Page 1 of Wings of War

Chapter

One

“Keep your guard up, Fieran!”

Fieran Laesornysh scrambled to get his practice swords up, but not soon enough. His father’s sword whipped past his head, so close he felt the brush of the breeze and the crackle of his father’s magic coating the blade. Fieran stumbled backwards on the slushy dirt, trying to gain space to get his swords up before his father’s next strike.

His father, the legendary elven warrior Farrendel Laesornysh, was all crackling magic, flying silver-blond hair, and arcing twin swords.

With a war cry, Fieran’s sister Adriana, usually called Adry, leapt forward, her own twin swords flashing and her blue magic—identical to Fieran’s and their father’s—crackling down her blades and sparking against the ground at her feet. Her strawberry-blonde hair tossed around her face, her blue eyes flashing with the light of battle.

Dacha—elvish for father—fended her off easily, and still had enough time to block Fieran’s next attack as well.

Adry whirled, swinging her swords even faster. She always had taken to the morning sword and magic practices more than Fieran had. Oh, he didn’t mind the swords or training with the powerful elven magic he’d inherited from his dacha. It was the discipline of it that grated on him.

That, and he preferred a gun in his hand more than a sword. Something he’d gotten from his human mother’s side of the family. But swords were more useful for learning how to direct the elven magic, which tended to just incinerate bullets.

The magic would have incinerated the practice swords too, if they’d been using wooden practice swords instead of ones forged with dwarven magic that Dacha and Mama had given them when they came into their magic. Even then, Fieran still had to concentrate to keep his magic crackling along the blade instead of devouring it.

Fieran lunged again, his swords coated in magic. Dacha blocked his strike as easily as swatting away a fly.

Not too surprising. Fieran and Adry had been training with Dacha from the moment they had been old enough to hold a pair of wooden training swords, even before they’d come into their magic, but Dacha was the greatest living elven warrior. The stories of his exploits in the wars over seventy years ago were the stuff of myths.

“Fieran, the shield.”

Dacha’s mild tone made Fieran wince as he hurried to get a better grip on the dome of blue magic he was supposed to be holding in place. The magical shield ensured that the combined force of their magic didn’t lash out and destroy the forested parkland in this back corner of their home of Treehaven in Fieran’s mother’s homeland of Escarland.

Each morning, Fieran and Adry took turns holding the shield to practice fighting with their magic and holding a protective barrier at the same time.

Dacha was big on practice.

Louise, one of Fieran’s other sisters, sat cross-legged on a log to keep herself off the muddy ground as she held her magic in a second barrier around Fieran’s. Her magic was a lighter blue, almost white, yet she still wielded the magic of the ancient kings that everyone in Fieran’s family had, even if it was a milder form of it. While she trained in swords like the rest of them, she preferred to practice her magic in other ways.

She waved her hand and sparked her magic against his, shooting him a look for letting his magic get even that much out of control.

Oops. Fieran settled his grip on the power flooding from him, both into the air, across the ground, and coating his blades.

The whipping of a blade through the air snapped his attention back to Dacha, and Fieran barely ducked in time to avoid Dacha’s sword. Fieran scrambled backwards, getting his swords back up. He’d let himself get distracted with the shield and had lost the rhythm of the sword fight before him.

Dacha whirled to parry Adry’s swing, his movements fluid, his long elven hair flying around him. Dacha’s silver-blue eyes glinted hard, flashing with that warrior’s light he always got when wielding his swords and magic. Fieran could only imagine how terrifying his dacha had been when he’d earned the warrior title Laesornysh, meaning “Death on the Wind” in elvish.

It was a warrior name Fieran inherited rather than earned, something most elves would never let him forget, even if they didn’t dare say such things around his dacha or his uncle Weylind, the king of the elves of the kingdom of Tarenhiel.

Dacha’s sword snagged his, and the next thing Fieran knew, one of his swords was flying out of his hand to land with a splat in a patch of slush. The flat of Dacha’s sword rested across his chest. Across from him, Adry was breathing hard, Dacha’s other sword resting on her shoulder.

Fieran sighed and lowered his remaining sword. He mentally grabbed his magic, wrestling with the surging power for a moment before he cut it off, letting the magic in the air fizzle out into a burst of sparks. He swiped his sleeve over his forehead, smearing sweat despite the chill air of the late winter morning. Strands of his short red hair stuck to his forehead. “I know, you don’t have to say it. I was distracted this morning.”

Adry, too, let her magic dissipate into the air. She grinned at him as she sheathed her swords across her back. “Nothing new for you.”

Finally, Dacha lowered his swords and released his magic. A slight sheen glistened on his forehead, but he didn’t appear quite as sweat-soaked and grimy as Fieran felt.

It sure would have been nice to inherit a bit more of that elven glow. Instead, Fieran sweated gross, more like a human than an elf.

Dacha sheathed his swords and spoke quietly with Adry, likely telling her she had done well that morning.

Louise pushed to her feet, swiping a strand of her white-blonde hair behind her ear. She glared at Fieran. “You distracted me. I might have burned some of the trees if I lost control.”

“Sorry about that.” Fieran grinned as he retrieved the sword he’d lost.

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