Page 217 of The Black Witch

“Very good,” Andras affirms with a nod, his fist tight around his labrys.

“It gets better,” Jarod puts in, the late-afternoon light casting him in a bluish glow. “The soldiers who stayed behind? They’re all fresh out of apprenticeships.”

“Ah, wonderful,” Rafe says with a smile. “Green as spring foliage. And while the cat’s away...”

“Are the mice playing?” Trystan inquires wryly.

“With a large volume of illegal Keltic spirits,” Jarod responds with a sly smile.

“And more than a few Urisk tavern girls,” Diana spits out.

“Typical,” Tierney snipes.

“Oh, this is almost too easy,” Trystan gloats with a small smirk, the white wand hanging from the belt beneath his cloak.

* * *

We’re quickly sobered when we find Naga in even worse condition than before.

She lies unconscious, both legs and both wings broken now, one ear cut clear off, her cage’s floor smeared with fresh and dried blood, her forked tongue hanging limply out of her mouth. Shocked, Yvan kneels down by Wynter and puts his hand next to hers on the dragon’s neck.

Tierney gapes at the dragon, her thin hand coming up to cover her mouth, eyes wide with shock.

She’s with us now, Tierney, and eager to help create any chink in the Gardnerians’ military might that she can—and to help us secure dragonflight escape for the Icarals and the Fae.

Our band of rebels is growing. All of us are here, save Aislinn, who’s once again caring for Marina.

And Ariel.

After our last visit to the base, Diana and Jarod scouted out a hidden, expansive cave deep in the forest. Ariel is there, preparing the medicines and splints we’ll need to heal our dragon.

“She’s alive,” Yvan breathes out.

“Gods...who did this?” Tierney murmurs.

“Dragon Master Damion Bane,” Trystan succinctly tells Tierney as he pulls out the white wand and focuses it on a few different spots on the cage, his expression gone steely. “And I think it’s high time we put an end to it.”

Andras readies his ax.

We all step back as Trystan murmurs the freezing spell.

A thin burst of blue light surges from the wand’s tip and collides with the bars of the cage, spiraling around them and turning the Elfin steel white-blue, a thick layer of icy frost growing beneath the spell’s light. Trystan keeps at it for several minutes before murmuring the spell again, the light doubling in intensity.

As the spell fades, Trystan steps back and glances at the wand in frustration. “It’s not working. They need to get so cold they turn white. The bars—they might be too thick.”

“Try again,” I prod. “You strengthened the spell the second time. Maybe you just need to work up to it.”

Trystan takes a deep breath, nods then repositions himself and speaks the words of the spell once more. Again, the frost grows, and the steel glows blue. Every muscle in Trystan’s body goes tense as he pushes at the spell. His body begins to tremble, and the wand starts to buck in his hand.

I reach out to steady him.

As soon as my hand makes contact with Trystan’s back, a buzzing heat courses through me. Trystan’s spell explodes in strength. The small spiral of blue bursts into a giant ellipse of sapphire light encircling the cage. And then the entire steel framework turns translucent as glass.

I recoil sharply as there’s another burst of light, a deafening crack and the ellipse of light surges backward. I’m hit by a painful wave of frigid air that almost knocks me off my feet.

I pull my frozen eyelashes apart just in time to see the bars of the cage go white as snow then crumble to pieces, the shards of frozen metal smashing against each other, the sound like a million chandelier crystals falling on stone.

Before we have a chance to speak, the crashing sound echoes out from the forest over and over, near and far.

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