Light Mage

by Laurie Forest

  He pulls back and gazes at me solemnly, his little hands firm on my shoulders. “I am a rune-warrior, Sagellyn Gaffney. It is a great nis’vir to protect you.” He puts both hands on my cheeks, murmuring in Smaragdalfar, then presses his forehead to mine. He kisses my forehead and I kiss his in return.

  “Be safe, Na’bee,” I tell him, my heart wrenching.

  His eyes brighten and he smiles. “I will see you in the dragon lands. And your sisters, too!”

  A laugh bursts forth from me, Na’bee’s enthusiasm momentarily making every last daunting thing seem possible. “My sisters will like you very much,” I tell him, hope gaining some fragile ground in my chest.

  I stand as Zeymir and Kol approach, Na’bee happily esconcing himself between them.

  Zeymir clasps my arm warmly. “We will meet again, Sagellyn,” he says with a look of unflappable assurance that I want to hold onto and never let go. I thank him, and he kisses my head, murmuring farewell in Ishkart. Huge Kol extends his hand and grasps my forearm, which I assume is the Elfhollen way.

  Wyla sidles up to Zeymir’s side, leading a speckled stallion. She snaps her finger into the hilt of the rune-blade I have sheathed at my side—the blade she gave me.

  “So, Light Mage,” she says with a wry smile, glancing at the blade and the two wands pressed into the sheath next to it. “You are quite armed now.” Her eyes glitter with approval. “It is better this way. Better than when we first met.”

  I nod and hold her stare, my chest knotting up over her leaving, but I don’t move to hug her goodbye. I know that Wyla doesn’t like being touched.

  “It is a good first step,” she tells me, grinning as she mounts her horse, “when you stop crying and start planning how to impale your enemies.” She points at me with mock ferocity. “I want to see that Light Strike spell when we meet in Noi lands, Sagellyn Gaffney.” She grins devilishly and snorts a laugh, and I can’t help but smile back at her.

  To’yir bids me farewell next. She pulls my head down to hers, pressing her forehead to mine, murmuring seriously in Smaragdalfar for a moment. “Be brave, Sagellyn,” she says in halting Common Tongue. I bite at my lip and nod, and she pats my cheek and makes a clicking sound of approval.

  And then Za’ya is before me, and my heart gives a hard twist, both of us tearing up.

  She reaches in her tunic pocket and hands me her slim statue of the Smaragdalfar goddess, Oo’na—the statue from her altar.

  “No,” I say, waving the gift away, overwhelmed by the gesture. “I can’t. It’s too important to you.”

  She continues to hold it out insistently. “Which is why I am giving it to you, ti’a.”

  Touched by her kindness, I relent and take it from her, clasping my fist around it. Za’ya’s hands come around to cup my fist, and I look up at her through a sheen of tears.

  “El’iyon sier’vir’en, Sagellyn,” Za’ya tells me, smiling. “Life is the Resistance, no? We resist, and we work. And we make a new world, hm?” I throw my arms around her, and she kisses my cheek, then wipes the tears from my eyes with her thumb. She pulls her forehead toward mine, her hand cupping the back of my head as she murmurs what sounds like a Smaragdalfar blessing, then kisses my forehead.

  I take a shuddering breath as Za’ya and Ciaran help the last of the refugees into the secret compartment under the floorboard of the wagon, as I clutch at the statue of Oo’na like a talisman and pray to the Ancient One for their safety.

  Little Nil’ya is one of the last to climb in, and I lift my hand to her in farewell. The child turns, clutching her gray doll, and gives me one last, long look before she disappears inside.

  I watch them leave, Za’ya, Zeymir and Na’bee driving one wagon, To’yir, Fyon and Jules driving the other. Rivyr leads the caravan on his ivory mare and Wyla brings up the rear, hoisting her rune-blade to me in a final salute as the wagons turn and they’re all swallowed up by the woods.

  Tears streak down my face as I listen to the sounds of the horses fading to silence.

  Ciaran’s hand lightly touches my shoulder, and I turn. It’s so quiet now, the only sound the crackling, spitting fire and gentle night sounds of the forest.

  “We should go in, Sage,” Ciaran tells me, looking up at the sky. “It’s almost nightfall.”

  Chapter 14: Wards

  I follow Ciaran into the common area at the mouth of the cave. The ghostly imprint of the crowd lingers—scattered mugs, crumbs coating the low table and stone counters. We make our way down a narrow corridor lit by glowing emerald runes. The air cools as we walk, filled with the smell of clean, water-washed stone.

  There are runes suspended everywhere in the network of caves, marking the stone walls in glowing shades of green, gold and blue. Some are motionless, while others rotate lazily. Some are small as beetles, others large as millstones.

  I follow Ciaran past a smithery built right into the cave. Long, broad iron pipes rise from the smith stoves through the cave ceiling to vent the heat. The flames of the three stoves are generated not from burning wood, but from rotating green runes, working against each other like gears with flames cupped in their center. Their blasting heat suffuses me as we pass.

  There are three rune-swords lying on a table, breathtaking in their appearance. Their blades are made up of small emerald runes, all of the glowing marks rotating.

  “What are those swords?” I ask Ciaran.

  “Varg blades,” he tells me. “The only blades that can slay demons. And they can only be wielded by Smaragdalfar.”

  There’s another arching side entrance leading to what appears to be a rune-laboratory. Grimoires are scattered on tables and runic diagrams are printed in a careful hand on half-rolled pieces of parchment. Styluses of all shapes and sizes are scattered on every surface, and there are rows of glowing rune-stones on shelves around the room, again a mix of green, gold and blue. The blue runes are Noi runes—which means they must have contact with a Noi rune-sorceress. Are they working with the Vu Trin soldiers?

  We pass multiple weapons caches, with swords and every type of bladed weapon imaginable jammed into large vaults in the rock, the rune-magery worked into the weapons glowing. They have a full weapons factory down here, I realize—and enough weapons to supply a sizable army.

  We continue further into the caves until we come to a rune-curtain set into the wall.

  Ciaran slides it open, and I step into a darkened, otherworldly space that’s even more spectacular than his room back at the smithery.

  The curtain falls shut behind us, and it’s like I’m once again being enveloped in a constellation of runes. I circle around, taking in the spectacular runic designs on the dark tapestries, on the rug beneath my feet and suspended everywhere in the air like arrested raindrops.

  Ciaran slumps his long, muscular form back against a tapestry-covered wall, multiple suspended runes passing right through him and raying out light, the green glow highlighting the hard planes of his face. He’s quiet and constrained, but I can read it in his eyes—what he’s held in check while saying goodbye to Zeymir and Za’ya and the others.

  “You’re worried for them, aren’t you?” I ask with an uncomfortable sense of foreboding.

  His dark expression doesn’t budge. “The Alfsigr are very powerful, and the Zalyn’or necklaces give their hierarchy complete control. They have spies and allies all over the desert lands. If anyone even so much as suspects so many of them are glamoured Smaragdalfar...”

  “Rivyr is with them,” I remind him.

  Ciaran nods stiffly, holding himself bowstring rigid. He gives me a poignant look, as if trying to convey all that he isn’t telling me in his stricken gaze.

  “Ciaran...” I pull him into an embrace, and his arms wrap tightly around me, his forehead falling to my shoulder.

  “I’m tired of saying goodbye,” Ciaran rasps out, clinging to me for a long moment,
and I understand his anguish, my heart wrenching for him.

  “I’m here,” I attempt to reassure him. “You’re not alone this time.”

  Eventually, his grip on me loosens, but his hands stay pressed to my back as he pivots his head against my shoulder, his lips brushing against the base of my neck. His warm breath hovers just above my skin as the tension between us changes, morphing from comfort to...something else. Something as charged as the runes.

  “We’re truly alone,” Ciaran says in a low whisper, as if this moment between us is suspended and fragile as glass, my breath and his highlighted by the stillness of the cave as everything within me contracts into one gleaming shard of desire.

  Ciaran presses his soft lips against my neck, making me shudder. He pulls back, his eyes glazed with a sudden want that heightens my awareness of his beauty—the startling green of his eyes, his red hair gleaming black in the verdant light.

  “You’re almost too beautiful to look at,” he tells me, caressing a lock of my hair. I look down to see that my skin is shimmering a luminous violet, even in the green light, as if I’m lit up from within. He skims his finger along the skin at the edge of my tunic’s collar, his touch making me shiver. “It’s like you’re coated in gem dust. You were beautiful before, but...this color is so lovely on you.”

  “My affinity is so drawn to purple.” I give him a wry look. “The most forbidden of all the colors.”

  He smiles at this then brings his lips to the base of my neck and kisses me again. “I have an affinity for you.” He trails kisses up my neck, my jaw, his lips now a fraction from mine. “You’re my forbidden color.”

  I breathe out a delighted laugh which is enveloped in his kiss, a kiss that starts out sultry and lingering and soon takes a more heated turn, our self-control rapidly shredding as his tongue curls around mine. I caress his hard body, a bright thrill igniting all through my lines, our hands exploring familiar and then exciting, unfamiliar territory on each other, our breathing growing erratic as all the boundaries between us begin to fray.

  “I want you,” Ciaran tells me, his green eyes incandescent, his sorcery lighting up my lines and drawing me in. “I’d never even kissed anyone before you.” His jaw shifts, as if he’s having trouble finding the right words. “Everything has been a struggle. For years. And now...all I want...is to have you.” He swallows, his eyes tightening. “And you’re a fasted Gardnerian.”

  Ciaran steps back, blinking hard, as if breaking a spell. His whole body radiates a pent-up desire, and it makes me want him even more.

  “We have to stop,” he says.

  “I know,” I say, not wanting him to stop.

  His eyes rake over me before he briefly closes them and shakes his head, his skin flushed. “The fastlines...it’s not safe for you. And...there are more reasons than that to stop.”

  I know he’s right, that we have to stop. And so I take a few steps back, smoothing down my clothes, trying to still my pounding heart.

  Ciaran sits down on the bed—the only bed in the room. He looks at me, his eyes flickering with pent-up desire as he huffs out a hard breath and rubs the back of his neck. “I need to stay here now,” he tells me, gesturing loosely around the room. “Now that it’s nightfall, I can’t leave. You have some freedom here, though, since the property and the caves are warded. Those wards will take care of any type of search your people could send out.”

  “But you have to stay here?” I ask, confused.

  He nods, his expression abruptly turning guarded.

  “Why are your rooms so heavily warded?” I ask, wanting answers to all the questions that have been building up inside me since we met. “And why do you suddenly need to hide yourself behind high-grade military wards?”

  His jaw ticks as he holds my stare, his silence a wall against my words.

  “You’re all rune-sorcerers,” I say, trying to work it out. “Za’ya. Na’bee. Zeymir. Wyla. And you. Yet you’re the only one with a warded room. And not just warded—warded against a demon army.”

  Ciaran’s gaze darkens. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I’ve studied military grimoires. Quite a few of them. I have a friend whose father ran a Mage Guard armory.” I take a step toward him. “Ciaran. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  But he just shakes his head. “I can’t tell you, Sage. I want to, but I shouldn’t. Truly. Not until we go east. In case...”

  “In case what?”

  Ciaran’s expression grows pained. “In case they find us. It’s safer if you don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  He holds his silence.

  Stubborn defiance bleeds into my voice. “I know you’re smuggling refugees out of the sublands. I know you’re smuggling weapons with battle runes on them. Demon-slaying runes. And I know you’re building a huge armory down here, to arm the Smaragdalfar and maybe others in the Resistance. I know that you have rune-sorcery, even though you shouldn’t, because you’re a Kelt. I already know all of this, Ciaran. So why are you in hiding? What’s hunting you?”

  Ciaran’s eyes are suddenly fierce, his mouth a tight, unyielding line.

  “I’ve thrown my lot in with the Resistance,” I say, matching his intensity. “There’s no turning back for me.” I hold up an arm that shimmers with a faint purple glow. “I don’t even look Gardnerian anymore.”

  “You are Gardnerian.” He says it tightly, as if he’s struggling to force a boundary between us and failing. “You can glamour your color, but you cannot change that.”

  His words are a staggering blow, and a reminder of how trapped I still am because of what my people—my own parents—have done to me.

  I rake my fingers through my tangled hair, feeling like the walls are closing in around me. “I need air,” I tell him, futilely blinking back tears. “I can’t be in here with you right now.”

  Ciaran rises, regret in his eyes. “Sage, I’m sorry...”

  I shake my head, tears falling as I turn away and flee from the room, through the caves, through the common area. I burst out into the night, the damp air cool on my face.

  I keep going, breaking into a run down the forest-edged road until my legs ache and my chest feels like it’s full of cut glass. Until the rune-marked cave entrance is out of sight and I’m surrounded by darkness.

  Chapter 15: Unwarded

  I’m breathing hard as I lean down, my hands tight on my thighs, trying to slow my heavy breathing. There’s an encroaching autumn chill to the air and an oppressive silence to the dark forest, and I’m overcome by a sense of painful isolation. My mind is heart-wrenchingly full of Ciaran, our rapid and deep connection, the balm of his presence. He’s been a tether for me, keeping me from being completely lost to despair.

  I pull in a hard breath, the truth slipping in, irrevocable.

  I want him.

  I don’t care that I barely know him. I don’t care that we’re from completely different worlds. I want him.

  A subtle vibration against my calf pulls my attention away from my turbulent thoughts. I rub my eyes and look down. The wand.

  Then a streak of white catches my eye, and I glance up. There’s a white bird in the tree directly in my line of sight, warning in its silver eyes. And then it’s gone—the image such a quick flash that I blink hard and straighten, turning around to search for the bird...but nothing.

  Just the gathering dark.

  A chill creeps down my spine. I turn to face the direction from which I came, and my eyes lock onto a glowing emerald ward set into a broad tree quite some ways back up the road. A bright flash of fear stabs through me.

  I’ve gone too far—clear past the wards.

  Filled with jagged alarm, I start for the ward at a fast clip, toward safety, until I’m back behind it. I breathe out a long sigh of relief, my breathing now close to a normal cadence.

&nbs
p; The rune-ward flashes a fiery red and starts to spin, tendrils of dark shadow flowing out of it.

  A stream of fear rushes into my heart. I wheel around, struggling to see into the dark shadows of the forest and down the road. I unsheathe my rune-knife, gripping the hilt tightly as I peer back in the direction of the cave. I’m too far down the curved road to make out the rune-marked door.

  Something is watching me. I feel it with a sudden, terrible assurance that sets the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. I slowly turn to look back down the road, and my breath clogs in my throat.

  There are two dark figures suddenly there, lit red by the whirling rune. Time seems to stretch as a feeling of unreality courses over me.

  The council envoys. From all those years ago in Valgard. The men Gwynn told me were glamoured demons. Their forms shift to the two Keltic men who spotted me in Verpax City the night I fled my fasting, the men with the flash of red in their eyes. They were the same men...

  Holy Ancient One. The truth hits me with brutal force. The demons are real, and they know I have the Wand.

  Both men’s eyes light up red as the taller man’s mouth lifts in a vulpine smile. I flinch as his wrist flicks out and a net of glowing red lines fans out across the road, like a tide coming in. Terror rips through me as I turn and run, the lines pulsing around me, casting the woods in a blood-red glow.

  A line makes contact with my ankle with a whip-like sting and coils tight around my leg. I cry out and pitch forward as my bound leg is roughly tugged backward. My elbows collide hard with the ground, my palms slamming down onto the dirt, my leg wrenched in my hip socket as I fall.

  For a split second, I lay panting, crippled by the fear of what lies behind me. Then the binding on my ankle slackens.

  The woods are silent, but I can feel their eyes on me.

  I turn my head and flinch back with a terrified whimper.

  Two demons float above the road, their powerful bodies slowly materializing from a cloud of glowing, burning red as the crimson lines of their rune-web pull in and disappear, save one—the one tied to me. Cruel faces made of fire leer at me, eyes simmering with vermilion flame, facial features flickering, spiraling shadow horns tendriling smoke.