Light Mage (The Black Witch Chronicles)

by Laurie Forest

  Wyla’s gaze intensifies, as if willing me to listen. Her eyes flick to Ciaran’s, then back to me. “He will not harm you. And I will be back as soon as I can.” Wyla gives me one last fierce, troubled glance before pulling back the curtain a fraction and slipping out of the room.

  I remain crouched down in the narrow space between the cots as I struggle to grapple with the mounting sense of vulnerability that’s taken hold of me.

  Ciaran sits down on a cot behind me, silent and vigilant as he listens to the voices of Wyla and the other woman conversing amiably in another language just past the curtain. Their footsteps begin to move away as they talk. A door opens and closes, the sound of their voices now muted and rapidly fading.

  Then silence.

  Ciaran lets out a deep breath and leans forward, his hands on his knees. Our eyes meet and my affinity lines snap toward him. I’m suddenly acutely aware of that seductive, emerald thrall hidden deep in his gaze. The masculine line of his jaw. The hard elegance of him. He radiates physical power, his frame the broad-shouldered physique of a practiced smith. But his mouth—its sensual lines bring up a panicked remembrance of Tobias’s cruel lust, of Rivyr’el Talonir’s hand slid up under that Kelt girl’s skirts.

  I’ve a sense Ciaran won’t hurt me, but that’s meaningless. I never dreamed Tobias would attack me until he did. A jagged apprehension whips up inside of me that quickly overtakes my gratitude for his help.

  “Thank you for...for hiding me,” I tell him haltingly as I pull myself up onto the cot facing him, wanting to put a little more distance between us. “But...you leave me alone tonight.” I point at his cot, my finger trembling. “You stay on that bed, and don’t come near me.”

  Ciaran’s green eyes narrow, as if he’s reading something in me that’s complex and troubling. “I wouldn’t,” he says.

  “I’ve been told what Keltic men do,” I challenge, jittery with my mounting fear of him. His strength. His obvious hidden sorcery.

  Ciaran holds my glare, his voice calm and reasoned when it comes, but with an unmistakable edge. “It seems like that’s what your people do.”

  I don’t know what to do with his logic. I’m instantly tangled up in it, because he’s right. I fight back the sudden swell of rage-filled tears as I grip at the blanket beneath my hands.

  They were supposed to protect me, my people. They warned me and warned me about heathen men and their cruel, unbridled passions. But when the attack came, it came from the person they told me I could trust the most.

  They lied to me. Lies upon lies upon lies.

  “Sagellyn,” Ciaran says, his green eyes now full of concern. “I would not do this thing you fear. You have my word.” That accent again, touching the edges of his voice.

  “They lied to me,” I tell him, teeth gritted, a raw anger overtaking my fear of him.

  Ciaran considers this, studying me for a long moment. “Yes, Sagellyn. They did.”

  This new realization strafes through me as I’m assaulted by the memory of vicious Tobias. Of my family’s rejection of me. Thoughts of the gorge suddenly fill my mind, and the powerful black water rushing through its abyss.

  “When you didn’t jump,” I say to Ciaran, my voice thick with profound hurt, “what stopped you?”

  Ciaran looks probingly at me, the intense set of his eyes more pronounced in the rune-light. “Zeymir,” he says with succinct gravity. “The owner of this smithery.”

  Zeymir. The Ishkart smith with the golden rune-marked headband.

  “Why did you consider jumping?” I haltingly ask.

  Ciaran winces, his mouth tightening into a hard line. He turns away and looks at the rune-marked wall, as if wrestling with his thoughts. After a long moment, he finally speaks, his voice a jagged whisper. “I lost everyone.”

  The tears stinging in my eyes roll down my face and slide over my lips, salty and warm. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, barely able to get the words out.

  After a few moments, Ciaran releases a deep, shuddering breath. “Sagellyn,” he says, his odd accent there again. “You should try to sleep. I remember...” He pauses, and his gaze goes momentarily unfocused, as if he’s looking at a memory instead of at me. Then his face tightens, as if the memory has become too difficult to look at.

  “I remember when Zeymir took me in.” He pauses again. “I didn’t sleep for two days. But finally... I passed out.” The hard edge of his expression softens as he looks to me. “Try to sleep, Sagellyn.”

  I nod, and as Ciaran moves to clear the piles of books off the cot that I’m sitting on, I notice that he’s extraordinarily careful to avoid brushing up against me. I listlessly slide under the dark, star-patterned blanket and ball up under it, feeling lost and grief-stricken.

  Ciaran lies down on his cot, on top of the blanket, not bothering to take off his boots either. He stares fixedly at the ceiling for a long moment, his face tight with unease as he reaches up to run the fingers of one hand through his dark crimson hair, as if he’s deeply unsettled. Then he turns and our eyes collide, the heavy edge of sadness in his gaze a twin to the knot of misery in my chest.

  “I want my sisters,” I tell him, choking on the words. “I want to go home and be with them.”

  Ciaran’s eyes widen with a profound understanding that rushes toward me in a fierce, bracing wave. “I’m sorry, Sagellyn. I know what—” His voice breaks off, and when he speaks again, it’s ragged with emotion. “I know how terrible this thing is.”

  “My sisters,” I say hoarsely. “I’ll never see them again.” My breath catches tight in my throat. “I’ll be cast out. Banished if I don’t go back. But I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back.” Raw anger rushes in and overtakes the grief, my voice turning harsh with it. “I won’t go back to him. I will never go back to him.”

  For a moment, I stew in the rage, letting it build, the dark storm churning inside me. But then a vivid image of Retta and Clover fills my mind, and I imagine their devastation upon finding me gone. The storm breaks apart into a heartbroken grief as tears fill my eyes and I choke on them.

  “Sagellyn,” Ciaran says, his own eyes now sheened with tears. He extends his hand to me and turns it palm up.

  “I want to go home,” I cry, unguarded and cracked open, letting him see my full misery.

  “I know,” he tells me, heartbroken understanding in his eyes, his hand still extended.

  I look to his hand. Every last thing about where I am in this moment is forbidden and supposedly a dire threat. Asking for an attack. Taking his hand, especially here in his bedroom, is flatly forbidden and inviting unspeakable danger.

  I momentarily war with myself. Forbidden by who? Your people? Who would have you fasted to a monster? Who fed you nothing but lies?

  Rebellion rising up within me, I reach out and take hold of Ciaran’s hand.

  Our fingers clasp around each other, his hand warm and steadying, his grip bracingly firm.

  “Don’t leave me,” I say, almost a demand as I tighten my grip on him.

  “I won’t,” he promises with the force of a vow.

  I hold on tight to him as the storm inside me lashes and churns, his steadfast presence keeping my head above water.

  Ciaran never moves from where he’s lying. Never touches me, save his hand in mine. He holds my eyes with his kindred gaze deep into the night, when finally, sleep takes hold and pulls me under.

  Chapter 6: Za’ya

  I wake up the next morning disoriented and confused by the green tapestries with embroidered runes all over the ceiling and walls, and the strange smells of warm, unfamiliar spice on the air. A hard rain pelts the roof and a dim morning light prowls around the shutters, a rumble of thunder sounding in the distance.

  Shock jolts through me as it all comes flooding back—Tobias. The attack. The terrifying tracking spell.

  I sit bolt upright, my he
art pounding, momentarily unable to catch my breath as panic swamps me. I look down to find my sweaty, rumpled self covered in a tunic and pants, the fabric an interlocking star pattern of purple and gold. Small multicolored stars are embroidered along the tunic’s edges in a spectacular rainbow of hues, a riot of forbidden color that lights up my affinity lines like a Yule tree.

  Nothing is right. Not the foreign tapestries and runic designs. Not my clothing. Nothing.

  And this room is warded like it’s ready for a military siege.

  A small table sits beside me with a golden pot of tea on a black lacquered tray inlaid with golden stars. The elegant pot is slim and curving and etched with filigreed designs, steam curling up from its slender spout. A teacup made of delicate glass is nestled in a gilded holder. There’s a plate holding flat green biscuits coated with unfamiliar black seeds along with an odd brown paste. And next to that lies a small bouquet of Ironflowers, a slight glow to them in the dim light of the lamplit room.

  I pick up the bouquet, suddenly overcome, tears stinging at my eyes.

  Ciaran. He must have left them for me.

  He must have stolen the blossoms from across the street. From the Inn’s trees.

  It’s such a lovely gesture that my heart struggles to hold on to it, and it momentarily softens my great, blanketing grief. Ironflowers are our sacred flower. A flower representing escape from oppression. And freedom.

  Does he know all this?

  His gift helps to soften the strangeness of my surroundings, and keeps me from feeling so completely alien and lost and unwanted.

  I drink in the delicate flowers, sparks of their vivid blue suffusing my vision. Ironflower blue ripples over my fingertips, but I don’t tense the color away. I vow to never tense the color away again. What does it matter if my wand hand is blue or gold or purple? I’ve crossed clear over to the other, forsaken side of this world.

  I lift the bouquet to my nose and breathe in deep. The flowers’ sweet, almost beeswax smell is a comfortingly familiar thing in this strange new world I’ve landed in.

  Clutching the bouquet, I peek through the slit between the window shutter and the window frame, the morning rendered gloomily dark by the storm.

  Thunder sounds and lightning flashes, briefly illuminating the sight of the Ironflower Inn across the street, its form wavy through the rain-streaked window. Ironwood trees bend slightly in the stiff wind, and my heart gives a hard twist.

  Retta and Clover are likely there. Just a few steps away over the rain-slicked, cobbled street. But they might as well be in another land, past a treacherous sea. The divide would be just as wide.

  Tears well in my eyes and burn at my throat as a staggering desolation washes over me. I press my forehead against the hard wooden shutter and stare out the window, passersby and horse-drawn carriages with drivers hunkered down against the driving rain periodically blocking my tear-soaked view of the inn.

  Is my family still here looking for me? To force me back to Tobias? What did Father and Mother Eliss tell my sisters? Did they tell them I’m their sister no more?

  I’ll never see Retta and Clover again.

  The terrible thought rips my heart apart, and I slump back onto the bed, clutching the small bouquet to my chest. I turn my back on the food and tea, curl myself into a heartsick ball, close my eyes and weep.

  * * *

  “Did you at least find out who she is?”

  A sonorous, accented man’s voice sounds from just past the curtain. It jostles my attention from where I still lay in my grief-stricken state. A thread of fear pulls taut in my gut.

  “Sagellyn Gaffney.” It’s Ciaran’s voice, low and soothing. Everything in me wants to reach out and grasp firmly onto the refuge of that voice.

  There’s a tension-fraught silence, and then, “Ciaran. He is on their Mage Council.” The words are slow and heavy with import.

  “I know.”

  “You cannot provoke the Mages.” The man’s tone is filled with dire warning.

  “I don’t intend to provoke them, Zeymir,” Ciaran returns. His deep voice kicks up a disquieting tangle of feelings deep in the center of me, and an echo of the feel of his hand tight around mine. All night long. Staying with me. Keeping me safe.

  “You have one of their fasted maidens in your bedroom,” Zeymir says. “The daughter of a Mage Council member. He’s a Level Four Mage, Ciaran. Do you know what they will do to you if they find her with you? They enforce their racial purity laws across borders. That girl’s fasting is a battle zone.”

  “They fasted her at thirteen!” Wyla’s strident voice blares out. “Her fastmate beat her! And gods knows what else! If we don’t give her shelter, they will throw her right back to him!”

  Another woman’s accented voice sounds out, her melodious tone grim. “And if we do shelter her, Wyla, they will come for us. And they will spare no one. They have shadow magic at work to find this girl. Demon magery! Her plight is terrible, I am sure, but we cannot endanger all of us—”

  “So,” Wyla’s disgusted voice cuts her off, “you can endanger all of us for your people only?”

  “This girl is not your people either!” the woman cries. “She is a Mage!”

  “No,” Wyla spits out, her voice breaking with ferocity. “She is my people. You forget, Za’ya. I understand this thing...this thing that has been done to her.”

  Everyone grows quiet for a moment as the memory of what Tobias did slices through me, along with the horrible realization that Wyla has endured something like this, too.

  “Ciaran,” Zeymir finally says, his tone low and adamant, “you cannot be found out. This girl will draw first the Gardnerians and then the Alfsigr straight to you.”

  My confusion mounts. Why would the Gardnerians and Alfsigr be looking for Ciaran?

  “I have made it this far,” Ciaran says coolly. “And I will be in Noi lands soon enough.”

  “You’ve made it this far,” Zeymir counters, “because the Mage Council is not setting its best trackers after you—which they will do to find this girl.”

  “Zeymir,” Ciaran says, his tone hard, “she stays.”

  “She is a danger!”

  “Well, so am I!” Ciaran snarls, low and dangerous.

  I draw back, surprised by his sudden capacity for venom.

  “They will kill you if they find you,” Zeymir grimly insists. “They will not kill her.”

  “She’d be as good as dead!” Wyla growls. They all devolve into an argument in what sounds like more than one language.

  I clutch at the blanket draped over me, islanded in a sea of confusion and desperate questions. Where will I possibly go if they cast me out? And why is Ciaran being hunted?

  Abruptly the curtain pulls back and I flinch, my heart thudding against my chest.

  The green-scaled Snake Elf woman sets her bright silver eyes on me. Her emerald splendor is so beautiful, it’s almost confrontational. Her long, green hair is tied back in a golden, jeweled Ishkartan scarf, and her tunic and pants are a rich green with looping black runic embroidery along the edging. Ciaran, Wyla and Zeymir stand behind her, the rune-marked golden band of an Ishkart highborn wrapped around Zeymir’s head.

  A child clings to Zeymir’s golden tunic—the black-haired, pointy-eared, green-scaled child I saw from the inn yesterday. He’s dressed in golden Ishkartan clothing like his father and peering in at me with a look of stunned concern.

  The small viper. Heathen spawn. Edyth Gyll’s harsh description of this child sweeps through my mind.

  The Snake Elf woman’s determined expression freezes, then morphs to one of shock as she takes in my bruised face. Zeymir looks just as stunned. He turns away, his face tightening, and shakes his head. My hand involuntarily comes up to self-consciously cup my bruised cheek, and for a moment I want Erthia to swallow me whole.

  My eyes m
eet Ciaran’s, and my affinity lines brighten and pull taut toward his emerald gaze. I straighten a bit, and the blanket that’s half covering me slides down a fraction. Surprise lights Ciaran’s gaze as his eyes are drawn down. I follow his gaze to find my wand hand still clutching the Ironflower bouquet and washed with a glowing sapphire all the way to my wrist.

  “She’s a Light Mage,” Zeymir breathes, staring at my blue hand. He looks to the ceiling and closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head slightly, as if clearing a groundswell of alarm. Then he gives Ciaran a loaded glance, his look conveying that we’ve all just jumped into the abyss below the abyss.

  Za’ya, the Snake Elf, studies me closely.

  Snake Elves. Dangerous Elves. Evil, venomous serpents. They need to be locked up underground and kept there. Everything I’ve been told about this woman’s people sounds warning bells inside me and whips up a wild confusion.

  And then Za’ya’s fierce look shifts, and the same heartbroken understanding I felt in Ciaran’s gaze last night breaks through. It’s so unexpected, an ache gathers in my throat and pulls tight.

  “I want to go home,” I tell her, hopelessness pulling me under. “I just want to go home and... I’ll never be able to go home again.” I close my eyes tight and begin to cry once more.

  Everyone is silent for a long moment, and then I hear the sound of footsteps just before the cot dips under Za’ya’s weight. Her hand comes to rest gently on my arm, and I peer up into her silver gaze, her brow knitting hard.

  “Everyone here,” she tells me, her lilting voice raw with emotion. “Everyone you see, child. We all wish we could go home.”

  I glance toward the Ishkart smith, Keltic Ciaran and Issani Wyla. The emerald-scaled child. And this Snake Elf woman, trying to comfort me. And for the first time, I realize just how mixed their group is.

  “Sometimes,” she tells me, her voice breaking, “you cannot go home.” A tear streaks down her cheek, and she squeezes my arm, her eyes holding onto mine. “Sometimes, you have to make a new home.” She smiles to herself and laughs through her tears, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she opens them, glances at the people waiting in the doorway and smiles warmly at me. “And...it can be good, hm? You must hold on to the faith of this.”