takes note of my new, fervent devotion on the heels of my fasting.
“’Twas a blessing, that fasting spell,” she tells Father one night. “It brought the Ancient One’s light down on that child. She’s filled with grace.”
But it’s not grace. It’s fear.
Please, Ancient One, help me.
I pray and read from our holy book and wait for direction. I wait for a sign on the rays of the sun, in the shape of the clouds. In my dreams.
When Galliana had the Wand, I agonize, how did she know what it wanted her to do?
The years pass by, each day ordered and ordinary. The seasons turn. The crops grow, then are threshed, and then the fields are barren. I channel my light affinity into becoming an accomplished weaver, using only the allowed colors and designs, as my little sisters and baby brothers grow taller every year.
But the White Wand remains silent as stone.
There are no demons. No feelings of magic coursing through the Wand. No heroic or disturbing dreams. No signs. And my light affinity lines don’t even faintly glimmer anymore when I hold the Wand tight in my hand.
Sometimes I feel like it’s oddly quiet.
As if it’s waiting for something.
By the time I turn sixteen, new thoughts creep in that Gwynnifer mirrors in her letters to me. We must have imagined all of it. We were so caught up in the bustle and excitement of Valgard, caught up in the thrill of being fasted. Caught up in Gwynnifer’s imaginings.
I go over the details again and again in my mind. The vibrant red sunrise. Its reflection in the young man’s eyes seeming demonic. The envoy appearing to spot me and take off in pursuit of our carriage. All of it, the work of our overactive imaginations, combined with lack of sleep after a momentous day. And it was pure coincidence that those envoys were riding out on the carriage’s tail that morning.
Two more years pass, and the wand does nothing to refute these new thoughts. It doesn’t whisper messages deep inside my mind. It’s just dead wood.
Silent and empty as a child’s toy.
Part Two
Present Day
Chapter 1: University
I’m seated at a table for two, right up against the hip-level wrought-iron fence that encloses the Ironflower Inn’s luxurious property. Birds warble in the Ironwood trees that surround me, the sky a sharp, dazzling blue that’s almost too vivid to take in. The first shafts of early morning sunlight filter through the trees and softly illuminate the patio of black and green polished stones, cut to form a pattern of interlocking blessing stars.
“Sage?”
I turn at the sound of the feminine voice to find a young woman with large, owlish eyes approaching me, seamlessly weaving around the inn’s outdoor dining tables. Her posture is so gracefully erect it’s like she’s floating toward me, a subtle smile on her delicate lips.
My heart leaps in my chest. “Gwynnie!” I eagerly get up and embrace the friend who’s been my faithful correspondent for five whole years, though we haven’t seen each other since our wandfasting.
Joy beats inside me like wings, and happy tears form in my eyes as Gwynn hugs me and laughs with disbelieving elation, our stiff silks sliding against each other. Both of us are dressed as sumptuously as our sect allows, our solid black tunics and skirts of the finest silk and perfectly pressed, glistening w
here the sunlight touches down on them.
Gwynn pulls back, beaming, and I marvel at how she’s changed. A subtle shifting of her small, foxlike features has transformed her from a spookily waiflike girl into a delicate beauty, and she’s grown almost a head taller. But her wavy, flyaway black hair forms the same chaotic cloud, and I’m oddly charmed by this. I haven’t seen her in so long, but in some ways, it feels like we’ve never parted. We’ve been writing to each other almost every week for such a long time, Gwynn sending me not only letters, but volume upon volume of her fanciful stories.
“When did you get into Verpax?” She smiles serenely, arranging her skirts neatly and folding her small hands on the table as we both sit down, leaning forward with eager attention.
“Just last night,” I say, brimming with excitement. “Oh, Gwynn. I’m so happy to be here.”
It took my family and me a full week to get to Verpax University from remote Halfix, and my face was glued to the carriage window as we rode into the city late last night. Even as exhausted as I was, the sight of the pale Spine-stone buildings of the University city captivated me, with their clean lines, ivory-white turrets, huge domes and crisscrossing overhead walkways, so different from Gardnerian architecture.
It was fully dark when we finally reached the Ironflower Inn, an inn only for Gardnerians. I’d stepped down from the carriage, trailed by my sleepy sisters, practically quivering with travel fatigue and a jangling anticipation as Mother Eliss guided my twin brothers down the tree-lined path.
It had been a comfort to find an inn fashioned in the comfortingly familiar Gardnerian style, built from dark wood with an overflowing roof garden and surrounded by a grove of Ironwood trees in full bloom. We had followed the amiable innkeeper, Mage Edyth Gyll, down a path toward the inn’s entrance as the sapphire glow of the Ironflower blossoms pulsed down my affinity lines and suffused me with an exhilarating euphoria.
Finally. Eighteen years old, and here in Verpacia. My life about to take wing.
“Some tea, Mages?”
Pulled from my recollection, I smile and nod up at Mage Gyll. I’m graced with a warm smile in return as she pours steaming tea from a lovely black porcelain teapot decorated with the inn’s signature Ironflower motif.
It’s a heady feeling to be having breakfast with Gwynn in such a beautiful place, like we’re grown-up Mages. I’ve suddenly been granted more freedom than I’ve ever had before, a whole new world about to open up before me. In a matter of days, I’ll be a newly minted University scholar, ready to start my apprenticeship with Gardneria’s premier textile artisan and down the path to become a master weaver.
And I’ll finally be sealed to Tobias, just as Gwynn will be sealed to Geoffrey, in only a few days’ time.
I glance down at my fastmarked hands, both excited and incredibly nervous to become Sagellyn Vasillis forevermore. Just the thought sets heat pricking at my cheeks and neck. Our sealing has to be consummated that very night, and the consummation will cause our fastlines to magically flow down our wrists—proof of our union for all the world to see. But Tobias and I have never even talked. Or held hands. Or kissed. And I’ll be expected to...
My cheeks sting hot, and I can’t even finish the thought.
Mage Gyll sets a plate of currant scones on our table, along with a smaller plate of butter pats molded into Ironflowers. The scones’ toasty scent wafts toward me on the cool morning air and lifts the edge off of my apprehension.
“Have you...seen Tobias yet?” Gwynn asks as I take a warm scone and some butter. Her hesitant tone prompts me to look up, and I’m surprised to find her smile gone as she stares at me with the owl-eyed, unblinking look that I remember so well.
A nervous tremor ripples through me. “Tonight,” I say. “We’re having dinner with Tobias and his family. Here.” I get that familiar stomach-tightening, anxious thrill I always have when I say Tobias’s name. “I’m so nervous, Gwynn. I haven’t seen him since the fasting.” I trace the Ironflower pattern on my teacup’s saucer with the tip of my finger. “I’m... I’m hoping he’ll like me.” It’s not even half of what I truly mean, but I know, from the look in Gwynn’s eyes, that she understands. I’ve thought about him every day since our fasting—beautiful, confident, powerful Tobias. I’ve dreamed about him, worked out elaborate romantic fantasies. I wonder if he’s done the same while we’ve been apart, the two of us forbidden any contact in the strictest tradition of our sect. Mother Eliss, to my great chagrin, hasn’t even permitted any letters.
Gwynn gently places her hand on my arm, her delicate face kind and earnest. “He’s sure to be entranced by you.”
My flush deepens. “Do you think so?”
She nods emphatically. “You’re quite lovely. And it’s meant to be.” Gwynn gives me an encouraging smile.
I lean in toward her, whispering now. “Aren’t you nervous?” I remember skinny, small Geoffrey, swinging from a tree. He was pleasant, to be sure, but she must be just as anxious about all this as I am.
Gwynn blushes, looking around to make sure no one can hear, and gives a small laugh. “A little.”
A tall young man in a dark gray Gardnerian military apprentice uniform appears just beyond the iron fence, as if out of nowhere, and I give a start. He leans over the fence and playfully slaps his hands down onto the table near Gwynn. “Found you,” he cheerfully announces, his smile wide and bright, his eyes latched onto Gwynn.
Gwynn’s face lights up with delight. “Geoffrey!”
I gape at him. Geoffrey?
I study him, wide-eyed, as Gwynn springs up and they embrace over the fence. For a moment, it’s as if I’ve disappeared into smoke, the two of them are so wrapped up in each other. I self-consciously grip my teacup as Geoffrey excitedly tells Gwynn about his trip here from Valgard and the family members who’ve arrived for their sealing. As they blissfully float in their happy bubble, I search for something of the Geoffrey I remember, and can make it out in his overabundance of energy, in the ears that stick out from his tousled black hair. He’s a long beanpole of a young man, no longer the short, skinny boy he used to be. And...he’s quite attractive.
And they’re in love with each other, I realize, with equal parts surprise and amusement—and some envy.
They’ve had so much time together, whereas I’ve had exactly none with Tobias.
“We’re ignoring Sage,” Gwynn lightly chastises her fastmate.
Geoffrey looks over and blinks, as if noticing me for the first time. He grins at me, his smile as wide and welcoming as I remember it. “Hullo, Sage. It’s been quite a while.”
I let out a small, awkward laugh at this understatement, cupping the warm tea in my hands. All of us are so completely altered.
“It’s nice to see you again, Geoffrey,” I tell him, and he rewards me with another beaming smile.
At Gwynn’s prodding, Geoffrey deftly leaps over the fence, pulls a chair over and joins us, straddling his chair backward.
“Remember that game you played with us?” Geoffrey teasingly asks Gwynn, bumping her shoulder with his. “With the toy wand? You had us convinced it was the White Wand and that there were demons about to eat us whole.”
Gwynn brings her hand to her eyes, a slight smile of embarrassment on her lips. “Geoffie, stop...”
Geoffie?
Geoffrey laughs as he gently takes Gwynn’s hand in his and plants an affectionate kiss on her palm. They share a heat-filled, private glance, then turn to me, both of them smiling widely, their besotted happiness on full display, and I marvel at how free they’ve been allowed to be with each other.
Warmth prickles along the back of my neck. They know things, I realize with daunting certainty. They’ve probably kissed. Quite a bit. And possibly more than that. Questions burn in me that I long to ask Gwynn. Questions about men and the sealing night.
“Do you still have the legendary White Wand?
” Geoffrey asks me, his voice low with drama, his teasing as good-natured as it was when we were younger.
“I might,” I tease him back, emboldened by his friendly nature. I eye him archly. “Do you still think kissing’s gross?” I’m immediately aghast by my bold outburst, my face warming. Gwynn’s eyes have gone even wider than usual.
Color lights Geoffrey’s cheeks. “Um...no.” He shoots Gwynn a bashful smile, then seems to laugh at his own embarrassment, his face brightening. “We rather like it now.” Gwynn eyes him, like she can’t believe for all the world he just said that. He laughs again then lifts her hand and plants a row of kisses along her knuckles as Gwynn loses her mortified expression and giggles, batting him away. Now they’re looking at each other like they’ve both won the biggest prize in all of Erthia, and I’m both so happy for them and incredibly dismayed all at the same time.
How in the world will I possibly be this free and easy with Tobias?
Mage Gyll arrives with stacked platters of breakfast offerings, the heavenly scent of the hearty food prompting my stomach to rumble—a buttery gold mushroom frittata, crisped sausages, herbed red potatoes, and ham sliced paper-thin, edged with a brown sugar glaze.
“Mage Geoffrey Sykes.” Mage Gyll beams, a delighted sparkle in her eyes. Geoffrey rises and gives her a formal embrace, kissing her on both cheeks. “Sit down with your lovely fastmate,” she tells him, gesturing toward the food. She shoots him a look of affectionate censure. “And sit with the chair the right way around, like a civilized human being.”
Geoffrey grins and ceremoniously positions the chair facing the right way as Mage Gyll purses her lips at him, her eyes twinkling with amusement. He sits back down and she pours him some tea. I savor the rich, delicious food as Geoffrey regales us with his adventures as an apprentice cartwright with the Gardnerian military, and Mage Gyll asks about what seems like every single member of Geoffrey’s apparently endless extended family, the two of them obviously well acquainted with each other.
Light Mage (The Black Witch Chronicles) Page 6
