Magic, romance and adventure collide in Wandfasted, the irresistible ebook prequel to The Black Witch by Laurie Forest

When they painted Heretics on our barn and set fire to it, I thought that was the worst it could get.

Until they sent the dragons.

But they didn’t count on us having dragons of our own. And they certainly didn’t count on Her. Our Great Mage. The Bringer of Fire. The Storm of Death. The Crow Sorceress. Our Deliverance.

The Black Witch.

PRAISE FOR THE BLACK WITCH

“I absolutely loved The Black Witch... Maximum suspense, unusual magic—a whole new, thrilling approach to fantasy!” —Tamora Pierce, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“The Black Witch is a refreshing, powerful young adult fantasy. This strong debut offers an uncompromising glimpse of world-altering politics amplified by a magical setting in which prejudice and discrimination cut both ways.” —Robin Hobb, New York Times bestselling author

“I absolutely devoured The Black Witch—a power-packed read that elegantly tackles a very tough, relevant subject in a fantasy setting, perfect for new and old readers of the genre!” —Lindsay Cummings, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Wandfasted

Laurie Forest

Dedication

For Diane Dexter—

tireless youth advocate, talented writer and reader, devoted mother

and my good friend.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Western Realm Map

Prologue

Chapter 1: Front Lines

Chapter 2: Jules Kristian

Chapter 3: Prisoner

Chapter 4: The White Wand

Chapter 5: Wandshield

Chapter 6: Lightning Mage

Chapter 7: Affinity

Chapter 8: Vale Gardner

Chapter 9: The Black Witch

Chapter 10: The Dryad

Chapter 11: Untethered

Chapter 12: Wandfasting

Chapter 13: Lower River Girl

Chapter 14: Level Five Mage

Chapter 15: Rigid Lines

Chapter 16: Staen’en

Chapter 17: Ironflowers

Chapter 18: Embroidery

Chapter 19: Predator

Chapter 20: Mages

Chapter 21: Sanguin’in

Chapter 22: Voltic Sea

Chapter 23: Home

Chapter 24: Blue Lightning

Chapter 25: Valgard

Chapter 26: Kindred Lines

Chapter 27: Weapons

Chapter 28: Alone

Chapter 29: The Selkie

Chapter 30: Runehawk

Chapter 31: Fire

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

I’ve gotten used to the names they call us.

Crows. Roaches. Hedgewitches.

I no longer cry when I’m shoved in the market or spat on in the streets. I endure their mocking, hateful glares and the signs of protection they make against me to ward off my perceived evil.

I am Gardnerian.

As such, I’m barely tolerated here, stranded in a sea of Kelts, allowed to exist only because my aptitude for healing brews is considered useful in this tiny, remote village.

It would be easier, perhaps, if my appearance didn’t set me apart so much. My forest-green eyes and dark hair might seem unremarkable, but the black tunic and long skirt I wear, paired with a silver Erthia orb necklace, mark me as one of the First Children. And the way my skin shimmers a faint emerald in the dark—perhaps the most undeniable sign of all—makes it impossible for me to hide what I am.

A Gardnerian Mage.

Hated by all but my own people.

When they painted Heretics on our barn and set fire to it, I thought that was the worst it could get.

Until they sent the dragons.

But they didn’t count on us having dragons of our own. And they certainly didn’t count on Her.

Our Great Mage. The Bringer of Fire. The Storm of Death. The Crow Sorceress.

Our Deliverance.

The Black Witch.

Chapter 1: Front Lines

“We’re not doing business with Crows,” Mistress Darrow states. “Not anymore.”

She stands with one fist propped on a broad hip, her apple-cheeked face twisted up into a triumphant sneer, strands of her blond hair escaping her crimson kerchief. The flag of Keltania is pinned above her ample bosom—an iron-black X on a rectangle of bloodred linen.

Her husband, Merchant Darrow, seems embarrassed, his own Keltanian flag haphazardly pinned up near his shoulder. He looks down at the wooden counter in front of him, toying with the smooth abacus and deliberately avoiding my gaze.

Panic rears inside me. My grip tightens on the apothecary crate I’ve set down before them, tidy medicine bottles lined up in the segmented box. I think of the money we need for our journey east to Verpacia. Of the red tinge to the leaves, winter close on our heels. My elderly grandfather, my young brother.

Doveshire has become too dangerous for Gardnerians. It took ages for my brother, Wren, and me to convince our stubborn grandfather that we needed to leave, but now, everything is ready for our departure—the wagon is packed, the horses already hitched, the house closed up.

All we need is the money for these medicines I’ve spent weeks brewing. The money we’ve been counting on to buy supplies—supplies we’ll need to survive.

I straighten my shoulders, trying not to shrink under Mistress Darrow’s glare. “I don’t understand. The last time I came in, you were happy to buy my medicines.”

She blows out a disgusted breath. “Dark witches with dark magic, that’s what your lot is. First you twist the faith that belongs to us. Then you use your dark magic to steal a nice big chunk of our land.” She gives her chin a defiant lift, her smile full of venom. “Well, the tide is turning. Your magic’s faded.”

Some of what she’s saying is true, to the sadness of many Gardnerians. Most of my people have no magic or weak magic at best. And we haven’t had a Great Mage in generations. But our magic isn’t dark, and I’ve never done a thing to harm her or anyone else—though I’m sorely tempted to in this moment.

I can feel her angry gaze on me as I turn to her husband. “Please, Merchant Darrow,” I plead, the forced politeness of my tone ringing false in my own ears. “I’ve spent weeks preparing these healing brews for your shop. My family is counting on me to sell them.”

Conscience seems to get the better of Merchant Darrow, his lined face tensing in discomfort. “Just this last time, Tessla,” he forces out gruffly, still not looking at me as he pulls the vials of medicines closer to inspect them.

Mistress Darrow throws him a tight look of fury before grabbing the crate and jerking it away from the both of us.

“We’ll take them, then.” She smiles malevolently. “Just like you Crows took our land.” She sets a hard gaze on her husband. “No payment.”

I’m not sure I’ve heard her right. “What?”

She skewers me with her glare. “Oh, we’re onto the lot of you. Figuring you’ll wave your wands around and take everything we’ve got right from under us. Well, not this time. We’re going to fight, and we’ll stamp you all out before you have a chance to raise up another Dark Mage. And we’re taking our land back.”

My heart pounds like a hammer. I lunge for the crate, but she’s anticipated me, pulling it quickly out of reach just as Brandon and two other burly blacksmith apprentices lumber into the Guildmarket.

“You can’t,” I protest, full of righteous fury and mounting desperation as she sets the crate on a high shelf behind her. “That’s a whole month’s work. We’ve nothing else to trade. You’re stealing.”

“Got a Roach in here? Causing trouble?” Brandon saunters toward me, smelling of sweat and smoke. His blond hair is greasy, and the flag of Keltania is securely pinned over his heart.

I glare up at him with undisguised loathing. Undaunted, Brandon reaches out with a broad, dirty hand to paw at my hair. I flinch away, and he laughs, a cruel gleam in his eyes. “At least she’s a pretty Roach.”

“Is she?” Gerrig sidles up and gives me a slow once-over, Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny, chicken-like neck. He flicks up the edge of my tunic with his finger.

“You’d never know it, with all this black fabric they wear. Could have three titties, for all we know.”

I recoil and slap my tunic hem down flat, flushing with embarrassment and horror as the young men and Mistress Darrow break into laughter. I’m stunned by their brazen cruelty and find myself blinking back tears.

“We could check that,” stocky Colton offers, mischief lighting his eyes.

Their chortling quickly turns to an open leer. I shrink back, my gaze darting toward the door, then desperately back to my medicines.

Merchant Darrow won’t let them hurt me, I reason, trying to calm myself. He’s never been unkind. And surely he’ll pay me.

Out of the corner of my eye, through the store’s large front windows, I see young Keltic men running down the street armed with bows and swords, the flag of Keltania pinned to their arms. My mind is cast into confusion and mounting alarm.

“What’s happening?” I ask nervously. “Where are they going?”

Brandon leans in close and I know what his answer will be before he speaks.

“To get rid of all of you.”

A Purging.

The villagers have murmured about it for months as the border hostilities heated up, hissing their threats as I passed by. Grandfather kept dismissing it all as overinflated bravado, so we stupidly remained here.

My plan for escape is a single day too late.

I back away from Brandon as my stomach gives a sickening lurch, suddenly aware of how much danger we’re in. I have to get home to Grandfather and Wren. I have to get them to safety right now. And I have to get hold of Grandfather’s wand so I can use what magic I have to protect them.

“Come along, Edgard,” Mistress Darrow slyly purrs to her husband, a vengeful gleam in her eye. She takes in the restless crowd on the street, Brandon and his cohorts—and me, conspicuously unarmed, unprotected. “Leave the girl,” she directs as Merchant Darrow hesitates, a worried expression on his face. “Let the young men take care of the Crows.”

My throat goes dry and tight. “Please, Merchant Darrow,” I plead. “You’ve always been fair to us.”

Merchant Darrow glances toward the young men, then back at me, obviously torn, a hard crease between his eyes.

Another mob of men streams by the windows, brandishing knives and swords. Some are on horseback, riding toward my home downriver.

My panic crests as I turn back to see Merchant Darrow and his wife quietly slipping into the back of the shop, a heavy curtain falling shut behind them.

Emboldened, piggish Colton licks at his lip, splotches of red coloring his cheeks as he stares at my body. “Should we find out what’s under all that black?”

“Leave me alone, Colton,” I demand, backing up as far as I can, my skirts pressing against a grain barrel.

“‘Leave me alone, Colton,’” he jeers, his tone a high-pitched mockery of mine that sets Brandon laughing.

Gerrig snorts in derision, his smile excited. “Think they’re holier than us. That they’re the true First Children.”

“You too good for us?” Brandon chides, eyeing me smugly. “That why you go ’round with your nose stuck high in the air?”

“Stop it, Brandon,” I seethe, glaring at him. If I only had a wand.

“Or what?” Brandon taunts, stalking closer. “You’ll wave a magic stick at us? You don’t have any idea what’s coming, do you?”

“That’s enough,” I insist, my heart pounding. “I have to leave.” I step around him, but his muscular arm swings out to catch me.

“Not so fast, little witch.”

Growing desperate, I slip away from his grasp and try to go around his other side.

Laughing along with his friends, Brandon grabs me and jerks me roughly backward.

Infuriated, I wrench myself around and slam the base of my palm hard up against his nose, the pain of impact knifing up my arm.

He stumbles back in surprise, his hand flying up to his nose, blood seeping through his fingers. I glare at him fiercely.

Brandon’s eyes narrow, but before I can bolt for the door, he rushes forward and smacks me hard across the face.

Shocked, I stagger and lose my footing, falling to the floor. Brandon stalks toward me as I scuttle away from him, dizzy from the blow.

The door to the Guildmarket creaks open.

“Hit her again, and I will split your head, Brandon. I swear I will.”

Brandon stops, his fist clenched midair.

Jules Kristian is standing in the doorway, pointing an arrow straight at Brandon’s head.

Tall, skinny Jules. My Kelt neighbor. His glasses are askew, his hair is its usual brown, tousled mess and he’s not wearing a flag. He looks like one of them, dressed in an earth-toned tunic and pants. But he’s nothing like them—he always makes up his own mind rather than following the crowd.

And he’s made the very bad decision to be friends with me.

Chapter 2: Jules Kristian

Brandon and the others stand frozen, as if stunned that bookish Jules has it in him to defy them.

Filled with relief, I seize the chance Jules has given me. I burst through a gap between Brandon and Gerrig, dive around Jules and fly out the front door, almost losing my footing on the wooden steps.

I skid to a halt at the sight that lies before me, my stomach clenching into a tight vise.

At the center of the five-point intersection, just off to the side of the village’s central, raised dais, a wagon has come to a stop. An angry mob of Kelts surrounds it, their collective voices rising. The wagon is jammed full of black-clad Gardnerians with dark hair and green eyes.

I know them all.

Before anyone in the crowd can see me, I dive behind a stack of grain barrels and peer through the gaps, my heart hammering. The streets are packed, and I can see no obvious route of escape. But if I can’t get out of here, I’ll end up in that the wagon with the rest of my Gardnerian neighbors.

Mage Krell, the mild-mannered cooper, stands against the wagon’s edge and blinks, gazing vacantly at the crowd as the mob rocks the wagon and hurls insults. His glasses are gone, and a large bruise colors the side of his face. Years ago, he made me a small set of wooden animals that were so tiny, I could hold them all in the palm of my hand. His elderly wife clings to him, white strands of her hair flying around like unworked wool, her eyes wide and terrified. Mage Cooke, the quiet widow who scrapes by selling herbs and teas, is cowering, her arm raised protectively in front of her face. Young, sour Rolland is shaking his fist and stupidly yelling back at the crowd. He falls back as a large rock hits him square in the head. Mage Cooke ducks and cries out, her hands flying up to her face as more rocks are hurled at the wagon. When she lifts her head again, blood is streaming down her temple.

The voices swell as a young blonde Keltic woman is dragged onto the central dais by the village smith and his strapping son, Orik. Her head is shorn, and there’s a sign around her neck that reads CROW WHORE. My heart lurches into my throat as I realize it’s meek Daisie, the smith’s own daughter. She struggles in vain as they thrust her into the wagon with the Gardnerians. A limp, black-clad Gardnerian youth is dragged up next—quiet Gramm, who’s been sweet on Daisie for years, his face bloodied, his sign reading FILTHY CROW. I lose sight of him as the miller hurls him off the dais and into the bloodthirsty crowd, their voices surging.

The sea of voices is one loud blur, but some of their rage-filled words sound out clearly.

“Kill the Mages before they kill us!”

“Keltania for Kelts!”

“Smash the Roaches!”

“Kill him!”

“There’s another one! Hidin’ back here!”

I cry out as a large hand clamps down on my arm and I’m wrenched out into the open, the nearest edge of the crowd turning to face me in a sickening, murderous wave.

Terror stabs through me, filling me with feral desperation.

I stomp and claw at my attacker, struggling to free my arm. My other arm is grabbed tight by another man, stretching me out between them. I kick and twist wildly in a futile effort to break free.

Then an ear-shattering shriek rends the air, and the entire crowd gasps and ducks. The hands restraining me fall away, and I almost stumble to the ground.

I flinch as a mammoth black dragon bursts into view overhead and thunders across the sky.

There’s another collective ducking-down as a series of shrieks echoes out from above. Two more dragons slice through the clouds, their dark wings expansive. The dragons are ghoulishly skeletal, their wings covered with sharp feathers. They push air down onto us in a heavy stream that blows my hair flat against my scalp. A foul stench washes over me, like rotted carrion set on fire.

A cheer goes up from the crowd.

My gaze is torn from the sky as another hand grabs my arm, but my panic recedes when I see Jules standing beside me, a finger to his lips. He pulls me backward into an alley, and I stumble to keep up with him as more dragons shriek by overhead.

They’re all flying in same direction. North. Toward Gardneria. Toward my homeland.

Jules’s pace is furious, his bow slung over his shoulder, bobbing up and down as we run. It almost slides off as we dart down the narrow alley, then take a sharp left behind the Guildmarket.

He practically hurls me behind the clutter of damaged barrels, torn jute sacks and other mercantile debris that’s piled up. My elbow makes painful contact with a large crate as I duck down for cover. Then the light is snuffed out as Jules throws an old grain sack over the both of us, and not a moment too soon.

Heavy boot heels thud down the alley and across the dirt ground right in front of us. “She ran back here!” a man yells.

“Must be headed for the Roach Bank,” another answers.

My breath seems outrageously loud. I cover my mouth and nose with my arm to stifle it. I start to feel faint as my pulse hammers in my ears and fear threatens to crack me into a million jagged pieces.

More boots thud by, but the voices begin to recede. “She went this way! Toward the river!”

The alley finally falls silent, and Jules peeks out. Weak twilight seeps in under the sack.

My head is spinning, my heart thundering in my chest. My brother. My grandfather. My entire universe constricts to one singularity: a suffocating fear for my family.

I murmur a fire spell and pull up a ball of magic from the ground.

The spell sizzles up in a buzzing thread to curl tight inside my chest. A vibrating pain grows, prickling like a rotating ball of needles in the center of me. I can’t do anything with this power, not without a wand, but it emanates a steadying warmth that stays my mounting panic.

“We need to get to the top of the peak,” I rasp out breathlessly to Jules, jerking my head toward the small mountain at our backs. “We can see everything up there. And it’s the quickest way to my cottage.” I give him a significant look. “If we can get there, I can get hold of the wand.”

Jules’s eyes widen, but he nods in assent. He knows I’ve experimented with Grandfather’s wand, even though I’m not supposed to. The wand once belonged to my father, but when he died, our Mage Council gifted it to my virtually magic-free grandfather in tribute. It’s ill-constructed, this wand, the laminated wood unevenly layered and of substandard wood, but we’re lucky to have it. Most Gardnerians, especially poorer ones like us, don’t own wands. Even a coarse wand like ours is outrageously expensive—difficult to craft and even harder to obtain.

But I know how to wield it.

Unlike most females of my race, I’ve some magic in me.

Every muscle tensed and on high alert, Jules quietly pulls the sack off us entirely. Hunched down, we slip into the brush behind the refuse, into the slice of forest at the edge of town that quickly slants upward to form Crykes Peak.

It’s our small mountain, Jules’s and mine—one of the only places where a Kelt and a Gardnerian can go together and not be noticed. We’ve whiled away more than a few summer evenings at the top, reading, laughing, talking about history and alchemy, Jules sharing stories of the University with me.

It’s getting darker, and the sunset through the trees is lovely and peaceful, a mockery of the terrible chaos that’s been unleashed. There’s a hard chill seeping into the air, autumn beginning to dig its claws into summer.

I grasp Jules’s hand as he half pulls me up the sheltered, rocky path that cuts through the trees, my heavy black skirts slowing me down. We know just where to go—we’re familiar with all the footholds, and my dark clothing blends into the long shadows.

When we reach the jagged peak, my chest hurts like I’ve swallowed cut glass and my stomach is a painful knot.

More fiendish dragons soar overhead, racing across the sky. Jules and I flatten ourselves among the surrounding rocks to avoid being sighted. One dragon flies so close to the top of the mountain that I can make out the black scales of the creature’s underbelly, its taloned feet curled up underneath, tipped with terrible claws.

Then the air around us goes quiet again, and we rise, trembling, to our feet. My heart lurches as I take in the sight before us.

There’s a whole host of dragons in the air now, soldiers astride them as they wing their way north. They’re like a flat, black swarm of mammoth insects, screeching at each other, wings whooshing. The brilliant orange sunset silhouettes their evil forms.

I swivel my head, following their movement. I rise a bit more and turn my gaze down toward the Wey River, toward home.

Our cottage is a single, bright flame.

All the Gardnerian homesteads up and down the river have been torched and are burning bright. The ball of steadying magic inside me is snuffed out in one painful jolt.

“My house!” I cry. My knees give way, and I stagger down to the rocky ground.

“No,” Jules gasps, his eyes fixed on my cottage, face stricken.

“Oh, Ancient One,” I cry, a great sob tearing from my chest, my palms clinging to the rock behind me. “Oh, Jules, do you think they’re alive?”

He falls beside me as more dragons streak by, his hands coming up to grip my arms.

“Ancient One, help me,” I wail, my chest heaving, sure I’m going to retch. I look to Jules with crippling despair. “Do you think they killed them?”

He opens his mouth, but no words come out. The entire world seems to fall away, but he catches me as I crumble, his arms closing around me.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” I moan into his chest, rocking my head side to side in grief.

“I don’t know,” he says, clutching me tight.

“My mother’s gone. My father. Not Grandfather and Wren, too!” His hand comes up to cradle my hair. “Oh, Jules,” I sob, “Grandfather should have let me have the wand! He should have let us leave sooner!”

“I know. I know it, Tessla.”

“I could have saved them!” I let out a low, agonized wail as he holds me.

Choking on tears, I pull away from Jules and stagger up to peer north.

The horde of dragons is a dark splotch moving relentlessly over the Caledonian Mountains toward central Gardneria. The Kelts have turned the entirety of broad Crykes Field into a military staging area. Lines of dark tents and geometric rune-marked structures have been erected and hundreds of torches are lit. Some of the dragons are being flown down onto the field.

Horrified, I turn south and spot a large mass of uniformed Keltic soldiers wearing russet military tunics over black pants. They’re riding in tight formation into Doveshire via the Southern Wayroad. Urisk soldiers flank them—powerful geomancers with pointed ears and the blue hair and sky-blue skin of their military class, their cobalt-blue armor marked with glowing georunes. Some of the Urisk are riding hydreenas, the terrible, boar-shaped beasts hunched and bristling, tusks gleaming in the dying light. Some are riding in their rune-powered horseless carriages with glowing runes for wheels.

The Western Wayroad is clogged with Keltic families fleeing toward the coast, away from the fighting, their carts piled high with people and possessions and festooned with red flags bearing black Xs.

“They’ve an Icaral demon!” I gasp as a black-winged soldier rides into view astride a hydreena, his eyes pinpoints of fire. He looks much like the blue Urisk soldiers, save for his glowing eyes and the feathered black wings that fan menacingly out from his back, not entirely unlike the dragons above us.

An Evil One.

I slump down, dizzy, my back to a broad rock as I teeter sideways, weeping.

Jules crouches down and takes my arm. “Come away with me.” There’s steel in his voice. “I’ll find Keltic clothes for you. We’ll escape.”

I thrust my arm out at him, my skin glimmering faintly emerald in the gathering darkness. “It’s no use, Jules. How could we hide this?”

His jaw hardens. “I’ll smuggle you into Verpacia.”

I’m shaking my head as the tears stream down my face. “They’ll catch us. I’m sure they’ve closed the border.”

“I go to the University,” he insists. “I know people. People who could help us.”

“But my family,” I keen in despair, wracked by sobs.

“I’ll be your family.”

He says this with such rock-hard conviction, the tears catch in my throat. I look to him, stunned.

“I’ll marry you,” he insists. “Somehow, we’ll get to Verpacia, and I’ll marry you. We’ll get a cottage there. Somewhere remote. I’ll find work at the University and I’ll hide you.”

“Gardnerians don’t marry,” I remind him, my voice choked with grief for my family, my people. “We wandfast. Then we seal the bond.” Anguish rises in me like a terrible wave. “Just leave me, Jules. I’m going to get you killed. You can’t help me.”

“I can.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath. Kind, foolish Jules. I touch his face. His jutting cheekbone. His infinitely intelligent eyes.

“You can’t marry me, Jules,” I tell him, my mouth trembling. “I’m not a Kelt.”

His expression turns fierce. “I don’t care! When have I ever cared?”

“I will always be Gardnerian.”

“Then be Gardnerian,” he stubbornly returns. “We’ll make a life in Verpacia. And when things calm down, we can wandfast if it’s possible. I don’t care. I’d bind myself to you.”

I’ve known for some time that Jules fancies me. It’s been building in him over time. I’ve seen it in the heat lighting his gaze when he looks at me. In the new tension between us. But he’s always held back, polite and unsure of my feelings. To hear him speak so boldly stuns me into silence.

“We’ll go up through the mountains,” he says. “You can stay here while I get a horse and supplies.”

“What if they’re still alive?” My voice is small and weak, clinging to senseless hope. My crippled, doddering grandfather and my sickly eight-year-old brother. What are the chances they’ve escaped all this?

He gives me a hard look. We both know the likely truth.

“What would they want you to do?” Jules asks, his jaw set tight.

A bitter laugh cuts through my tears. “Grandfather? He’d want me to push you clear off that cliff.” I start to weep anew at the thought of my gentle, staunchly religious grandfather and his overwhelming hatred of Kelts. Grandfather would be horrified at the bizarre prospect of Keltic Jules trying to wandfast to his granddaughter, for the same reasons that he foolishly, blindly heeded our religion’s strictures that barred women from wielding wands without first securing the Mage Council’s approval.

“What would Wren want, then?” Jules asks, softer this time.

I think of my brother’s wide, ready smile. Roughly, I wipe the tears from my eyes, steeling myself. “He’d want me to go with you.”

“Will you do it?” Jules asks, his hand coming up to caress my face. “Will you come away with me?”

I nod and let him pull me into a warm embrace.

A twig snaps to my left.

“Well, isn’t this touching.”

Jules’s whole body stiffens, and I blanch at the sound of the familiar voice.

Brandon stands just a few feet away, smiling triumphantly as three Keltic soldiers surround us and unsheathe their swords.

Chapter 3: Prisoner

“Where’s my brother? And my grandfather?” My voice is coarse and low with dread as I stumble along the wooded path toward Crykes Field. I’m stealthily summoning up bits of magic from the ground as I’m herded along, storing the power inside me, though it hurts to gather so much without using it.

All I need is a wand.

Brandon laughs. “Quit your nattering, witch.” He gives me a rough shove, which almost sends me hurtling to the ground. I choke back my outrage as I regain my balance.

Narrowing my eyes, I pull up another thread of magic and wind it around the others deep inside me. Gardnerian magic runs along affinity lines—fire, water, air, earth and light. I have mostly fire.

Lots of it.

Jules is being mercilessly driven ahead of me. One of the soldiers, a tall, bearded man, gives my friend’s head a hard smack every now and then, laughing when Jules nearly falls sideways. Night has taken hold, the stars shining pinpricks in the sky, shadows engulfing the woods around us.

I flinch as yet another dragon flies overhead, my hidden magic sending a knifelike jab to my ribs.

So many dragons. A sickening terror tries to pull me under, but I push the magic’s simmering power at it, keeping the fear at bay.

We’re close to Crykes Field, and I can hear the raucous laughter of soldiers up ahead. My nerves fray as the shrieks of countless dragons echo above and across the ground in the distance. A staccato burst of orders is shouted nearby, and I can make out rough, low voices speaking the sharp language of the Urisk.

Urisk geomancers are powerful magicians from the southern lands, able to harness the latent magic of gemstones and crystals. And their military has recently formed an alliance with the Keltic forces.

Against my people.

The woods open up, and Jules is pushed into a clearing. I hesitate, heart thudding, my steps skidding to a halt.

A mammoth barn looms before me. In the darkness of the forest, I hadn’t realized that we were approaching Mage Gullin’s sprawling farm. That the enemy soldiers had decided to place part of their encampment here.

There are Keltic and Urisk soldiers standing and talking in small groups, the barn just beyond them. Torches on iron stands have been thrust into the dirt. They ring the large, circular clearing between farm buildings, the flames casting everything in a sinister, orange glow.

This flat land extends to the steep bluff that lines the entire rear boundary of the farm, offering a clear view of the full expanse of Crykes Field below. Countless campfires are scattered across the field, flickering between the rows of Keltic military tents and the georune-marked shelters of the Urisk soldiers.

My cottage and those of my neighbors are still ablaze in the far distance, just past the river, and the smell of charred wood hangs heavy in the air. Far to the north, I can just make out the dark shapes of dragons soaring across the night sky, still winging their way toward Gardneria.

“Move,” Brandon orders, giving me a shove from behind.

A few Keltic soldiers turn to give me the once-over, their red uniforms the color of blood in the torchlight, their faces filling with dark interest at the sight of me.

I push waves of my fire magic against the fear that threatens to undo me, the surge of warmth bolstering my courage. As I study the scattered Urisk soldiers—whose magical talents make them far more intimidating than the Kelts—I find myself pulling up even more magic to steady my nerves. They’re lethally streamlined in appearance, their scythes glimmering with inlaid gemstones and strapped to their backs. One geosoldier rides by on a snarling hydreena, the beast’s ugly, tusked head twisting from side to side against its tight reins.

There’s a military sameness to most of the blue-hued Urisk soldiers, but one soldier stands boldly out. He’s the most heavily rune-marked soldier here, and the dancing torchlight reflects vividly off the gemstones adorning his armor. Sapphires encircle his wrists, looped over his palms, and a string of multicolored gemstones is thrown diagonally over his chest. An aura of glowing power surrounds him like a soft blue mist, and the sheer quantity of gems he carries marks him as a strafeling, one of the most powerful classes of Urisk geomancers.

The strafeling stands next to a Keltic commander with a neatly trimmed blond beard, the Kelt’s deep red uniform trimmed with multiple black bands around his arms and edging his cloak. Beside the Kelt commander towers a huge blond ax-paladin, one of the strongest and most feared of the Keltic soldiers, a colossal ax strapped to the warrior’s broad back.

All three men turn to look at Jules and me as we’re pushed forward, the Kelt commander’s eyes hard and steady, the strafeling appearing curious. The ax-paladin crosses his broad arms in front of his muscular chest and regards me with an open leer.

I cling to my magic, swallowing back my terror, and force myself to hold the ax-paladin’s gaze. Then my eyes alight on something thin and white tucked into the side of his weapons belt. The ball of magic churns white-hot in my chest.

A wand!

But why would a Kelt soldier be carrying a Gardnerian wand? Kelts don’t possess any magic.

“Who’s this?” the Kelt commander barks at Brandon, gesturing toward Jules.

Jules’s fists are clenched by his sides, blood trickling down his bruised, split cheekbone. His eyes narrow in defiance and an attempt to focus, his glasses long since smashed under Brandon’s boot heel.

“Jules Kristian,” Brandon announces, stepping forward with bravado. He spits in Jules’s direction and shoots him a look thick with disgust. “A race traitor.”

“He was trying to hide the Roach girl,” one of our soldier escorts explains, his lip curled with malice.

The ax-paladin lets out a low laugh and looks me over, his eyes heavy-lidded. “More than hide her, I’m sure.” He smiles suggestively at Jules, then turns to me. “Do you want a wand, Roach girl?” He bares his teeth, reaches down toward his groin and hoists his member. “I’ve got a better wand for you than that skinny boy.”

The strafeling shoots the ax-paladin a look of disdain, but Brandon and the Keltic soldiers laugh, savoring the idea of my humiliation. I beat back my fear and shift my attention inward, pulling two more long, crimson strands of magic up from the ground. The power pushes at my ribs with searing heat, straining toward the wand.

“Leave her alone,” Jules snarls, his eyes bright with fury.

“Jules,” I caution, but his eyes are locked on the ax-paladin.

“Or what?” Brandon jeers, shoving Jules so hard he stumbles back. “You’ll split our heads? Do you swear you will?”

Jules launches himself at Brandon, catching him off guard, and lands a solid blow to his broad face that knocks Brandon to the ground.

Brandon’s surprise morphs to rage, his expression murderous. With the surrounding Keltic soldiers cheering him on, Brandon rises to his feet and rushes at Jules. He wrestles my friend to the ground, pinning him with his superior size, and punches him hard in the face.

“You bastard!” I yell, moving to run toward them, only to be caught by my elbows and jerked backward by two Keltic soldiers. Furious, I struggle to wrench my arms free.

If I could only get my hands on that wand! Breathing hard, I try to focus on gathering more power as the crowd of Kelts closes in around Jules, egging Brandon on and cutting off my view of him.

The ax-paladin smiles wickedly, his large chin thrust forward. He gestures to the guards restraining me with a hard flick of his hand.

My feet skid across the damp earth as they drag me to a fenced-in livestock pen to the right of the barn. The soldiers open the gate, and I’m pushed forward, my palms slapping down onto the cold, muddied ground. It’s pitch dark back here, the area devoid of torches. I blink, my eyes struggling to adjust to the dimness.

“Tessie!” A shadowy form grabs at my arm as I rise.

It’s Rosebeth, my sweet Gardnerian friend from three cottages over. I cling to her, grateful to see a familiar face.

“You’re alive!” she sobs, hugging me. “Thank the Ancient One, you’re alive!”

“You embrace her?” A disgusted voice sounds from the blackness of the pen. “She ran off with a Kelt!”

I can just make out the young Gardnerian woman’s hate-filled eyes, large and luminous in a beautiful face. Her skin, like mine, shimmers a faint emerald in the dark. She spits on the ground in my direction, then makes the sign to ward off the power of the Evil Ones. “Staen’en,” she hisses under her breath. Race traitor.

I squint into the darkness. There are five other Gardnerians in the pen, all huddled in a far corner near the hateful girl—all of them elegant Upper River Gardnerians. I can just make out their dark silken clothing in the moonlight, a stark contrast to the black woolen homespun Rosebeth and I wear, like most of the impoverished Lower River Gardnerians.

In another corner of the pen, a small figure is curled in a tight ball, sobbing, and dressed in light-hued Keltic attire. Unlike us Gardnerians, there is no faint emerald shimmer to her skin, and she’s been shorn bald. It’s meek Keltic Daisie, the smith’s daughter.

I suddenly realize that the pen holds only women. Young women. I turn my head and see the shadows of three Keltic soldiers hanging over the fence, watching us. Their eyes glitter in the moonlight.

Trying not to panic, I look back at Rosebeth. “Did you see Wren?” I whisper, taking hold of her arm as she sobs. “My grandfather?”

Weeping, she shakes her head, her face a mask of misery. She gestures toward the barn. “Wagons keep coming. Full of Gardnerians. They’re forcing everyone in there. All but us.” Rosebeth casts a frightened sidelong glance at the young Kelts. “What are we going to do?” she asks me imploringly, her voice quavering. She’s chewing on her lip so hard, she’s bloodied it.

I look toward the men. The Keltic soldiers are passing a flask back and forth as they laugh and leer at us, but over their shoulders, I can see that the crowd around Jules has dispersed. He’s been dumped by the edge of the barn, lying on his side. His face is swollen beyond recognition, one arm cradling the other as if it’s broken.

Anger swells in me, and I turn, my focus honed on the ax-paladin.

“So, are you a Roach now?” The strafeling idly points at the wand that hangs from the ax-paladin’s belt.

The ax-paladin spits on the ground. “Some Roach filth south of here got hold of it and cut down several members of our guard. I’m to bring it to the Tenhold armory.”

“Why not destroy the cursed thing?” the strafeling asks, eyeing the wand with suspicion.

“We’ve tried,” the paladin says. “It is surprisingly hard to break. And it’s oddly powerful.”

My attention lights up. I’ve heard tales of wands like these—wands of great power.

“What will we do?” Rosebeth asks me again in that tremulous voice, clinging to my arm and breaking my focus.

“Quiet,” I order, more sternly than I’d intended, but I need to concentrate.

I’m only a Level Three Mage. Not a huge amount of power, to be sure, but I do have a unique talent. I can pull up threads of magic from the elements and knit them together, amplifying my power. I’ve done this on only a few occasions, experimenting with Grandfather’s wand while making medicines and using the ability once to defend myself. Each time, the spell-linking gave me a fever and scoured me out, as if I’d been grievously ill. It’s dangerous, what I’m doing. Magic can turn deadly when gathered like this, catching on the very life force of a Mage and choking it clear out. The last time I linked spells, I was attempting a complicated medicine to treat Wren’s chronic illness. Grandfather found me passed out in the kitchen amid vials and scattered potions, and he forbade me from ever, ever using his wand again. I was feverish and bedridden for days, but more devastated over the loss of the wand than anything else.

I’ve never tried to pull in and link together as much power as I’m holding right now, and I know I’m playing with fire.

Deadly, raging, elemental fire.

My chest is full of burning pain, but my resolve is strengthened by it. I coldly assess our situation.

We’re completely surrounded by a sea of soldiers—but the men are hardly the only threat. Several Urisk geosoldiers struggle to contain a dragon nearby, the beast’s whole body undulating with rage. The dragon turns its head to look at me and bares its long fangs, pinning me with its eerie white eyes.

Terror claws at me, but I force myself to stand my ground as Rosebeth cries out and hides behind me, her slender body quivering.

A tall, winged figure steps into the clearing, and I feel my bravado slip away.

I take a frightened step back as the Icaral demon casts its glowing orange eyes around. His black wings arch threateningly, and the terrifying evil of his grinning expression is heightened by the torchlight. He balances a bright ball of flame over his palm as he slinks over to the Kelt commander, the strafeling and the ax-paladin.

Eyeing the Icaral demon warily, the Kelt commander unfurls a scroll and glances down to read.

“What’s the word, Lucian?” the strafeling asks, his words elegantly accented and clipped.

“We wait. And march into Gardneria tomorrow morn,” Lucian sighs, rolling up the scroll and passing it back to a young Keltic soldier.

A new wagon pulls in, filled with Gardnerians, all of them well-to-do Upper River folk. They’re roughly herded out, blinking in confusion, the children crying.

They are met by a mob of laughter.

“All hail the powerful Gardnerian Mages!”

“Where’s your Great Mage now?”

A Keltic lieutenant bows toward them. “The Gardnerian Mages! Rulers of Erthia!” Two other Keltic soldiers laugh and roughly yank at the Gardnerians as they descend from the carriage, pulling one old man down so hard he tumbles to the ground and has trouble getting back up.

A young, slender Urisk geosoldier strides forward and salutes both the strafeling and the Kelt commander by bringing his fist to his chest. “This should be all of them, Commander Talin,” he says, his accent as pronounced as the strafeling’s.

All of them? Could Wren and Grandfather be locked in the barn, too?

Lucian Talin makes a casual gesture toward the barn. “Get them in there with the others. We’ll deal with them later.” He grimaces, as if this is an unpleasant but necessary task.

My heart clenches along with my fists. I inhale sharply, pulling the power in tight.

The young Urisk geosoldier’s brow tenses, and he glances briefly at the captive Gardnerians. “The children, too, Commander Talin?” I can sense his discomfort, see him swallow and blink with stunned reluctance.

The Keltic commander fixes him with a hard glare. “There’s no other way, Cor’vyyn. You know that. If they raise up another Great Mage, they’ll kill us all.”

The young man eyes the terrified children and the elderly man as they’re herded toward the barn, crying and pleading. He looks to the strafeling, as if silently imploring him for mercy. The strafeling glances briefly at the Gardnerians, then shoots the young Urisk soldier a hard, cautioning glare as he murmurs something to him in terse Uriskal.

“Don’t go all sentimental on us, Cor’vyyn,” Lucian says to the young geosoldier, his tone unforgiving. “Clearly you don’t fully understand the threat we’re under here. Any one of these Roaches, big or small, could be their next Great Mage. You’ve heard the diviner’s prophecies from both your people’s seers and ours—he’s here, that Great Mage, hidden among their people somewhere.”

“Do you have a problem with this, soldier?” the ax-paladin growls, his eyes glittering malevolently, the wand moon-bright at his waist.

The Urisk soldier’s sapphire eyes are a storm of conflict as he glances toward the Gardnerian families. The strafeling snaps at him in Uriskal, and the young geosoldier bows and strides off, casting one last, troubled look behind him.

The Icaral demon is eyeing the new group of Gardnerians, still holding the ball of fire in his palm. He hisses and hurls the flames at the Mages, and they cry out, stamping the fire out of their clothing, the children shrieking in terror.

The Keltic commander scowls at the strafeling. “Tell your Icaral demon to leave off.”

“What are they going to do?” Rosebeth sobs hysterically, tugging at my sleeve. “Are they going to set fire to the barn? My family is in there! Tessie! Why won’t you answer me?” She starts murmuring pleading prayers, tracing the star sign of the Ancient One’s protection over and over in the air.

The Kelts unlock the barn door. In the shadows are the dark shapes of my people, pressed together tight. Right in the front stands a skinny boy, and recognition sweeps through me as torchlight illuminates his face.

My eyes fly open wide. “Wren!” I choke out.

He sees me and lets out an unearthly scream. “Tessie!”

I hurl myself at the fence and struggle to climb over it in my long skirts, a nail tearing at my ankle.

Wren bursts out of the barn and lunges toward me. He’s quickly caught by one of the Keltic soldiers, jerked back by his arm.

“Wren!” I scream, finally hoisting myself to the top of the fence. A searing pain erupts all over my scalp as I’m yanked back by my hair, a strong arm clenching my arm and thrusting me down to the mud, a rumbling laugh emanating from my attacker’s throat.

I briefly turn to find the ax-paladin looming over me, but I don’t care. My magic boils bloodred as I spring up and hurl myself at the fence once more, straining toward Wren as he’s desperately reaching for me. The huge Kelt laughs behind me as he grabs my upper arms, and I kick and struggle against him.

“Tessie!” Wren cries, clawing at the soldier restraining him. “Let me go! Tessie!”

The soldier pulls his hand back and smacks Wren hard in the face.

My world contracts, the scene before me slowing as Wren’s mouth opens, his face contorted, his scream drawn out. “Tessieee!”

The image of a white bird flashes before my eyes as the soldiers drag Wren back to the barn and throw him in. Just before the door is closed and locked, I see the face of my grandfather, his expression a mask of agony.

A great tide of fiery rage wells up within me, burning away the terrible odds, the ax-paladin, the dragons and hydreenas, the Icaral demon.

I wrench myself around, tear my arm from the ax-paladin’s grip and close my fist around the wand.

Chapter 4: The White Wand

Flames shoot from the tip of the wand as soon as I grasp it.

A violent wave of magic drives the air from my lungs as fire courses out of the wand, strafing Kelt and Urisk soldiers and setting several trees alight with a crackling explosion. I round on the ax-paladin with a fierce cry, and the fire whips out toward him. He screams with pain and falls back.

Fury courses through me as I send fire out in wide, repeating arcs, driving the soldiers farther away from the barn as an arrow whirs past, barely missing me. I hold tight to my woven knot of spells, readying it as soldiers all around aim their weapons. The Urisk pull stones to their palms and the Icaral demon snarls and gathers a growing ball of flame above his hand. The Kelt commander shouts an order, and a line of archers forms, drawing their bows.

Men’s voices call out, and the arrows are released in a unified whoosh. The Icaral’s fireball is hurled straight at me, spears are launched at my head and a kaleidoscope of searing flame bursts from affinity stones.

I slap one hand over the other and grasp at the wand, fall to my knees and send my linked power up into a great dome of a shield. Weapons and flames and stone magic slam up against it with shuddering force and are knocked back.

I’m shocked by the immensity of my power, magnified by this wand. My affinity power courses out in a translucent, golden river, rising up—over me, over the livestock pen and over the barn.

Great stabs of pain smash into my shoulders and through my arms from the impact of the soldiers’ relentless assault, the blows of countless weapons reverberating against my shield, nearly knocking the wand clear out of my vibrating fists.

Jules has pulled himself up to a sitting position and is propped up against the barn wall, gaping at me, the eye that’s not swollen shut gone wide.

“Pry the door open!” I yell to Rosebeth and the young women in the pen, everyone lit by golden light and flashes of color as the Urisk and the Icaral demon hurl geomagic and fire at the shield.

The young women race for the barn’s locked door.

The strafeling clenches the stones looped around his palms and sends shockwave after shockwave of sapphire fire exploding against my shield.

My arms and shoulders scream with pain, my body jerking with each blow. But I hold on, keeping the shield intact.

“Stand down!” the Keltic commander booms out.

The assault abruptly ceases.

I’m panting, drenched in sweat as I struggle to hold the dome of energy together.

The Keltic commander moves off to my right and converses in low tones with several underlings, his eyes trained on me with careful calculation.

They’re waiting. Waiting for my strength to give out.

“Hurry!” I call over my shoulder to the young women, desperation on the edge of panic coursing through me.

But the barn door is refusing to give way.

The hateful Upper River girl lets out an angry snarl and kicks the door in frustration. “Check the back,” she yells to the other young women. “Search for rotted wood.” She calls to the Gardnerians inside for help breaking open a passage, and they shout back to her, their voices muffled by the barn’s walls. A cacophony of hammering and pounding against the barn ensues.

Smoke rises thick in the air, my fire still crackling in the surrounding woods. Soldiers watch me with dark intent and even darker smiles.

My heart thuds with a painful slowness, my pulse loud in my ears, the power a steady stream through me, flowing up from the ground. I concentrate hard and weave the shield even tighter, sending the power upward, the tips of my fingers growing numb, my arms trembling.

A gentle hand flows down over my arm and grasps my wrist to steady me. Jules pushes himself tight against my back, propping me up.

“What are you planning?” His voice is calm, the words muffled by the swelling of his mouth.

His presence helps to soothe the fear that’s making a slow crawl through my belly. “I can move the shield,” I tell him, my throat tight. “We get everyone out, and we leave.”

“How long can you maintain it?” His voice is purposefully measured.

“I... I don’t know,” I admit, terror breaking through.

He gives my wrist an encouraging squeeze, his cheek pressed to mine. “I love you, Tessla.” He says it with ardent certainty.

We’re going to die, I realize.

“I love you, too,” I tell him, knowing we don’t mean this in the same way, but what does that matter now? We might all be dead soon, and Jules is nearly as dear to me as Wren.

Exhaling sharply, I murmur a spell and push a warm wave of magic out to bolster the shield, my teeth and the muscles of my neck clenched tight.

“Fight them,” he tells me, his breath warm on my face. “Fight them to the end.”

Rosebeth rushes over to my side. “We can’t get the door open,” she relays with breathless urgency. “But they’ve managed to pull a board off the back of the barn. They’re all back there, prying at it.”

“Hurry,” I tell her grimly, my feet tingling, my toes gone numb, the numbness in the tips of my fingers starting to spread.

“Are you tiring, little witch?” the Icaral demon calls to me with a sneer, his glowing eyes hot, an evil smile curling on his mouth. His voice is like a snake’s hiss as he stalks around my shield. He unfurls his black wings and starts to summon another ball of flame, the fire-orb churning and growing over his palm.

The huge ax-paladin is pacing like a giant wildcat in front of me, scarlet burns streaked across his face, charred black lines across his uniform. “You will tire eventually, Roach,” he snarls, “and then we will break through your shield and take you apart, piece by piece.”

“Don’t listen to them,” Jules urges, tightening his grip on my wrist. “Listen to me. You can hold the shield. I know you can.”

Somewhere behind me, my brother and grandfather are waiting to escape from the barn.

Wren. I can’t let them have Wren.

“Your strength will run out at some point, witch,” the Icaral crows darkly, his fireball grown large, his wings fanning out. He rears back and throws the fireball straight at me, punching the shield’s side with a shower of sparks. The shield gives way, pushing in and snapping back out. Tearing.

A hole!

The hole whips around the shield-dome like a leaf caught on a turbulent river, small, but there.

I can’t feel my lower legs.

Soldiers call out and point at the hole in the shield as it swirls around the changeable vortex of the dome’s surface. They send up a triumphant cheer.

The ax-paladin strides toward me, his muscles rippling, his burned face as close as he can get it without touching the scorching shield, teeth bared. “I will pull your people out one by one and flay them in front of you.”

The other soldiers are scrambling about, yelling to each other. I realize they’re inexplicably moving back, giving the shield a wide berth. The ax-paladin grins at something over my head and lumbers backward, as well.

“Why are they retreating?” I croak out to Jules, desperation clawing at me.

I feel his head tilt up, his hand going tight over mine.

An unearthly shriek tears through the sky above, and I look up to see a massive dragon flying in impossibly fast.

Hurtling straight for my shield.

Chapter 5: Wandshield

The dragon crashes into my glowing shield, claws out, a Keltic soldier astride its back, and I gasp as the shield buckles toward me, stopping just a hand span from my face. I struggle to hold on to it, but the force of the attack reverberates with crippling pain around my shoulders.

The muscular animal slides to the ground, landing on its haunches with a heavy thump. The creature sets its soulless white eyes on me, growling as it backs up, then throws its full weight at the shield again.

I grit my teeth and grasp the wand more firmly in my hands, wrenching magic up from the ground. My lungs are close to bursting, and my ribs are on fire as I struggle to repel the dragon’s strength. I’m hunkered down, breathing hard, the magic shooting through me in a fiery line.

“I can’t hold it much longer,” I force out to Jules, teeth clenched, despair taking hold. “I’m sorry, Jules. I can’t.”

Jules’s hand tightens around my wrist again, offering support. “You can. I know you can.”

The Icaral, dark wings flapping, hurls a fireball at me. It smashes against the shield to my right. The impact throws me back against Jules and jars my wrists to the bones, the shield nearly collapsing from the concussive blow. The glowing bubble springs back into place, but I can sense a weak spot where the fireball hit, and flames cling to the shield’s surface in a blazing circle that moves around the dome in chaotic arcs, joining the hole made by the Icaral’s fire.

“She’s weakening,” Lucian observes dispassionately to the strafeling. The dragon releases a grating shriek that scrapes painfully inside my head. The creature rises up and swipes its claws at the shield, the soldier astride it pulling the reins in tight. A great ripping sound, like canvas tearing, rends the air as the dragon hooks its claws into the shield and mauls it, creating three gaping slashes.

Hooks of magic catch inside me, burning hotter, and sweat cloaks my back. I cry out, struggling to pull in enough tendrils of power to close the holes, but my magic is dissipating to a papery wisp of energy.

The Keltic soldiers call to each other jovially as they drop down into a line and nock flaming arrows to bows. They wait, their eyes trained on me with bright, predatory interest.

“Fire!” Lucian commands.

A flaming barrage assaults the shield. They aim for the holes, but the holes are swirling around too fast, and the arrows just glance off the glowing surface. The dragon takes another swipe at the shield, tearing at it, the dome quickly rendered a flimsy net with ever-widening gaps.

“Here’s a new sport,” one of the Kelt soldiers jests as he lets loose another flaming arrow. “Roach fry!”

His arrow flies straight through a hole and lands on the barn’s roof.

“No!” I scream as the roof catches fire. I fumble and try to keep hold of the wand, almost dropping it.

Jules’s hand moves to clasp tight over my fingers, but my magic is depleted, my fire diminished to flickering embers. The numbness of my feet and lower legs spreads toward my knees as the shield-strands begin to cave in.

Stars prick at my vision, my sight blurring at the edges, my body trembling. I want to run into the barn. Jump into the flames to rescue my family. But I can’t move. The numbness has spread over my knees, and I’ve broken out in a feverish, light-headed sweat.

“Wren!” I cry out, choked by tears, my vision growing mottled and hazy.

Jules’s arm comes tight around me in a fiercely protective embrace. I can’t move my limbs. The magic is burning me out from the inside. Consuming me.

The white wand falls from my hands to the ground.

The remnants of the shield collapse and dissolve into the dirt with a steaming hiss.

“Stand back!” Lucian orders.

The soldier astride the dragon dismounts and pulls the creature back as it bares its hideous teeth at me. The Icaral is right beside the dragon, growing a tight fireball that rotates above his palm. He glances pointedly at the barn, then grins maniacally at me.

“Blessed Mages, cowering in the dirt,” the demon hisses mockingly. “The Wingeds are triumphant. We have kept our wings. And our power. And now you will burn.”

He flings the fireball, and it collides with the barn’s roof, exploding the entire top half of the structure into churning flames.

A raucous cheer erupts.

A wail of despair escapes me as I’m jerked backward, rough hands pulling me away from the barn as Jules fights to cling to me. Brandon comes up behind him and wrenches his broken arm backward. Jules cries out, wild with pain as he’s pulled free of me and dragged off.

I hunch forward, weeping as a pair of Kelt soldiers drag me back from the inferno. Jules calls my name, but I can’t bring myself to move, to fight. The world seems to tilt, everything going in and out of focus.

Wren. He’s just a child. Oh, Ancient One... Wren!

“The Roach bitch is mine!”

Through a veil of tears, I see the ax-paladin stalking toward me, a triumphant snarl on his face.

I let out a strangled, high-pitched cry as he grabs my hair and yanks me up. I dangle in the air, helpless, pain spearing my scalp.

Then a giant explosion thunders around us, and the ax-paladin’s head snaps up. The shockwaves pulse straight through me, the very ground shaking, the world lit up by powerful orange lightning. The soldiers flinch away, instinctively shielding themselves with hands and arms. All heads turn to the mountains and stare, slack-jawed and silent.

“What in the Ancient One’s name...?” a young soldier croaks out.

Another deafening explosion sounds, this one closer. Soldiers shield their eyes, blinking toward the mountains in confusion as the barn fire flares and spreads, flames licking at the door, beams cracking and falling to the ground.

My eyes water with pain as I’m wrenched farther up, forced to look right into the murderous eyes of the ax-paladin.

“What. Is. This?” he grinds out, low and fierce, but I can sense a sliver of desperation clawing around the edges of his words.

Another flash of orange just past the mountains. Alarm horns sound.

Commander Lucian barks out commands, then glances up at the flames rapidly consuming the barn, his jaw set tight. “Karver,” he orders the soldier restraining the dragon. “Guard the barn. Set your dragon on any Gardnerians who live.” He turns toward the remaining troops. “Take the men down to Crykes Field. We have to get off this high ground. Now!” The strafeling echoes the command in Uriskal.

An organized formation of dragons rises up from the central field, soldiers astride. The riders are mere silhouettes from this distance, flying toward the mountains and the orange explosions beyond.

Thunder shakes the ground as soldiers scramble toward the field. Lucian mounts his horse and the strafeling leaps astride his hydreena, both leaders taking off after their men at a furious pace.

The ax-paladin jostles my head, sending waves of agony down my spine. “Answer, witch! What dark magic is this?”

A black flood of rage and despair crashes through me.

I don’t care what’s coming for you. Wren is dead. Burned in your fire.

I suck in a breath and use my last shred of energy to spit in his face.

He snarls and grabs up his ax with lethal ease.

My heart falls straight through my feet as the world slows around me. My mouth falls open, and a low moan escapes my lungs. He pulls back his muscular arm, ax in hand, ready to impale me on its curved edge.

A streak of crackling, blue lightning hurtles in from my right and slams into his chest.

His body bucks from the impact, eyes bulging, ax falling. His hand releases my hair, and we fall hard to the ground—me, crumpling into a useless bundle, and him...

Dead.

I gape at his body, stunned.

Brandon’s eyes fix on mine, enraged. He lets go of Jules and stalks toward me, shoving aside the fleeing Kelt soldiers. But before he can take more than a few steps, another streak of blue lightning hits him in the chest, killing him instantly before it lashes sideways to take out a whole row of Kelts and the soldier restraining the dragon.

I lie on the ground and blink in disbelief, trying to clear my unstable vision.

A Mage strides into the clearing, slashing blue lightning from the tip of his wand. He’s young, with severely angular features and black hair, his expression fierce. His uniform is dark and marked with a single silver sphere. A black cloak edged with five silver lines flows out behind him like dark water.

The uniform of a powerful Gardnerian Mage.

One of ours.

My hazy, magic-battered mind sharpens and focuses in tight on him. His presence is overwhelming. I can almost feel the lightning burst from his wand, like thunder resonating through the ground, through my body. Straight to my core.

Another young, black-cloaked Mage appears, trailing the lightning-wielder. I flinch back as the unrestrained dragon roars, exposing long, sharp teeth, and lunges for him.

“Hit him at the base of the neck, Fain,” the first Mage calls back over his shoulder as he smashes blue lightning into two geosoldiers who’ve just emerged from the woods.

Fain points his wand at the dragon, his spell streaming out, translucent and flowing like a spring current, to collide with the dragon. The creature stops midlunge, its head jerking back, steam hissing from its nose, then its mouth. Its hide seems to shrink, as if the beast is growing emaciated before my eyes. I can see its ribs, then the outline of its skeleton as the beast’s entire body releases steam, its very life essence ripped away. Its scaled skin withers to the ground like a discarded coat.

“Help,” I try to cry out, but my voice is a ragged whisper, my shoulders uselessly slumped, my feverish cheek pressed hard into the dirt.

Fain turns, his eyes lighting on mine as my head lolls weakly against the ground. He runs to me and falls to his knees by my side, his hand coming up to rest gently on my head. His eyes flick toward the white wand, abandoned on the ground. He sheathes his own wand and picks up the powerful wand, rolling it in his hand, as if gauging the strength of it. He’s young and elegantly handsome, with aquiline features, a long, graceful neck and bright green eyes. A few curls of dark hair fall over his forehead as he quickly takes me in from head to toe.

He smiles and cocks his head, like the world isn’t falling apart around us. “I saw your shield work, Lower River Girl,” he says teasingly, his voice velvety smooth. “Nicely woven.”

“They’re in the barn,” I rasp out, desperate. “Please, my brother...”

“Shhh.” His hand goes to my limp wrist, holding it, brow furrowed with concentration as he checks my pulse, then slowly feels along my arm as if he’s reading a complicated book. “They’re out,” he tells me absently, his brow cinching tighter. “We pulled them out the back. They’re fine. And shielded. Can you feel my hand at all?”

I shake my head. My throat begins to close. I can only force out a constricted whisper. “I can’t feel my arms. Or my legs,” I tell him with mounting panic. “I... I can’t take a deep breath.”

“Tell me what you did.” His words are slow and carefully calm.

“I gathered the magic,” I rasp out, struggling for breath as the magic burns and pushes against my lungs. “As much of it as I could pull up.”

“Vale,” he calls out in the direction of the other Mage, his voice now serious and urgent, his hand tight around my wrist. “I found the shield Mage.”

Vale turns and spots me, then Jules, crumpled up in the flickering firelight cast by the disintegrating barn. Vale’s eyes go wide as his head whips back to me, a shock of recognition lighting his face.

Vale starts toward us just as the Icaral slides out from behind an untethered wagon. The demon stalks forward, balancing a ball of flame over each of his palms. His glowing eyes are set hard on Vale, his black wings flapping.

I open my mouth to warn him, but can’t speak above a whisper.

The demon growls and hurls the fireballs straight at Vale.

Chapter 6: Lightning Mage

Vale whips around in a graceful arc and slashes out with his wand.

A forked tongue of blue lighting smashes into the fireballs and sends up a crackling, spitting wall of blue that hurtles toward the Icaral.

Snarling, the demon sends a line of fire out toward the lightning wall, coating the Icaral’s side of it with yellow flames.

Their heels digging into the ground, both Vale and the Icaral furiously push their magic against the wall, which is now a glowing and sparking green. It grows taller than their heads and widens, setting the ground aflame.

“Do you need assistance?” Fain calls to Vale, worry lacing his tone.

“No,” Vale grinds out, pushing the shield forward. “It’s got to be fire. I’ve got him.”

Fain sends up a watery shield-dome over us, its translucent ripples limned with glowing orange light reflected from the torches. He must have a water affinity, whereas Vale’s is clearly fire, like mine.

Though my body is still wracked with burning waves of pain, I can still see the Icaral demon through Fain’s shield, the creature’s eyes flaming white-hot. The demon grins, pushes his palms out and forces the fiery wall toward Vale. The lines of Vale’s lightning fan out in response, and a stray bolt slams into the ground beside us, just past our shield, sending up a smoking hiss.

A Keltic soldier bursts from the forest far to our left, his ax raised. Ignoring us, he runs past the livestock pen toward the distant side of the barn.

Giant icicles, like clear javelins, shoot from behind the barn and slam into the mammoth Kelt, knocking him down, instantly freezing him. Wide-eyed and rigid as stone, he lies immobilized, ice spreading out from his body in a frosty haze.

Another cloaked, black-haired Mage strides into view, his eyes set tight on the frozen Kelt. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, this ice-wielding Mage, descending like a winter storm. Flanking him is the hateful Upper River girl—the young woman who named me a race traitor.

“Over there!” she says. “Another Kelt! A staen’en whore!” She points into the shadows of the livestock pen, where a small, dark ball huddles between the feeding trough and the water pail.

Daisie!

“Please,” I hear Daisie plead as the Mage’s eyes fix tightly on her.

Without even a flicker of pity, the Mage raises his wand and sends an ice javelin straight into Daisie’s chest with a sickening thump.

My body trembles with shock and horror.

“Gods, Malkyn!” Fury flashes in Fain’s eyes. But the Icaral’s shrieking hiss and Vale’s grunting cry divert his attention back to maintaining our watery shield.

“There’s another one, there!” the girl cries.

I follow the point of her finger, which leads straight to Jules. I look to Fain and our eyes lock. I try to speak, but my lungs are still burning with the magic I gathered, and I’m unable to utter a single word to save my best friend.

Behind Fain, Vale utters a final spell, slamming his ward arm down. The whole shield, both fire and lightning, goes down with it. He gracefully flips his wand back and then straight out, sending a bolt of lightning through the Icaral’s chest.

The demon lets out an unearthly howl, his whole body arcing back into a taut bow. He falls limply to the ground, and Fain’s watery shield follows suit.

Vale runs toward us.

“That Kelt, there! He’s her Kelt,” the girl cries to Malkyn, pointing first at Jules, then at me. Her beautiful green eyes are red with tears, her mouth pulled down and trembling with disgust. She jabs her finger at Jules, her tone venomous. “He goes after our women!”

I struggle to tell them how Jules saved me, how he helped me stay strong enough to protect everyone. But my voice is gone. All I can do is gasp for air.

Vale throws the young woman a knife-sharp look of cold appraisal just as Malkyn flicks his wand toward Jules.

Fast as a cobra, Vale hurls a bolt of lightning that knocks Malkyn’s ice javelin into the rapidly disintegrating barn. The javelin explodes into a shower of ice, then instantly turns to steam.

“What are you doing?” Malkyn’s voice is calm enough, but there’s rage just beneath the surface. I shrivel at the sound of his deep, resonant voice, the image of him murdering gentle Daisie vivid in my mind.

“He’s mine,” Vale states coldly.

“You seem to be forgetting that I outrank you, Vale,” Malkyn states slowly and coolly. I notice Malkyn’s uniform has two silver bars on his chest to Vale’s one.

Vale bares his teeth at Malkyn, his eyes glittering dangerously. “Does your magic outrank mine, Malkyn?”

Malkyn sighs, his expression relaxing to one of bored resignation. He languidly turns away from Vale and then, whip-fast, slices his wand out.

Vale flicks his wrist and catches Malkyn’s javelin with a small strike of lightning, exploding it into a puff of snow that falls harmlessly at Vale’s feet.

“Ah,” Vale says, giving Malkyn a nod of mock encouragement. “You’re improving.” He strides toward Jules, wand out, lips moving. Black vines fly out from the wand to encircle Jules’s upper body. Jules groans in agony as the vines cinch tight.

Vale grabs Jules’s good arm and roughly hoists him up. Jules looks dazed, his eyes barely focused, his face a bloody mess.

“I know this one,” Vale states coldly. “We’ve a score to settle.” Not waiting for a response, Vale drags a shambling, half-conscious Jules off toward the woods.

“Where are you taking him?” Malkyn asks as he inspects his wand, flicking frost off the end it.

Vale doesn’t bother to turn around. “Somewhere no one will witness what I’m about to do.”

Tears roll down my face as I struggle to breathe, to summon enough air to utter a protest. I try to shake loose from Fain’s grip, thrashing my upper body, but Fain holds tight as spears of fiery magic lash against my insides.

Another orange explosion lights up the horizon. Fain, Malkyn and the Upper River girl look toward the mountains.

“I’ll need you for the shield,” Malkyn tells Fain, his voice low and level. He sets his dark gaze on me. Gasping, I still manage to send him a glare of red-hot defiance.

“Go,” Fain says to Malkyn with a flick of his chin toward the barn. “I’ll be right there.”

A scream of agony tears through the air.

Jules!

Malkyn pauses, his face taking on a fleeting look of half-lidded rapture. The Upper River girl fixes me with a hateful look before Malkyn leads her away, the two of them disappearing behind the burning barn.

Images of Jules being tortured flash through my mind, and a shuddering sob overtakes me, my chest heaving, the fire whipping my insides in relentless slashes. I throw my head from side to side, fighting against Fain, fighting to breathe, barely hearing him as he urges me to slow my breaths.

Another explosion sounds, closer this time. My lungs heave, burning, then constrict tight.

I’ve lost the ability to breathe.

Chapter 7: Affinity

Fain rips open my clothing and pushes his hands hard against my chest as I thrash my head back and forth, desperate for air, my eyes bulging out, straining. Teeth gritted, he increases the pressure and murmurs a spell. A cool current of his water magic flows through me, loosening the net of fire, briefly opening up my lungs.

I greedily breathe in what air I can, panting shallowly in desperation, wondering if Jules is still alive. Anguish rips through me at the thought of him dying, and the fiery net takes hold once more.

Fain leans in close as I fight for breath, terrified.

“What’s your name, love?”

“Tessla,” I rasp out. “Tessla Harrow.”

“Your brother,” he asks me, deadly serious. “How old is he?”

“Eight,” I mouth as my chest heaves and hot tears course down my trembling, fevered face.

“He needs you alive, hmm?” His voice is calm and controlled, his eyes locked hard on mine.

I gasp and nod, my eyes fixed on him.

“Don’t think of anything but him,” he orders. “Can you do that?”

I nod again.

Fain pushes his full weight down onto me as he hisses out the spell through clenched teeth, flowing more of his cooling water magic around my scorched lungs.

Vale runs out of the woods down toward us, his boot heels thudding hard. His expression is one of deep urgency.

I can feel his fire the minute he gets close, and my magic responds with a mind of its own. All the tendrils of power within me orient themselves toward him like a flock of birds, then rush out in a wave of heat.

I cry out as a searing pain scorches the side of my ribs closest to Vale.

Fain holds his palm out stridently. “Stay back! Your affinities match.”

Vales halts, his eyes gone wide, his gaze fixed on me. He swallows, looking rattled. “I know. I can feel it.”

Sweet Ancient One, such fire in him!

His cold visage is a lie. I’m clear now on what lies underneath it—the same molten landscape that lives under my skin.

“She’s Magedrunk,” Fain observes, shooting Vale a grave look. “I don’t know how she’s done it, but she’s layered spells. There’s a river of fire trapped in her. I’ve got to purge her. Now.”

I’m suddenly all too aware of my exposed chest, and a hot, nauseating shame washes over me. As if sensing my discomfort, Vale whips off his cloak and thrusts it toward Fain.

“You care about modesty?” Fain gapes. “Right now?”

“Get it on her,” Vale orders. “I can restrain her then, without inadvertently killing her.”

Fain pulls his hands off me, and my lungs immediately begin to heat and seize up again. I throw my head back, gasping, painfully jostled as Fain hoists me up to slide the cloak around my body. I look at him in desperation, able to pull in only a thin sliver of air, as if from an impossibly narrow straw.

“Vyyn’ys’en’ar,” Vale says, teeth clenched, pointing his wand at me.

Black vines—the same he bound Jules with—flow from his wand and cinch tight around my upper body, holding the cloak in place and restraining my numbed arms as my rearing affinity fire drives the air from my lungs. Fuzzy black circles explode chaotically in my vision as Fain settles my weight against him, pressing his wand into my limp hand, his own hand coming around mine to point the wand toward the woods.

“Scyy’yl’ar,” Fain grinds out, his cheekbone pressed tight against my shuddering face.

Sensation blasts violently through my wand arm as a torrent of flames bursts from the wand’s tip. With a turbulent roar, the fire slams into the edge of the forest, shattering the trunks of two trees, which crash to the ground with the snapping of a thousand branches.

“Sweet Ancient One’s bollocks!” Fain gasps.

Air rushes into my lungs. Steam follows the fire and chugs out of the wand like a kettle at a furious boil. I take in great gulps of air and flex my hand around Fain’s wand as the steam lessens. My vision clears for a moment, but searing heat advances on my lungs again, like a thousand small battering rams, spearing me, straining to destroy me.

Fain clasps his hand around mine and points the wand once more toward the crackling trees.

“Again?” I force out, my voice a scraping, frightened hiss.

“I’m sorry, but yes,” he replies, his voice steely. “I need to force out the rest of the trapped fire with quite a bit of water.” His voice turns grim, his head turning toward mine. “Are you ready?”

I grow afraid at the question. “It hurts,” I tell him, my mouth a trembling grimace.

Another orange explosion from the mountains shatters the air, and I recoil against Fain, a terrified whimper escaping my lips.

“Do you like chocolate?” Fain asks me, his voice gone suddenly gentle.

Vale whips his head toward us to gape at Fain, his face incredulous. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Look at me, sweetling,” Fain says, leaning to the side and locking his eyes on to mine. “I have some lovely chocolate. With cardamom and Ishkart cinnamon. I will make it for you and for your brother. We will sit under the stars and sip it. I promise you. Can you think on that and only that?”

I know how badly this is going to hurt, but I find myself nodding in assent. Fain smiles faintly, then grips my hand like a vise and repeats the spell.

There’s a rumbling whoosh deep in my core. Like a blockage about to be released.

The breathless moment just before an avalanche.

A flood of fire rips through me, and I scream, my body convulsing. A stream of white-hot flame explodes through the wand and ignites several more trees, destroying them. I cry out again as a thousand red-hot swords stab into me, hot knives slashing at my legs.

And then it dissipates, the heat rapidly fleeing. Cool water comes in on its heels. Then colder water. Winter cold. I start to shiver.

“I can move my other arm,” I marvel, pressing it tight against the vines, then shaking out my legs as Fain guides me up, the vines still tight around my torso. “And my legs. I can feel my legs.” I’m dazed by the throbbing echo of pain and the rising cold, hollowing me out. “But I’m getting so cold.”

Fain shoots Vale a worried look.

“Go,” Vale tells him with a glance toward the mountains. “They’ll need help reinforcing the shield.”

“Don’t touch her skin,” Fain warns Vale as he gets up. “And keep her bound. If she reaches your fire, her affinity lines will devour it and she’ll burn out from overexposure. It could kill her.”

“Thank you, Fain,” Vale snipes. “For stating the patently obvious.”

And then Vale lifts me clear off the ground and starts around the left side of the barn at a fast clip, Fain striding off in the opposite direction.

Chapter 8: Vale Gardner

Vale carries me into the shadow of the woods that bracket the fiery barn. I struggle against his firm grip, desperate to escape the Mage who hurt—possibly killed—my best friend.

“Jules saved me,” I tell him, my voice choked with grief. “That Kelt you dragged away—”

“I know he tried to help you,” Vale cuts me off sharply as he runs through the trees. His voice lowers to a whisper. “I didn’t kill him. So be quiet. I’m trying to save your life.”

Sweet Ancient One, Jules is alive!

We burst from the woods at the edge of the rocky embankment, and Vale’s boot heels skid as he tries to slow his pace. Our descent down the sharp slope to Crykes Field becomes more of a slide than a run. Vale’s feet kick up dust and send a waterfall of dry gravel toward the ground below.

When we reach the bottom, he pulls me backward and down toward the ground with him. His arms are tight around me, holding me close against his chest as he leans into the slope of the bluff. Then Vale throws out his wand, murmurs a spell and creates a tight, translucent shield over us. The wavering shield is webbed with turbulent blue lines of lightning that send sparking static buzzing through my head.

His fire leaps inside him, toward me. It suffuses my back with warmth, the fabric of his clothing and the cloak wrapped around me a barrier keeping his fire at bay. Keeping it from my skin.

My arms instinctively pull at the vines restraining me, yearning to touch him, to absorb the fire in his shield. I’m desperate to melt the block of ice that’s slowly forming in my core. What began as a mere pebble after Fain’s purge has become a large, freezing stone. I know Fain was trying to help me, but my core of fire is all but extinguished, my affinity crushed beneath his torrent of water.

Heart thumping, shivering from cold, I glance back up the embankment, toward the burning barn, and see the irregular exit hacked through its rear.

Escape.

My gaze swerves down to my far left, down the long ditch that turns like a serpent to flow across the back of Crykes Field. There’s a long, glowing shield set snug against the long bluff like a cocoon. It’s surrounded by Kelt and Urisk soldiers shooting a series of flaming arrows and glowing blue streams of geo-fire at it. Two dragons are snarling and clawing at the shield, and I can just make out the mass of black-clad Gardnerians huddled together beneath it.

A cacophony of shrieks sound from above, and I crane my neck, the back of my head sliding against Vale’s chest. A huge horde of dragons soars above us, circling over Crykes Field like a flock of death. Neat rows of mounted soldiers are assembling throughout the field for the march toward Gardneria. Torch-bearing sentries flank the rigid formations, and sapphire geo-shields appear above the company of soldiers, cast by Urisk geomancers astride hydreenas.

A flaming arrow smacks into the side of Vale’s shield and is instantly incinerated in a crackling, spitting ball of blue lightning.

“Ruus’fayn,” Vale curses in Alfsigr, one arm wrapped around my bound body, pulling me tight against the side of his chest. With the other arm he points his wand straight out, a stream of glowing blue feeding the shield.

“We’re outnumbered,” I tell him, my teeth chattering dully. My fingers and toes are starting to feel numb again. I look toward the distant Mage-shield, knowing that my brother and grandfather are likely inside it—but how long will it hold up under such a fierce attack? “They’ll kill us all.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Vale states drily.

I huff out a small sound of despair, tears stinging my dust-caked eyes.

Another arrow smashes into our shield, and I flinch back.

“How long can you maintain this shield?” I challenge him, my voice rough with tears.

“About one hour,” he replies, each word succinct and calm.

Anger rises in me. How can he be so unconcerned?

Three explosions of orange illuminate the tops of the mountains. The mammoth, circular puffs of light cast a sputtering amber glow over the entire field.

“What’s coming?” I demand roughly. “What can possibly save us from them?” I jerk my chin hard toward the Kelt-Urisk army.

“Their worst nightmare,” Vale says. He spits out a short, jaded laugh. “A force much stronger than their dragons and their demons and their flimsy arrows.”

“More Mages?” I croak out, disbelieving. We already have at least three high-level Mages trying to help our people, and yet here we are, cowering in a ditch with decaying shields.

Vale spits out an incredulous laugh. “No. Not more of us. We’re child’s play compared to her.”

Her?

He’s mad. He must be mad. There’s never been a powerful female Mage.

Despairing, I glare at him. “What do you mean, ‘her’?”

He cocks an eyebrow and sets his fierce eyes on me. His voice, when he speaks, is dangerously calm.

“You’re about to meet my mother.”

Chapter 9: The Black Witch

Alarm horns trumpet, echoing over the valley. Another round of orange explosions erupts just past the mountains, then fades to nothing.

The mountains fall eerily quiet, the sound of the alarm horns fading.

I crane my neck to look at Vale, but his eyes are fixed north.

A loud bang ruptures the air, and I flinch back against the hard length of him. Light bursts into being, the entire mountain ridge suddenly limned gold, bright as Yule candles.

The alarm horns blare again as the center of the mountain’s glow flares brighter. A thin, golden line scythes out from it, straight across the sky. It slams into an advancing dragon, exploding the beast into a churning ball of flame that writhes and plummets toward the earth.

Cries sound from the ground below the beast, and the Urisk geomancers send up streaks of sapphire, catching the hurtling creature in an intricate web. The flaming dragon hangs suspended just above a battalion of soldiers. The men scatter away in panic, a spot of budding chaos on the orderly field.

The other dragons circling overhead turn and arrow toward the north. Toward the strange glow.

Golden lines strike out again from the mountain’s center, spearing the night air in regular bursts, left to right and back again, fast as the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. Dragons all across the sky burst into flame, and the night lights up orange.

Full-blown chaos erupts as flaming dragons rain down from the sky, one pinwheeling diagonally above us.

“Great gods,” Vale exclaims, teeth gritted, his arm extended and braced by his other hand as he forces more power into our shield.

The gargantuan dragon crashes down next to us, the ground shaking, painfully jarring my tailbone against Vale’s hip. Stones and dust and flame course over Vale’s shield, briefly casting us into foggy darkness.

When the air around us clears, I look toward the Mage-shield across the field, where my family is most likely to be. Two dragons crash to the ground near their shield, and a third rolls down the remaining bluff to collide with a group of screaming soldiers.

And then there are no more dragons in the sky.

Men yell orders, cry out and run aimlessly in all directions. There are tents on fire all over the field, everything lit up orange and yellow. Smoke rises in an amber fog, filling the valley.

The line of gold along the mountaintop constricts toward the center, the glow becoming fuzzy and muted. A black mass levitates inside the golden cloud, like a cobra raising its head, highlighted by the ethereal glow.

Tight lines of glowing orange flash from the black mass and strafe down the mountain in a series of flaming spears.

The black mass swoops higher, then down, over the avalanche of fire. As it moves ever closer, advancing straight toward us, I suddenly realize what I’m seeing.

Gardnerian soldiers in dark uniforms. On dragons. Our dragons.

Like a flock of geese, they’re arranged in a V. Fire rains down from the V’s lead point. A shield courses back from this point over the rest of the V like a flowing, golden current.

“Ancient One,” I gasp.

Order breaks down completely in the face of enemy dragons and the advancing Magefire. A young Kelt clambers up the bluff nearby, his eyes wide and terrified, his face streaked with sweat and soot. Kelt and Urisk soldiers are running south, fleeing, climbing up the bluff we slid down, scrambling for safety. Trying to escape the murderous flock now coursing over the field.

And the advancing river of fire.

A Kelt clips our shield, then howls in agony and falls to the ground, his arm exploding into sparking blue flame. Haphazard flashes of geomancy spear out from all over Crykes Field to no effect, the lines of color exploding in a harmless kaleidoscope of puffs against the shield surrounding our dragons.

They’re flying low now. Low enough for me to see her.

She’s astride the lead dragon, wand raised and throwing down fireballs with a passionate vengeance. A golden shield flows from the palm of her other hand and streams backward over the other dragons like a flaming current of air. Her face is twisted into a bloodthirsty war cry.

The fire of her bloodlust rocks through my magic-stripped body.

Like a dark flame, her long black hair flickers behind her as she swoops in close and fills the valley with fire.

Through a break in the smoke, I can see her face clearly, and our eyes meet. Her face is so much like Vale’s—sharp lines, glittering Mage skin, fierce eyes.

Vale’s mother.

She swoops up, the line of Mages sweeping up with her, following the curve of the bluff, rising over our ditch, her dragon’s belly momentarily so close I can make out individual shard-like scales. Her fierce wave of fire crashes into our shield and crests over us, the flames overtaking our shield with a deafening roar.

Heat radiates through me. I’m so empty of fire, so painfully cold, and I cry out, unable to control my fire-lust, desperate to merge with the fire magic I’m stripped clean of. I strain toward the shield, toward the fiery river, struggling to pull my arms free of my bindings.

Vale’s arm is tight around me, restraining me as I struggle for release. I’m dizzy with desire for the flames, light-headed, disembodied. Vale’s arm trembles against mine as he fights to both hold the shield and keep me away from it as fire engulfs the world.

The world blazes orange, then yellow. Then searing white.

Then black.

Chapter 10: The Dryad

The entire world is altered.

A bleak landscape surrounds us—scorched earth as far as the eye can see, smoke turning the dawn light a sickly yellow. Everything lifeless. Barren.

Scorched by her.

I’m on a horse, slipping in and out of consciousness, and a strong arm wrapped around my waist is the only thing keeping me upright. My head hangs, limp as a rag doll’s, and my body feels cold and scoured out, my affinity stripped bare. The only comfort is a radiating warmth at my back that tells me it must be Vale in the saddle behind me.

A large number of Gardnerian soldiers ride around us at an unhurried pace. Fain’s horse plods alongside ours. His chest is bare, and as he rides past, I see that pale, raised lash scars cover his entire back.

I glance down, my head lolling in time with the horse’s slow trot. I’m in a sooty soldier’s tunic, a rumpled silver sphere over my chest.

Fain’s tunic.

He gave me his clothing. A wave of gratitude washes over me.

A wagon rattles by beside us, and I turn my head, the world swaying and tilting as I do.

“Tessieee.” The sound is muffled and low, as if slowed down and stretched out. I numbly register that my brother is in there, restrained by the Gardnerian adults who surround him and keep him from launching himself clear off the wagon and onto me.

My grandfather is just behind Wren, looking at me in shock, tears coursing down his haggard, lined face. He’s bobbing his praying hands up and down as he cries, then makes the star sign of holy blessing on his chest over and over and over.

I list to the side as the wagon passes, and the arm tightens around me.

Vale.

His cloak is wrapped around me over Fain’s tunic, another barrier between us, but I can still feel the heat of him—just enough heat to keep me from slipping away.

That fire. Like his mother’s. I remember her fire, coursing over the entire world.

I’m hungry for it.

But not just hungry for the fire. Hungry for how Vale and I match, our affinity lines in perfect symmetry.

Except mine are now empty of magic.

“Vale...” My head lolls, my teeth chattering lightly, the edges of my molars tapping out a choppy, uneven rhythm.

I’m so cold.

I push back against him with what little strength I have, easing into the shape of him, reveling in how well I fit against his hard chest.

I forget to be shy. To be proper. My mind is clouded, and I forget that Gardnerian women don’t press themselves against unfasted men, even if they’re desperate for warmth. Desperate for fire.

I’m listing in and out of consciousness, and he’s so warm. My hand slides down to grasp at his thigh. His leg is warm, his fire affinity coursing through it. I sigh and pull at his warmth, my fingers grasping tighter, tendrils of his fire straining toward my hand, warmth flowing up my arm, muting the cold.

“Tessla,” he says, in gentle but firm censure. He slides his hand down to grasp mine, to pull it away from his leg.

The minute the skin of his hand touches mine, my affinity lines shudder. Vale’s breath hitches, and I melt into him, like seeking like, my affinity in perfect proportion to his. So perfectly aligned. I give out a long, chattering sigh as my hand warms. The magical void in me is like a bottomless chasm, ready for him to pour himself into me.

“Ancient One, your fire...” He’s like a dream. The void in me is so great, it’s overwhelming. I breathe in, grasp at his hand and pull.

A strong, long tendril of Vale’s fire floods into me, through my hand, up my arm, into my chest. I groan and throw my head back, meeting his hard shoulder. My cheek slides against his hot neck.

More skin.

“No, Tessla,” Vale cautions, but I barely hear him.

I press my forehead to his neck and pull, this time harder, inhaling deeply as I drag a strong edge of his fire, his complete affinity, toward me.

Vale flinches away, jerking his hand from mine and wrenching me away from the skin of his neck. Breaking all contact.

“Stop,” he snaps sharply. “It’s too much.” His tone is coarse with shock.

I’m breathing heavily now, and so is he. My teeth are no longer chattering, but the world is spinning. The stolen fire kindles inside me in uneven fits and starts, exposing new pain where it flares, but melting the ice.

“We match,” I slur, in a heated fog. “I fall right into you.”

“You can’t make a...” His words are seethingly tight. He breaks off, as if deeply angered and reining it in. “You cannot ransack my power. You’ll throw yourself even further out of balance and drag me there with you.”

“I’m sorry,” I say weakly, catching my breath. Too Magedrunk and disoriented to be fully ashamed of my brazen grasping of his magic. It’s an intimate thing I’ve done, like stealing a deep-seated, secret emotion. The very essence of a Mage.

He’s stiff and uneasy now. I can feel how tense he is, recoiling from me.

A small part of my brain, some part of me far away on a distant shore, feels chastened and small. Fearful that I’ve angered him so intensely, that he finds me to be a grasping, repulsive parasite of a thing.

But there’s a kinship in this affinity match—something I’ve never felt before. It makes me want to cling to this stranger Mage, because he doesn’t feel like a stranger at all. I feel, instinctively, like I understand him better than anyone on Erthia ever could. And his sharp rejection hurts with a spearing pain that rivals the agony of Fain’s purging.

The regular rhythm of the horse lulls me into dulled, shamed oblivion. Vale is balancing me carefully at the far end of his shoulder, his fire closed off now, tightly banked to keep me out.

A chaotic tendril of green forest winds out toward us from the mountains where an expansive forest once stood, the rest of the central mountains charred to soot. The remaining forest winds out to a point, the tip of it almost reaching the road.

I look into the trees, and that’s when I see it.

A Dryad.

The Forest Fae is camouflaged by the leaves, blending in perfectly with the last stand of brush and trees. Its skin is a pale, glimmering emerald, accenting its piercing forest-green eyes. Its black hair is tied back, revealing pointed ears, and it’s clad in armor made of leaves.

They’re supposed to be extinct, wiped out years ago by the Kelts. But the figure before me is starkly real, looking just like a picture I once saw in one of Jules’s books. Except this Dryad is staring out at the charred landscape and weeping.

Then it meets my gaze and narrows its eyes. Its hatred rocks through me, like venom coursing through my veins.

I lift a weak, trembling finger toward the tendril of forest as we ride close.

“A Dryad,” I weakly rasp out as the creature’s anger pounds against me. Then I blink, and the face is gone.

But the echo of the Dryad’s fury remains.

Chapter 11: Untethered

I am unconscious and untethered, grasping in the black. Flailing, my center gone, the drawn-out lines of my affinity shattered.

Stripped bare.

I’m spiraling down into a bottomless void. Crying out into the nothing.

Vale’s fire firmly grasps hold of me, and I hang on for dear life. His flames are tentative at first, then flare as he finds me, his heat burning hot and steady.

I hang on, as if dangling off a cliff. Desperation courses through me.

I hang on for Wren. For my grandfather. For Jules.

I can’t die.

Vale holds tight, his fire looped like a burning crown around my wrist.

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