Page 8 of Lich's Bride

Fear.

The lands beyond my walls are treacherous, rife with dangers both mystical and mundane. Ancient wards and traps left by the Blanchwood’s previous occupants. Territorial fae with a taste for mortal flesh. Beautiful and monstrous beasts that hunt the shadowed glades and mist-shrouded hollows. A thousand different ways for a naïve, unprotected girl to meet a grisly end.

And Kira... for all her latent power, for all the potential I sense coiled within her, she is still so painfully vulnerable. A mewling kitten in a forest of wolves. The thought of her alone and defenseless in that haunted wood, the thought of losing her before I've even begun to shape her into the weapon she will become...

It's intolerable. A white-hot lance of possessive fury sears through my chest, startling in its intensity. When did this mortal chit become so valuable to me? When did her safety, her very existence, begin to matter beyond her usefulness as a tool, a vessel for my power?

I shake off the disturbing line of thought, marshaling my focus. Introspection can wait.

First, I must find the girl.

I storm down to my sanctum, the air crackling with the force of my agitation. With a gesture, I summon my scrying orb, the polished crystal sphere floating to hover over its platinum stand. Another flexing of my will and the mist within the orb begins to swirl, responding to my unspoken command.

"Show me Kira Noor," I intone, the words thrumming with power. "Reveal her to me, wherever she may be."

The mists churn faster, coalescing, shaping... only to abruptly scatter, reverting to formless haze. I hiss through my teeth, my grip tightening on the orb's stand. Some force is blocking my sight, occluding the girl from my mystical gaze. But what could possibly...?

Of course. The ancient wards woven into the fabric of the land itself, the primordial enchantments that predate even my own tenancy here. Spells designed to conceal, to misdirect, to lead the unwary astray. Spells that could easily baffle a simple scrying, especially if their caster was preoccupied and unfocused…

I curse under my breath, frustration boiling over. With a snarl of rage, I lash out, a burst of raw magic sending the orb flying from its stand to shatter against the far wall. It's a childish display, unworthy of my age and power, but I can't bring myself to care.

Every moment I waste in impotent fury is another moment Kira spends in mortal peril. I must find her, and quickly, before the denizens of the Faewild claim her as their prize.

I summon my staff to hand, the gnarled length of black oak thrumming with the echoes of a thousand dark rituals. I rarely need it these days, but for a work of this magnitude, I'll want every iota of power I can muster.

The front doors of the Blanchmire boom open at my approach, the great slabs of blood oak swinging wide on their ancient hinges. I descend the steps into the gray pre dawn light, my robes billowing behind me, my staff striking sparks from the flagstones with each stride.

At the foot of the stairs, I pause, reaching out once more with my augmented senses. I cast my awareness out over the miles of twisting trails and mist-wreathed hills, the dangerous vales and glades. For a long moment, there is nothing. Then, at the very edge of my perception, the merest flicker. A guttering candle flame in a vast, hungry darkness.

But it's enough.

I hone in on that dim beacon, pouring my will into the work.

Reality ripples around me as I weave the spell of translocation, bending space and time to my desire. The power builds, swells, reaches a crescendo...

And with a thunderclap of displaced air, I vanish from the steps of the Blanchwood. The last thing I see as the world dissolves into a maelstrom of light and shadow is the rising sun, staining the horizon the color of blood.

Hold on, Kira. I'm coming.

Miles away, in a shadowed hollow deep within the whispering wood, I rematerialize with a rush of dark wind. The glade I find myself in is rank with the loamy stench of decay, choked with grasping briars and withered, stunted trees.

A place of old magic, dark and hungry.

7

MALACHAR

Iplunge into the gloom of the enchanted wood, the ancient trees closing ranks behind me like silent sentinels. The air is thick with the scent of loam and leaf-mold, shot through with the acrid tang of magic. The forest is old, steeped in power and memory, and it does not take kindly to intruders.

But I am no mere trespasser. I am Malachar, Lord of Blanchmire, master of the dark arts. The very shadows part before me like curtains of ragged silk, the twisted roots writhe away from my path. The wood may not welcome me, but it knows better than to bar my way.

I reach out with my arcane senses, seeking the brilliant flare of Kira's aura. It pulses at the edge of my awareness, a guttering candle flame against the vast dark. I feel her fear, her desperation, a jagged lance of empathic pain that spurs me to swifter motion.

I have to find her. Have to reach her, before the denizens of this place snuff out her fragile mortal light. The thought of losing her, of that vivid spirit winking out of existence, fills me with a cold, clawing dread utterly foreign to my experience. When did this mortal, this mayfly creature, come to mean so much?

I shake off the errant thought, fixing my will on the task at hand. The terrain grows more treacherous as I forge deeper into the wildwood, the trees gnarled and hunched like arthritic giants, the undergrowth a knotted tangle of briars and bracken. Nameless things skitter and slither in the peripheral gloom, malevolent eyes glinting from thickets and hollows. But they do not dare approach, sensing the power that ripples from me in black waves. I am anathema to them, a thing of dread and shadow too dark even for this tenebrous realm.

All at once, Kira's aura flares like a beacon, laced through with shards of sheerest agony. A growl tears from my throat, raw and ragged. They have her. They are hurting her. The knowledge ignites a conflagration of rage in my shriveled heart, searing away the shroud of cold control.

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