by Lora Leigh
As long as Wizards knew gentleness, as long as they knew love. As long as Wizards aligned with their natural Consortress, so then would they always know peace.
Should Wizards force their Sorceresses to unions of power, rather than love, they would know regret. Should Wizards steal a Sorceress’ will, steal her strength, her freedom and her magick, so then would they lose the gifts the One had bequeathed them.
Should Wizards ever, at any time, force a Sorceress to turn from her natural Consorts to a union of power, while taking to their bed the Sorceress who should have been their own, so then would he take from them the one gift that would surely weaken them forever.
He would take from them their Sorceress.
Then, from the Winter Mountains, at the very boundary of Cauldaran, he drew the great Snow Owls where they hunted and nested. Those great feathered beasts emerged from within a wintery landscape of such chill that even magickal beings were known to find death’s arms awaiting their journeys into them.
The pure white owls, fierce and strong, would carry the Wizards high above the lands to ensure humans never invaded again. They would protect and transport their Wizards and give to them their fierce loyalty and devotion.
From the frozen, ice-filled vales of those mountains and the valley beyond where spring always bloomed, the One then drew the great winged lions to forever serve the Sorceresses who may one day have only the strength of the fierce beasts to save them.
Each gift was strong, sure, fierce in battle and determined in loyalty. Each placed their fates in the hands of those the One sent them to serve and to protect. To watch over these children the One so adored and forever see to their survival.
For a time, magick reigned. Wizard Twins and Sorceresses of love, beauty and magickal centers so pure and strong they infused the air around them, united as the One commanded.
Until Twin kings looked at the daughter who would rule and knew regret. A daughter who refused the Wizard Twins brought to her, who searched desperately for Consorts who seemed forever distant. She would take the throne, she would rule as one rather than as one of three. And this they could not abide.
To Wizards of power he sought a bargain. His daughter and her throne in exchange for a Joining of power rather than of love.
It was a bargain they eagerly accepted. One they were grateful to be given, for the Sorceress destined to be theirs had been lost to them forever by another such bargain but a short time before.
Wizards were trading their daughters to unions of power rather than love. Parents were promising their newly born Sorceresses to boy Wizards while their parents profited.
All the One had said was forbidden was now practiced often. And after a time, it soon became rare for natural Joinings to find approval. From there, it was not but a step to a law that made illegal any Joining not approved by the Wizard Chancellors to each province of Cauldaran.
And soon, all too soon, Wizard Rulers took as Consortress a Sorceress who longed for her natural Consorts. Outside that Joining they took the Sorceress their hearts longed for, and denied her forevermore their magick souls they had aligned with another.
What had once been ecstasy, a pleasure so incredible that only those of magick could bear its sweet bite, became agony instead. One Sorceress taken by Twins who knew no love, no tenderness. Twins whose magick knew only regret and resentful greed.
And it was the Sorceresses who paid the price. With their pain, their fear. With their hearts and their compassion. They paid for the greed of Consorts, power-hungry fathers, mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins filled with cold misery and loss and unable to bear the sight of another Sorceress finding that which brought the greatest pleasure.
Until those of the first Joining, that princess Sorceress and her Twin protectors whom the One gave rule to Nirvana once their lives upon Sentmar expired, heard the wails and felt the tears of their magickal descendants below.
The twin moons, it is written by some, knew compassion and aided their Consortress in leading their daughters from Cauldaran to a land some said only the Griffons knew the way to.
Others have written that the goddess looked down upon hearing a single heartbeat expire. A Sorceress of her direct line, taken, imprisoned within a cold and lonely castle, the mistress of Twins who had aligned for power rather than taking the Sorceress their magick reached out for. A Sorceress who could no longer bear the pain, both of body and of spirit. The first Sorceress ever recorded to have committed the ultimate sin and taken her own life.
Musera, the Sorceress the One chose as goddess to his lands, it is written by some, aided the Sorceresses’ bid for freedom and sent to them the knowledge of the lands filled with magick that lay across the great frozen expanses of Winter Mountains and the Feral Glaciers that lay beyond.
Those same historians wrote that when the Twin gods saw what their goddess had taken from their sons, that rage struck all of Sentmar. They wrote that on that day, Wizard Twins and Sorceress Consortresses battled with the same fierce fury and determination as the Twin gods and their goddess fought above.
Anger, pain and rebellion surged through the lands, it was written, no matter the historian writing it.
The Raging Seas swept upon the shores and pounded at the base of the mountains. Blinding magickal snows and ice pelted Winter Mountains while volcanoes opened upon their snowy peaks and shed their molten magick, melting ice and snow as they fell to the mountains below.
The historians wrote the event as the day Cauldaran lost warmth. The day the magick set back in shock and pain and watched as the heart of Cauldaran was torn asunder.
And both wrote the Keepers of the Power of Cauldaran, those entrusted with the heart of magick, the secrets, the power, the very spirit of magick, used it to strike against the most tender, and yet the most fierce of the children of that land.
The daughters of the One.
Sorceresses and Twins battled as the great flying lions, the Griffons of Sentmar, fought to protect the Sorceresses given to their keeping. Blocking the paths, roaring out their rage as the magickal Twins struck them down and filled the base of the mountains with the Griffons’ blood.
What they did not kill, they enchanted. The females and babes were blocked from their inner magick then sent to the dark, violent realms of the Shadow Planes. A place so infected with the darkness of evil that survival was highly unlikely.
For centuries rage filled Cauldaran.
Wizards warred for lands, for power, for the few Sorceresses of lesser magick and the magickal descendants of human Joinings whose power was minimal, yet still, ’twas power to access.
The Raging Seas boiled with the fury of the gods. Storms swept the land, fought to cross the Winter Mountains yet rarely crossed to the Valley of Spring beyond.
For a hundred years Wizard Twins existed in a haze of blood-red rage. Until the descendants of those first Keepers crossed the great icy barrier and kidnapped the Sorceress the magick of that newly discovered magickal land had claimed.
A Keeper of the Power is bonded with the land and the magick it holds. In Cauldaran, she built the power of the land she oversaw, fighting to strengthen it, to hold back the weakness that unnatural Joinings had brought to it.
In Covenan, a Keeper controlled the magick of a center of power that boiled and surged, burned and raged beneath the land like an ungoverned child. Her magick centers it, soothes it and gives it purpose.
On that day, the Keepers of Cauldaran magick, Twins who harness the power of the Raging Seas, slipped into the lands the Sorceresses hid within and stole the Keeper the lands had just chosen.
Once forcing an alignment and taking the Sorceress their magick longed for, they cruelly and without thought tore from her soul the bonds the land had made with her.
Suddenly bereft, a piece of her heart, a portion of her soul missing, the Sorceress wept and grieved until her young heart could take no more. Leaping from the tallest tower of the castle she was imprisoned within, the Keeper of the Power of t
he Royal Forests of Covenan threw herself to her death.
The magick of Covenan grieved.
The magick of Cauldaran threatened to tear the lands apart with its rage.
If the gods were in opposition over the separation of Wizard Twins and Sorceress Consorts, then in their horror and disbelief at the actions of the magickal Twins they were united.
A surge of power swept over the lands of both magickal sects. Musera closed the remaining portals between Cauldaran and Covenan. Her Twin Consorts blocked their sons’ magick from ever breaching the divide from Cauldaran again. And together, the three ensured no Sorceress could ever be taken by force from her lands again.
The wound created that day was one the gods feared would never heal within their daughters. They watched as the centuries passed. As the divide between the magicks continued to grow.
They watched as the magick of all of Sentmar began to weaken.
The great billowy clouds of magick surrounding the twin moons began to dim. Humans began to strike and something dark and malevolent began to fill the land.
The One awoke once again, looked out at the danger to the daughters he so loved, and knew he must act once more.
The darkness that lurked in Shadow Hell could only be held back by the magick of Wizard Twin and Sorceress unions. Joinings natural to the hearts and souls of those unions, rather than the forced alignments his daughters had once suffered.
A millennium passed, and still, Wizard Twins had not seen past their arrogance and the mistakes of the past. If he did not act, if he did act quickly, then all of magick would be destroyed and the humans would persecute his children until nothing remained of them.
But he must be careful.
He must be diligent.
The darkness was strong, the magick was weak, and still his children knew a division that threatened all of the lands of magick.
That threatened their very existence.
Prologue
“It is the Keeper of the Power of Covenan that we are here to Court, Rhydan, we must not forget this,” Torran Delmari stated, his voice so dark and filled with sensual warmth it lit a fire inside Astra Al’madere that she could not cool, nor eradicate. “No matter our desires otherwise, she must be found.”
She opened her eyes slowly and watched the warriors as they stood now, their backs to her, their voices lowered.
Trembling, shaking with such pain and betrayal she distantly wondered why her magick wasn’t filling the hall with the furious sparks of her rage, she fought to hold back her tears.
Her outrage.
She could feel it crackling inside her, threatening to spark from her body and strike about the gracious Covenani marble columns and striking sparkspur stone floors that gleamed with hues of darkened red before blending into lush, red-orange streaks of the magick stone. Covenani marble and sparkspur tone amplified female power, called to it, and would have surely betrayed her had she not learned at an early age to contain her pain.
She was going to die from the effort though.
She was certain of it.
Deep in her heart, in her soul, where her magick protected her even against her tender Sorceress emotions, Astra could feel herself weakening, losing the will to stand to her feet, to protect herself from falling into the yawning pit of agony that opened inside her fragile spirit.
Her eyes filled with moisture, tears that were all but unheard of for the heir to the Keeper of the Mystic Forests.
Astra Al’madere did not cry.
Were these Wizards not aware of the laws of magickal Joinings?
Fools.
They were such fools.
Of course they were aware.
The magick that existed inside all magickal beings that was responsible for finding their natural Consort would not tolerate such betrayal of the natural ways of courtship.
Did they not remember why Wizards and Sorceresses separated a millennium before? How could they not know that once they sought to betray their natural Consort, their magick would forever hide her identity from them until the day they rectified that most heinous mistake?
She had not shed tears since those first nights after her mother, the Keeper of the Mystic Forests, had sent her from her land and gave her to the keeping of the Queen of Covenan.
She had thought, believed with all her soul, that no betrayal could ever be greater than the betrayal of a beloved mother.
As the golden rays of the life-giving sun spilled their heated magick into the receiving hall, Astra learned there were far greater betrayals.
There was the betrayal of a Sorceress’ Wizard Twins. Her Consorts, and the Wizards she alone had been created for.
She slowly flattened her back against the great stone column of the entry hall of the castle Sellane, the ruling house of the land of Covenan.
She could not believe what she heard. Surely she must have misunderstood.
Turning slowly, silently, she peeked around the column to where the two great warriors stood, discussing matters they would have done well to discuss in private.
Torran’s eyes, a deeper blue than even that of the Raging Magick Seas, like Rhydan’s lighter blue ones, were narrowed and glittering with irritation. Shielded by the enviously long black lashes that surrounded them, they gleamed the color of pure magick. Hair as black as the deepest night fell about their wide shoulders and emphasized the white of their cord cotton shirt, while their black warriors pants outlined their lean, powerful hips.
The crystalline spores of power, invisible but intuitive, reached out from the Wizard Twins, always seeking, always on alert for even the most hidden sign of danger.
It was a magick she did not fear though, one that whispered over her as it had before, caressing her with an invisible touch of such exquisite pleasure that she could only close her eyes weakly and acquiesce to it rather than protest.
Protesting would mean allowing them to know she was there. For some reason, their magick never alerted them to her presence.
The magick that filled the two men was so strong though. So strong that their natural Consortress felt it reaching out desperately for her, twining around her with a hint of confusion.
How very odd, she thought as her neck arched to the heated warmth that stroked over it, caressing the sensitive flesh with a slow, delicious touch of magick. She could sense the strength of the intuitive magick these warriors possessed as it sought her out, confused why she did not reveal herself to the Wizards standing just beyond the column.
The urge to go to them, to reveal herself and her knowledge that they were her natural Consorts was an impulse so very difficult to deny. An impulse that only grew at the knowledge that her Consorts were seeking another.
“Did you hear me, brother?” the eldest Delmari Wizard questioned harshly.
“I have not gone deaf, Torran. I but question this plan you intend to enact. I am not so certain it is the wisest course to take,” Rhydan snapped. “Already I feel our Consortress, I feel our magick reach for her and I am certain we met her the day of our arrival. As much as I agree with the Veressi in their present plan, still, this reeks of a deception I am not certain needs to be practiced.” As he spoke, their magick feathered against the lobe of her ear, the ghostly tug of its touch urged her once again to reveal herself.
“And for that reason alone I am most grateful that it was not of my design. Should you suspect who our Consortress is, then I beg of you, brother, do not reveal such to me.” Torran sighed. “I can do naught but pray to the Select that we are doing what is best for all concerned and that soon this will be over.”
What plan? If only they had entered the great hall sooner, perhaps when they were discussing the details of it rather than arguing the advisability of it, then Astra would at least have information to give to the Guardian of the Power of the Lands of Covenan and the commander of the Sorceress Brigade.
“We are to attempt to convince her to align with us in a Covenant as our Consortress and we are not even certai
n which Sorceress she is.” Torran seemed to be reminding him. “The Guardian of the Lands of Covenan hides herself well, but she is the only Consortress the Veressi will accept for us if we wish to ensure our lands remain within Delmari control as it has since the dawn of Wizard magick.”
Agony struck at her once more. She could not believe they would do this. Since their arrival mere days before she had known who they were to her. And she knew now, they sensed her. They might not know which Sorceress she was, but they sensed her. She had known she was their Consortress, yet they would take another instead? They would force the alignment of magicks rather than coming to her, the Sorceress who had awaited them since she had awakened to her female power and desires? They searched for another as Consortress, when they knew, she knew, they must be aware that their Consortress was near.
How had this happened? What stroke of insanity would make them consider such an act? To convince a Sorceress to “align” with them? Such an unnatural act of Consortship would never be considered by any Sorceress, especially the one Astra knew as the Guardian of Covenan.
“What of the one our magick seeks? Even now I feel it reaching out to her,” Rhydan asked then, his voice heavy. “I still cannot learn which Sorceress it is, as though the weave of magick that has searched evermore for her now refuses her identity to us. It is now to the point I believe I fear the ball to introduce the Sorceresses to those of us who have come seeking Consortresses.”
“Perhaps it is better we do not know which Sorceress it is, brother.” Torran sighed regretfully. “To know, yet to be unable to touch, unable to take her as our own, surely would be a fate worse even than seeking a Consortress not our own to possess.”
She could not bear this pain.
She could not bear such a betrayal.
Remaining hidden, feeling the consoling caress of their magick and the regret that lay heavy within it, Astra could only bite back the furious anger growing inside her, even as a single tear escaped her control.
