I unknot the smooth, silk string and the package falls open.
“Oh, Ancient One,” I breathe, my affinity snapping toward the mahogany wand as soon as my hand makes contact with it, multicolored whorls of light tendriling around its spiral handle.
Two wands. I have two wands.
Rivyr hands me the small book, smirking. Elemental Spells is embossed on the black leather cover in elaborate silver calligraphy.
I inhale sharply. “Oh, Rivyr...”
He smiles crookedly. “Go on then, Light Mage. Have a look.”
I flip through the grimoire, looking for light magery spells. I find six toward the end of the book—spells for Camouflage, Color Glamour, Color Bending, Rune-Shaping, Blinding Flash and a violent-sounding spell called Light Strike.
A heady rush of shock ripples through me. “How...how did you possibly get hold of these?” I know the Mage Council keeps tight control over wands and grimoires.
Rivyr makes a sound of disdain. “I’m wealthy, Sagellyn. I can find anything.” He tilts his head close, like we’re sharing a decadent secret, and points at the light-strike spell with his pale finger. “You can explode things with this one.” His finger slides to the Camouflage spell. “And this one...apparently it’s known as the ‘Chameleon’ spell.”
“Chameleon?”
He grins. “Color blending. According to your heart’s desire, little Light Mage.” He flicks his finger toward the grimoire again. “There’s variations on it. Practice hard, and you could blend in with your surroundings. Render yourself invisible.” Mischief glints in his eyes. “That could come in useful.”
My hand comes up to cover my mouth. Real spells. And he bought me a wand. “Oh, Rivyr. Thank you.”
He dips his head, a glimmer of satisfaction in his sly gaze. “You are most welcome, lovely Sagellyn.” He looks back toward the cave, his brow tightening. “Are there children in there?”
I give him a sober look. “About twelve of them.”
He takes a deep breath, then shakes his head, as if clearing the darkness away. He pulls a small jute sack out of his cloak pocket. “I’ve confections. I brought them for Na’bee, but all the little ones can share.” He stands in one, graceful movement and moves toward the cave.
My hand rushes up to grab onto his cloak. “Rivyr, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. You might scare them.”
Rivyr looks at my hand, then at me, his face tightening with offense. “I’ll do no such thing.”
I stand, letting go of him and gripping the grimoire and the wand to my chest. “Rivyr, don’t go in there. Truly. Don’t.”
He rolls his eyes. “Sweet gods, they’re rubbing off on you. Everything so dire all the time.” He indicates his handsome self with a sweeping gesture. “Do I look frightening to you?”
“You’re Alfsigr,” I stress. “They’re escapees from the mines. Those children have probably only ever been exposed to Alfsigr soldiers.”
Rivyr glares rebelliously at me, his eyes sparking with temper, and starts for the cave.
“Rivyr, wait!” I trail after his long stride, running to keep up with him as he makes his way to the cave.
Rivyr reaches the doors, pushes them open and explodes into the room. “Greetings! Would—”
Chaos erupts the second the refugees catch sight of Rivyr. The women and children bolt up, chairs knocked over, food and drink crashing to the floor as the children clumsily flee backward, away from Rivyr. The adults deftly pull rune-blades, and green rune-targets burst to glowing life all over Rivyr’s chest. There’s a green flash of light that makes me jump as the room charges up with magic, the energy prickling all along my skin.
To’yir, the elderly mage, stands with her hands raised, two elaborate, rotating emerald runes suspended just before her rune-marked palms. Not taking her eyes off Rivyr, she lashes out a phrase in Smaragdalfar and six glowing blades appear, sticking out from each rune circlet.
Za’ya throws herself between Rivyr and all the rune-blades, her arms out, the rune-targets now on her chest. She lets loose with an impassioned stream of Smaragdalfar, sounding like she’s urgently making a case for Rivyr’s life. To’yir listens as she keeps her eyes pinned on Rivyr with lethal calm.
The children have grown deathly silent, silver eyes bugging out with abject terror as they clutch at the adults. One of the smallest children, the small boy Kol had to coax out of the wagon, starts to sob in big, heaving gasps. The little girl with the doll begins to weep quietly but convulsively, as if she’s struggling for breath.
Rivyr is frozen in place. It’s like he’s in a daze and can’t move, his mouth open, his eyes riveted on the little girl with the lash mark across her face.
“Get out,” Za’ya orders him over her shoulder.
He doesn’t move.
“Rivyr!” she grinds out through gritted teeth. “Leave. Now.”
Rivyr turns to her, his expression one of pure shock, as the women look to Za’ya in harsh question, keeping their weapons carefully aimed.
Za’ya holds Rivyr’s gaze for a split second. When she speaks again, her voice is firm. “Rivyr’el. You must go.”
Rivyr takes one last look at the little girl with the scarred face, then abruptly turns and flees past me, leaving a trail of devastation on the air.
For a moment I’m bolted in place, stunned by the force of their reaction to him. I realize, even more clearly, how nightmarishly monstrous the Alfsigr military must be toward the people of the sublands.
Za’ya is everywhere at once, speaking in a stream of Smaragdalfar as the women lower their weapons and To’yir vanishes the suspended rune-blades with a flick of her hands. Za’ya’s voice is firm and measured as she motions repeatedly toward where Rivyr went as children cry and women debate with her. Za’ya continues to make a case, probably in support of Rivyr’s life, to To’yir. To’yir listens, then eventually inclines her head and nods at Za’ya, as if guardedly convinced.
The woman who jabbed me in the wagon casts a dark look in my direction, points the tip of her rune-blade toward me and lets loose to Za’ya with a torrent of angry Smaragdalfar. I realize I need to go, too.
I leave the cave and rush down the hill, my stomach tightly knotted. My eyes search for Rivyr’el everywhere, but he’s disappeared. I make my way past the fire as the sounds of weeping, traumatized children and women locked in fierce debate recede into the distance.
“Rivyr?” I search the cloud-darkened woods all around for a sign of Rivyr, circling around the area. Finally, I catch sight of a flash of ivory through the woods, just past the horse stables.
I slip into the small clearing and find Wyla and Kol, the huge Elfhollen, watching Rivyr gravely, a lantern in Kol’s broad hand.
Rivyr has his back to us. He’s facing the dense woods, his head down. Wyla eyes me with concern as I approach, and pats the air to caution me. I slow to a stop.
“Za’ya was right,” Rivyr says without turning around, his voice low and deadened. “About everything.” He murmurs something in Alfsigr, his tone vicious. Then he reaches down, pulls a rune-knife from his belt and begins slashing his long, elaborately braided and gem-decorated hair off with silent fury.
“What are you doing?” I ask, shocked.
“I’m going to offer myself up to them as a guard. Then I’m going to escort those Smaragdalfar children across the desert.” Rivyr’s tone is low and dangerous as he jaggedly slices off another lock. He turns to me, silver eyes blazing, fist tight around his rune-marked knife. “And I’m going to cut down anyone who tries to harm them.”
We watch as he violently chops the rest of his hair off, lock after lock, his face a mask of grim resolve, until there is nothing left but short, uneven spikes of white.
We silently watch as Rivyr pulls his white tunic off, his eyes flashing, and throws it to the ground. The white of his skin is star
tling—so pale, like new-fallen snow. I avert my eyes for a moment, flushing at the sight of his bare chest, his nipples exposed, silver rings outrageously pierced through them. Men are never unclothed like this in Gardneria, especially not in front of young women.
I watch Rivyr sidelong as he pulls off his earrings one by one. His pendants, bracelets, every ring, throwing a small fortune to the ground. When he’s finished, he bends down to retrieve them and holds them out to Wyla.
“Take all this,” he tells her, his voice hard. “Sell it all and give the money to Zeymir to help the children get out.”
“You can’t go with them,” I gently reason. “You’ll draw the Alfsigr Elves right to them!”
His gaze bores into me. “No. I won’t. You’re going to glamour my color.”
Wyla and Kol’s heads whip toward me. “Is that a grimoire in your hand?” Wyla asks, her voice rough with shock.
Rivyr moves toward me as I try to adjust to his partial nudity. “Glamour me, Sagellyn Gaffney,” he says, silver eyes blazing. “Change my color.”
I gape at Rivyr. “Change your actual color?” I sputter, disbelieving. “I’ve never even used a wand—”
“Then start now.” He bites off each word, his gaze relentless. “Are you going to go on being powerless?” He steps closer to me. “Or are you going to be a Light Mage?”
I hold his stare, feeling as if I’m on the cusp of something dangerous and unpredictable.
Rivyr picks up his discarded tunic in his fist and holds it out to me, like a dare. “Start now, Light Mage. Test the Color Glamour spell on this.”
I hold his glare for a long moment, then glance at the dark wand and grimoire in my hands, my heart thudding against my chest. I open the grimoire and flip through it until I locate the Color Glamour spell. There’s an incantation, along with instructions to pull a color through my lines as I recite it.
“I don’t know how to pronounce this spell,” I tell Rivyr.
“Then practice,” he tells me.
I swallow, biting my lip, and come down to one knee. Rivyr drops his tunic in front of me and I place the grimoire on the ground, holding it open as Kol sets his lantern down beside me.
I take a deep breath and pull the color that’s easiest for me through my affinity lines.
Purple.
Then I place the tip of my wand on Rivyr’s pale tunic and stumble through the unfamiliar words of the spell, crafted from the Ancient Tongue.
Nothing.
I try every variation of inflections and pronunciations I can think of, methodically going through each possibility.
“Forget everything around you,” Rivyr says. “Focus on a color.”
I take a deep breath, then another as I close my eyes and concentrate with all my might, but still...nothing.
Disheartened, I let out a frustrated breath just as a warm buzz kicks up against my ankle. I straighten in surprise—it’s been years since I felt something from the wand Gwynn stole from her father’s armory.
I reach under my skirts and pull the white wand out of my boot, a subtle vibration emanating from it. Barely perceptible. Newly alert, I press the mahogany wand into my rune-blade’s belt-sheath, sit back and rearrange Rivyr’s chalk-white tunic over my lap.
Wyla is eyeing the white wand in my hand dubiously. “I thought you said that wand was useless.”
“That’s what I was told,” I say, gripping the wand’s spiraling handle. “But it’s worth a try.” I take a deep breath and set the tip of the white wand on Rivyr’s tunic, then close my eyes and concentrate.
Luxurious purple fills the back of my mind, loosening my muscles, as I sound out the words of the spell.
Nothing.
Pushing back a jagged disappointment, I try several more pronunciations of the three words to no effect, then attempt different tones, as if I’m singing the spell.
Nothing.
Stubbornly determined, I think back to the fasting spell, the lulling, shushing sounds of the Ancient Tongue. I soften the consonants of the glamour spell to a nub and try again. And again. And again.
Then I try emphasizing the first syllable of each word of the spell and drop all of the consonants, mimicking my memory of the cadence of the fasting spells.
The wand’s handle tingles against my palm, and like the effortless flow of warm water, the violet slides right through me, down my arm and toward the wand.
Wyla gasps, and I open my eyes to find color bleeding out of the wand’s tip and into the tunic. My heart pounds hot in my chest. “Holy Ancient One,” I marvel with a spark of light-headed excitement. “Sweet lord, Rivyr. I’m doing actual light magery.”
Rivyr’s eyes glitter with determination. “That’s it, Light Mage. Push all your magic into it.”
I force a few shuddering breaths and close my eyes. I fill my lines with violet and can feel the wand practically yanking the glorious, forbidden color straight through me.
When I open my eyes again, Rivyr’s entire tunic is deep purple.
“Holy hells,” Wyla spits out, eyes wide. “Holy all the hells.”
I look up, stunned, and Rivyr grins. “There’s a reversal spell, too,” he tells me, flicking his finger toward the grimoire. “See if it works.”
I glance down the page to find the reversal spell. After a number of false starts, I hit on the right pronunciation and can feel the wand pulling the color back into itself and through me in a warm, satisfying rush as the tunic returns to its original ivory. Reflexively, I breathe in deep, filling myself with the pulsating violet, everything around me momentarily tinted purple.
Everyone’s eyes have gone wide.
“Oh, Sagellyn,” Wyla breathes out, and I’m pulled out of my sensual color haze by the dire way they’re all looking at me. Worried, I glance down to find my normal Gardnerian emerald glimmer is gone...replaced by a glowing, bright purple sheen.
“Holy Ancient One...am I purple?” I ask, stunned, an edge of fear riding along the question.
“Quite a bit purple,” Wyla says, with no small measure of concern.
With shaking hands, I pull my hair forward and feel myself blanch. It’s purple, too. “Oh, no.” I turn to Wyla. “My eyes?”
Wyla swallows nervously. “Purple.”
I pull my rune-blade from its sheath, look into its gleaming, reflective surface, and give a hard start.
I’m completely purple. Vivid purple skin, violet eyes and hair that’s every shade of purple.
I frantically try the reversal spell on myself, but the color refuses to budge, which only ramps up my apprehension.
Mouth open, I gape at Rivyr, who seems oblivious to my screaming purpleness. Kol has launched into a low conversation with him in Ishkart, and the light of an idea seems to ignite in Rivyr’s eyes, his jaw tightening with what looks like renewed determination. He turns and holds his forearm out to me.
“Sagellyn,” he says calmly. “Glamour me gray. Like Kol. Like an Elfhollen.”
I look at him, overwhelmed. “Are you sure, Rivyr? A tunic is one thing, but I might permanently turn you gray. Look what I just did to myself!”
“Don’t you see?” Rivyr insists. “I can protect the children if you glamour me, without drawing the Alfsigr right to us.”
I look at Kol, stunned. The huge Elfhollen man is leaning against a tree, his muscular arms crossed in front of himself, his silver eyes narrowed appraisingly at Rivyr’el. He and Rivyr’el converse briefly in Ishkart again, Wyla joining in, her brow tense. Wyla glances at me, then looks back to Kol and nods her head in carefully considered agreement.
They all turn to me as Kol pulls up his sleeve and shows me his rugged forearm. “Match this color, Light Mage,” he says, his voice weighty and deep.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask Kol. He nods, his expression betraying no doubt. I turn to Rivyr, he
art thumping. “What if I can’t change you back?”
“I don’t care,” he says with icy defiance.
Rattled, I practice a few more times on the tunic, turning it several different shades of gray, then pulling the color out, half expecting my skin to start shimmering silvery-gray, but the violet on me stays alarmingly stuck.
Rivyr holds his taut forearm out to me. I eye him, unsure, my heart pounding as I tense myself against the slight tremble running through my body.
I place the tip of the wand on Rivyr’s skin and then take a deep breath, filling my mind with slate gray and sounding out the spell before I can reconsider.
A warm vibration kicks up along the wand’s handle as a foggy gray comes to life inside me, like gathering mist, rising and rising. The ashen color seeps out of the wand and curls over Rivyr’s forearm like smoke, tendriling up his arm, over his chest, face, ears, hair—evening out and solidifying until the whole of Rivyr’el Talonir is glamoured storm gray.
I blink at him like he’s a mirage, stunned that I’ve actually managed to work this spell.
Rivyr holds up his hand and turns his forearm over, inspecting it, his jaw tight. He looks like he’s stopped breathing. He turns to me, his eyes now pale gray, his skin the color of dark storm clouds. He slams his fist onto his chest, dips his head and murmurs what sounds like a formal show of gratitude in High Alfsigr.
I’m overcome by his fierce gratitude. And by my budding power.
“Sagellyn,” Wyla says excitedly, a sudden spark in her eyes, as if she’s lit up by a bold idea and can barely contain it.
I glance at her questioningly, and she gives me a significant look. “You could glamour the children.”
My eyes widen. “What? You mean...glamour them gray?”
She nods as Rivyr and Kol exchange a weighted look, both silently deliberating the ramifications of this.
“You could glamour them to look Elfhollen,” Wyla says, her tone ignited with the bold idea. “Then they’d escape the notice of the Alfsigr Elves as well.”
Light Mage (The Black Witch Chronicles) Page 19
