“Toiya,” Sang says from where she sits beside me, laying a gentle hand on my arm. “The Wand escaped Gardneria. With your help. And now you are saying that it wants to go back to its captors?”
I turn to her, wanting to spring up and run toward Gardneria. Toward Elloren Gardner. Before the shadow things close in...
“No, Sang Loi,” I insist, using her full name in this formal meeting, as is their custom. “Not back to the armory. Not to the Mage Council or to their military. To Elloren Gardner. To hide.”
“Twenty years,” Kam Vin insists, her tone hard, her eyes blazing, “the Zhilin lay in Gardnerian captivity. And now you believe the Zhilin wants to return to the same evil land that the Icaral of Prophecy will rise to destroy?”
I internally wince. The Icaral of Prophecy. They talk like this all the time, and I despise it. Like my Fyn’ir is a weapon, and not a child. Like he’s a slave to the Prophecy.
I hug my son close. “The Shadow Wand has its sights set on Fyn’ir and me, and this place is becoming clearer and clearer to it,” I vehemently insist. “The Shadow is coming. I have to get the Zhilin to Elloren Gardner now.”
Sang Loi is studying me very closely, still as a winter lake. I look to her in desperate appeal.
“If you place that Wand in the hands of that family—” Kam Vin’s voice is like the lash of a whip. “—you potentially throw the Zhilin into the hands of the next Black Witch.” She turns to Chi Nam, her rage barely restrained. “Are you forgetting what Elloren Gardner’s grandmother did to my people? To my sister?”
I look to Ni Vin. The young soldier’s expression is stoic and emotionless, as it always is. Half of Ni’s face and body are burned beyond recognition. The hair and ear on one side of her head gone. Her hand turned to a melted stump. She has a black cloth wrapped around her head to conceal her disfigurement, but I’ve seen her bathing, seen the entirety of her devastating injuries.
I’ve also been on the receiving end of her small, quiet kindnesses.
Succulent fruit wordlessly set down in front of me with only a small, tight nod in response to my murmured thanks. Pragmatic help changing the baby’s soiled cloths when the pain in my hands is too much to bear. I know that the day her body was melted, she lost her entire family, save Kam Vin. That she watched her whole village burn and ran with the few survivors, screaming, to the water, passing dying children clinging to mothers who were singed to the ground.
Sometimes I wonder if her trauma has washed most of her words away.
Kam Vin and Chi Nam break out into a low argument in the Noi language. Chi Nam seems to be calmly holding forth in consideration of my appeal, her palm placidly held out toward me.
I glance up at the intricate, raftered ceiling as three white birds flash in and out of view, white branches forming in the back of my mind like a bolstering scaffold, filling me with a heady sense of purpose. I rise to my feet and the sorceresses quiet, turning to me in question.
“They sent varg demons out after me,” I remind them ominously, my voice quavering with emotion as I hug my baby close. “That was just the beginning. You don’t understand what’s coming.”
“Why would the Wand want to leave a Light Mage?” Tu Jyn, leader of the deadly Kin Hoang, asks me with honest confusion. “To go to a powerless girl from a dangerous family?”
I struggle to form a coherent answer that will convey the full force of the Shadow to her. “I don’t know.”
Tu Jyn sits back with a lip-tightening frown. She looks to the other sorceresses. “It would have also seemed madness to believe the Zhilin could escape a Valgard armory via two teenaged Gardnerian girls.” She glances at the gleaming Wand. “There are forces bigger than all of us at play here. It would be wise to follow the will of the Zhilin.”
“But is this truly its will?” Kam Vin challenges. Once again, they break into low, impassioned conversation in the Noi language. Sang puts a steadying hand on my arm, offering comfort.
Chi Nam straightens, formally addressing the sorceresses. “Vu Trin Noi’khin. We will vote on this matter.” She gestures toward a pile of polished black and indigo stones in the center of the table. “Who agrees that Sagellyn Gaffney should be allowed to follow what she believes is the true will of the Zhilin?” She holds up a black stone. “And who believes we should wait for our seers to have more guidance?” She holds up an indigo stone. “Remember, Noi’khin, that Sagellyn Gaffney stands before you not as a Gardnerian, but as a Vhion, a true guardian of the Zhilin.”
Everyone is quiet for a long moment, the silence deafening.
Kam Vin is the first to move. She slides an indigo stone toward herself and glances around at the other sorceresses, harsh challenge in her eyes.
Sang Loi calmly pulls a black stone toward herself. Chi Nam chooses a black stone as well, followed by Tu Jyn, her lips pursed. I loosen a shaky breath of relief.
All the remaining sorceresses pick up indigo stones.
Hope chills and turns black in my chest.
Chapter 23: Escape
Sang comes to me in the darkness of predawn, a finger to her lips, warning me to be quiet, a small rune-lantern in her hand. I’ve been up all night, unable to sleep, wrestling with thoughts of leaving. Desperate to think of some way to escape a Vu Trin military outpost ringed with an unbreakable rune-barrier.
“I believe you,” Sang whispers, glancing up toward the rafters. “About the Shadow forces coming for the child.” Her gaze turns uncharacteristically fearful. “Vo sent a dream to me. And I saw the Shadow things.”
I glance up to find three Watchers sitting on the rafters above, stunning in their ivory beauty. For a brief moment, they radiate light before promptly disappearing.
“I saw the Anhxils above me when I woke,” Sang says, making an elaborate Noi blessing over her chest. “And I saw the face of your friend. She had the same face as the Black Witch. I know what you say to be true.” She rises and holds a wizened hand out to me. “Come. And quickly. I’m going to help you.”
* * *
My heart tight in my throat, I hastily dress and change Fyn’ir as Sang drapes Ra’Ven’s rune-chains all over his little body. I watch as his violet-patterned skin morphs to a pale Keltic tone, the slight point to his ears rounding. I slide Rivyr’s Zalyn’or over Fyn’ir’s head, and he immediately stops fussing, his face turning blank and disquietingly emotionless as I pick him up gently and attach him to my body with a cloth sling.
“The necklace should keep him calm,” I tell her.
I can’t leave Fyn’ir here, even though it’s risky to bring him with me. The Vu Trin have been kind to me, but I’ve no illusions regarding how they view my baby. He can’t stay in a place where he’s viewed as a weapon first and a child second, and I can’t bear to be separated from him.
I sheath both my wands and my rune-blade at my waist, then follow Sang out to the stables. She has one of their finest black mares packed for my journey back to Halfix. We sneak out the back of the stable, and I watch as Sang presses her rune-stylus to one of the luminescent blue barrier runes that’s suspended in the air at the edge of the woods. The floating rune snuffs out of existence, releases a puff of iridescent blue smoke into the air.
I follow Sang deep into the woods, down a narrow, twisting path, hugging Fyn’ir close to my chest, the blue light from Sang’s lantern bobbing over us. The mare quietly trots beside us, Sang holding onto its lead.
Eventually we stop in a small clearing, and she looks to me. “Here’s where we part, toiya.” Sang pulls her stylus and goes about marking two large adjacent trees with glowing sapphire wards, up and down the trunks. Then she fishes in her pocket and pulls out a black stone marked with a blue rune. She creakily lowers herself and presses the stone to the lowest trunk-ward and begins a low, monotone chant.
Blue fire catches and spreads in a crackling, static path along the lines of the runes, racing u
p the tree. The blue lightning jumps to the adjacent trunk and streaks down the runes along that tree’s trunk to form a complete, chaotically illuminated arch.
I turn to Sang, astonished. “Are you building a portal?”
Her mouth lifts into a sly half smile.
“But...how?” I ask, bewildered. “I thought they took months to make?”
“They can,” she assents. She pulls a flat, hexagonal black stone from her pocket marked with an intricate Noi rune. A fog of blue light encompasses the geometric stone. “This is a casting stone calibrated to a specific distance,” she tells me. “I can use it to open up a receiving portal in the wilderness near Halfix.”
I peer at the stone, trying to work it all out as my brow knits with confusion. “If you can cast portals, why couldn’t you send Ra’Ven and me and Fyn’ir to Noi lands?”
“It’s too far, toiya,” she explains gently. “And these stones take many months to charge. But this one has enough rune-sorcery in it to reach northern Gardneria.” Sang pulls a compass from her pocket, orients the brightest section of the rune-stone straight north and presses the rune-stone to the portal.
I flinch as a blinding flash of golden light explodes from the stone and sizzles around the entire portal, rays of blue lightning flickering out the sides. The air inside the portal begins to vibrate, like ripples on a lake, the forest image morphing and changing into another darkened landscape. I tighten the affinity lines around my eyes and brighten the nighttime scene. A small meadow appears before me through the portal entry, the dense forest beyond it leading up to the familiar peaks of the northeastern Caledonian Mountain range.
I stare in wonder.
Halfix.
“What is it your people say?” Sang asks, eyes twinkling with satisfaction. “I have the tricks up my sleeve.”
“So, I just ride through?” I ask, breathless with awe at the fantastical distance spanned by the portal. “What then?”
She hands me the compass. “Ride west. You’ll find the Northern Wayroad.”
Which leads straight toward my isolated home in Halfix.
“It should only take you a few hours to get there,” Sang tells me, taking Fyn’ir for a moment as I mount the mare, then handing my son back to me. “Tu Jyn will meet you there tomorrow at dawn. I will send her out after you. You will need the help of the Vu Trin after you give the Zhilin to Elloren Gardner.”
I hug a now sleeping Fyn’ir close, my pulse hammering hard with anxious anticipation.
“Ride swiftly, toiya,” Sang cautions with a glance back at the military outpost, warning in her eyes. “The Shadow is coming. Ride like the wind.”
I urge the horse toward the portal and ride through.
Chapter 24: Elloren Gardner
My heart twists as I peer through the trees and look down at my family’s estate.
The estate is washed in the deep blue light of predawn, and for a moment, I’m a girl again. A young girl. Running through the flowers with Clover and Retta, innocent and trusting, desperately wanting to secure the favor of Father and Mother Eliss—an impossible game with impossibly high stakes.
I clumsily dismount and affix the reins to a tree inside the wilds. The White Wand in hand, I hug the edge of the forest, murmuring the spells to camouflage myself and Fyn’ir, blending into the woods until I come to the arching window of my sisters’ bedroom. I murmur another spell and dissolve my camouflage, casting a Color Glamour over myself to temporarily turn my skin back to a green Gardnerian shimmer.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I look over my shoulder fearfully, craning an ear for any sign that we’re being followed, unable to shake the feeling that Fyn’ir and I are being tracked by Shadow forces.
And that we’re running out of time.
I look back at the windows of my sisters’ bedroom, and fierce outrage rises in me. There are new iron bars securing them shut. Imprisoning my sisters. Caging them like chattel.
I move closer and peer into the window.
My heart leaps in my chest when I see them. Retta is lying curled up in a ball in her bed, staring listlessly at nothing as her finger traces a design on the quilt beneath her. Clover is standing, talking to Retta. I take in the sight of her, and my outrage turns incendiary.
Clover’s face is bruised and beaten, fury etched hard in her expression.
My determination renewed, I rap on the windowpane.
Clover’s face jerks toward the window, then Retta’s. Both my sisters’ eyes go wide with a shock that momentarily freezes them in place.
And then Clover rushes to the window as Retta bursts into tears and follows her.
They wind open the windows as far as they’ll go, the diamond-glass panes only opening a smidge before they bump up against the iron bars.
“Oh, Sage,” Retta whispers, hiccupping from the ferocity of her tears, pushing her fingers out to meet mine. “We thought you were dead.”
I touch Retta’s fingers, then Clover’s as I burst into tears as well, rebellious Clover letting her devastation show as her fingers cling to mine. Her entire bruised face tenses when she sees my fast-wounds, and she looks to me in abject horror.
“We don’t have much time,” I tell them, swallowing back my tears. “Pull on your boots and step away from the window.”
Ignoring the slashes of angry pain riddling my hand, I tighten my grip on the Wand as Clover and Retta fall back. Clutching Fyn’ir tight to my chest underneath my cloak, I move away from the window and turn Fyn’ir aside so I can shield him with my body. Then I lift the White Wand and sound out the words to the Light Strike spell.
A beam of blindingly white light shoots from the Wand’s tip and sizzles along the frame of the iron bars. The bars heat to a red glow that burns so hot, it scorches a black, smoking gouge clear around the window’s Ironwood pane. Clover thrusts the edge of a book toward the iron bars, and they fall down to the grassy ground with a dull, weighty thump.
Clover winds the window open all the way and helps a whimpering Retta climb out to me. Gentle Retta hugs me tightly, sobbing, question coloring her gaze as she presses up against little Fyn’ir, who wiggles, still blessedly groggy and calmed by Rivyr’s Zalyn’or necklace. Retta draws back and looks up at me with wide, worried eyes as Clover drops out of the window, her gaze darting around, fierce resolve on her angular, bruised face.
“I have a baby,” I tell them both, firm assurance in my tone. “He’s coming with us, too.”
Retta hesitates, glancing at Fyn’ir’s wrapped form, then nods with decision as she clutches at my cloak.
“You both need to hold onto me,” I say, and Clover grabs hold of my cloak. “Don’t let go.” I pull out the Wand and murmur the camouflage spell, all of us immediately covered with the colors of the Ironwood forest before us.
We run until we’re well inside the woods. Once we’re clear of the house, I drop the camouflage, but keep myself washed in a Gardnerian green shimmer, the purple coursing just under my skin and straining to reassert itself.
“You’ve so much magic, Sage!” Clover marvels.
Retta looks to the Wand with awe, her mouth open, her face tear-streaked.
“Stay here and wait for me,” I tell them. “I have one last thing to do. And don’t be afraid if sorceresses come—”
“Sorceresses?” Retta cuts in fearfully.
I caress her shoulder, even though it burns my hand to do it. “You need to trust me. There are a lot of good people we’ve been told are bad, but they aren’t. And they’re going to help us. Now, you need to crouch down and just wait for a moment, all right?”
Clover shows no hesitation as she complies, her expression hard-bitten. Retta sends one long, grief-stricken look back toward the estate, and I can imagine the conflict raging in her mind.
Their home. Our parents. Our pets. Every last thing they own. Left behind.
“They won’t let you stay there,” I remind her grimly. “Even if you don’t come with me. You know that. You’ll have to leave for the Vasillis home.” My gut heaves at the vile surname.
Retta’s face twists in misery, but then she nods and takes a shaky breath, roughly wiping away her tears.
I camouflage Fyn’ir and myself anew, pull my hood over my head and follow the long line of trees toward Elloren Gardner’s cottage.
* * *
The predawn light shifts to an ethereal blue, a low mist clinging to the ground. A Watcher flies by overhead, wings rustling, serene and graceful. Two more Watchers fly up ahead of me, toward a small patch of trees. They perch on branches, turn and set tranquil eyes on me.
Emboldened, I go to them and slide the White Wand into my cloak’s inside pocket, then lean against the fence separating the two properties.
And I wait.
A few moments later, the third white bird flies back, perching between the two others above me.
Elloren Gardner, dressed in a night tunic thrown over a skirt, tentatively comes into view. At first, she’s not looking at me or the Watchers, but toward the wilds. Then she turns and freezes as she spots first the Watchers, then me, her eyes widening with fear.
“Elloren,” I say, to halt her from bolting.
A shocked realization washes over her face. “Sage?” Warily, she makes her way toward me, her eyes darting to the Watchers above.
She sees them.
Fear rises as I glance toward the distant road, searching for the Shadow that I can feel closing in.
“Wh-where have you been?” Elloren stammers, her brow tight with concern. “Your parents have been looking everywhere for you...”
“Keep your voice down, Elloren.” My eyes dart toward our estate, the road. Hurry, Sage. Hurry. Fyn’ir shifts under my cloak, and I hug him close.
“What’s under your cloak?” Elloren asks, seeming bewildered.
I take a deep breath and lift my chin defiantly. “My son.” The Icaral of Prophecy.
Light Mage (The Black Witch Chronicles) Page 26
