Wandfasted

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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 (#u67028d46-285a-5abf-8dc5-9e69a8ecf052)

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 (#u67028d46-285a-5abf-8dc5-9e69a8ecf052)

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.