Light Mage (The Black Witch Chronicles)

by Laurie Forest

  Warded? Somewhere in the back of my misery-choked mind, I wonder why on Erthia this Kelt would have a heavily warded bedroom.

  Ciaran looks to Wyla, their gazes welded tightly together, as if immersed in silent, fraught communication. She gestures toward my Gardnerian dress. “She needs different clothing. And I’ll need to ward her with a shyrnol.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, fear spiking.

  Ciaran turns to me, and our eyes fuse with that odd intensity again, as if we’re staring each other down and drawing each other in all at the same time. I’m swept up in the magical current of it, every color of him intensifying, his green aura momentarily reappearing. Ciaran swallows hard, looking momentarily thrown and swept up in the current as well.

  “A detection rune,” he explains, forcing the words through our sudden thrall. “If you’re not warded with one, the tracking spells will be invisible to you. You need to be able to see them to avoid touching them.”

  “Roll up your sleeve, Sagellyn,” Wyla orders as she pulls a glowing rune-stylus from a sheath on the side of her belt.

  I’m wary of their rune-sorcery, but I’m desperate to avoid going back to Tobias, so I hastily comply. Wyla grasps my wrist and brings the tip of her rune-stylus to my bare forearm. A crackling energy sparks along my skin as she draws a golden design with nimble, practiced strokes. Once finished, she draws back and I stare, mesmerized, at the glowing mark. I immediately recognize the Ishkartan runes from the grimoires that Gwynn gave me so many years ago—detection encircling search. The designs curl around each other and start a slow rotation on my arm that trails a mild sting along my skin.

  “Get her out of sight,” Wyla directs Ciaran. She nods toward the woods on the other side of the bridge. “I’ll go get some clothes for her.” Without another word, she sets off at a fast sprint across the bridge and back toward the city.

  Ciaran holds his hand out to me, an imperative force to his gaze, but there’s also kindness in his eyes, and that draws me in as powerfully as his magic. “We need to get off this bridge,” he says gently.

  I beat back the fear that’s clamoring to keep me trapped as I reach up and take his proffered hand, his grip strong and sure. He pulls me to my feet, and the two of us pause for a split second, our hands firmly clasped, a daring look passing between us as my magic gives a hard pull toward him.

  Then we rush across the bridge and make for the woods.

  Ciaran guides me down a small embankment, my smooth bootheels sliding on the soil and slick leaves. I grip his arm as I start to skid, scrambling for purchase. Ciaran immediately catches hold of me, his arm sliding around my waist as he deftly guides me to the base of the embankment. My heart thunders against my chest from a mix of fear and the strangely welcome sensation of his hand closing protectively around mine as we crouch down behind some low brush.

  I can just make out the deserted bridge and its blue lantern through the leaves and twigs. A cool, gauzy mist is rising up from the gorge, tinted a soft cerulean by the light.

  Ciaran’s grip tightens and he brings a finger to his lips, cautioning me to be quiet, his eyes full of warning. We hide down in the embankment for a while, my every sense primed, the smell of loamy, wet earth and fresh greenery heavy on the air.

  What if they find me? I agonize. I can’t go back to him. I won’t.

  I look to Ciaran, fear racing through me, desperate for reassurance. He holds my gaze and my hand with a firmness that steadies me, his long, chiseled features deeply shadowed as I cling to him. The green of his eyes abruptly flares in the darkness, and suddenly I’m falling into that verdant color again, like a tide drawn to the moon, my affinity lines lighting up and pulling toward him in a mesmerizing rush. He seems to feel it, too, this recurrent thrall between us, his gaze gone unblinkingly fervent, as if I’ve become hypnotic to him.

  “Sagellyn,” he says, sounding overwhelmed, “are you a Light Mage?”

  Dull footsteps sound on the dirt road leading to the bridge, breaking both our thrall and Ciaran’s line of thought. We both jerk slightly back from each other with a look of mutual surprise, his hand falling away from mine as we turn toward the sound.

  A figure pops into view, running across the bridge, clasping a bundle, and relief washes over me as I realize it’s Wyla. She quickly locates us and slides down our embankment, thrusting the bundle out to me. “Quick,” she says. “Put these on. We’ve got to get rid of your Crow clothes.”

  I accept the balled-up clothing and unfurl an Ishkartan tunic and pants in a variety of woven colors. It’s hard to make out the exact hues in the dim, blue light, so I take a deep breath and pull on the light affinity lines around my eyes, the colors momentarily brightening as if illuminated from within—a lush, interlocking star design of forbidden golds and purples. The bright purple sparks into the edges of my vision as everything I’ve been taught about these colors fills my mind and a sting of reluctance sweeps through me. Fae colors. Hated by the Ancient One.

  To put on this garb is to bring down the disfavor of the Ancient One. To possibly be cast out forever.

  Panicked defiance rises within me. I won’t go back. Which means I have to shed my Gardernerian blacks.

  But pants! a shrill part of me rages. How can I wear such forbidden garb?

  The Ancient One already hates me, I bitterly counter, at full-blown war with myself and everything I’ve ever been told. I’m already cast out, since I’m running from a sacred fasting. What does it matter now?

  I glance sidelong at Ciaran, wondering how I’m supposed to change with him here. As if sensing my thoughts, Ciaran turns and addresses Wyla. “I’ll stand watch.” He gives me a significant look. “With my back to you.”

  I nod stiffly, and he moves in a crouch nearer to the bridge. I’m trembling as Wyla helps me undress and quickly pull on the pants and the brightly colored tunic. Then Wyla wraps a large golden scarf around my head and lower face. She grabs up my Gardnerian clothing, rushes through the brush and onto the bridge, and hurls them over the railing.

  I watch the shadowy bundle drop into the gorge and feel momentarily light-headed as my old life is irrevocably swept away, along with my sacred black garb.

  But the wand. I reach down to find it still pushed into the side of my boot. I still have the wand. And it’s not a toy.

  Wyla returns and stoops down before me. She fishes a dark stick out of her pocket and tells me to hold still, then lines my eyes thickly with kohl, like hers. She hastily pulls my dainty Ironflower enamel earrings from my earlobes, pushes them into the dirt with her thumb and replaces them with heavy gold hoops. Last, Wyla unsheathes her rune-stylus and draws runic symbols on my cheeks.

  She sits back and studies me closely, her pale eyes narrowed. “Good,” Wyla says, nodding in satisfaction. She rises and palms the hilt of one of her blades. “Now, you follow us. Stay close.”

  I rise to my feet and we climb back up the embankment, making for the bridge, Wyla and Ciaran in the lead. Just as we reach the top, multiple thin streaks of deep green light arc through the sky from the direction of the city and stream toward us.

  Both Wyla and Ciaran skid to a halt and turn, alarm in their eyes as they launch themselves at me.

  “Get down!” Ciaran cries as they pull me roughly to the ground. Ciaran throws his long body on top of mine while Wyla drapes herself over my exposed shoulder and arm as the streaks of light curve down and explode into bursts of light when they make impact with the ground. One lands only a few handspans to my left, the light-bursts spearing out multiple rays of light.

  For a split second, I’m thrust into a wild panic. Ciaran’s breath is hot and heavy against my ear, his heartbeat insistent against mine, his body heavy. Wyla’s sharp chin juts into my shoulder, and I feel so trapped I almost launch into a crazed resistance.

  Ciaran grips my arm, his forehead pressed to my temple. “Sagellyn, stay down. We�
�re trying to protect you.”

  I draw in a frightened breath as another line of deep green light pulses over us, arcing to the earth and bursting into multiple lines that fan out over the expansive gorge and the woods surrounding it.

  “They’re tracking you,” Wyla hisses. She looks to Ciaran, savage urgency in her gaze. He pivots his forehead on mine to glance at her.

  “What happens if the light touches me?” I ask in a haunted whisper.

  Wyla’s jaw tightens. “They will know where you are.” Rebellion lights her pale eyes. “So we will not let that happen.”

  Roots dig into the back of my head, my shoulder. The side of Ciaran’s nose is brushed up against mine, his chest rising and falling with steady, strong breaths. Another spear of light courses just above us, and my lungs constrict as Ciaran’s hair is momentarily illuminated in a deep green halo.

  We wait for what feels like a long time as the lines stop streaking through the sky, our breathing dangerously loud to my ears. Slowly and carefully, both Ciaran and Wyla venture up and off of me, then rise to a crouch as I hesitantly sit up, my gut clenched tight with fear.

  Ciaran’s eyes narrow as he looks toward the city, but he motions us up with a wave of his hand and cautiously stands. “Let’s go.” He offers me his hand, then pulls me swiftly to my feet, glancing at Wyla and pointing across the bridge to the distant woods. “We’ll follow the edge of the gorge and bring her through the back.”

  I hold tight to Ciaran’s hand and look fearfully to the sky as we rush across the bridge and into the woods that abut the curving gorge. We weave around trees, moving through the forest at a fast clip, and I almost stumble on the thick roots underfoot.

  After what seems like forever, we near Verpax’s outskirts, the backs of the moonlit city buildings now visible through the trees on my right, the rushing waters and dark wildness of the gorge to my left. The late-night echoes of voices and horses can be heard just past the line of Spine-stone buildings, and the sounds send a trill of panic through me.

  We’re running back toward everything I’m trying to escape.

  My heart beats high and fast as I cling to Ciaran, and he briefly meets my gaze. He tightens his grip on me, as if he’s reading my fear and wants to soothe my mounting panic.

  We slow down as the forest constricts to a slim line of trees edging the narrowing gorge, the three of us weaving around unhitched carts, barrels and other detritus that lie along the rear of the homes and shops. I keep my head carefully down, in a surreal state as we move in the direction of the Ironflower Inn.

  Before long, we come to the back of a multidomed Spine-stone structure topped with an Ishkartan Smiths’ Guild flag that I immediately recognize as their smithery. Wyla breaks free of the shelter of the trees first. She rushes into the deserted clearing behind the smithery, looks in both directions, then waves for us to follow.

  Ciaran and I run toward the smithery’s back door as Wyla opens it, all of us swiftly slipping into its dark interior.

  There’s a metallic, ashy tang on the air, and the space holds an otherworldly, runic glow. Lines of black rune-marked discs cover a broad table, the runes etched on them glowing Snake Elf green and Ishkartan gold, casting the smithery interior in their eerie light.

  Ciaran closes the back door and bolts it. He picks up a rune-stylus from the table with the rune-stones, then pauses, shooting me a sidelong, unreadable glance. He looks to Wyla and gestures sharply with his chin toward a curtained door, the black fabric glowing with rows upon rows of emerald Snake Elf runes that are slowly rotating at different speeds and in different directions, the effect somewhat dizzying. I recognize some of the runes from Gwynn’s grimoires—barrier, invisible, strengthen.

  Wyla is looking at the rotating runes with an unnerving gravity, as if she’s reading something alarming in them.

  “Bring her in there,” Ciaran directs, hard urgency in his gaze.

  Wyla grabs hold of my arm and guides me toward the curtain. She pulls it aside, and I gasp as a narrow, closetlike room comes into view. It’s like I’ve fallen off of Erthia and into the stars.

  There are runes everywhere. Snake Elf runes that glow emerald and a few scattered Ishkartan runes that shimmer gold. The runes are worked into the deep green tapestries that line the ceiling, walls and floor, and countless green and gold circular runes float, suspended in the air, their internal designs slowly rotating in complicated patterns.

  Two narrow cots are pressed up against the tapestried walls with barely enough space to walk between them. Dark blankets woven with a golden star pattern cover both cots, and rune-weapons are scattered throughout the room, some hanging from the walls. Strewn all over one of the cots are several splayed-open journals with intricate drawings of runes on their pages, as well as what look like multiple runic grimoires and a history of the Eastern Realm.

  The shuttered window adjacent to that cot is heavily warded with runes etched into its frame, as well as a mass of small suspended runes that float all around it.

  The Ironflower Inn is right across the street, I realize, stunned by the thought. I could probably see it through that window. My whole world.

  My sisters.

  A sharp pang of heartache stabs through me. Then there’s a flash of deep green light around the shutters, and I instinctively flinch back. All the runes in the room briefly flash white, and an additional line of tiny emerald runes bursts to life around the window.

  Bootheels scuff on stone floor just beyond the curtain, and Ciaran enters the small room. His gaze immediately flies to the window, then to Wyla, and the two of them exchange a tense look of relief.

  “Well, those held well,” Wyla says tightly, giving an impressed nod to the window.

  The deep green glow suddenly pulses around the shutters once again, and I stiffen in response. Wyla and Ciaran pull me down into the space between the two cots as all the runes pulse an echoing shade of darkened green. Tendrils of shadow suddenly undulate from the runes like curling smoke, and the runes start to whir so fast that they look like solid wheels of deep green light.

  Ciaran curses and looks to Wyla. “What dark magic are these Crows mixed up in?”

  “What do you mean, ‘dark magic’?” I ask, my voice gone unsteady with a clamoring panic.

  “There’s shadow magery woven in with the tracking spell,” Ciaran tells me. He points at the runes surrounding the window, which are spitting out silvered black smoke. “That dark smoke. Shadow sorcery is the only thing that does that to wards.”

  I remember the stories Gwynn used to tell of demons with horns made of spiraling shadow, and a hard chill snakes up my spine.

  Wyla stares at Ciaran for a long moment, green light pulsing over both their faces. When her voice comes, it’s riddled with an anxious dread. “Will the wards hold?”

  “They will hold,” Ciaran grinds out. There’s a faint edge of an accent to his voice that wasn’t there before. A deepening of the sounds. And he says vill instead of will, and drops the h in hold.

  The runes pulse deep green again, and a cold sweat breaks out over my body. I cling to the star blanket hanging off the bed behind me as we wait. And wait. Tensed in coiled silence.

  Until the green pulse of light dies down and all of the runes grow still.

  * * *

  Hours later, no new search magic has pulsed in, and the defensive runes around the window have dampened to a sullen deep green glow and slowed their rotation. The other runes have returned to their original emerald green, and the suspended runes hang motionless in the air.

  “Stay low, Sagellyn,” Ciaran cautions. He rises, peers through a slit between the shutter and the window, then straightens up, seeming satisfied. I marvel at his unfaltering calm and am struck by how imposing his physical presence is in this small space.

  Ciaran lights a small stained-glass lantern patterned with multicolored stars, a
nd a rainbow of light illuminates the room, the color flashing through my affinity lines. I breathe in deep and reflexively pull on the color, the soft hues tamping down my fear. I glance down at my tingling wand hand and see my fingertips each glowing a different hue. I move to tense my hand, to press the color down, but stop myself.

  Why subdue it? I bitterly consider. What does it matter now?

  I glance up to find both Ciaran and Wyla looking at my wand hand. Wyla’s brow is raised high, but Ciaran doesn’t seem surprised at all. I meet his gaze with unspoken recognition.

  “You’re a Light Mage,” Wyla breathes out, stunned, her mouth agape. She turns to Ciaran and falls into a rapid-fire conversation with him in another language. Ishkart, I assume. Wyla is waving her hands around and gesturing to me as Ciaran calmly fields her obvious concerns with a staunch gravity that I’m coming to realize is his way.

  Feeling hollowed out, I let my eyes dart around the room. I can pick out aspects of some of the Ishkartan and Snake Elf runes. Destroy. Evade. Barrier. Invisible. Strengthen. Protect. Dismantle. A thread of tense confusion flares. These aren’t just runes—they’re high-grade, defensive wardwork. Protected military wardwork.

  Something’s hunting him. Something powerful.

  “Wyla,” a woman lightly calls out just past the curtain, the name followed by a stream of words in another language.

  I freeze, my heart picking up speed.

  Wyla and Ciaran exchange a quick, intense glance, as if silently coming up with a plan of action.

  “I will go and lead her away,” Wyla whispers to Ciaran, barely audible. She turns to me, her voice still low. “You will stay here, Sagellyn.” She gives me a look of firm encouragement. “Dawn will dismantle the Gardnerian search spells, as they only work in the dark.”

  “Wait, no.” I reach up to take hold of her arm, desperation rising.